Thing #21 - Capstone

A. Many of these tools have helped me improve my teaching and delivery methods.  Several of the tools, Prezi and the mind maps have helped me organize my lessons to emphasise the most important areas.  Prezi, Jing, Wordle, and Photo Story have improved my delivery options.  Google Docs, RubiStar, Google forms, and graphic organizeers give me ways to communicate and collaborate with students.  Other tools have increased my abilbity to network with other professionals and find ways to stay updated on technology tools and programs.  All of these options also have the abiltiy to give the students and teachers I work with more choices for projects, increases their opportunity to use online tools, and find support to succeed on their projects. A diversified tool box creates more diversified lessons.

B. The technology applications that I am including in my lessons and incorporating into future lessons witll support a variety of the Marzano stategies.  Organizers will help students utilize questions and cues, online researching presentation tools will help students test hypothesese, set objectives and provide feedback, allow for non-linguistic representations and reinforce homework, notetaking and summarizing.   Mindmaps, presentation tools and online study tools will increase value in homework and allow students to build understanding of similarities adn differences.

C. I plan to use Bubbl.us with our health classes for stress management.  I would like to have the students work in groups to create charts with how they react to stress and how they can better deal with stress.  This project would support health standards - Strand 4 - Social and emotion health.  Technology standards and could hit all the main areas of the NETS for students:

• Demonstrate creativity and innovation
• Communicate and collaborate
• Conduct research and use information
• Think critically, solve problems, and make decisions
• Use technology effectively and productively

Thing #21

I learned about Jing from another presentation that Ron gave and have been using it for a little over a year but this class really made me think of more ways to use the tool.  I'm working on saving more of my class presentations so that students can review the sections they need to review or students can use the presentations for makeup.  There are several lesson I do in the library that students are graded on and if students could make them up using the videos it would make it easier for the classroom teacher that I work with on the project and myself. 
Currently I have a link to a short video on how to use our Destiny library catalog on my library home page.  During this class I added a short video for editing in Windows Movie Maker towards the bottom of the Advertising Project web page.  Because of limited space though I plan to link to other videos for this project at screen cast, I already have one on editing a google web page loaded and will add the link to the project web page along with other videos that I have created and need to finish editing.  I did get feedback from students on the first videos I did and I made improvements.  Students asked me to cover certain features such as changing the back ground colors so I did add those steps.  The comments on my current versions include the fact that I stuttered on the movie maker video and then on the google site one I talked about a page, they would prefer that I clarify and say web page and use another color when I did the example with the frames so that it would be easier to see.  They would also like me to have a video on editing their pictures online.  The reviews from the students are helpful, they help me to understand what steps need to be clarified for them and what steps they would like more information on.  The videos are most helpful for the students that haven't used the programs before and need support when using the programs.

Thing #20

I liked both Gliffy and Bubbl.us.  I liked the fact that I could just go to the web site and start using the tools, no signup required.  That means I could have students do quick projects using these tools without the hassle of creating accounts.  Students could use this as presentations or tools to display information in a presentation.  They could use them as individuals or as group work.  Both tools could be used to help organize and plan projects or ways to display their understanding of the topics. Both are visual tools that can help the visual learner and give teachers another tool for presentations.  Wordly and Tagxedo can be used as part of presentations, ways to review subjects or ways to study student terms.  They could also be used to highlight important topics such as a way to summarize or review topics.  I have had students use wordle to study spelling words.

I really like the way you can save from Tagxedo and choose the formats, that is a big bonus over Wordle.  Both are fun tools though.

Thing #19

Thing 19

1 -Plan to extend my classroom. 

I have been working on extending the reach of the Freshman Library since I started over 10 years ago, extending is a work in progress with the tools and opportunities changing and improving.  Because of this class I plan to reach a little farther, try some activities again with new tools, and speed up some of my plans. 

I will continue to put my handouts on project web pages but I am increasing my use of videos for directions.  In the past I have had some videos available at school for video, audio projects and directions for the library catalog but I’m now adding more videos for directions to classes that I lead in the library.  I’m working on creating the videos to cover library orientation and the citation class that goes along with orientation.  I’m also using Jing and screen cast to house and link to the videos so that students can access them from home.  Posting more online will allow students to work on their own at school or from home.  The videos of our online classes reminded me of the importance for students to be able to review information, even after attending an online class I have found it useful to scan back through the posted video.

