Summary of Learning

End of the semester!! To sum up most of all that we learned this semester I used a concept map called Coggle.  I choose to use this tool because it was easy to layout all the different aspects that I wanted to talk about.  The coggle has an open display of the different main topics of the course, that I thought were most important.  My summary of learning is a display of all main topics, and then what I learned and thought was most valuable in each topic.  Using this artifact help me to have an array and show the main concepts and then details of each of them.  This was an easy way to make sure all my thoughts were visible.

In this class I learned a lot about different aspects that technology can make an impact in the classroom.  My biggest takeaway would be that of the formative assessments and usage of technology to understand that and for grading.  I am a very personal person, who likes that individual time with student, so being able to have technology that gets me to have more time with my students will be great!  Since formative assessment should be done everyday, it opened my eyes to all the different options there are to assessing my students.  Using online programs and tool that will help with assessments are improving and will help to gain an even better grasp of what my student are and are not understanding.  Having my students use technology will not only benefit me as teacher but also them as students.  Technology is making it better for students to share, collaborate, and even learn.  Students have more opportunities for expanding their learning to more than just the classroom.  I plan on using technology in a mainly student centered classroom to make sure that my students are getting a good understanding of the content.  With technology constantly changing, it is giving students more options and more ways to learn something.  There are more tools that can assist students with specific content and specific ways of learning it.

This class was an interesting class, that opened my eyes to many things that I thought technology was not the best for.  Adding techonlogy into the classroom in today's society seems to be the best way to improve my teaching and also to improve my classes learning.  It helps to relate to students and helps students to relate to each other, and not just within a certain class but all across the world!!

Check out my Summary of Learning Project!

Good luck to everyone on their finals!! 

Final Flipbook

Time has come for my final flipbook to be finished! This week I finished putting all the final little details on my pictures for my flipbook.

In the end, my book is not perfect but it is a lot better than any other flipbook attempt I have made.  To make a decent looking book takes time and a plan.  The steps to making a flipbook are simple and have simple little details that make a moving picture out of several pages of still pictures.  My progress throughout these past couple weeks on have made my book more realistic in a way of having a picture move.  This is a fun thing to do, and it is simple but can take some time and planning to make it look good.  In this process I did not just learn how to make a flipbook, but I also learned how to navigate and use YouTube as well as a movie making program! I had a lot of fun editing and making my videos for youtube!!

Check out my youtube page to see all my progression videos as well as my final Major Project video!

Finishing Up!!

As we come to almost the end of the semester, but even closer to the end of working on our Major Projects I have started to bring my FlipBook to its finishing touches.

This week I started to finish my drawings of the mountains and zooming in to get to the end of ideas.  I worked on combining both the plane and the mountains into one idea.  The transition was a little difficult, I do not think I completely have a good transition but for my first major flipbook I think it looks okay.  So my idea of this week was just to have all my ideas down on the pages and to have all the sketches done from start to finish of the book.  Check out the finial touches I put on my book this week on my YouTube channel!

Next week, to actually finish up my book- I plan on going back through all my pages and just touch up out lines and make sure all the lines and simple details are visible.  Can not wait to see how it really does turn out!!

Technology Lending a Helping Hand

Technology is really starting to become a major part of our everyday educational settings.  Each new advancement is a gateway to new ways of teaching and new ways of learning.  Technology is helping teachers help students.



In my personal experience I have used so many different sites and tools in my educational and personal life to help make learning and sharing easier.  As I am learning to become a teacher, there are certain aspects with in each of our classes that implements different teaching aspects.  So in these classes certain technology tools in the Professional Learning Networks (PLN) help to share, show, and learn.  Technology can be a very helpful tool in sharing with your students information about a topic in class, just classwork information, and even just things that may be helpful to the students.  To be a productive teacher in this new growing technological age, we have to be able to use all kinds of sources and ways to help our students stay connected to the lesson and to their education.  Taking advantage and using different technological tools will only help you as a teacher to reach more students, and it can also help to make a topic or lesson more personal with individual students.  With technology it can make it easier for teachers to get more personal time with students during class with having technology tools that help to grade, keep students on track, and to also push them along in their learning.  But for a teacher it will also be helpful in many case to use PLN's in communicating with other school teachers, administrators, and even teachers in other counties/states/ even countries.  There are so many different examples and tools for teachers to use, and Jake Miller touches on a couple tools that could be very useful for teachers in his PowerPoint presentation. 

