M4 Learning Log 4 – Where is my digital footprint going?

So I was curious how this course and the various online account and digital assignments have affected my digital footprint.  ZERO.  I searched “Sarah Wilhelm” which resulted in numerous other Sarah’s, but I wasn’t to be found on the first 5 pages.  I searched “Sarah Wilhelm, Hanover” to see if any location helped, but that couldn’t even be found.   After taking this course and reading all the articles on how technology is changing the world and education with it…I’m still okay not being ‘googleable’.  I definitely agree I need to know about the technology my students are using, technology that professionals are using, and how I can mesh the two to create better instruction and a better learning opportunities for my students.  When asked, I want to and will be prepared to share these new skills, but I still believe there is goodness in privacy.  And if you want the social interaction and resources, they’re everywhere out there and you can step out of your safety zone as much as you do or don’t want to.

M4 Learning Log 3 – Elementary Wikis

I don’t know what grade or subjects I’ll be teaching in future, so I looked up various elementary examples.  I figured these would vary by grade level, content, and computer access.

5th Grade Vocabulary Wiki: 5th graders post where and when in the real world they have seen or heard one of their vocabulary words.  A page exists for each letter to help keep them organized.

Mr. Webb’s 3rd Grade Class: Mr. Webb uses his wiki as a regular website to post HW reminders, grading policies, announcements, various content and activity pages.

Mrs. Anderson’s 3rd Grade Class: Mrs. Anderson uses this as a collaborative site with her students to share their various projects, activities, and digital portfolios.  Each ‘creator’ has a link to their page to see what the student has done during the school year.

Terry the Tennis Ball: A 3rd/4th grade class contributed to writing a story through this wiki.  It begins with the same few sentences, then has multiple endings.  Students had the ability to list the next word/phrase which will lead you to the next part of the story with more options to continue along.

Mrs. Hopkin’s 2nd grade class: Mrs. Hopkins’ class space for students to write stories, share/discuss books, share photos/videos of projects and experiments.

3rd Grade Oregon Trail Project: A collaborative project for students to share what they have learned about the westward expansion, trailing on the Oregon Trail.  Pages link to share information from timelines, supplies, hardships, animals, native americans, weather and more.

 

While searching for various educational wikis, I can see how they are a beneficial tool, but I also see how they require a lot of time and organization.   Some wikis were really hard to figure out their purpose or where to click to the student work, etc.  Other wikis you could see a lot of time was put into organizing the layout of the site, its purpose, and how to use it.    There were teachers who had pages to describe how to use the wiki, create pages, edit appropriately, etc.    You know they had a real purpose for creating the site and really wanted the students to get value from using it.   The classroom wikis and very much like class blogs to me, they are a create way to open communication, set expectations, and share news and projects with the students, families, and community.  It shows that the teacher wants everyone involved, not just a few students or parents; its a learning environment for everyone.   For projects/activity collaboration, I think it is a great tool for students to learn how to work in groups; a necessity for the real world.  It requires them to determine the rolls within the group, the steps that need to be taken, how to create/organize and display a product that represents them all.  I definitely think it will take a lot of time from teachers to set up, organize, and keep updated, but most of the tools we’ve looked at require that too.   The wikis seem to be a great way to give students a new option for sharing what they’ve learned, not just pencil and paper or for the teacher and a good grade, but for themselves to take pride in the knowledge they’ve created.

 

 

 

 

 

M4 Learning Log 2 – UDL

I really enjoyed the article by Kirsten Lee Howard, and thought her example of guided reading for all students was a great example of not just UDL, but meshing content areas to given them meaning and purpose.  I like giving the students options, it’s not free range to pick whatever they want, but it’s not restricting their learning either.  Options give student power to take control of their own learning. I haven’t used, seen, or heard of eReader, but I’ve very curious to use it, as well the program to highlight and retrieve definitions.  I think instead of using Dreamweaver, the same result could be made using Word and saving as a pdf file.  I think these tools help make learning less intimidating when students have so much pressure to progress.  I thought her questions to help guide planning and assessment are getting starting points to make us think of the larger picture.  We always talk about how there are different learning styles, UDL gives us a way to truly reach each student no matter how they learn.