Creating the videos improves my teaching by forcing me to be really organized and consider carefully what I want to cover, say and show to students.

I have also increased my use of and a few of my teacher’s use of Google Docs with students, I plan to increase the use of Google Docs.  I am working with teachers to help them use it to improve projects and make it more effective for them to keep track of the students work.

The different lessons and activities that are being posted online give the students the opportunity to work on and create their projects more at their own speed, giving the students different tools and approaches to use to successfully complete their projects.  Using tools like Google Docs increasing communication and collaboration. Creating activities that use different resources increases  opportunity to learn and use new resources and adapt to the new tools available.  Helping students learn to use new tools hopefully increases their opportunity to learn how to learn and adapt on their own to the changing electronic world.

The more tools I use and post for students the more the staff I work with will try.  If I can show how online tools help me and the students, more teachers are willing to give new tools a try.

2- Navigating the Land of Online Learning.

Students will need to make sure they understand the requirements of the class they take, that they can schedule time to work online and can seek technical support when needed.  Students will need to be motivated to work on their own and be mature enough to understand the responsibilities of online class work.

Thing 18

I've used several different tools over the years and at home I use Netvibes.  I like using Netvibes because I can add tabs, so I have a page for my husband and for other things besides my favorite "home" page.  I can easily edit for different sources and rearrange.  I use the RSS feeds and twitter box so that I can glance at the newest events and posts, I have Cnn so I can be aware of what is happening and I have links to the web pages I use the most or need to keep handy for work.  Rss and other tools adapt the information layout and information we have quick access to and can help us stay up to date on information, discussions and resources that support learning and teaching.  Schools and teachers can use RSS feeds to share school and class information, students could use RSS to create and update projects they are working on and use the feed capabilities to keep teachers and classmates informed.  There are so many resources available that it is impossible to keep up at all without Rss feed aggregators and even then you can only follow a limited number compared to the infinite resources available. 

Thing 17

I chose to compare Info Trac Junior to Info Trac Student. Both are good databases that I recommend to my students. Using some of the same health topics that our students look up for health I compared the two databases. On my of the topics like teen smoking, Info Trac Student returned more hits, included higher reading levels and a larger selection of sources. I would assume this is because the Junior is geared more and filtered more for middle school audiences. Both have the ability to read the article for students which is useful and both have a good citation tool available which is helpful. The sources are published resources some more well known then others and some that are in the Student version might require students to check out the appropriateness of the source. Just because it is published doesn't always mean its right or credible, it just means we know who the author is and who is taking responsibility for the information.

Academic OneFile - 40,632,752, General OneFile - 99,812,347  Educators 7,885,112.  All three of the databases have a variety of resources written at a higher reading level.  All three include common resources along with professional journals and magazines written for specific fields.  General One File has over twice as many articles as Academic and Educators Resource has even less than Academic.  All three let you search for full text, images and peer reviewed articles, something that is useful for higher level research.  All three are updated daily.  There are many areas that overlap but not all and I would recommend searching all three for topics.

All the databases I looked at were easy to search, very similar to the search engines that students use. They also have advanced search options and search history, the ability to mark and retrieve articles.  They also have features to send the articles as email, print, download, and save as mp3. You can also have the articles translated.

Citation - 1

I recommend using the citation tools, when ever available (not all databases have the citation too.)  I use MLA 7 which means the URL is optional.  With my students I tell them that since I need to log into the database to get back to the article, the URL is optional.  

Ault, Alicia. "Smoking Rates in Teens Show a Leveling Off." Pediatric News 44.10 (2010): 31. General OneFile. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

Citation - 2

Spasov, Peter B., Jason Apple, Champ Davis, Christoper Page, and Melissa Harcom. "Dealmakers' Almanac; Market Observers Break Out Their Crystal Balls to Forecast What the New Year Will Bring." Mergers & Acquisitions: The Dealmaker's Journal1 Dec. 2010: 42. General One File. Web. 5 Dec. 2010.

