KSpencer

After reading Bob Sprankle’s “4 Weeks to a Flatter Us” I have thought about making some changes and continuing some current best teaching practices to help me remain relevant to my students so I can help them achieve at higher levels.
First, as much as possible, I will allow for student input, collaboration, and choice in what they learn and how they show their learning. Students are taught to self-select appropriate books, self-select meaningful writing topics and research areas of interest in social studies and science topics. My learning opportunities will continue to be differentiated in order to meet the diverse needs of my students.
Sprankle mentions “sharing the fruits”. I will continue to work with my class on publishing their work on our class web page. The component that I will try to tweak in this process is that in the past, I have typically chosen the tool that we’ll use to display our work. I think I will continue to do this in second grade. However, once I loop my students to third grade, I want them to pick from a menu of learned tools to show their work. Therefore, I will work diligently to expose my students to a variety of learning tools while they are in second grade. They will learn about these tools in guided activities. However, once third grade dawns, handing the reigns over to the kids will be my goal. I will strive to change from any: “You will learn this in the way that I decide,” to “How do you want to learn this?”
I will continue to stay updated on what interests my students and how their time is spent outside of the classroom. Continuing to have a “share” AKA “show and tell” session each day will keep the information coming to me. However, I’m thinking about adding student lunches into the mix, in order to have more conversations with smaller groups of students on a more regular basis.
Sprankle believes that before I ask my students to do anything, I must first do it myself. Therefore, during this summer course I have tried to expand my repertoire of skills and understanding by adding to my blog, opening a del.icio.us account, learning google map possibilities, registering for a google mail and calendar account, experimenting with Rockyou and Animoto tools, and navigating our class wiki.
I will try to devote more attention to fostering the new media literacies in my students so they are prepared for what lies ahead. Cathy and I began a conversation about a grade level specific “core knowledge” of technology skills and tools so we can be sure that all students have a common understanding regardless of their placement. I hope to further this conversation with her when she returns.
With these changes and continuing practices, I hope to be on my way to engaging students in a classroom setting where they may “co-create their learning environment”.

I feel like I could use could the “Four Important Practices” mentioned at the end of the article Turning On the Lights by Marc Prensky in many ways. “Give students the opportunity to use technology in school.” Having an additional laptop cart will enable me to give students more opportunities to use technology in school. “Find out how students want to be taught.” Giving kids more choice in how they present common information will help me give students more opportunities to have ownership in how they learn. “Connect students to the world.” I have connected students to the world by doing activities such as Journey North, 100 day wiki, and Bugscope. “Understand where kids are going—that is, into the future—and help them get there.” I am trying to stay current on where my students are going and what they will need in the future by taking our district technology course. Not only do I learn more that impacts my practice, when we have our project shares, I learn about what other educators are doing both in my grade level and in future grade levels. Using these four important practices will help me “show kids the light” on what they will need to know in order to be able create fulfilling lives in a changing world.

Classroom 2.0: “Initiating and Sustaining Conversations: Assessment and Evaluation in the Age of Networked Learning” by Konrad Glogowski was an interesting K-12 On Line session. However, it was geared for older students. Konrad Glogowski based the session on a grade eight classroom. From a second grade perspective, my ahah moment came when he showed the flow chart depicting flow, anxiety, and boredom. Activities are more engaging and students become completely involved in if it’s doable. If a task is perceived as being too hard anxiety results and if it’s too easy children become bored. Flow occurs when challenges and skills are equal to each other.
I will apply Linda Rief’s quote from D.H. Graves, and Sunstein, B.S. (Eds.) Portfolio Portraits:“When kids are given choices in what they read and write, and time to think about what they are doing, their writing and reading get better. When we trust them to set goals and to evaluate their learning progress, we will begin to realize that they know much more than we allow them to tell us through our set curriculums, our standardized tests, our writing samples.” I my daily practice choice is embedded and because of that students are more likely to be engaged and to learn at high levels.

http://www.rockyou.com/show_my_gallery.php?source=ppsl&instanceid=116033941

The two tools I chose to try were Rockyou and Animoto. I was so impressed by the way Jen presented her students’ Arctic learning using Rockyou that I thought I would try it. My goal is that students will have some input in building my teacher web page and like the idea of having the students choose how they want to present their work to peers and their parents using Rockyou and Animoto. I like the fact that Animoto has a musical tool. Students can see how music will effect the presentation of learning. If I come away with a good understanding of these two tools, I will be able to have students show their work in a multimedia way.

My second goal for this course is to “get the bugs” out of a voicethread and eZedia project that I tried this spring.  I am also adding to my technology “how tos” written directions file.  These documents will be invaluable next year, especially now that our technology coordinator is not going to be in our building on Thursdays and Fridays.  I am also going to find more resources that will incorporate appropriate technology rich experiences for kids that will increase student engagement and ensure that all students are learning at high levels.

My first goal for this course is to get my teacher webpage reformatted from a third grade parent/student resource to a second grade one.  I also want to update my webpage so it now has a link of appropriate literacy challenge sites, math challenge sites, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade book picks, and a Google calendar. My students and I made a welcome movie and slide show that my incoming second graders can now view to get to know our classroom.  I also want to set up everything so during the school year, I can update my web page efficiently and independently.

