Good Writing Prompt Artifact 2-Collab Tools in Education-EEND-676Z3

December 1st, 2017

      In this class, we were learning about good writing collaboration tasks. One of the ways to do that is to come up with a good writing prompt. A good writing prompt is one that engages students! A good writing prompt also has guiding questions that guides students in the right direction of the project. We had to come up with a good writing prompt, good guiding questions but also a rubric that included how we were going to grade students on the collaboration part of the assignment. Coming up with a good writing prompt was hard but I am glad that I learned about it in this course. I think my students will like the prompt because they can relate to it. I also liked how the course assignment made me think about how I will grade the collaboration piece of the assignment. I wanted it to be fair and give credit where it is due so I will be using the rubric I created  I am going to try to implement the following assignment for my middle schoolers this year. I am going to try and come up with more writing prompts.
      Many of us are surrounded and use technology every day. As a group, I would like you to think about the technology you use in your everyday lives. Pick one technology that  you cannot live without.  You will be in groups of four.  You may pick your groups. How you decide your responsibilities will be up to you as a group. One person can do background of technology and write six sentences. Another person will  be responsible for writing why you all like this technology in second six  sentences. Another will be responsible for two pictures. Another will be responsible for works cited and link to more information about it.You will email me your roles and responsibilities by end of week.  You will use Padlet to tell us what technology you picked and why you cannot live without it.

Be sure to include

A TITLE (name of your technology)

1. a summary of your technology. Who made it and what does it do? ( One Paragraph -six sentences)
2. A picture of your technology and person who invented it
3. Why can you not live without it? How does it enrich your life?Give examples of how you use it in your life(one paragraph -six sentences)
4. One link to where we can find more information about your technology.
5. Be sure your first names are listed at end
6. Include one source of where you research information about your technology in APA format.

Next,

1. You will read another groups padlet. Ask them a question  and leave a positive comment.
   
   
   Here is a link to the rubric we will be using too. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1v0Igy2ZbJjBXAI_y1XUFkovRRBuNDyxFhxsD0eG_0RE/edit?usp=sharing
   
   
   
   

     

Reflection on Collaboration Web Tools in Education-EEND-676Z3

December 1st, 2017

     I would like to reflect on my journey into my second technology course here at University of St. Francis in Joliet. I really liked the discussions because that is where you get great ideas! Sometimes people think of the simplest thing and you wonder why you didn't think of that. I am referring to an idea of how to use video conferencing someone brought up in the discussions. She said she was going to have the upper grade students use videos to read to the little kids. I thought that was a great idea!
      I thought this course helped me to get more comfortable blogging. It is the only way to blog. You have to use it and you have to use it regularly. I never thought about having students blog until this course. I am thinking of having students blog about the books that they reading. This would help students in the school to check out books from the library more. I really enjoyed looking at my classmates blogs and reading them. I need to make time to look at peoples blog because you can get great ideas from them too. In addition to Facebook and pinterest, blogs are now on my list!
      I now feel more comfortable introducing google tools to students and to show them how to use these tools to collaborate with one another on class projects. I am going to use the collaboration assignment I created with my students. I created a country assignment where students will collaborate on research using google keep, google docs, google drawings and google slides. I cannot wait to utilize it and see the results!
      In our week 3 assignment, we had to pick three Google tools and how we would use them in the classroom. I picked Google Keep, Google Slides and Google Drawings. What was neat about this was everyone had to put their thoughts into a google doc. So I saved it so I can learn to utilize the other google applications my colleagues recommended!
    We also learned about good writing prompts. I admit this was hard. You can come up with any question but coming up with a good engaging question was hard. I liked our instructor's idea about inventors !! I might have to steal that idea:) However, I like my writing prompt and will definitely use it this school year. It will be for my middle school students. They will be in groups and they will have to use padlet to discuss one piece of technology they could not live with out. They also have to visit at least two of their classmates padlets and comment positively on theirs. Creating a rubric on their collaboration project was hard because you want to be fair and make sure you give credit where it is due so I am glad this course made me think about how to create fair collaboration rubrics and I will use the one I created!
I am So Excited to use all the tools I learned in this class this school year!! Looking forward to my third class in the spring at the University of St. Francis in Joliet!
   