No matter which tools you use I tell students they still need to edit for capitals and remember that garbage in means garbage out.  You still need to know which information to enter where and what needs to be entered.  The tools are definitely helpful and make citations for teachers and students easier.  

Just for fun

Thing #16

1. LearnPort has some interesting options and lots of classes to investigate.  Some are short little tutorials.  I was hoping to finds some on Office 2010 products but I didn't find any that new so I will have to check back.  I can see that they are trying to develop online professional development tools to fit the future teacher requirements.

2. Twitter, Facebook and other social sites can make staying updated on activities and information easy.  Both are easy to use and can be used to stay up to date and communicate with personal friends, families and groups.  The trick both in our personal lives and in our professional lives is to be aware of what we are posting, remembering that once posted we lose control over the item and it is no longer private.  We also have to remember the whole audience, mixing students, parents and personal items leave opportunities for inappropriate items becoming visible to the wrong group and for items to be taken out of context.  The tools show promise for communication if set up carefully.

 Using twitter or online sites to alert students and parents to due dates, activities, and important information could be an effective tool but only if everyone participates, if not everyone participates then it becomes one more responsibility for the teacher. Right now our teachers are required to keep their homework updated on the school access website but they also need to keep notes in other places too, they may be required to e-mail parents but since not all parents have signed up for e-mail they need to follow up in other ways too.  If we could use one tool for everyone this would be helpful, adding another tool that just adds one more task is not a benefit at this time.

Many of the tools could be used for publishing class projects and give students the opportunity to be publishers and share their skills, knowledge, presentations.

3. I did create an account in MaculSpace and am waiting to hear back on my account.  In the mean time I was checking out other resources, some of it reminds me of a list serve, a place where professionals and share ideas and information.  Then there are the links to videos of interest on the topics.  I notice a lot of resources that can be useful - one way to stay up on technology when I'm done with this class.  (Which is really going to take me a long time because I haven't really had a chance to check out all of the resources listed - and Ron keeps showing us more.)

4.  Professional organization:  I’m a member of MAME Michigan Association of Media Educators,  it cost me $50 a year.  The purpose is to help support media specialist and library staff in Michigan to encourage professional growth and to promote libraries.  The group offers online information, conferences and workshops.  I get to participate in an online professional list serve where we share information and find support.   The web site also has a host of useful information.  I contribute my technical skills, share lesson plans, and discuss ideas to support other library staff across the state.  Together we help keep each other updated, find information and tools and create a professional network.  In the past I have participated in local and state committees and volunteered at our state conferences.  Which reminds me, it is that time of year to renew my membership, better get my check in the mail.  There are so few of us left, they might actually notice one less member.

Thing 15

This assignment is a freebee for me.  I've been using Zamzar for years.  It has made me a hero to many staff and students.  As the media specialist this website has saved hours of work, tears from teachers and students and made my day.  Because it is web based I can get to it from any computer, I can have students upload their documents and have them emailed back to themselves or to me.  Considering all the possible versions of documents that students can have and that get emailed to us this is a great tool.

MediaConvert is a new one and easy to use and I'm sure it is going to save me time.  I work with students video projects frequently and with all the cameras that students use converting their files has been a chore.  I have my personal laptop set up to convert files but if I don't have my computer at school I can't help the students.  This web site will help at school and I can share it with students for their use too.  I didn notice that for text if converts to multiple file formats including: pdf, open office, pocketword, wordperfect, starwriter but it is missing Works, a format students often have at home.

Google Calendar is one of my favorites, I use it for work.  I have my library schedule posted on my website for students and staff to see: http://www.rockfordschools.org/staff/bluntk/library%20info.htm .  It helps me stay organized and lets students and staff know what is going on.  They can check the schedule from home or school.  I also use Google calendar as my personal calendar and my adult daughters do to, so we share calendars.  Using google I can have all of the calendars; my school calendar, my personal calendar and my kid's calendars visible on one color coded calendar.  If I used the Outlook calendar at school, I would not be able to blend all of my calendars as well and have them come up on my Mac, school computer and I-pod as easily. 

Capstone for Things 8-14

Reflection on things 8-14.