Growing up in a time when technology was just beginning to be a big impact in education there have been a lot of advancement in helping teachers and schools solve problems using technology.  I plan on using technology tools to help grade so that I can spend more time with my students and their learning and not so much with their grades.  To helps get on an individual basis with my students can also be done using technology, with having assignments and in class work done on tablets/ipads/computers it can help to see what students need more help and what areas certain students may need the extra attention.  But with solving problems, technology can also be a big help.  If you are having troubles with maybe a lesson plan or with a certain activity you can open a site or tool that could lead to help.  Have the resources of other teachers and technology people is much easier and more convenient now.  If we are having difficulties we can start a group chat with outside teachers using a technology tool that enables to have free flowing chat and others input and ideas.  With technology comes the ideas of having more students being able to help each other.  If you are having a problem with one site or tool in a day you can always have a change of plan and use another tool and it would be a simple problem fix.  Technology can be used as a mediator between the knowledge of some kids and others, if you are not able to give one kid enough attention and they are really struggling you can either give them a tablet that has certain activities on them to help that student or you could give the class an assignment on the tablets while you help that one student.



Personally, with technology it makes sharing information with others easier, communicating ideas in a simple manor that can easily change, and also it helps my learning as well.  Many times I find myself distracted by things on the internet or I am feeling that I have no time to do things, but with technology it helps to make myself more productive and focused on the task at hand.  Here are some tools that I find to be interesting and helpful in a personal teaching setting.  But for me technology is helping to benefit my individual time to organize my thoughts by having tools that help me with lists and task managing.  By having lists and task managment it helps me to have more time focusing on what needs to be done and then what I can do to make it better.  I am a very personal kind of person, and as a teacher I want to be able to connect with students and then to help students with everything, and technology is having an impact where it makes grading easier, personal feedback better, student progression easier to monitor, and then it also helps to plan what is next.  Technology is a wonder in the world and is benefiting each teacher in some ways that you would not even think.

Students have this unique opportunity to be more engaged and active in their education now compared to the old traditional ways of learning.  As a student technology helps to grab your attention and keep you focused on a topic with numerous tools that are all different and new.  With so many different ways of using technology it benefits students in a way that each student will be able to find a certain way of learning that best benefits them and their style.  With technology comes more responiblity on the individual, so now we not only teaching students a subject but also helping the to learn for themselves and push themselves to their  potential.  Students have the opportunity to engage in activities via classroom tablets where they can interact with each other and the teacher in a simple way that is also very beneficial in students helping students.  In this video they talk and show you how easy it is for students and teachers to connect and interact with tablets. Along with students self with technology, in a classroom a teacher can help the students stay active in a video with technology help which then helps the student to learn more from a video. Students are lucky to be in an age of technology that is growing in educational settings and is helping them to grow as an individual and a student.

Parents now can be more engaged in their students learning and their progress in the classroom based off of technology tools.  There are many different ways that a parents can follow a child's work, but all ways are ways that are beneficial for a parent to watch their kid grow.  With all the different technology tools teachers can share their students work with parents via Google apps or various different apps and tools that their students are using as well.  Many of these tools are very simple and straight forward to use, which makes it easy for parents to help their child at home if they need it. So much technology but all pretty much simple in terms of others helping others.

This FlipBook is Flipping to an End

Well time is winding down and the semester is coming to a short end!

This week for my Final project I have actually started working on how my final flipbook will actually look like.  I have started to create a lay out the design and the ideas of the final creation.  

Last week I did not have an update on my project, due to the lack of creative juices I was having.  So this week I did double the work. I not only came up with the ideas and lay out of it, I started to draw and plan as I drew.  I have just a couple more steps to learn and put together before completeing my project.  For the section of my book this week, I added put together background usage as well and a moving object across the course of several pages.  So far this is exciting and looking well in my eyes.

Check out my progress on my YouTube channel! 

Next to come is the final progress and development of my FlipBook!

Blend It Together to Get the Best Result

Blended learning... Well it is the new learning.  In today's society we are surrounded by technology with computers, smartphones, and even now smart-boards in classrooms.  Walking around today we look around at all the different generations and you can physically see the difference technology has impacted the generations.  Many kids now can use an smartphone before they can talk, so it makes the most sense to be able to incorporate technology into learning to keep kids engaged.  In this video they talk about how it is important to understand that kids are coming from homes that they are now surrounded by technology and then how teachers are using that to their advantage and making their classrooms a more productive and engaged environment. 

