It's the Final Countdown!!!

I don't think I'm quite ready to graduate!! It's not that I don't think that I will finish in time, but more, what will I do once I'm done! It's hard to believe that almost two years ago I began this adventure into continuing my education beyond what's expected of me. I chose to get my Master's degree in instruction technology because I have always had an interest in technology. It stems from watch my father build a computer at home with parts he would get from broken computers. You know how kids who are interested in cars usually grow up watching their dad's build or work on cars? Well, that's the same thing with me, except my dad wasn't building or fixing cars, he was building and fixing computers. Technology has changed so much since I was a child, playing Oregon Trail on our large apple computers with the orange backs! Those were so cool looking! Now students are creating and collaborating with technology! Who would have thought that students would be ALLOWED to bring their phones into the classroom and use it for something other than texting their friends! It's amazing to think how different technology will be 15 years from now!

Looking back on the past two years, I am amazed at how much I have learned in such a short period of time. What I can really take from this experience is the leadership the program has taught me. I have transformed from an average first grade teacher, to someone teachers go to for help in technology. In addition, I was asked to be a facilitator of the technology committee. I don't believe that without this instruction technology program at KSU, I would have those leadership opportunities. I also learned how to use technology in the classroom to increase student engagement as well as using technology to activate those higher level thinking skills.I am not the only one who has benefited from the classes I have been taking at Kennesaw State University, my students have learned more using technology than not, and they love technology! I think that it is important to prepare our students for their futures, and the future of the children today will undoubtedly include technology! I am so excited to be so close to completing this program! This was a life-changing experience, and I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to earn my Masters degree in instruction technology. 

Field Experience

1. Blogging Help- Day Two

2. This was day two in helping a third grade teacher create and set up her teacher blog. In the first day we spent a lot of time creating the blog, coming up with a design that she liked and creating pages to go on her blog that are applicable to her class needs. In day two, we focused on the tools that she will need to know how to use in order to add media such as videos: audio, and a Google calendar into her blog. I introduced HTML codes (very basic), so the teacher will understand what she is doing and why when adding media to her blog. For the video, we used SchoolTube to upload our videos to. Then from there we used the HTML code given to use to add the video to her new blog. For the audio, I showed her AudioPal, where you can add a recorded audio and the site will give you the HTML code to put on your blog or website. Google Calendar is pretty easy to use to add to a blog or website, but it took us some time to create the Google Calendar.

3. The TF standards/elements met by the Field Experience: TF-III.c, TF-V.b

4. Summer 2011

5. 3

6. A description of the population involved:

• Race/Ethnicity: White

• Subgroups: Teacher

• Role/Grade Level of Faculty/Staff, Grade Levels of P-12 Students: Third Grade Teacher

7. Reflection

What did you learn about technology facilitation and leadership from completing this

field experience? This was the fun part of this experience for me. I love to add videos, audio, etc... to my classroom blog and I knew that we would have fun playing around! It was fun to see the results of our completed work as well, especially since this ended up taking two days to complete. I think the teacher was a little apprehensive at the begining, because she didn't know how easy it was going to be. She kept saying, "is that it? That's so easy! I can do this!" That made me feel good, because sometimes (not all the time) it is that easy and everyone can do it. It's so funny how many people of all ages are intimidated by technology and it feels great to be able to help easy some of the uneasiness they have with technology.

8. Describe how this field experience impacted student learning.:As I said in my earlier field experience write-up, teacher blogs are so important for students and parents. I know from experience that parents appreciate updates and knowing what their students are learning about each week. Adding this extra element of video and audio is another way for students to see their published work. I often take pictures and create a slide show to put on my blog for the students and the parents to see what we have accomplished in our classroom. This is just another way for the students to feel proud of their hard work! And they can show it off! :-)

Field Experience

1. Blogging Help- Day One

2. A teacher in Chattanooga, also a family member, has been wanting to start a blog for some time and asked for some help creating her blog and using video, audio and calendar technologies to make her blog more interactive. Over two days, we created her blog. Day one, we decided on a blogging software, design, and added the pages necessary for her blog.

3. The TF standards/elements met by the Field Experience: TF-III.c, TF-V.b

4. Summer 2011

5. 4

6. A description of the population involved:

• Race/Ethnicity: White

• Subgroups: Teacher

• Role/Grade Level of Faculty/Staff, Grade Levels of P-12 Students: Third Grade Teacher

7. Reflection

What did you learn about technology facilitation and leadership from completing this

field experience? I always say that I use all my patience with my students that I never have quite enough for adults. However, I impressed myself with the level of patience I had when teaching another adult how to create a blog. Especially when that person is a family member! I resisted the urge to take over and do it myself, and let the teacher do it herself with my guidance. It can be easier for me to just do it for her, and when I help teachers at my school I often find myself doing it myself because it's faster and we have so much on our plates. However, they don't learn anything if I do it for them. So what I've really learned, is although I may run out of patience, it is not beneficial for anyone if I just do it for them, and not let them explore and learn by doing. We got a lot accomplished on this first day! She is looking forward to showing her new blog off when the new school year begins!