The resources presented for 8-14 have been very helpful and the additional links provided are helping me to build a library of resources for current and future projects.  The activities have been helpful but I have also spent as much time just checking out the wealth of resources provided.

The review and discussion sites on copyright are always useful, there are so many different interpretations and situations that arise in schools.  Many of the resources will be useful as questions come up at school.  Learning about CC and learning how to use it made me more aware of making myself become a participant in the process which will help me learn and understand the system more.  Since I find modeling to be one of the best ways to entice students and teachers to learn new skills, my learning to use one and using it makes it a lesson in waiting.  Many of these tools will help us meet the needs of our learners and cover the Marzano Strategies for Nonlinguestic representation, Cues, Questions and Advanced Organizers
and many of the NETS-T: 1.a, 1.b, 1.c, 2.a, 2.c, 2.d, 3.a, 3.c, 3.d.

Summary of  9, 10, 11, 13 & 14

Tools for photo editing, digital storytelling, interactive tools, video and audio resources and unique presentation tools like Prezi  support our diverse learners, giving us more ways to learn and teach. The wealth of online interactive tools and resources are useful for teachers and students and finding online tools for the students to use at school and at home will be useful for many of our projects.  Locating sources for copyright / royalty free resources is helpful, the more resources available the easier it is to get students and staff to use images without violating the creators’ rights.   Digital storytelling and different presentation tools will help us create engaging and meaningful lessons. Having a wealth of visual resources can make our lessons and student activities more interesting.

Thing 12 – Evaluation and Assessment: Learning to use data to evaluate our students and ourselves is a requirement in today’s classroom.  Using data to evaluate our teaching activities and lessons can help us improve our teaching and increase our students’ success rate. NETS-T: 2.a, 2.d, 3.a, 3.d

and Marzano Strategies: Reinforce Effort and Provide Recognition; Objectives and Feedback

I will be incorporating more use of copyright and creative commons in the lessons I do with student where we add visuals, these lessons include our mythblogs and our advertising websites.  I will also be encouraging the students to use picnik to edit photos to fit their needs instead of just copying and pasting.  I will also use these tools when working with our Stress Management class when they do their personal introductions using Windows Live Movie Maker to add audio to a collection of pictures and images of their class partner.  We will use movie maker instead of photo story or animoto because those programs are blocked for students.

Thing 14

While I had heard about the different online video sources such as Teacher Tube it has been awhile since I checked out these sites and I hadn't looked at ITunesU before.  I plan to look through these resources more and find topics to recommend to the teachers I work with.  I also plan to add these resources to a library web page.

We have access to Discovery Learning at Rockford.  Discovery Learning has several useful features for teachers and students.  Many of the videos can be used as short clips allowing for a quick visual presentation on a topic.  The service also has full length videos searchable by topic, grade level and standard.  The library, classroom features, and management tools are useful for the advanced users.

There are also audio clips that can be used to support topics and presentations.

The audio and video files help present information for the visual learners, the visual resources give us one more tool as teachers to present information to students allowing us more flexibility to support different learning styles.

Discovery Learning also allows students to view clips, so teachers can list clips as additional ways for students to get help and support on topics covered in the classrooms. 

Discovery Learning also has many audio and visual clips that are licensed for re-use in presentations and can be edited.  This added feature gives students and teachers the ability to manipulate the resource to fit their needs.

Thing 13

Quizlet is useful for the tools that are already there and for the cards you can create.  I like the fact that students can share and compete with each other and once you create the cards there are more activities that you can do with the same set.  This would be good for individual students but also for students to divide a class topic and create multiple sets for different lessons.  I plan to use this with my grandsons, to show to our language, health, and science teachers and to share with individual students.  I'm going to add a link on my library web page under useful resources.

Thing 12

I love Google survey tool.  It is useful for a quick review, surveys, and to collect input on a variety of topics.  I really like the survey summary report. 

Rubistar

Rubistar makes it easy to create a grade rubric. I  also like viewing other rubrics.  When I start a project I sometimes use other rubrics to help me focus on the topics I want to cover and the wording.  By viewing other rubrics it is like viewing your rough draft and making improvements before you even get started.

Rubrics not only help me focus on what I’m grading but help students to see what the main focus points of the assignment are.  Rubrics answer the students’ questions “what do I have to do, include etc.”  I good rubric will clearly show what is expected of the student. 

