Week
One
Introduction:
Let the blogging
begin!! I have a feeling that by the end of this course a monster will be
created! I am a "Chatty Cathy" and I love to talk, this is almost as
good as face-to-face communication, and I can pretend someone is
"listening"! The first question is, where to start? During the first
week, I have learned sooo much already! At the moment, my brain is on partial
overload, but I think these blogs will really help me keep track of what I am
learning and it will be organized so that I can remember it for future use.
**
Wiki’s **
Introduction:
First and foremost, I
want to discuss what I learned about wiki's. When I started the first
technology exploration, I will be honest, my first thought was, "wiki what".
After researching the resource provided, PBWorks.com, I learned not only what a
wiki was, but also how to create and utilize them! I do not see myself
utilizing wiki's right away, I think perhaps after I have a couple of years of
teaching under my belt, then I can breathe and venture on to explore wikis in
the classroom, but this is certainly something that I would like to bring to
the attention of the technology leaders in my school, and the administration! I
can see where this would be of beneficial use to my school district.
What I’ve learned:
I
will be honest and say at first it took me a few minutes to really navigate
around and figure out which portion of the website was about business and which
was used for education. Once I found all of the education tabs, which incidentally
were labeled “education”, (go figure) I breezed through the website!
There are webinars available through this website that can be used to
help for professional development and or training purposes. Looking through the
website at the case studies, I liked the way the school started this program
with the administration and leaders in the school and school district then
moved to teacher use and then to student use. This way it started from the top
and worked its way down so that every individual in the school was comfortable
with the system and could all communicate through the system.
The
website is free for up to 100 students with the basic product or you have the
option to purchase a classroom set of workspaces for $100/year or a campus set
for about $800/year.
It
was also nice to be able to venture through the case study school’s wiki and
scope out how they utilized it for administrative/ school wide purposes and
then how they utilized the wikis in the classroom setting.
How the resource can be utilized in the classroom:
As I mentioned before
when answering the previous question it appears that this resource can be
utilized in the world of business and in the world of education! After
researching the resource/website and giving it much consideration I would
certainly state that this could be utilized in an educational setting and all
persons involved in the school community would benefit. What I liked most about
this product was that it not only allowed for use in the classroom environment
but in the school environment as a whole. It is a program that can be utilized
throughout the entire school district starting all the way at the top, in the
Board Office.
I
was pleased to see the case study and how the administration used the wikis to
organize their meetings, agendas, committees and many other aspects. This
appears to be an excellent method of organization and a great way to achieve
communication throughout the school. I definitely entertain the idea of
bringing wikis into my school district but I think it would be important and
vital to give the process the time it needs and to start at the top and work
the way to the bottom. Everyone needs to be familiar with it and a rather
colossal mistake that is often made when incorporating programs and technology
is, that it is often times thrown into the schools with little to no preparation
or training. If we take heed and follow the examples and advice given on the
website, it can certainly be a success.
Once the administrators have utilized the
wikis and the teachers have had to use them to view and comment then they could
be trained how to manipulate the wikis and create classroom wikis. Essentially
I can see how the classroom can be organized with the use of the resource and
laid out so that everyone can have a clear idea of what the curriculum entails
and what is going on in the classroom. It is a great tool to use to link
everyone together and to venture into the world of what now is….technology.
My recommendations:
I
would certainly without a doubt recommend this resource to other educators!
In-fact I am planning to introduce this to my administration and my tech
service committee members in my own school district to see if perhaps this
could be something that could be beneficial to us! I would certainly need to
work with it more and learn how to navigate it in addition; to researching
scholarly articles on the resource before presenting it to my superiors but it
is something that I foresee as being worthwhile.
All in all, I would have to conclude by
expressing that this is by far something that I am highly interested in and
would definitely recommend to my fellow educators to look into. I look forward
to learning even more about wikis and this resource in particular and sharing
it with my fellow co-workers and administrators!
**
E-Books **
Introduction:
I want to discuss the
second technology exploration I completed; eBooks! I do want to start by
stating that I can actually brag here and say that I do know what eBooks are
and I use them in my personal life daily as well as in the classroom! There, I
am not completely behind in the world of technology! :) While I am familiar
with eBooks, I was not familiar with the TumbleBooks website before this
course. I am ecstatic to say that I loved the site and I loved the fact that I
can access it for FREE even more! This is an excellent resource and I certainly
plan to make use of it in my classroom, effective immediately!