Educational Technology, this class has been a very good way to not only follow the course work weekly but it also opens up a lot of ideas for what we, as future teachers, can use and should incorporate into our classrooms.  This class has effectively used the blended learning idea most effectively at the start of the semester.  In the physical classroom we were taught first hand and were able to see what all we should be doing and what it should look like, then as time went on it transitioned to mainly time on our own.  Even though we started to be mainly online based, we still had a very sound blend for we had the opportunity to go in and ask for help if we need it.  Now we are mostly just an online learning classroom, but it is still part of the blended learning idea.  This class gives you a good amount of time for you to be able to pace yourself, since we have an entire week to complete the assignments, but then we also had almost all semester to be able to figure out our projects.  In all this course has effectively used the blended learning model to create a good environment for us students to learn and grow while using a technology based course.  Though this class is great with having so much time to pace yourself, it directs the information pushing you to one path of instruction, and it also allows you to do your assignments anywhere, the class has a downfall of not having a larger amount of face-to-face interaction.  For the Major Project, we briefly went over the idea of the project, but in a face-to-face interaction as the timeline grows shorter it would have been nice to have that face-to-face interaction just to get a feel of what the project should really be and look like.  Also the grades for our blogs are not received as quickly as I would have thought, and even with the grades there is no real feedback with the grades.  In this class, the feedback is ineffective in my learning process. 

Blended learning has now become a necessity for today's schools and education. In today's society we are surrounded by so many people and kids knowing all about technology and how to interact via social media.  But in a classroom, it will be the most productive and effective way to keep kids engaged and motivated.  Blended learning is becoming something that every classroom and subject should be using, it helps to give teachers a better way to see the progression of their students.  Like the teachers talked about in this video, it helps the teachers to get a more personal connection with the individual students.  Blended learning needs to something that I am comfortable with in order for it too work in the classroom, each progression and step in blended learning will be a new learning experience for me.  Along with this helping the students to be able to grow and get immediate feedback it is also a continuous learning experience for teachers.  To be a teacher in today's every changing world you need to be able to adapt to the new technologies and change your teaching style to adapt the way of learning of your students.  When we talk about engaging our students we have to also be able to individualize the lessons and teaching to help each student.  With the blended learning we are able to monitor the students progress and then help those that may need more attention.  It is important to understand that more and more our culture is technology based the more challenging and different teaching has become, with this blended learning it makes teaching easier to find a common ground on which both teachers and students can share.  Many of the ideas that have come to play are well thought out, for they are specialized to helping all students.  Having students use technology to take formative assessments daily makes it easier to understand what the kids are retaining and what they are struggling with.  Blended learning helps to have that immediate feedback for both you and your students.  Like last week talking about formative assessments, blended learning should be incorporated daily into the lessons.  With using formative assessments online it gives you the chance to have some students keep pushing on if they understand the lesson and then also gives your the chance to specialize and individualize a lesson for a small group that may be struggling.  Blended learning is something you can not get away from, and really why would you?  It will be one of the biggest tools for you as a teacher to really help your students to grow and for you to be the most productive.

Stacy Hawthorne is one of the founders and biggest members of promoting blended learning in today's schools.  She is a big part of the Medina School systems blended learning team.  She was talking about how big of an influence that blended learning has become and without it in the classroom it is becoming harder to keeps attention but also that it makes it easier.  The most shocking thing that Stacy talked about was how her kids had computers and laptops of their own being in high school and middle school.  My living style during high school and middle school was my family had one home computer and one laptop to share.  It is just amazing at how big of difference less than 10 years can make in the advancement of kids having their own technology.  This is the most shocking to me for the reason that is scares me... As a student myself I hated having homework that had to be done online but now that we are changing to a blended learning society where it is almost always required.  Going home use to be my freedom, where I would go play outside for a couple hours then do my homework with no big distractions and go to bed. Whereas now with the blended learning we are have kids have to have a computer at home or at least access, also the internet, but then also they have to be able to sit there and focus without getting side tract on other sites and social media.  For me this is a problem mainly for the idea that I myself get overly distracted constantly being on the internet but then we have younger kids that are forced to focus at home instead of being outside.  This was shocking for the fact that this is also one of the main reason that we are switching to the more blended learning.  