As I reflect on the learning I did during this course, I find that I’m smiling. I was able to collaborate with some of my favorite co-workers and because of that collaboration, I accomplished my goals and then some. I feel like during this course something just clicked for me. I got a shot of technology in the arm that has resulted in me looking at my units differently. I’m now comfortable with a few really engaging technology learning tools and with the convenience of the laptops, I can easily incorporate these tools into my daily practice to increase student engagement and learning.

Some of the best results/learning that I did during this course are as follows:

*I now update my web page weekly….it takes only 30 seconds!

*I can make a web page independently.

*My third graders completed a multimedia eZedia project. When a staff member, who will be retiring in a mere three months, observed me during one of the eZedia workshop times, she decided to take a chance and have her class do an eZedia project too once she saw how doable it was. That was  exciting! I was so proud of her.
*I’ve used some of the interesting and engaging literacy activities on the Read/Write /Talk site. This resource is now bookmarked and one that I visit often.

*I recently revisited Clicker with the class for a paragraphing activity.

*I’ve even done a voicethread poetry project with minimal assistance.

*Karin, Steph, and I now have a shared technology folder, thanks to Cathy, where we can easily share tech directions and ideas.

*Each week when Karin, Steph, and I meet during our Tuesday lunch break inevitably one of us shares a technology based activity.

*Based on what I have learned and what I now want to do, summer work proposals have been submitted that will give me an opportunity to continue growing.

Overall, I feel blessed to work with such supportive and knowledgeable people, in a district that supports staff development, and in a school that has the resources and technology coordinator on staff that I need to help my children learn the skills that will be important for them to know in this rapidly changing world.

101 Tools and Resources for Authentic Learning
Assignment #2

I decided to tackle #71 for my second homework assignment from 101 Tools and Resources for Authentic Learning Environments by Ben Wilkoff. Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher An Internet Hotlist on Web 2.0 created by Sue Summerford http://www.kn.att.com/wired/fil/pages/listweb20s.html
proved to be a very interesting tool. From it I found the following sites. I plan to use the first sites right away, some will come in handy later this spring, and finally a few are interesting, but I’d like to discuss them with Cathy before tackling them on my own.

http://www.readwritethink.org
This site was the best find! I have already used the visualizing lesson and postcard creator. I plan to incorporate the timeline activity and bio cube during my upcoming biography unit. If you Hotlist and you are an elementary school teacher, this is the one place to stop.

http://interactives.mped.org/view_interactive.aspx?id=110&title=
only had time to look at one site on the 2.0 what they have learned in an engaging format. Students can create a newspaper, booklet, brochure or flyer with this site…….very I will incorporate this tool into my units for kids to use to show cool!

Sites that may work for me in the future:
http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/
This site may come in handy during my line plot unit in the spring.
http://www.ajaxtrans.com/
This translator will come in handy during my geography unit.

The following sites look interesting, but I will need to discuss some potential issues with Cathy before tackling them on my own.
http://www.mixbook.com/account/login
This site helps kids create book reviews.
http://www.teachersdomain.org/tdhome.html
This teacher resource looks like it may have some neat activities about the Arctic and Antarctic.
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/kiddesign/kidpad.shtml
This site allows kids to create stories together.

K-12 Online Conference Reflection

Clarence Fisher’s session at the K-12 Online Conference entitled “Classroom 2.0 or You Live Where?” was very informative. I think my biggest “AHA” moment came when Fisher said that teachers’ attitudes and societies’ attitude toward education needs to change and be redefined. I really liked how he described the classroom as being a studio where a lot of different things were happening in a vibrant energized atmosphere. What a great mind picture that created for me!
I think one big idea that I can take back to my classroom and applied to my daily work is creating opportunities for collaboration. I must continue to re-evaluate my practice to ensure that my kids are getting the tools and experiences they need to make connections. They need to be able to be able to easily exchange ideas and form relationships with others in order to learn what they need to know.
When Fisher quoted Tom Carroll with “Teaching and learning is a collective effort, not an individual accomplishment.” I knew that it was a quote worth keeping in the forefront of my thinking. I’ll remember it as I collaborate with colleagues, have my students collaborate with each other, with me, and safely with those around the world.

It Worked!

Based on Cheryl Oakes’ article, I said that I would continue to collaborate with Karin and Steph both during our Tuesday lunch break but during out Monday portfolio meetings as well. During our last Monday meeting, Karin taught Steph and I how to use eZediaQTI to help students display biography information. It looked overwhelming to me at first, but she was able to show us how to simply create a text box and add a graphic. I’ll be having the children do their own project when Cathy and I co-teach during my lab time next Wednesday. Honestly, I never thought that I could use eZediaQTI with third graders as I had only seen projects created by Middle School students and they looked so involved and complex. But I must say, that with Karin’s help, I compiled an eZediaQTI example on Helen Keller in no time and it worked! YEA!