Reflection Tool 11

In 1983, I was an English teacher at a neighboring Houston school district. As head of the English department, I was assigned the task of booting up the new computers in our brand new lab each morning. This task took a great deal of time and I viewed it as a nuisance. One morning my principal asked how I felt things were going in the new lab. After compalining that the booting up process was taking a great deal of my planning time, I told him that there was very little value to the programs that students were using since they were all grammar lessons with short sentence examples and fill in the blanks. I doubted that computers would ever have a place in true teaching situations.

Needless to say I view things differently now. Computers have opened up so many possibilities for students...many of which I just became aware of in this training. I will use blogging as a tool to get students involved in new units of study. A strategy that I have used in the past has been to display a collage of pictures associated with the culture and geography of a country. Then students wrote their observations about this country on a long sheet of paper attached to the collage. Now I will do this same activity in a blog. I can make a poster, or a photo story and have studetns blog their comments.

Using the computer to research has been a long standing essential in the classroom. However, after completing Tool 11, I am more aware of the fact that I must be the one who initiates good Digital Citizenship. I will incorporate it into my lessons each time the computer is used.

I am now a believer....computers have a place in the classroom.

Digital citizenship Tool # 11

Teaching students to be responsible in the digital world is extremely important. If we are truly giving them these tools to use we must help them understand that with the rights to use them come responsibilities. The Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship could be used as a starting point. Throughout the year I will discuss and explore what each theme means. Students can generate examples and non-examples of each theme. I will post an anchor chart to remind students of these responsibilities. Teaching students to be good researchers is an ongoing process. In order to get good pertinent information on any topic, the student must learn to go beyond the first site they find. After finding appropriate information, students must be taught to take notes and then use the information in a format that follows the guidelines of the assignment. This takes time and a committment of the teacher to circulate and guide students as they research. As part of the students social use of the internet, they must understand the implications of what they say to others and how they say it. I liked the lessons available in Texas Schools Safety Center from Tesas State concerning Cyberbulling. I will use these to develop awareness through the activities in those lesson plans. Teaching Digital Citizenship is so important that we should integrate it into our lessons each time we send the students to the computer.

Tool #10

Having never used an i pod, i pad, i touch or an i anything, I find the idea of using them a bit overwhelming. Yet I have had students bring theirs to class and use them for research. It was facinating to see how quickly they were able to find the info. they needed. Google Earth looks like a valuable tool for teaching geography and map reading. Being able to have a birds eye view will make the idea of land elevation much more concrete for students. It also allows them to see landforms more clearly. I would also give the math games a try. Several of these inculding Sudoku, Wooden Labyrinth and Hangman, are fun for the students when using paper and pencil, so using an iPad would make it even more exciting. I do worry about the lack of socialization this creates. Will students be so involved with the i devices that they distance themselves from classmates? Time will tell.

Tool #9

I can see Jing being use by students when they collaborate on a project. If they are working from home, they can use this tool to share visuals that they may want to incorporate into a project.

Skype opens opportunities for a penpal situation. The great part is that students see each other while they are communicating. I used Skype last year while on a Fund for Teachers. Science at Sea experience in Alaska. It was a fabulous tool to share with colleagues and students while learning in Alaska.

Tool #8

As a World Cultures teacher, I feel it is important to give the students visual examples of other cultures. Watching the experiences of other students, opens my students' minds and increases their awareness of cultural differences and similarities in other parts of the world. I chose Pennies for Peace because it is a current issue with a component the allows students to become involved in the process of bringing education to students in poor, war torn areas by collecting pennies. My second video will be used in my math intervention class as a fun and snappy way to reinforce fractions. I will continue to use video to reinforce my curriculum.

Tool #7

I really enjoyed Photo Story. I have used it before in my classroom for student product after research. During those lessons, I assisted students, but did not ever totally complete one on my own. It was a good experience finding pictures to use with my curriculum. My only problem was adding the music. I am still not completely happy with that part of the story, so I will continue to fiddle with it until it is what I want. Then I will post my Photo
Story for all to see.

Tool 6

I think that the WIKI would work well for students to work with students in other classes. I could assign a project and students could choose to work with a partner in class or with a partner from another one of my classes. I also see the value of using it for math problem solving, having a student work a problem and others edit their work and add peer comments.

As a team we can create documents together with out e-mailing and attaching.

Tool 5

Both of these sites will assist me in teaching. The poetry one has many lessons that I can use in a creative writing center. The Math site can be used in a computer center for students. It contains a variety of problem across all math strands at several levels of difficulty. I tagged them for creative writing and problem solving.


http://www.thesingaporemaths.com/
http://www.msrogers.com/English2/poetry/30_days_of_poetry.htm#Poetry_Lesson_Chart

Tool 4

Using the Google Site to share items will be a valuable resource for our team. We will be able to create work, share it with team mates, and make revisions without using e-mail. This tool will certainly save valuable time. It will also allow us to view the work of other teachers across the district, giving us new resources at our finger tips.

Tool 3 con't

Now that I have posted my samples, I see the value in learning these tools before we
introduce them in the classroom. I want students to use Gloster for social studies presentations. This gives students more options for sharing their learning.

Thank you for your help

After posting my difficulties with glogster,
one of my co-workers came to the rescue
and helped me choose the correct settings to post. After
playing with this for a while it has become easier
for me.

http://lynchm.edu.glogster.com/whole-lot-of-thinking-going-on/

Tool 3

It was fun creating a poster on Glogster, however, I could not get it to post to my blog. the url is http://lynchm.edu.glogster.com/Whole-Lot-of -Thinking-Going-On. Hope it will open for you to see. Does anyone have a suggestion on what I can do to post this to my blog?

Tool #3

I truly enjoyed using Wordle! Students can easily use this to create vocabulary reviews. In social studies, we often have students add pictures to their research , and this tool offered many more options for them to use.

Tool #2

I have enjoyed reading the blogs and comments of my colleagues. This will be a valuable tool for us as teachers to gather new ideas, feedback and support. For the students, blogging will open up so many new ways to be involved in their learning by having academic conversations, collaboration, and peer tutoring.

We will need to teach students how to use the blogs to their benefit. Most of our students are proficient when using technology and will easily learn to use a blog. However we can not simply expect that they will be able to make constructive comments, but will need to model and monitor until they master this tool.

I have added comments to Math Monitor, Ms. Sigala's, Amy's House, Dawson's Daily, and Bloogers

Avatar frustration

Setting up the blog was a very easy process, but my Avatar, The 21st Century Teacher, took quite a long time and a great deal of patience. The voki sign in user name and password I used would not be recognized. I attempted many times to no avail. Then finally I opened the system the following day and wham it logged me in first try. Did anyone else have that problem? I would like to edit my Avatar, but I am feeling cautious since I don't want to be denied access again. any advice would be of help.

Second start Tool #1

Well, this is my second new blog! I had a blog last year, but decided to do a new one at the end of the school year. When I went to open it, I forgot my Url and password, so here is blog #3. Hope you are all having a great summer! Beth