Don't Tweet Me.

I'm not to the point yet where I am willing to go into the social media world with my students.  We have always been told not to be friends with our students on Facebook or twitter. There are just too many legal issues.  We as teachers have sworn to protect our students, so if we know something about them no matter how we find out we have to report it.  Then there is the other side of it, I have a personal life that I don't need my students to be apart of.  My friends and my family don't need to be subjected to my students opinion of them and their comments.

From a parent stand point, I am protective of my children.  I would not want part of their grade to depend on their participation on Facebook or twitter.  There are just too many other unknown people involved that could get to my child's information, or simply talk to my child.  So as I am not a proponent of using the social media for my students, I think it would be a good idea as a place to post information for the parents to access.  I am also not apposed to an educational format like Facebook, such as My Big Campus.  It has most of the features of Facebook, but is set up by the teacher, so other people cannot ask to join from outside of the class.  Even here we will have to be constantly teaching  the students were the good citizenship line is, and not to cross it.  We as teachers have to create and maintain a save place for our students to learn whether that is in our classroom or our virtual classroom space.

Diigo

I love the idea of Diigo.  Yes! This is what I need to personally use when I come across ideas of my classroom.  Before I would find a website or a great idea somewhere and I would just bookmark it for later.  But sometimes later never comes or I would have the site, but not know what it was that I loved about  it.  So with Diigo, I can put sticky notes on the page and so much more.

In my classroom, or in other teacher's classrooms, as I will be the person giving the teachers resources,  I would use this in the student's research projects.  What sites did you go to, were they helpful, what did you take away from it?  Then, I would have the students either share with the teacher via Diigo, (still need to look how to do this) or I would as least have them take screen shots of their notes on their sites and send it to their teacher.  The teacher can skim them to make sure the students are on the right track.

I see this tool as being very helpful for the type of organized person that I am.  I have sticky notes and lists everywhere, so to be able to do this digitally now as I stumble onto different things would be great.

Tools and Apps and Sites Oh My!

Honesty, what I have taken away from this course are all of the ideas and tools that have been presented to us or have been there for us to use.  I am demo-ing ShowMe, Educreations, ScreenChomp and Doceri with one of my classes.  I have shown VoiceThread to one of our Language Arts teachers, as well as Bubbl.us.

Having ideas is more than half of the battle.  We all know our content and we all have lessons that we really like and others we know could be better.  So having the knowledge of what is out there to help us improve our lessons, assignments, projects, and assessments is so vital to creating a balanced blended learning environment.

Since my roll is changing next year from teacher to technology integration specialist, I have also shared the SAMR model.  I felt this was a good way to pace ourselves as we immerse into a 1 to 1 environment next year.  There are some teachers who are excited and there are others who would rather do anything but have to change to a digital curriculum. I have tried to ease their concerns with the gradual ascension of the model.  Explaining how we can start with substitution, but that we don't want to stay there we have evolve ourselves to the transformation stages.

The hardest idea for me to implement will be the authentic assessments.  It requires a great deal of time.  For it to work correctly, students have to take ownership of their learning.  It is out of my comfort zone, so I don't know how I will push my teachers to do something I would not want to do.

Doceri

Doceri is the greatest tool that I have found.  (I wish I had more time to use it)

Doceri is an app, but it also has a desktop version that works along side the app. I have only used the app, but I shared my fine with a High School Math teacher now she creates all her lessons on it. She says it has been great for creating the figures needed when teaching geometry.

Doceri allows you to create videos, slides and insert pictures as needed.

I used it to create videos of worked out math examples for my students to access when they need them. I created them in Doceri, exported them to dropbox, then uploaded them to my Weebly website.  This way the students can get to them any time they need.

Bingo

After reading through all of the matrix summaries I feel like I could call BINGO. Or just like the game I am one away from "winning".  I use a lot of technology in my room, but it is mostly me using it to show the students something.  We do have graphing calculators in my room which the students have grown very comfortable in using to solve many different problems.  This is most evident with  my algebra 1 students who need to fully understand how the factored answer must agree with the graph version of their answer. They are free to use these at any time, if they deem them helpful.

I feel that in my pre-algebra classes I am mostly in the constructive/adoption section. I will take them to the computer lab as part of a lesson or to expand on it.  We have used excel to graph line charts of data.  We have collected data then entered it as a scatter plot, then used it to write the equation of best fit. We have visited website that offer 3D imaging.  This site allowed the students to explore what happens to the volume and surface area when the dimensions are changed.

In my basic skills development class (BSD) I think I'm in the constructive adaptation box.  Each week I set goals for them, (so maybe this is really in the goal directed section) I let them, pick what they want to work on each day.  They work on their own or sometimes collaborate with the people next to them, or they can ask me for direction if they are stuck.  I do love it when they become a leader in the regular math class because of something they remembered from their BSD class.

Just into the second week of this class and I have a great idea for a project after our istep is over. So, I think I will be able to get into the Infusion or Transformation section crossed with the collaborative row.  Next year, I will not have a classroom of my own, but I will work with each of my teachers on being open to letting the students have some freedom of choice when it comes to technology in the classroom.  The iPads we are getting will be monumental in the culture change of the students really owning their own learning. I have to get my teachers to the point where they are not afraid to learn from the kids too.  Like in the TED talk, teachers are so use to owning the information, however this is no longer the world we live in, this new world belongs to the digital natives.

Barrier Break Down!

Where there this a will there is way. Online courses give every student the ability to succeed. If time is an issue for you in trying to complete your education, an online class will allow you to work at your own pace and for the most part in your own time frame. This is the difference between getting an education and not getting an education for some people. People who work full time and single parents are only two examples of who can benefit from this asynchronous learning.

Students who do not succeed in a traditional classroom, can use online courses to break down their person achievement barriers.  Online classes can be used as a credit recovery method.  Perhaps the freedom to complete the work at their own pace will give them the confidence to succeed. 

On the other end of the spectrum, highly successful students can push forward and take more classes that may not be offered at their "brick and mortar" school. They also have the option of taking higher level classes to earn college credit. 

Some major concerns that we have as a school district starting a 1:1 project are, what about those students do not have Internet assess at home?  How will they complete their assignments in a timely manner?  It is not fair to them to expect the same results as a student who has more resources at their fingertips.  Thus, it can widen the social economical status that already exist in a school setting.  

A teacher's perspective from just today, was that she was sad thinking that all of her live face to face discussions were going to go away.  I tried to reassure her that would not be the case.  It truly is going to be up to her, in her classroom to find the right blend of technology discussion and live discussion.  I tried to encourage her by thinking of the students who might find their voice in her room, if they are allowed to type out their ideas for the class to read in a discussion, verses having to state them face to face with the class.