8. Describe how this field experience impacted student learning.:A teacher blog is so important. It keeps the parents up to date with what their students are learning, but it can also be a place where students can publish their work, and feel proud of it. The students can also use the teacher blog to get access to homework, lessons, and links that they might have done in the classroom. The teacher blog will be the students "go to" website during the school year, so they will continue their learning outside of the school building.

Field Experience

1. Core Content Reteach

2. I had an opportunity to meet with my team teachers during the summer. There are interested in what I’ve been learning because they also want to use more technology in their classroom. I showed them my presentation and presented all the great new tools I learned from my peers’ presentations.

3. The TF standards/elements met by the Field Experience: TFI.a, TFIII.a

4. Summer 2011

5. 3

6. A description of the population involved:

• Race/Ethnicity: White and African American

• Subgroups: Teachers

• Role/Grade Level of Faculty/Staff, Grade Levels of P-12 Students: First Grade Teachers

7. Reflection

What did you learn about technology facilitation and leadership from completing this

field experience? I learned a lot about technology facilitation and leadership from this experience. I was so excited when my teammates agreed to meet and learn about the new tools I had to share. Of course, it took a little motivation of lunch, but it was worth it! We spent a lot of time playing around, and coming up with great ideas for using the new tools in the new school year. The time flew and it was great for me to see my fellow teachers embracing and enjoying the new tools I've shown them!

8. Describe how this field experience impacted student learning.: These new tools that we learned help to make our lessons more engaging and authentic. If our students are engaged in learning then they will retain more, and in turn will help improve test scores for our school data and personal data collection.

How can we teach without Instructional Software??

When I first started my ITEC classes, I thought, all of the instructional strategies and web tools are all new, since I was in school. However, reading about Instructional Software I was taken back to my school days! What a blast from the past!
Instructional Software is basically application software that is designed specifically to deliver, or assist with student instructions on a topic (Roblyer and Doering Pg. 76). Any software that we choose to use, as teachers, that supports our instruction is Instructional Software.
As I was reading about Instructional Software I came across Oregon Trail! That is one of my only memories of using a computer in school. I used to love playing Oregon Trail, and trying to figure out how I could get west without my entire family dying, or losing all my oxen and food! This type of instructional software is called Simulation Software. The student places themselves "in the scenario". Just like in Oregon Trail, you learn how tough it was for the pioneers who were traveling out west, because you were out in the same position as they could have been in. This is a highly engaging lesson on conditions in the west. This is engaging because the students are responsible for making the decisions for how to survive in the harsh conditions. This software also promotes high LoTi levels due to the higher level thinking skills required of the students while they are playing the "game".
Another type of instructional software are Instructional Games. These are games that can be used to aid in the learning process. An example of and Instructional Game is another blast from the past for me. The game Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. I believe this was made into a television show as well! Anyway, this Instructional Game is perfect for students who are working on their geography skills! Where in the World is Carmen San Diego is highly engaging because students have to figure out where in the world is the main character based on clues they are given!
A third type of instructional software is a problem-solving software. Geometer's Sketchpad is an example of a problem solving software. With Geometer's Sketchpad, students are asked to do many things. They can create shapes or objects. Students can also analyze problems, and higher grade levels can use Geometer's sketchpad to do proofs and test solutions. I vaguely remembering doing proofs in College, and I just remember how I did NOT like it! Students can use Geometer's Sketchpad to make learning all that "hard stuff" more engaging because you can use a software to test you hypothesis.
There are many other instructional software programs out there that are highly engaging and have high LoTi levels. One that I LOVE to use in my classroom is called Mega Math. Mega Math is what I wrote my whole content area presentation on basically because it is so awesome! It's standards-based, highly engaging and the students use it to help them learn about all the things that they would learn in the classroom! If your school doesn't have it, you can go to this website to check it out online for free!! And who doesn't love free??

Productivity Tools and Internet Curriculum

When I think of internet Curriculum and Productivity Tools, my mind automatically goes somewhere else. Maybe it's the words, they are rather large for my simple first grade teacher mind, but I think it's more that it's just a large topic that covers a lot of information and it's hard to take it all in! However, I think I figured it out, so here goes!

Productivity tools are tools that you can use in your classroom to help with lesson planning, grading, and classroom projects. There are the basic productivity tools, like Microsoft Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet), and Access (database). However there are other productivity tools that are software support tools. There are a lot of these! Some of my favorite software support tools are Desktop publishing software, like Publisher, worksheet generators like www.worksheetworks.com, and concept mapping software like Kidspiration (Inspiration for the older kids). There are many, many other productivity tools out there, but these were my favorites because I use them most in my classroom.