I will use this rubric to grade an introductory lesson on citations.  I want the students to be aware of the MLA citation format, formatting their document, and layout. 

Data tools allow short term tracking such as tracking your students during your class on class goals as well as long term tracking using standardized state test.  Teachers can track how students do on topics and adjust lesson plans and activities to improve student performance.  


I understand the basics of FERPA/HIPAA rules but I'm not sure how to reflect on the rules.  We do need to be careful what we share and make public and the rules are explained well enough that we can follow them if we just make sure we check what we are doing before posting/sharing/publishing information.  I would also think that the data systems we choose to use would have to be secure and enable us to follow the  rules.  If a data system doesn't have security in place to prohibit unauthorized access and different levels of access then a school system shouldn't be using it.

Thing - 11

I did not add a creative commons license because this is for face to face use only. 

I don’t want to make my prezi public because I feel very comfortable with my images in a one on one classroom setting, I’m not comfortable publishing the book images online.

http://prezi.com/invitation_to_collaborate/c9bde069493aa914ba9314652d789f5e5c34a3e4/

Prezi  is a nice alternative to PowerPoint, it is less linear than PowerPoint and allows creative layouts.  Prezi has fewer options than PP, lack of control of colors, limited backgrounds and I didn’t find a spell check, all drawbacks in some ways but bonuses in some ways.  The lack of options can be a benefit because students will need to focus on content and material.  The non-linear approach has some definite advantages for some projects, the paths allows for some different approaches to projects and allows for different learning methods and visual tools.  The program is dependent on an Internet connection, a drawback but it being online also means students have access to their file from home and school

The path tool will help show the relationships between topics and is great for having details off the main ideas.  Easy to create visual outlines of topics. This would be good tool for personal introduction projects, historical reports on explorers and even current events.  Even useful for reports from school committees, I could see each group being a branch, then adding their results. 

Zoomit

I can see using Zoomit for presentation when you want to focus on one section of your screen, I can also see it being helpful for visually impaired learners.  I'm running Windows 7 on my computer and Zoomit did not work so well, it was difficult to get it to toggle on and I wasn't always able to escape using the esc key. I really would find a tool like this useful so I may look for a newer version or a similar program.

Thing - 10

I spent some time trying to think of a story idea, I can think of lots of potential ideas for classroom use, book reports, historical summaries, personal interviews, and classroom introductions, but for myself I couldn't think of the perfect one for today.  Too many ideas and too much fun using the programs.  The organizers and the digital story are great tools to support a variety of learning styles and incorporate technology into the classroom.
 I finally settled on a sample book review, I'm not real happy with the outcome and as one of my reviewers noted my voice lacked enthusiasm.  Also noted by my reviewer and myself the review is too brief and I jump quickly to the conclusion. 

Here is the image of the story board, I liked using the organizer. 



I wanted to try Voice Thread but as far as I can tell, there isn't a free service.  I decided to download and use PhotoStory since I hadn't used it before.  The program is easy to use and has all the features and steps built in to make it user friendly.  The program itself is easy, finding the right images to use for the project took the longest time and is where I  ultimately cut back on my requirements due to a time constraint.   Depending on student projects I expect that finding the images and music would take more time than any other part of the process.  While Photo Story was easy to use Windows Live Movie Maker and I-Movie have more features and are fairly easy to use too.  I haven't tried PhotoPeach yet, but plan to just to compare the programs.
The Weebly website that I set up for the earlier activity does not allow posting of video on the free version so I'm including my video here.

Thing 9

I used FotoFlexer for editing because I had never used this one before.  Very cool and addicting.

I uploaded a photo from a trip and started using the tools.  Very user friendly, I didn't have to download anything and I didn't have to sign up for an account, all very important if I want to use this with students or teachers at school.  I can see lots of uses for this program at school, editing pictures for presentations, creating posters as projects on different topics, creating visual flash cards and images for studying.  I used a lot of the tools for editing and got a bit carried away, in the end I started over and used just a few tools for  my sample.  I was able to add text to the image, then I also used the poster tool which gave me more places to add text.  I added an animation in one corner and then added a screen shot of a google map of the location where the image was shot.  With the variety of tools I can see all sorts of uses, you can even save them as animated Gifs, great for presentations and web pages. 

