Student as Creator

During the 2013-2014 school year I created a weebly.com site that used- it has several different projects and assignments that students were required to complete... along with all of my resources to teach the course, so I will be pulling some of these assignments from that site. If anyone is interested in visiting that site the URL is: www.mrscdeck.weebly.com

Student #1:
http://storybird.com/books/declaration-of-independence-14/?token=5v7g5c9865

8th grade: This project was also included in my UDL lesson plans. The students were given 12 excerpts from the Declaration of Independence in which the students were to translate these very complex excerpts into everyday terms. In addition to their decoding, the students were asked to take it a step further and create a storybook appropriate for a 3rd grader about the Declaration of Independence. I learned a lot from this assignment! I used www.storybird.com for the students to create their online books. I should have required the students to make their excerpts into an actual story rather than just putting their excerpts on a page and calling it a day- because this example doesn't really explain much. I used this example, even though it wasn't my strongest because I learned how to re-shape my lesson for the future using technology to enrich the assignment. However, my finished project may have not turned out perfectly, because the students and I worked together on decoding the Declaration of Independence and creating something from that, the students were more enthusiastic about the Declaration.

Student #2
https://www.smore.com/qhcf-shintoism?ref=email

7th grade: This assignment was given as an introduction to major religions in Southern and Eastern Asia. Students were allowed to choose from: Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, Confucianism, and Hinduism. They completed a short web quest in which they were to create a www.smore.com about their religion. Once they completed the web quest and created a project, I posted the best assignments to my website in which the students used their peers projects to complete a chart about all of the religions. This assignment worked really well as a introduction to this confusing (to a 7th grader) and interesting world religions.

Student #3
http://big-man-site.weebly.com/delta-airlines.html

8th grade: So I thought of this great assignment where I would have the students develop their own weebly for Georgia Studies. This student began the process of doing so. The assignment shown here was a research project about Georgia Entrepreneurs, so he researched the company Delta Airlines. If you click on his links at the top, he does have some other assignments linked to this page. Due to internet issues and password issues, I did not quite follow through with this huge project. The idea also came to me during 2nd semester, so many of the students had forgotten where their assignments were and unable to upload them to the weebly. However, weebly is a kid-friendly site where the students could make online portfolios for their courses. That was the original intent... which would have  a great resource for the students.

Many of these ideas were my first attempts at implementing this into my content, so I learned several lessons which has allowed me to reflect on the specifics of many assignments.

Evaluating Students

This is my collection of surveys, questionnaires, and instruments that I will be able to use in the future when evaluating my students. 

1. One resource that I found and have used in the past with students is the Myers Briggs Personality test. I used this in my psychology class, but it would be a good way of students introducing themselves to you. 

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

2. Also while teaching psychology I have given IQ tests and I explained what the scores meant, which was really interesting and the students seemed very motivated to achieve a high school. This would be another way to get to know and evaluate students. 

http://www.iq-test.cc

3. When getting to know students, learning style is always a hot topic of discussion. This learning styles inventory would be a good resource. 

http://www.educationplanner.org/students/self-assessments/learning-styles.shtml

4. In the state of Georgia, the students are given surveys under TKES in order to evaluate their teachers learning styles. This would be considered a student perception survey which would provide vital feedback to teachers. 

5. In the past I have used student interest surveys to learn about each one of my student's likes and dislikes. This is just a sample of a few of the questions: 

                           INTEREST SURVEY

1. What kind of books do you like to read?

2. What types of TV programs do you prefer? Why?

3. What is your favorite activity or subject at school? Your least favorite? Why?

          4. What is your first choice about what to do when you have free time at home?

5. What kinds of things have you collected? What do you do with the things you collect?

ITEC 8231

Hello everyone!

This is a previous blog site that I used during my MEd. and I thought it would be awesome if I added to it for ITEC 8231.

Please disregard all activities previous to this post as they were used for the University of West Alabama! :)

Week 7: Top 10 Tech Tools I Can’t Live Without

After taking this course (ED 505) there are some resources I can not live without:

My Top 10 List:
1. Prezi (awesome)
2. Animoto (another awesome site)
3. Glogster
4. Voki
5. Microsoft Office (publisher, etc.)
6. Blogspot
7. Bubbl.us (great way to make one of the Thinking Maps)
8. Fakebook (best to download onto a powerpoint slide and allow students to edit)
9. Tik-a-Tok (the only reason it's my #9- it's closing October 5th, so disappointed)
10. Wiki spaces

I have tried some of this technology in the classroom, and if you haven't already, do so! The kids love it!

Week 6: Apps for Education

One of my favorite apps that I use daily, which does not pertain to my content area is "class dojo". Class dojo is an online behavior management program which allows you to give your students rewards for positive and negative behaviors. I love this app because whenever I carry my IPad, I can quickly reward positive or negative behavior in the lunchroom, the hallway, etc. The percentage of positives and negatives are linked to my rewards for my classroom. Each class receives a percentage, therefore if they reach 80% positive, the students then receive some type of classroom reward.