Publisher is a great tool to help students publish. Because I am a first grade teacher, I am the one who uses this most, since it would be a great undertaking to teach 6 and 7 year olds how to use Publisher. However for older students, this allows them to be creative in designing their own newsletter, pamphlet, or brochure. The students can create their own newsletter explaining what they have learned about a specific topic. For example, if they were learning about the Civil War, the students can design and create a newsletter or even newspaper to inform their readers about the events in the war. This activity will allow the students to research information about the Civil War, then based on the information they find, the students must decide what information is important to include in their newspaper. Finally the students will use Microsoft Publisher, or some other publishing software to create their newspaper. This activity is standards-based and engaging. The students are in charge of what they want to learn, and they get to decide what type of information is important. This activity also has a high LoTi level because of it's technology use and higher level thinking skills. I would characterize this activity as LoTi 6, due to the amount of higher level thinking involved and that the students are using technology to design and create this newspaper.

Worksheet Works is an online productivity tool that allows teachers to create worksheets and homework sheets for their students. The teachers can manipulate the worksheets for what their students need. I used this tool for extra practice with areas that my students have been struggling with. For example, when a student struggles with money, I send home practice sheets from Worksheet Works. Since engaged learning is more performance-based there is little need for worksheets, however you can use worksheets that you can create as review or practice.

Kispiration is a neat concept mapping tool that can be used for many things. Kidspiration is great for the little ones to get the thoughts across. An activity that can be used with Kidspiration is with verbs. They students can create a concept map where they can find pictures of verbs. This is great especially for kindergarten and first graders who may not be able to spell words, they can use pictures to show what they know.

There are lots of other Productivity Tools out there. At the Next Steps website, there are a lot of "cool tools" that can be used in the classroom to produce standards-based engaged-learning activities and projects. One of my favorite "cool tools" from the Next Steps site, is Glogster. The great thing about Glogster is that it takes the old, boring, and tedious Poster Board project and add technology, design and fun to it! Glogster allows the students to decide what to add to their Glog and what pictures, backgrounds and text to add to their Glog that will give their audience the best understanding of what they are trying to say.

EL Video Response

When I was looking for a video to post for out EL Video assignment, I looked at lots and lots of videos on Edutopia.org before deciding on a video. I saw many of the videos my classmates posted in their blogs, and passed them by. However, looking at them and reading their responses, I saw that there were lots of videos that demonstrated Engaged Learning. It helps to watch the videos and reading the responses! I learned a lot from viewing all the videos. They have given me great ideas and inspiration for getting back into the classroom in August!! I think that a lot of people can benefit from watching these videos like I did. The videos show what engaged learning looks like. These videos show how beneficial engaged learning activities are to students. I think many of these videos that we found were be perfect for professional development. I know that once I began watching the videos I became inspired to do more in my classroom, and showing these to other teachers will help inspire them! Hopefully!
The best video that I saw, that would be a great example for K-12 teachers to understand what technology-supported, standards-based, Engaged Learning looks like is the Introduction to Project-Based Learning video.

I found this video on LeTilia's blog. I remember passing it by on Edutopia, but when I watched it again, I found that it was a great example of engaged learning! It supports standards-based learning, and has a great use of technology! This video was strong in almost all the indicators of engaged learning. It is standards-based, and challenging. This activity requires the students to design, create, build and then present their project to their peers, parents, and engineers. It was authentic because the students were placed in a real-life scenario. The activity was student directed and collaborative in nature. Although this was a project for 9th graders, it's a project that can be modified for other grade levels, because they can design, create and build something else to fall in line with the standards. Technology is integrate throughout the entire project and it is a good example for how teachers can integrate technology in their lessons!

My Second choice video was the From Worms to Wall Street video. This video is great because it is more of a hands-on engaged learning activity. This video is also for more of a younger age/grade level than the previous video.

I found this video on Amy's blog. I chose this one as my second favorite because it shows how engaged learning can be done in the primary grades. This project is strong in almost all the indicators of engaged learning. However, like most of the videos I saw on Edutopia and my peer's blogs, there was a weakness in assessment. I think that this may be because as educators, we are constantly assessing. We assess when we begin a unit, to see how much our students know, we are assessing when our students are doing an activity and assisting those that we notice are struggling. When it comes to using technology, we are still assessing all the time, to make sure they understand how to use the technology. In this video, they created spreadsheets that could be used as assessments. However, there was no formal mention of assessments.
The patterns I noticed in the videos that I watched were that engaged learning requires that the students are doing most of the work, it's student directed. These engaged learning activities put the students in charge of their own learning, and makes what they are learning more meaningful. What I also noticed about almost all the videos of Engaged Learning was that they had some sort of real life connection, or real life role. I also noticed that in the ones that incorporated more technology the students seemed more engaged. I notice that in my own classroom. The activities that we do that uses technology, my students get more excited about! Even as simple as using the document camera to publish their writing! They all want to publish, where as in years before I had a document camera, they were not as excited about publishing their writing! It is possible to have an engaged lesson without technology, but the students will not be as engaged as they would be with the lesson that incorporates technology.