Here is what I started with:

Here is my poster:

I decided to check out Picasa since I already use Flickr for my personal photos.  I think it great that it will use my existing blogger/gmail account and it already has my blog images in a separate album.  I like the controls on who can see the images and the ability to just share using a link: http://picasaweb.google.com/bluntkimberly/Trip?authkey=Gv1sRgCOXu3N-pq6WhzAE&feat=directlink

So then I had to try the slideshow feature:


I may have used this before but don't remember liking the features this well.  I can see students and teachers using this as an easy presentation tool for images.

Thing 8

Most my students don't know what copyright is, those that do are confused by it.  Asked about what is copyrighted on the Internet, very few students knew that everything is considered copyrighted. Since most teachers don't require students to site or credit the images the students use in projects, students assume that all images are free to use. When asked who should be credited for the images found through a Google image search, most said Google.   Most students felt that if they could download music from the Internet, they could use it and didn't need to have legally acquired it.  After reading and listening to many of the resources on copyright, I have to say I'm just as confused as before and most of my students are too.  I tend to error on the side of caution, the students tend to lean towards everything is "fair game."  I intend to continue to read about the topic, encourage teachers and students to be respectful of others' creative property, continue to promote use of creative commons sources, and give credit to sources that we do use.

Thing 7 - capstone

I'm inserting a link my capstone paper for Things 1-7. 

Thing 7

I already have a web presence and have for over 10 years.  I couldn't function without my pages.  My lessons are usually organized on a web page. In a sense my library is open 24 hours a day with my webpage.  When I work with teachers on projects I add their handouts along with mine on the web pages. If there is a grad rubric for a project I post that to the web page.  It allows my students access all the time, no more lost papers, no more I can't remember what you said or I couldn't find the directions.   I have links to the library catalog, library procedures, and library resources on my pages.

  I have been using Dreamweaver as my web page program and I still like the program but I'm considering moving my page because I can no longer access the web page server to update my webpage from home.  The other draw back with the current set up at school is that the web page doesn't update immediately when I make changes (it used to.)  In the past I was able to make updates, fix links and add links as students found resources, these are important for my lessons so I'm looking for a new "space."  After looking at the lessons and checking out the resources I thought it would be nice to try Weebly.  At first I had a riot with it, I edited a template to my colors and uploaded a picture of my library for my own template..great I thought.

Next I started to add pages.  The layouts are easy to use but lack the control I want.  Adding links, which is something I do a lot of in the library, is tedious.  Adding the links appears easy but the links don't always take to the text that you want to link to and there are too many steps to get it to link to a web page.  I ran out of patience.  On top of those issues are the pop ups that offer to sell you a domain name or buy premium features.

http://rfclibrary.weebly.com/

Thing 6

WEB SITE EVALUATION
Buy an Ancestor   http://www.fulkerson.org/ancestors/buyanancestor.html

The site claims to be selling family tree/ancestors but there is  no  real content available at this website. The ads on the right side are made up and have no links. The humorous and sarcastic text on the page are a big clue about the purpose of the site. The town listed as the location no longer exists.  No author is listed and the “about” link doesn’t take you to any other information. The website company is named Losing Proposition Company copy right through   2012.  The multiple colors used on the text,  poor layout and icons for other companies that don’t actually link to anything are more clues and just in case the website doesn’t give you enough clues the link to the site reviews will make it clear. 

Killer Tornado http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/Conference_papers/SELS96/WoO.html

This one was fun to look at, at first glance it is merely a word document, a report posted online.  Clicking on one of the author’s names at the top, takes you to Harold E. Brooks, who does work for the government doing weather research.  But a quick look at the name of the website that comes up at the address shows you that they named the site “Dorothy & Toto” and the web address is posted at an educational server but it is a personal page, note the ~ in the link.  Reading the text of the document you find that it doesn’t really contain any useful information and then when you click on the images that are included you start to get the serious clues that they footage that Metro-Golwyn-Mayer provided them with is refereeing to one of my favorite childhood movies “The Wizard of Oz.”

