TIE 300

 Okay, please bear with me. I swear I have a point to this long story.

Ah…the 90’s, the glorious decade of my childhood. At the time computers were emerging as not only a part of business but as a new home essential. I remember getting our first desktop computer back in 1999 when I was in 5^th grade. It was a really crusty, clunky, windows 98 computer that my brother in law got me because he got ‘a good deal’ and my own parents couldn’t afford to get us one. So there I was, this young little girl excited about running a Crayola disk program where I could “magically” color in fun pictures. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. We still had no Internet, but I thought computers were the best invention. I was in love.

Since that sweet age I’ve been a tech addict. My co-workers call me a “techie” because I’m always on some sort of gadget. I was also almost always the tech teacher in my family. For example, just a few months back my sister asked me, “How do you copy and paste?” I laughed of course, but that wasn’t too nice of me. I grew up learning and evolving with technology. People older than me haven’t had that luxury.

Now, remember that I said I WAS the tech teacher of the family and I have a reason for using past tense. I got my first job last year at a CPS school last year and I was so excited because I could finally afford to buy myself a MacBook air. I never owned any apple product because they are so expensive but I finally got one, but I was so confused! Everything was different from a Windows computer. How did I get get on the Internet? What’s a screen shot? How do I get full screen? I had to turn to my 12 year old nieces who attend an all Macbook school. They’ve become the new teachers because I was old school and didn’t know all this new stuff.

My nieces doing school work.

So, this brings me to my point: I thought I knew everything about computers, and programs, and the Internet but I really don’t. Throughout the past 10 weeks I’ve learned about so many different awesome tools that have given me so many ideas on how to incorporate more technology into the classroom. It’s given me the courage to teach with technology when before I wasn’t sure if I could. For the first time in my life I became the lost student that didn’t know how to be an expert at all the different tools that were introduced to me. It’s shown me how resources are out there right under my nose, and how to teach and learn in a new fresh way.

I see now that technology surrounds and consumes a lot of our education, but in a good way! We are preparing students for a world powered by these tools and the skills that they acquire.  

Media Literacy

image source

According to the National Association for Media Literacy Education the definition of Media Literacy is as follows: 

“Within North America, media literacy is seen to consist of a series of communication competencies, including the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and COMMUNICATE information in a variety of forms, including print and non-print messages. Media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound. It is the skillful application of literacy skills to media and technology messages”. 

Even though our students believe that they know all there is to know about technology, I think that when it comes to learning with technology there is still a disconnect. I think that students are very strong in being able to access technology and even analyze different technological activities, but I don’t think that they could clearly communicate what they’ve learned about those activities. 

Sometimes, as educators, we get really excited and we want to use all of these cool devices, but how much is too much? If we are using specific devices in the classroom sometimes the lesson itself becomes how to actually USE the device rather than how we can use it to learn a specific subject. 

I think that continuing to expose students to familiar technology will allow them to grow into much better analyzers who will not only use technology well, but they will comprehend the importance of the technology they are using and how it helps them to better understand the information they are receiving. 

Media Literacy is important in our education because we are evolving everyday into a much more ‘media dependent’ society. A place where we are not only exposed to different forms of Media daily, but we also seek it out and enjoy using different media forms.Being able to take an image, video, or passage and give it a source of meaning to understand what it is trying to tell/teach us is a very important skill. 

Awesome questions to guide Media Literacy learning.

Twitter as a Tool?! Yes.

Twitter is an interesting site. There is a wide spectrum of users on Twitter. You start with celebs tweeting juicy drama, to young people tweeting their friends and family a simple “Hi, I miss you”, and then you have teachers across the country sharing and spreading awesome ideas.

On Twitter discussions are held under the hashtag #edchat for Teachers and the rest of the Twitterverse to go and talk about different aspects of education. I really wanted to attempt an online discussion on Twitter so I tried it out. After a bit of time searching for something that sparked an interest to me I decided to respond to edutupias question pictured below.

I read through the responses and saw some that I really agreed with and others, like the one below, that I felt the need to comment on.

I never got a response from the person that I messaged and I really hope it wasn’t because I came on too strongly in the chat. I felt like if someone would have made a comment like the one he made in person I would have NEVER responded because I am just way too shy. I feel that this being an online chat really gave me the “guts” to be brave and just put myself out there.

It was also really interesting to see so many different thoughts on the role of parents in education. I for some crazy reason thought that everybody had to think like me. Parents must be actively involved and also teach their children basic life skills, and manners at home. Teachers are meant to teach about history, math, science, writing, literature, and yes, sometimes life but they shouldn’t be the only ones educating.

Educators were (obviously) smart enough to see Twitter as not just a social media site but as a resource. Now, Twitter has endless amounts of information available to the teachers out there that may be looking for a new way to spice up their classrooms.  

While exploring on twitter I found two really great resources. The first was about technology and how we can utilize a tool that many people already have—an iPhone. There are millions and millions of apps available for you to download straight onto your phone that you could utilize in a classroom. My favorite from the list of apps described was the iLEAP Pick a Student app. It does exactly what it says and creates a generator, that you can program students names into, and it will pick a student at random to take a turn at whatever it is you’re doing. In the classroom I work in now we still use the popsicles in a cup method—okay but boring!