How Do You Assess?!

When you think of an assessment what do you think? 

Well as a student when I hear assessment I automatically have the fight or flight feeling come.  For most students that hear assessment it means they have to take some big test that they will either cram for the night before, or just say "screw it" and not even study for it.  That is the fight or flight feeling that most students feel when they hear assessments. 

As a teacher though we are told that assessments are our friend.  They help us to help our students, and from a teacher or someone of powers point of view it is the best tool we can use to help students to keep improving.  There are many ways to assess students, and I think that by using various methods to assess them is only going to benefit you as a teacher to then help your students even more.  When looking at a philosophy for assessment of students it is a "necessary evil" for the growth in students.  We need to be able to assess where the students are with their learning and see what they may not comprehend.  Assessments are the means to truly get the students to learn.  We can use these assessments for not only our benefits but also to challenge the kids to see what they really do understand.  It gives the students a tool to help them to see what they understand, and then with feedback from us it helps to understand what they might not understand.  Assessments are a circle for comprehension of the students learning and a helping aid for teachers.  In my mind, I do not think that assessment strategies should be used as a way to punish kids or to lower their self confidence.  In turn I think that assessments should be fully explained to the point where kids understand that the point of the assessment is to literally assess what they understand and is not to be used a way of punishment for those that do not understand.  For teachers we should be able to help our kids by using a lot formative assessments, they can be easily implemented into any lesson.  Since each student is an idividual and all are different each student will learn in a different way and therefore will also test differently.  So each formative assessment should be a little different, they can vary from small quizzes to just going around the room to have kids answer certain questions, to even doing a small project.  Ways to assess should be different to make sure you are not just separating certain kids.

Rick Wormeli is someone that has high knowledge and a very compassionate view of formative and summative assessments. In his youtube video of him talking about these assessments he brings in some very good points about how important they are, and more importantly how important formative assessments are. Every day teachers should be using some kind of way to check to see if the students are truly taking in all that was covered in a lesson.  Wormeli talks about how each teacher should incorporate check for understands in every lesson, and then also have ways for other students to express that they understand as well.

In a video by Scott Kinkoph, he talked about how each new system of teaching will not be growing or expanding the students minds or horizons if they are not introduced to different formative assessments.  In his lecture he talks mainly about two different assessment tools: one is PearDeck, and the other is EduCanon. 

PearDeck is a very simple and easy way to get the kids involved. According to Scott, PearDeck is a super simple and easy way to check to see if the students are understanding and comprehending what he is teaching.  In this tool, there are several different ways you can assess your students.  Many of the different options for this site have an easy way to not only yourself see what your students are understanding, but then also giving students peer feedback for each other.  Each response from the viewer can only been seen once the teacher gives permission, but at the same time once the responses are then shared it gives the students direct and immediate feedback for each other.  Because the responses can be private at first it helps to  make the kids think for themselves and to really see if they understand it before getting help from classmates.

 EduCanon is the other tool/site that Scott talks about in his lecture.  This site is a very good demonstration of using different online resources as a real classroom setting.  In this tool, the teacher sets up a video for the kids to watch and participate in.  Then after/during the video the kids have activities to complete.  But these are not just worksheet type activities, they are more interactive and connected actives for understanding and comprehension.  I did not like this one as much as Scott was showing and presenting it, it did not have the same hands on feel as the PearDeck did.  It was a good idea to have incorporated video and live feed to make the connection to the teacher more concrete and defined but at the same time, it did not have the same appeal to me.  

In my thoughts, I think the most interesting and stricking thing to me about Scott's lecture was the amount he put into perspective that the formative assessments are really the tool and idea that make or breaks a teacher and the students learning.  Scott was able to make the comparison of how much a student can really learning by having these formative assessments to push them, and challenge them that actually makes a big impact.  This is the idea that will be most valuable in my classroom, for it brings in a wide load of ideas to check my students for full understanding and comprehension of a lesson.  This idea will impact my classroom by influencing me to constantly have simple and quick assessments of the students to help them in their learning.  To be the best teacher I can be requires constant understanding of my students and their knowledge base, and according to Scott this is the best way to help my students.