LESSON PLANS FOR DIGITAL BEHAVIORS

1.        I plan to create a presentation about the basic rules of Netiquette.  This presentation will be designed to quickly review online behaviors and will be used with the classes when we first start working on our blogs or working with our students in a listserve. 

Basic Rules for students:

·         If you wouldn’t say it to their face don’t say it online

·         Pay attention to where you are and what the expectations are

·         Remember everything online can be traced back to you, be careful what you say and how you say it

·         Careful what pictures and information you share online

·         Be careful about what you share about other peoplr

·         Other students and people will be viewing your material, remember to do your best

2.        I already do a presentation with the students on digital issues, it started years ago as Internet Safety but the presentation changes as the students’  use and technology changes.  I will be updating the section on Cyber bulling using the video at: http://www.digizen.org/cyberbullying/fullFilm.aspx and updating statistics using the report from i-SAFE America Surveys from 2003-2005.

I will also be updating the section of the presentation on digital behaviors to discuss even more of what students are doing with their cell phones, using information on applications that track us such as Foursquare and sites like Mocospace.  I will also be using a clip I came across while working on this class at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGkaw44-Ql4 that shows how we lose control when we forward and share personal images with cell phones, not  just online.





Thing 5 -

Differnetiated Learning - Many of the key elements in the guide for differentiation are already incorporated into most of the activities that we do in the media center at varying levels.  The teachers I work with and myself are always trying to improve the lessons and increase student involvement and choices, some topics are easier to do this with than others.  We use a variety of methods to introduce and explain topics, our lessons are align with our learning goals, we group students differently for different activities and try to allow choice whenever possible.  We spend time explain key concepts as class and to individuals, we encourage students to explain to each other and offer different views and ideas. We assess and adjust assignments while we are working on them, offering more directions or clarifying if needed and changing end products when that is needed. 
I would list the following as commonly used elements that we continue to try to improve on:

·         Several elements and materials are used to support instructional content.

·         Align tasks and objectives to learning goals.

·         Instruction is concept-focused and principle-driven.

·         Flexible grouping is consistently used.

·         Clarify key concepts and generalizations.

·         Initial and on-going assessment of student readiness and growth are essential.

·         Vary expectations and requirements for student responses.

Some key elements are often incorporated are but are more difficult to include, activities that  would make these more common have been eliminated due to time constraint on trimesters.  Often time I feel we have cut out the activities that would allow students to evaluate themselves and take time to learn skills from the activity and not just the required information.  Getting students to take an active role in their education and engaging students in all the lessons can be difficult on a time line.  Adapting ways to quickly include these in lessons is an ongoing goal.

·         Use assessment as a teaching tool to extend rather than merely measure instruction.

·         Emphasize critical and creative thinking as a goal in lesson design.

·         Students are active and responsible explorers.

Diverse Learning - Several sections highlight ideas that can easily be used with any student to improve the students’ experience.  Improving digital text and the audio sections suggest ways for students with visual and learning disabilities to easily use technology.  Simple steps such as making the text larger, the ability to highlight, and text to voice help reading and writing.  The webpages with links to digital books, audio books, and tools for enhancing text .  The great thing is that these tools can be used to help any of our learners not just students that qualify for the extra help.  These tools can help be shown to students as resources, simply showing a class how to enlarge the text on a webpage or digital document will help many of our visually impaired students quickly without singling them out.  Teaching students to highlight text will benefit all of our students.  Audio books work for struggling readers, visually impaired, and English as a second language.  

UDL - NetTrekker

Nettrekker makes it easy to find reviewed resources that include summaries and reading levels so that I can sort through and find the most appropriate sources quickly.  I like being able to see a reading level.   When I put sources together for students, I like to include a variety of sources to make sure I cover the information the students need and have the information in a format that they can use.  I like to include different reading levels and visual tools.

I wish I could have students log in to Nettrekker so they could use it to search and so that they could use the Read Aloud tool. 