The other resource I came across was Edutopia’s article on how to teach your student how to have a conversation. I think that as we’ve become more technologically advanced we’ve begun to lose a lot of human contact. We find it normal to just read and write a conversation  but find it more difficult to just talk on the phone with a person. That’s why I found these tips to be such a great resource because reiterating skills that we as humans know and trying to enforce them more often with sessions of turn taking ,where everyone stops and listens and questions what one individual is saying, can make a big impact on a students communication skills.

Well, that’s all for now! I hope you enjoy these resources and find some use for them in your own classroom or home.  

Studying with Quizlet

Remember the days of learning new vocabulary words by tediously writing them all out? Well, those days are gone! Using the new web 2.0 Tool Quizlet, learning new vocab and other subjects will be a breeze. This interesting program allows teachers, and students, to create their own study tools. For instance, vocabulary words just need to be typed into a box and the program will give you different definition options to choose from. If this is too complex student could go on a google quest to find the different definitions to different words. Next, the program creates different study tools for students to utilize. There are flashcards, quizzes, and a variety of different educational games. I would personally use this for 4^th-8^th, and maybe even high school. The samples provided are screen shots of the program’s activities. You can access my set of Algebra tools here!

 

These are sample flashcards of this set. 

 This is a sample of the Quiz game that is timed.

This is a sample Quiz from my Algebra set.

I really did love this site. I do think that it is a little too complex for younger grades unless you really simplify it. For example, if you purchase the membership to Quizlet you can add photos to your set and I think it would be a great idea to set up color/picture word matches for students to practice word recognition. With this site it is important to set it up and then let students explore!

History Reports with Blabberize!!

Usually writing a report and presenting it in front of the class is not every student’s ideal project. Nerves run high and often times, students will try to avoid the entire assignment. Giving students options as to how they would like to present an assignment to the class is something that I would like to provide in my classroom.

Instead of the usual PowerPoint or Prezi—Blabberize is an excellent tool for Teachers to provide to their students. This fun website allows students to record audio that will go along with an image that they edit to present. This allows students to prepare and practice public speaking without actually having to stand up in front of class. Public speaking is something that students must practice and master throughout their entire educational career. I believe that with Blabberize we can help instill a sense of confidence in students public speaking abilities and for them to believe that what they have to say is important. This can help them to realize that speaking in front of people or sharing your ideas is not really all that scary! This is a free website that is easy to use and has endless possibilities for both students K-12 and Teachers in all content areas. Please watch and listen to this sample provided to hear a student give a report on the story of a civilian during World War II era.


This website is such an incredible tool to offer to your students. This really has them practicing their speeches before they present and it forces them to restructure their writing if it does not sound well. Seeing this makes them more aware of their editing skills and it's just a really fun tool to play with. Students will love using this even outside of the class. Well, at least that's what I think...

I know for sure I will be using Blabberize for different things in my classroom. I actually really would like to add a little blabberize to my professional site.

Book Reports with Glogster!!

Incorporating literature into a young mind is so essential to the mental and spiritual growth of a student. Students can never have enough reading time, but often it is difficult for us, as Educators, to have students show us what they’ve learned through the text that they explore. This is why I believe that students should have some creative freedom in creating their very own storyboards using the program Glogster. Glogster is an online educational tool that is used to create different storyboards or posters for different subjects and or criteria. Allowing students to use a different media to express what they’ve learned is an amazing tool. 

Students can show comprehension of content in a visual way. Below is a sample I created using Glogster to show how a student could create a book report through text, images, and other resources in place of writing an essay. The sample below is a book report on the novel Divergent by Veronica Roth. Students needed to identify the following: Setting, 2 Plots, Main Characters, Conflict, and Theme. 

I really enjoyed using this program!! I think it is fun, you can really let students get wild and creative with it to show what they've learned. I feel that this tool is simple enough to use in younger grades and can be assigned at at difficult level for the older grades. Even if you don't use this program often, students will still see it as a resource that they, themselves, could use in other subject for projects and other homework. 

This site gives you a free 30 day trial but I think in order to utilize all of its resources you do need to pay a fee of $25 for the Educational option.

Google Search

You give the Internet permission to do anything it wants the moment you go online. You log onto websites, post pictures, set maps to pinpoint your exact location—basically you share your life with the world. We’ve grown accustomed to thinking that this is normal but really it's not. We are now able to be our very own detectives with just your basic Internet connection.

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For this research I decided to Google a person I know everything about but would never have to run a search on for basic information. I also thought this was a good idea because I could actually then crosscheck the information I find with my friend to see if it was accurate or not. 

I began with Google. Ah…good ole trusty Google! My missions’ name: Emilia J. (I’m going to keep her last name private because I don’t want her name to pop up with one more additional link, haha!). This was my first search result: 

 

I clicked many of the links but none of them were my Emilia so I decided to type in ‘Emilia J. Chicago’ and I received many more links that looked legitimate. These were some of the results I found. 

I was astounded that I could find all this information online. I found her address, her phone numbers, her age/the year she was born,  the names of her parents and siblings, and even a map that showed me her neighborhood. This is all really important information that could get out of control if it got in the wrong hands. Having this information on her could lead to someone being able to find out even more information that would lead to more and more goods on my friend. All of that is no bueno!

It’s important to limit what you post online. You never know who is out to get your information. Younger people on the Internet are still blessed in thinking that nothing bad could happen to them. Unfortunately it is only when they are in trouble that they realize that their Internet tracks are what brought on the issues in the first place. We need to educate and teach our students that whatever you post online does in fact stay online forever.