M4 Learning Log 1 – Turn Your Right Brain On

I thought the article “A Whole New School for a Whole New Mind” was very interesting and motivating.  I’m curious to know if any schools have implemented Pink’s themes into building/restructuring school buildings so they can fit into the Conceptual Age.  I loved the story theme, “the ability to put facts in context and deliver them with emotion.”  In the grande scheme of things, that’s life.  We all have a story to tell, and we continue to build our story day by day, chapter by chapter.   And I loved his vision of the classroom “with the student positioned as author, director, and performer and the teacher as the sideline coach who affirms, challenges, provokes, and references the stories of others.”  This goes back to Bloom’s Taxonomy revision; the students are performing their own learning while teachers just guide them and make them stronger, more exciting story tellers.  I also thought he was spot on with Empathy, “When one learns to stand in someone else’s shoes, feel with that person’s heart, and see with that person’s eyes.”  I think too often, we only look out for ourselves and our own success, but as the world becomes flatter with each new technology, we need to be able to work together to make an impact and difference.  Lastly, I couldn’t agree more with the theme of Play, “laughter, fun, and this type of ‘play’ invariably lead to higher levels of production and personal satisfaction.”  If we love and enjoy what we do, then failure has never been an option; we continue to push ourselves, learn, and improve our story everyday.

M3 Learning Log 4 – Exhausted

This module has been a whirl wind of craziness.  We’ve been introduced to so many new tools and programs that my head is spinning.  I see the benefit in a lot of the tools:  Twitter with its quick posts to share PD resources that I’m interested in,  Nings to have a central networking community around my education focus, bookmarking and cataloging to share our interests and resources and have them expanded by others, and the lovely iGoogle to bring it all together in one spot.   But I just feel so rushed, which I know is the time limit, structure, requirements of the class, but I just feel like I’m not getting the opportunity to see the full, realistic potential of these tools.  Which tools really catch the students attention and engage them in the curriculum.  Which tools aren’t worth spending hours on for a 30 minute lesson.  Which tools alleviate or fail my attempt to communicate and collaborate with parents?   I’m very curious to see how they come into play as I continue my coursework to become a teacher, how I implement them when I have my own classroom, and which tools become out dated next week, next month, next year……

M3 VoiceThread – Social and Collaborative Media

I created a VoiceThread that covers the following social media tools: Goodreads, Twitter, and Skype.   I explain how these tools are used to increase discussion, which I believe allows students to engage in more critical thinking and develop a better understanding of the various contents discussed.

The tool of VoiceThread itself, promotes and encourages discussion.  The creator is able to take various forms of media, organize in a sequence, and add narration through comments.  This final product can then be shared with others to view and add their own comments using text, audio, and video.

I could see teachers using this tool for homework assignments to have students discuss various topics, or to have students use as a form of project presentation.  Teachers could also create these for unit summaries, which students could then use to review and ask clarify questions prior to assessment.  Voicethreads could also be used for students who are absent for an extended period of time; teachers could take snapshots of various paragraphs, websites, photos, etc. and narrate how it connects to the lessons missed.

VoiceThreads could also be used for Professional Development.  Presenters could create the products taking snapshots of various skills, elements, tools, steps, etc.  that teachers could then comment on with questions on how to use, share experiences, and so on.

M3 Learning Log 3 – Goodreads

Describe how you will use the bookshelf and other ways you might use GoodReads in the instructional setting.

I made my goodreads shelf to cover the combined genres biographies-autobiographies.  I would use this shelf and also create additional shelves to cover the other genres I would be discussing with my students.  The books would be suggestions for students to read independently and also books we would be discussing as part of the curriculum.  Within our class group, I could see this being a great platform for students to post their thoughts and opinions on the books; this could be done as homework to get starter ideas going that could be expanded upon in the classroom.   I think it could also be interesting for students to reach out beyond out school walls to see what other students their age are reading and share with our class what they find.

For teachers, I could see us sharing fun, relaxing reads to enjoy during the summer months, as well as doing peer reviews and recommendations for PD books.

