Tuesday, September 28, 2010
INTASC reflections
All in all, I am so surprised and amazed at how much new information I was presented with over these few short weeks. Not being the most tech-savvy person I know, I was nervous coming in to the class, but I have gained so much confidence working with web-based tools! Can't wait to implement some of these in my classroom. Here is my INTASC self-assessment table. Cheers!
Monday, September 27, 2010
OTEN 2010 - Yodio and Reflection
At OTEN, I attended three sessions: the keynote speaker, a presentation on WoW as social constructivism, and a presentation on SmartBoards. The keynote speaker walked us through a history of classroom technology, which was pretty fun and interesting. Made me realize what a long way we've come! The World of Warcraft presentation was a hoot: it was given by a woman who is getting her Ph.D. at University of Washington and who is a closet online gamer. My reflection on that particular presentation can be listened to above, and here, at the Yodio website itself. The last presentation I saw was on SmartBoard - what they can do, how they can be utilized. Although the presenter was a kindergarten and elementary teacher, I had a lot of ideas about how the SmartBoard could be used in a language classroom, and I'm hoping that I will have the opportunity to use one in the near future. Because they are so neat!!
All in all, the OTEN conference was pretty successful. I saw some great things, and it really made me think about being creative in using technology in my classroom. Although I felt as though there was an underrepresentation of presentations about using technology in Language Arts or Arts classes, I am hopeful that this will change in the future.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
OETS
These standards all seem geared towards one main goal: helping students to understand and be able to effectively use technology and digita media to further their educations and life experiences. Since technology is our future, it is very important that we as educators are not only technologically literate, but that we are working to help our students become the same - not only literate, but technologically ethical and productive, as well.
A few strategies:
1. Creativity and Innovation: Use products like Google Sheets, Presentations or Drawings to create projects that demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of classwork. These can be Powerpoint-type presentations, creative drawings or comic book pages, or data collection in order to create book reports, research projects, textual analysis, etc.
2. Communication and Collaboration: Share these projects on the web with other members of the class - even creating them together, simultaneously while in different physical places - in order to help each other better understand the subject matter and to work together cooperatively. These projects can then be published to the web, shared with the whole class, or even the whole department or district.
3. Research and Information Fluency: Help students learn how to conduct web-based research - not only effectively, but also discerningly, safely, intelligently, and legally - by assigning research papers, and then demo-ing how to conduct research in class. Also, products like Google Sheets or Excel can help students gather and analyze data in an organized, effective manner - help students understand how to collect and compile that data, again by demonstrating in class.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Technology can really help students get work done quickly; however, they need to be aware of the work they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are choosing to use specific media. Helping students be aware of and literate in a variety of tools can help them then make more well-informed decisions about how best to go about a project, paper, or assignment.
5. Digital Citizenship: Students must know that many of the things they do on the internet can be accessed by any one at any time. Facebook, Twitter, publishing projects to the web - these are all things that are public on the internet. Students must therefore be made aware of how to go about using the internet in a responsible, legal way. Plagiarism is a huge problem as well, that must be gone over explicitly with students - since so much more information is now open to them, it is hard to know what constitutes illegality and what doesn't. Make sure your students know!
6. Technology Operations and Concepts: This ties back in to showing students a variety of technological tools to help them grow as learners. Things like Screenr, Dropbox, and the Google platform, as well as communication tools like Skype and Twitter, can all be utilized very effectively to further learning.
A few strategies:
1. Creativity and Innovation: Use products like Google Sheets, Presentations or Drawings to create projects that demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of classwork. These can be Powerpoint-type presentations, creative drawings or comic book pages, or data collection in order to create book reports, research projects, textual analysis, etc.
2. Communication and Collaboration: Share these projects on the web with other members of the class - even creating them together, simultaneously while in different physical places - in order to help each other better understand the subject matter and to work together cooperatively. These projects can then be published to the web, shared with the whole class, or even the whole department or district.
3. Research and Information Fluency: Help students learn how to conduct web-based research - not only effectively, but also discerningly, safely, intelligently, and legally - by assigning research papers, and then demo-ing how to conduct research in class. Also, products like Google Sheets or Excel can help students gather and analyze data in an organized, effective manner - help students understand how to collect and compile that data, again by demonstrating in class.
4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Technology can really help students get work done quickly; however, they need to be aware of the work they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are choosing to use specific media. Helping students be aware of and literate in a variety of tools can help them then make more well-informed decisions about how best to go about a project, paper, or assignment.