Another app that I use a lot on my IPad is the "This Day in History". Many of the times when I am teaching I will use this app as an introduction to whatever it is that I am teaching or if I have already taught something that happened on a specific day, this is a great way to spiral back and review old material and spark a class discussion.

Since I teach 2 Georgia History classes during the day one interesting app we use in the classroom is "GA Markers" which will provide famous Georgia Historical Markers throughout the state. This was a great app to reference when I wanted my students to create their own historical markers about the significant people from Georgia during the American Revolution (Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, George Walton, Nancy Hart, etc.. ).

I also teach 4 World History classes a day, which can becoming challenging especially when talking about various battles, wars, etc. I enjoy the "History Maps" app which allows me to access map of various battles throughout world history.

Other apps I use for education constantly is "Power Teacher" this is the system our school uses for our gradebooks. This is so easy to grab my IPad and head into a parent conference using this app. I also enjoy "Pick Me" this allows me to select my students at random and give a thumbs up or thumbs down, similar to a formative assessment app. I also use One Note (yes, the Microsoft program) to create lesson plans online. I share my lesson plans with my principal using a SkyDrive, in which she can access my lesson plans at anytime if she has internet access. I carry the One Note app on my IPad and IPhone so I am constantly in touch with my lesson plans. (One Note is a notebook application).

Let me know if you have any questions or are interesting in viewing my OneNote notebooks, I can share with you too via Skydrive! :)

Week 5: Good Digital Citzenship

In today's society it has become important to be a good digital citizen because of all the mishaps that can occur if you aren't aware of specific issues. This week at UWA, we as students had to investigate the variety of mishaps that occur using the internet and protecting yourself against malicious internet predators. One of the most common issues that I personally deal with on a regular basis is cyberbullying and cyberstalking. I am sure every teacher in the USA is familiar today with the issues that can occur on the internet, that students bring to school with them. If our students used proper etiquette rules, it would elevate some of their issues. I think that today as educators it is important for us to have our students become familiar with the proper etiquette for using the internet, social media sites, and become aware of the dangers of the internet.

I know that I personally will not respond to emails that I do not know, or open attachments from those certain sites. Identity theft is something that triggers fear in most people, but if you are familiar with all of the ways that your identity can be stolen, you can take necessary precautions. However, the precautions don't always ensure it won't happen to you.

Personally, I think it is best to be a good digital citizen and maintain a good reputation because I don't want anyone maliciously hacking into accounts or posting inappropriate information about me on the internet. I always believe, "what goes around, comes around" and I don't do it to others, so I don't want someone to turn around and do it to me. Plus, being an educator, you must protect yourself. Educators are held to a very high moral standard, and should always been seen in the highest respects. We have all heard of the teachers who post inappropriate pictures on their facebook or make inappropriate "tweets," and the excuse it that we are normal people too. Yes, we are normal people too, but to a certain extent. We are public figures, not just educators-- unfortunately. Student's don't want their teachers to be "normal people." We must maintain that distinction between ourselves and our students. This was a struggle for me when I started teaching because I was only 24, so I wanted to keep an active social life and my facebook... but you hear too many instances when teachers not held in the highest regards. I know, "Teaching is what I do, not who I am"-- but it really is who I am. I live for my students. I am there for the needs of my students and it is hard enough to earn respect. Once you've got your students respect, it's best to keep it, even if it means making personal sacrifices.

You can check out my Prezi using the following link. This was my assignment I created for "Good Digital Citizenship".

Week 4: Material Generators

There are several types of material generators. There are some material generators that I am familiar with, while there are others I am not so familiar with. Material generators are basically software programs that you can use to have assignments/rubrics/tests created for you. For example, "desktop publishing software, test generators, rubric generators, worksheet and puzzle generators, IEP generators, graphic document makers, and PDF form makers" are material generators (Roblyer & Doering, 2007).

I have experience with certain material generators. I have used Microsoft Publisher within my classroom to have students create newsletters or editorials on specific subjects, this is one of my project for 7th grade students on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I have also used Microsoft Publisher to create Parent Newsletters for Open House so I am able to introduce myself to each of my parents since Open House can be a hectic time for parents.

 I have experience with a program called Rubistar. I became familiar with rubistar while I was in college working on my undergrad. I thought this was an easy software because it was quick and simple and generated the rubric for you. If you would like to check it out for yourself, it is a quick way to create rubrics easily for various assignments.
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/

I also have experience with graphic organizer generators. My school has really bought into the idea of "Thinking Maps" for anyone who is familiar and with the training comes software to develop the various types of thinking maps to create them for the needs of the students. This software is expensive and useful, and I myself have made templates using the software to teach students how to use thinking maps.

Some generators are extremely worth while, I am looking forward to reading everyone elses' blogs this week to see if I can gain more resources for material generators!