Last summer I had created a Shelfari account for my Children’s Lit course, and I keep going back and forth to figure out which site I like best; both have pros and cons.  Shelfari is much more visually pleasing.  I also like how its easy to add my own tags and search by tags.  However you can’t create your own shelves beyond the 3 standard (I’ve read, I’m reading, I plan to read).  I like how Goodreads allows you to create different bookshelves, which is what their tags are linked to.  I wish one of the sites had the combination of creating our own shelves with separate tags.  This would be useful for genres…for my biography shelf I could tag by professions, time period, events, historical figures, current figures, male/female, etc.  I think the group feature on Goodreads may also be better for creating various threads to organize discussions, and I like how it shows currently reading/upcoming.

If I had to choose this very moment I would go with Goodreads to start a classroom group.

 

M3 Learning Log 2 – Google Doc: Favorite Social Tool

To my surprise, my favorite social networking tool so far is Twitter.  I haven’t made many posts myself, but I’ve really enjoyed searching and seeing what everyone else has to say and share; at least for the means of professional development or education related.  I’ve been so against Twitter since people first started talking about this tweeting tool to share their pointless status updates;  I never gave it a chance to be anything other than digital noise.
I like being able to create various lists to sort the topics I want to follow.  I’m not a news person, I should be, but I can never make myself watch the news or read a newspaper (paper or digital); I’ve always seen it as depressing, negative information.  This goes for following politics as well.  Going into education, I know these are things I should be more informed about, and Twitter helps me follow more education based news and politics, so its a nice platform to slowly get into the habit of following the news and politics.  The 140 character limit makes posts short,sweet, and to the point.  If it intrigues me, I easily click and find out more.
There are so many organizations and teachers that are posting interesting articles, lesson ideas, thought provoking questions/comments, or just fun tid bits to follow.  It makes professional development fun and easy, whether your trying to find information, share your own experiences, or get feedback.

M3 Learning Log 1 – iGoogle

For my iGoogle page, I kept the Home tab for personal pages and links, and created an Education tab to link my various PD websites and resources.  I have added Twitter, Google Reader & Docs, To Do List, Diigo, my blog, Flickr, and various education news links.  I also made a recipe tab just for fun 🙂

I haven’t used this feature of Google before, and I can see myself really getting use of this.  We’ve been discovering so many new tools in this course, even ones that help us organize (Reader, Diigo) but they are still separate sites that we have to go to to see what is going on.   iGoogle takes all those great sites and rolls them into one.  I can see the most recent Twitter posts and click for more information, while at the same time see if anyone has made a blog post that I want to check out, or a news article that catches my eye.

As a teacher, if my class has a blog and twitter account, this is an easy way to stay updated on what the students are saying without having to go to each page separately; it takes some of the work and time out of it.  With the chat feature it provides another way to communicate with other teachers or students who have questions on homework when they get home.  Being able to share and collaborate through some of the gadgets, could open another window for resources, video sharing, book talks, etc.  I think my favorite part is the simplicity of having everything all in one spot….we should have done this in module 1!

Digital Storytelling – Who are YOU?

I took a little bit of a different approach to this project.  Its not as much instructional, but more of an introduction piece.  My digital story is a tool I can see myself using in the upcoming semesters to introduce myself to the students where I’ll be interning.  Previously, I’ve printed some of these photos and given my brown bag speech to the students, but the photos are so small and slow to get passed around.  Once students saw the photos I had them hooked with boating and skydiving and conversations just sprouted from there.  It gave me an oppurtunity to create a connection with them and feel comfortable with who I am…when I invade their classroom once a week.  With this video, I can see the students immediate reaction as they all view the film together.  I would be there to answer an questions and continue the conversation so I don’t think I would lose the human connection.

I noted Indicators from CCPS ILA 2nd grade curriculum in the film as I’ll be interning in 1st or 2nd grade this fall, but I believe it could be used for any elementary grade level to inspire students to write a brief introduction of themselves.  I really liked the article we read “Digital Storytelling Finds Its Place in the Classroom” and how the students were excited to share about a place they enjoyed and felt comfortable; this project helped the students learn about each other.  I think this would be a great introduction in the beginning of the year, possibly before school even started to have parents start collecting photos/art work.  The script could be written and reworked to fit their growing personalities.