5. Digital Citizenship: Students must know that many of the things they do on the internet can be accessed by any one at any time. Facebook, Twitter, publishing projects to the web - these are all things that are public on the internet. Students must therefore be made aware of how to go about using the internet in a responsible, legal way. Plagiarism is a huge problem as well, that must be gone over explicitly with students - since so much more information is now open to them, it is hard to know what constitutes illegality and what doesn't. Make sure your students know!
6. Technology Operations and Concepts: This ties back in to showing students a variety of technological tools to help them grow as learners. Things like Screenr, Dropbox, and the Google platform, as well as communication tools like Skype and Twitter, can all be utilized very effectively to further learning.
Multimedia Project
Click here to head to the video on screenr.
I demonstrated how to use Dropbox. I love Dropbox - I mentioned in the video that the group of women in Cohort B who are doing Language Arts for their endorsement have a shared Dropbox folder that we use from time to time for projects, or just to share resources, which has been pretty cool. As a resource, Dropbox is great: it ensures that you will always be able to access your files, from anywhere, without having to worry about carrying your computer around or making sure you've remembered your USB or external harddrive. It is easy to set up, easy to update, easy to access - all in all, a really fantastic tool. This could even be useful as a tool in the classroom: for example, you could set up a shared class Dropbox folder (or several, for different groups), and students could share work, resources, ideas - even do peer editing through Dropbox. I love using it, and am certain that I will do so throughout my teaching career, both for work and outside of work.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet
>
(The link to the whole sheet can be found here.)
Here you can see the table for just the students who were below average on their test scores, as well as the graph that depicts the growth trends for those students. (The averages along the bottom of the table are for all of the students' cumulative average on each test.) The data found seems to point to the overwhelming trend of the students with below-average test scores gradually increasing them, but generally starting out on the low end to begin with. They make progress, but not enough to bump them up to above the average score for the class. You can see clearly on the graph that some of those students are, by the last test, scoring well above the average range, making it clear that they have learned and are doing much better in the class than when the first began - a positive sign.
Obviously, tables and graphs like these are useful for getting a clear picture of which students are having a hard time with your class based on their test scores, both at the beginning and end of the semester/unit. By keeping records like this, and doing just the most basic calculations, it can be apparent which students require a little extra attention from the teacher in order to make sure they do not fall behind, or their grades do not take too big of a hit from low test scores early on. It is a great way to keep track of students' individual performances, as well as get a feel for how the class is doing as a whole.
For me, I was surprised at how easy it was to navigate Google sheets. Not being a friend to Excel, I was nervous about the project. But Sheets is easy to find your way around, and the tools are well-marked and delineated. I could not figure out how to embed the Sheet in my blog by myself, but once it was explained to me, that, too, was relatively simple. All in all, what seemed to be a daunting task actually turned out to be easy, and is something I think I will certainly use in order to compile and analyze class data in the future.
(The link to the whole sheet can be found here.)
Here you can see the table for just the students who were below average on their test scores, as well as the graph that depicts the growth trends for those students. (The averages along the bottom of the table are for all of the students' cumulative average on each test.) The data found seems to point to the overwhelming trend of the students with below-average test scores gradually increasing them, but generally starting out on the low end to begin with. They make progress, but not enough to bump them up to above the average score for the class. You can see clearly on the graph that some of those students are, by the last test, scoring well above the average range, making it clear that they have learned and are doing much better in the class than when the first began - a positive sign.
Obviously, tables and graphs like these are useful for getting a clear picture of which students are having a hard time with your class based on their test scores, both at the beginning and end of the semester/unit. By keeping records like this, and doing just the most basic calculations, it can be apparent which students require a little extra attention from the teacher in order to make sure they do not fall behind, or their grades do not take too big of a hit from low test scores early on. It is a great way to keep track of students' individual performances, as well as get a feel for how the class is doing as a whole.
For me, I was surprised at how easy it was to navigate Google sheets. Not being a friend to Excel, I was nervous about the project. But Sheets is easy to find your way around, and the tools are well-marked and delineated. I could not figure out how to embed the Sheet in my blog by myself, but once it was explained to me, that, too, was relatively simple. All in all, what seemed to be a daunting task actually turned out to be easy, and is something I think I will certainly use in order to compile and analyze class data in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)