Educational Technology

November 24th, 2017

As part of my Educational Technology class at the University of St. Francis, we have been asked to pose a question to our colleagues about issues that come up when using technology in education.  Teaching students keyboarding skills has been part of my curriculum due to online standardized testing with NWEA and PARCC. I just wonder do students do better on online standardized tests or paper and pencil?
                                         

Using Google applications in the Classroom! --Artifact 1 -Course Collab Web Tools in Education-EEND-676Z3

November 11th, 2017-Artifact 1 -Course Collab Web Tools in Education-EEND-676Z3

     I am now currently taking my second class in my technology program called Collaboration Web Tools in Education at the University of St. Francis in Joliet. This class taught me to look at Google applications more closely. I was able to create an assignment for students at Lasalle II that shows them how to use four Google tools to gather research information and to present that information more effectively. In the assignment, students would learn how to use Google Slides, Google Sheets, Google Drawings and Google Keep. The assignment would take place over several weeks as I only see students once a week for library and technology classes.
      Students would be paired up and they would pick a a book from the Teens in Global connections series. The series describes how teens live in various countries. Students would go to keep.google.com and take notes on various research items I have assigned such as type of government, currency, landmarks and so forth.  Next, students would use google drawings to create a table of three columns. They would use the explore function to research images of landmarks, leisure and recipes in their country. They input those images into the table in their Google Drawings and label the images. Next students would use Google Sheets to put the populations of the country in 1960,1990 and 2017. They would create a graph in Google sheets. Students would then create a Google Slides presentation and input their Google Sheets graph and Google Drawing on one slide. The second slide would incorporate their Google Keep research. The final slide would be their Works Cited slide. Students would share their slides with me. The also would share their slides with one other team and make a positive comment on another team's slides tagging my name in the comments. I think this is an awesome way to show students all of the tools at their disposal! Here is a link to my assignment:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8FRehAs8x_DQ29BRTdaRGxncms

My Educational Technology Journey

B. TWO ARTIFACTS

One of my artifacts that I will definitely incorporate next year is my TES lesson on digital citizenship! Before this class, I totally forgot about this website and did not know how to use it correctly. Now I do!

ARTIFACT 1:

https://www.tes.com/lessons/f_tAO0tNzj-D5w/digital-citizenship-by-ms-keane

REFLECTION ON ARTIFACT 1:
I chose this artifact because it allowed me to pull so many resources on digital citizenship in one place. Digital Citizen is standard number two under ISTE-S. The standard states:"Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical."Using TES as a tool allowed me to design a unit that would incorporate digital citizen standard two. I wanted a tool that would not distract students from my main objectives of what it means to be a digital citizen. The article, MultiMedia as an Educational Tool: "A primary application of the interactive multimedia for instruction is in an instructional situation where the learner is given control so that he/she may review the material at his or her own pace and in keeping with his/her own individual interests, needs, and cognitive processes."
      I loved using TES because it was easy to drag and drop all of the resources that I wanted students to use as part of my digital citizenship unit. It was easy to move the squares around in the order that I wanted the students to follow. What I missed was the little white space below the square where you can add directions. Once I realized that, then I put directions for the students in each activity so they would know how to navigate it better! I also realized that sometimes it looks like the links work but I learned you have to double check those links and make sure they are working links!
      I teach computers once  a week. Using Today's Meet, I would ask students what do they know about staying safe online. Then I would have my students click on the Tes link on my library webpage and start with the directions . Students can ask any questions that confuse them about the directions via Today's Meet. They then start square 2 activity on Tes and follow those directions I have typed on there for activity two. Students can do on their own pace and speed as long as they complete all the directions. 