Text-to-Audio Conversion Assignment

 Very Cool.  I think I will start including a link to this tool on all of my web pages.  I post my notes and handouts on the webpages with the resources for projects.  If I had a link to Vozme, students will be able to highlight and have directions read to them and have sections of the webpages read.  While we always go over directions as a class, many students need to review the directions as they are working, this could help many of the students that need extra help and time to understand the directions.  By putting a link on my library pages students could also have easy access to the webpage for other assignments.  Many students need to “chunk” the directions, this would enable them to do that without asking for the directions to be read again.  I also like the idea that the file could be saved.  This does give me the idea though that maybe I should include an audio of the directions right on the webpage to begin with.

Thing 4 Thinkfinity

Hero’s Journey is an online writing activity, that walks students through the character development of a Greek Hero.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/hero-journey-30069.html

This will work well with our English classes to incorporate writing into their study of the Greek  literature.  The writing process in this activity will help students understand the characteristics of a Greek hero and could even be used to create a modern day epic.  Since our classes are on trimesters this interactive, quick write activity will be prefect as an introduction to the section or a review of the section.

Twenty-First Century Informational Literacy: Integrating Research Techniques and Technology - Works to improve and develop student's research skills and integrates technology in the research and in the presentation.  Students create graphic novels instead of writen or oral reports.

http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/twenty-first-century-informational-30581.html?tab=4#tabs

This research project is set up for the student to present their information in graphic novel format.  I like this project for several reasons.  One, the research steps are well organized, two students will find it hard to plagiarize and most of the students will enjoy the new format.  This activity allows students to use technology for the research but to also present the information in a creative way.  Activities like this improve technology skills while building research skills.  One problem I see in my district is coming up with the program or software to create the graphic novel.

Thing 3 - Skype

Okay so not my best picture, there is a good reason to turn off the camera at times.  My daughter and I both have new computers and  we are still playing with our settings so setting up skype on the new computers and making sure the cameras and mics work was good for both of us. 

Skype has a lot of potential for classrooms.  Skype is a great way for classes to communicate with experts in different fields.   Skype could also be used to keep traveling students updated on classwork and traveling students to share their tri. Why not have a student in class keep the traveling student updated or how about homebound and students sick at home.  Skype field trips could be used for a lot of different activities from geography, history, and social studies.  We could connect with community members and get updates on local issues and activities, students could discuss a variety of topics on local politics.  Skype in with our political leaders, business leaders, or colleges to let students get actively involved, without leaving the classroom.

Thing 2 - Collaboration

Google templates has a variety of documents that I can save to my folder then edit to fit my needs.  This saves me time two ways.  First there are some ideas and formats of ways to use Gooogle Docs that I hadn’t thought of and second I can save time by using a document close to my needs and only make a few adjustments.  Google docs is a resource for materials and ideas for students and myself.

I love working with others on Google Docs, it is a great way to work on documents together, proof read for each other and to just plain share documents in a format that can easily be adjusted to fit individual needs.

I'm checking out Buzzword too and plan do see how it handles adding screen shots and notes.  Google docs doesn't work well for me on larger documents where I have a lot of screenshots added.  I would really like to be able to share my handouts with images with my teams so that we can make corrections as a team.  More of this as I work with it this week at school (assuming I'm not blocked.)

Thing 1- Delicious

Here's my link to Delicious http://www.delicious.com/kblunt

I've used Delicious before so for this assignment I looked up my log in and password information and started looking at this application again.  I promised myself I would use this app during this class - problem all my computers are set up for Diigo from my tool bar, so every time I turn around I've add something new to my Diigo account instead.  So first step, set myself up for Delicious, second step hide Diigo for this project.  I do like the way Delicious let you see how many other people find the source useful. The comments that other people add can be very helpful for evaluating the websites.

Whether it’s Diigo or Delicious both save me time and headaches for organizing bookmarks so that I can have access from any computer.  At school I use two different computers and may be on someone else’s computer to help them.  At home I have three available to me. Online bookmaking is a stress reduction tool.  Tagging is great for looking for sites that I haven’t used in a while or heard about and didn’t use right away.  Without tagging I wouldn’t be able to find my online treasures as quickly.

Added note:  After using Delicious for a few days I'm going back to Diigo, I like Diigo because I can add highlights to the web pages, the highlights show up in my bookmarks and on the webpage when I go back to view it.  I'll use Delicious to look for and sort through websites but I'm sticking with Diigo for most of my use.