What I’ve learned:
I will begin by expressing that the website
is organized very effectively and is broken up clearly so that the tabs are
easy to navigate and books are simple to locate. The books can be viewed all
together, by lexile range, standard and numerous other categories.
There are several features on this website that can be utilized by
students in the classroom and at home. Not only can students read the EBooks,
but they can listen to them being read aloud, one can create a playlist so that
a series of books are read aloud one after the other. In addition, you can
place all of your favorite stories under the favorites tab, and use the Cloud
feature that allows for the books to be read on multiple devices. For example a
student can begin reading a book at school and then continue where they left
off at home. Although this is a useful feature it is not available with this
particular resource as it is through a public library. If the school found this
useful and thought that the cloud and favorites was a need and it was in their
budget that could purchase their own version of the resource “TumbleBooks” and
each student could get their own login address and password.
How the resource can be utilized in the classroom:
As I
mentioned before, I am currently not actually, “teaching” in my own classroom
but I am doing Kindergarten Intervention for both reading and math therefore I
personally can utilize this resources with my kindergarten students. However, I
do plan in the near future to hold an actual teaching position and as I plan to
be certified in English/Language Arts in all grades I could certainly see
myself using this across grade levels.
There are many, and I do mean plenty of features that could be utilized
in a school setting and numerous ways to incorporate this into the lives of
students, parents, and teachers alike!
First and foremost, what I enjoyed most about this website was that it
has materials to utilize for multiple grade levels starting in elementary and
going through high school. When I say materials I mean bundles of resources
from books to puzzles and games, to lesson plans and assessments. There are
grammar activities, class spreadsheets, book report outlines, math challenges,
and spelling activities for each grade level.
Furthermore, this website offers a tab where you can find books that
accompany the common core standards for each grade and some of those have
lessons and materials to further teach that standard. It also offers the lexile
range that each book falls under this way the students, teachers, and or
parents can choose books based on this information.
I
could certainly see using this website in center/free time activities as well.
Most of the books have quizzes that accompany them so that you can ensure that
the child is indeed reading them and not skimming through them. Or you could
see that comprehension is an area of concern and needs further attention. There
is also a neat little addition that is with some of the books, which is a
digital book report template that is divided into a p-3 category and a 4 and up
category that has pre-written prompting questions and a text box to allow the
students to type in their answers.
As
you can clearly see, there are many ways that this resource could be used in a
classroom/school setting, and I personally can see myself incorporating this
website into my classroom on a regular basis. The best part is the option to
use it for free!!
My recommendations:
When
asked if I would recommend this resource/website to other educators, my answer
is without a doubt, absolutely! This website is very easy to navigate as the
tabs are clearly labeled and organized in such an efficient way! In addition,
you can access more educational resources at the bottom of the page under the
tab, “educator’s resources”.
Not
only can this website be used and understood by teachers, but parents and
students can access it at home as well and can complete guiding quizzes, games,
puzzles and other activities. Students can read for fun from this website, or
if they don’t feel like reading per say but still want to enjoy a good book,
they can choose the read aloud option that is available on some of the eBooks.
What I really like about this website is that it allows you to utilize
the Tumblebooks resource for free of charge. You don’t have to be a resident of
the county and are not required to log in or anything of that sort. However, if
the school did want to have the program for their selves they could go to the
TumbleBooks website and purchase the program.
**Podcast
**
What I’ve learned:
AudioBoo
I
will start by talking about Audioboo as that is where I visited first! I will
begin by making everyone aware that before this I had a very vague
understanding and experience with podcast. In fact, I have listened to only one
for an undergraduate course I completed in college. Other than that, my
knowledge of them was fairly limited.
After delving into the website, I found that there were several features
that were of value. I liked how you could view general podcast posted to the
website by others, and educational podcast. Not only can you view podcast
created by other people, you can create podcast of your own on the website, or
you can transport previously created podcast onto the website so that all of
your podcasts can be in one place.
Mr.
Lanhorst’s Website
Now
when discussing the website created by Mr. Lanhorst, I will say that while it
was difficult to find, it was worth the search! It is clear that this teacher
has experience; twenty years to be exact (found this on the website). He is
very organized on his website and his use of technology in the classroom is
amazing, especially considering that he is a veteran teacher that didn’t grow
up in the age of technology.
I
found that he offered individual tabs that displayed each unit and when clicked
on the unit would be explained in detail, and you could find corresponding
materials and resources for each unit. In addition, there was a tab for
retaking test, which I thought was an awesome technique and a great motivator
for success! It is amazing the amount and quality of resources that he posts
with each unit.