ARTIFACT 2:

The second artifact is reviewing digital tools and learning how I can incorporate a new tool in my classroom. I learned about plickers and this is something I can utilize in my library lesson plans. 

https://www.plickers.com/library

REFLECTION ON ARTIFACT 2:

I picked plickers because it incorporates the standard number one of ISTE-S as students as Empowered Learners. This standard:"Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. I always have used Kahoot but I use that when I know I will have the computer lab and iPads available. However, that is not always the case as other teachers use the computer lab and iPads too. Using plickers will allow me to assess my students learning in the library with only the use of my smartphone! Students will be able to use plickers to demonstrate their learning. Plickers will give me immediate feedback and allow me to easily see where I need to reteach concepts. I only have an hour with my students once a week in library and so immediate feedback saves me time! According to the article, Perspectives on the Integration of Technology and Assessment:" Technology-enhanced formative assessments during instruction can provide immediate, contingent feedback and adaptive coaching for reteaching of problematic knowledge and skills."

        Signing up for Plickers was easy and free! Inputting students names was easy as well but it will be time consuming to input more than 30 names as I teach more than one class but at least I will only have to do it one time. I like that students cannot change their names versus Kahoot where they can. Being able to see the questions they got wrong was easy to navigate to. I also liked how it saves the scores automatically so I do not have to quickly download anything. I did have trouble scanning the plicker but I think it was because my paper was not laminated. So I will order the laminated plickers from Amazon for easier scanning purposes. 
      I do a  lot of read alouds in library where we discuss  characters, setting, climax, problems and conclusion. I will design a series of questions in plickers based on the book we are reading and based on the above terminology. Plickers will help me to see if students understand who was a character, what is a setting, climax, problem and conclusion of the story!

C. REFERENCES

ISTE Standards FORSTUDENTS. (2016.). Retrieved July 04, 2017, from https://www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students

MultiMedia as an Educational Tool. [PDF file]. Retrieved from http://cemca.org.in/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Section2.pdf

Pellegrino, J. W., & Quellmalz, E. S. (2010). Perspectives on the Integration of Technology and Assessment. Journal of Research on Technology in Education,43(2), 119-134. doi:10.1080/15391523.2010.10782565

Arduino

February 9th, 2017



On February 9th,  I was invited to a teacher's workshop at Bitspace on Lawrence Avenue in Chicago. The topic of the workshop was on Arduinos. I have been to workshops before on coding. I am now imparting my knowledge of coding to my students. Last year, I ordered finch robots from the Chicago Public Library and my students loved those. In addition, I also used dash and dot to make learning programming more exciting. Students loved dash and dot and I only wish I had more. I have heard of arduino  but did not know much about them. This workshop I went to at Bitspace was awesome. According to Arduino website it is: "is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs - light on a sensor, a finger on a button, or a Twitter message - and turn it into an output - activating a motor, turning on an LED, publishing something online." Basically, I learned how to use wires using Arduino to make an LED light light up and how to create buzzers. The presenter at this workshop gave a wonderful presentation and refresher course on understanding voltage, wattage, power, resistors , circuits and so much more. It was great networking with other teachers and hear how they would use arduinos in the classroom. I hope to incorporate it into the coding curriculum as there is a bit of coding involved in Arduino! I am looking into seeing how I can acquire Arduinos for my classroom. 

The Smoking Mirror Garza Twins book One

January 30, 2017

I really enjoyed reading the book, The Smoking Mirror Garza Twins Book One by David Bowles. I read it because it was on this year's Chicago Public Schools Battle of the Books List. The cover has a wolf like creature coming out of a tunnel and that just drew me to read the book right away. I read it over winter break. It was a very easy, enjoyable read. Even though you really had to use your imagination to visualize what this world was like, it was easy to go on this adventure with twin brother and  sister , Carol and Johnny. Carol and Johnny are on a fantastical, magical adventure to save their mother! Furthermore, the author tries to weave in a bit of mythology and that makse the story more interesting. READ THIS BOOK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS. I am going to find out if there is a BOOK TWO! I sure hope so.