He
posts the weekly schedule and agenda for the class and it is evident that Mr.
Lanhorst upkeeps his website as the dates are current. Furthermore, he has a
tab named, “video note” where he created podcast of his lessons, and lesson
power points and posted them onto YouTube. The students can go back and watch
these for review or if they are absent.
I am
very impressed with the amount of work this teacher has put into the website
and I feel as if he has organized the website so well and provided such
excellent materials and resources that I could utilize this website to teach
this course! However, I am not going to attempt that as history is not my
strong suit nor my area of certification. Although, perhaps I should delve into
this website for personal gain and education!
How the resource can be utilized in the classroom:
Audioboo-
When
looking into Audioboo, I quickly discerned that utilizing this resource in the
classroom would certainly be a possibility. Not only was it a possibility,
there were already ample examples of how it could be used in a classroom
setting, simply waiting for me to explore. There are so many ideas out in the
cyber world that I could use to help incorporate podcast into my classroom.
My
school specifically is currently aiming to gear students towards creating more
project based or hands-on activities instead of simply using worksheets in the
classroom. I can certainly see were podcast could be used to create a product
and it would allow for optimum creativity from the students as you could give
guidelines and they could make it their own.
I do
not actually have a classroom yet, but I have had ample experience in the
classroom, and I am currently working with kindergarten as an interventionist
so I can definitely see myself utilizing podcast with my little ones. When I do
get my own classroom though, I would like to create podcast on center
directions, and place the Audioboo app onto the classroom kindles and IPods and
place them at each center with the preloaded podcast with center directions on
it! I can see this saving so much time and I wouldn’t have to continue to go
around to each center at the beginning of each center rotations re-explaining
the directions!
Mr.
Lanhorst’s Website-
I
really enjoyed going through Mr. Lanhorst’s website and considering it is a
classroom website, it can most certainly be utilized in the classroom. If I was
a middle school history teacher, I can certainly see utilizing his video
lectures on YouTube with permission of course in my own classroom. Or, I could
use his videos as inspiration to create my own with my own personal touch on
them! I would also use his website as an example of how to organize my own classroom
website, even if I am teaching English I could just change the content and the
materials that I add onto my own website!
In
addition, I would like to offer up the idea of creating these websites across
my entire school district and even taking it upon myself to assume a leadership
role and assist teachers in creating their own teacher websites. Although, I
would have to find a good website creator before venturing into that idea!
My recommendations:
AudioBoo
Without a doubt, I would recommend the website AudioBoo to other
educators as a great resource for their classroom! It is excellent and
extremely easy to utilize! I was able to quickly navigate the website and
figure out ways to incorporate podcast into my own classroom. Best of all, here
comes my favorite word again… it’s FREE! I hope to see many others made aware
of this amazing resource and more importantly I hope that it continues to
remain free of charge!
Mr.
Lanhorst’s Website
As for
this teacher’s website, it is pretty brilliant! It is clear that he is an
expert teacher and has a good grasp on the content, and how to utilize
technology to teach that content. I was very impressed with the level of
organization that the website possessed and the numerous links involved, that
all worked might I add! Not only did this help those that wanted to study the
material further outside of class, but it also enables students that miss class
to still receive the lesson and materials! I would encourage others to check
this website out and take a look!
Challenges I may face:
I am sure that I will
face some challenges, just as you always will when introducing a new concept,
idea, or gadget to the classroom! Such challenges include but are not limited
to, confusion of the students when learning to listen to podcasts, difficulty
keeping students attention when listening to podcasts, difficulty selecting
books that are on an appropriate reading level when on the TumbleBooks website.
All of these challenges are expected at some point and time and I will try to
deal with them the best that I can. There are a few preventive measures I can
take to try and eliminate the challenges such as, limiting podcasts to short
segments so as to keep students attention, scaffolding the students when
introducing and incorporating podcasts into the curriculum, and adding books to
the playlist so that the students are only reading books that are on their
level.
That’s all folks:
That's all folks! My
"mouth" is running out of fuel and I am ready to end this enormous
post! I have enjoyed writing my first official blog post and exploring new
technologies! I look forward to learning more new and exciting technologies to
incorporate into my classroom and to blogging more about said technologies!
Until next time, be safe, be blessed, be kind!
List of Websites and Resources I Visited:
Kimberly
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