ICP Reflection

I am pleased to have completed the final project about Combining Technology with the 6 C's. I felt my presentation was well organized and had appropriate structure. I opened the presentation by tapping into the classes’ prior knowledge about motivation and built on that by trying to have the students identify the 6 C’s of motivation. I developed the project by identifying the 6 C’s and discussing how connecting content to technology could be a 7th C. The students had to use the information provided and provide examples of activities they do in the classroom that used at least one of the C’s. These activities promoted interaction and active participation. If there had been more sufficient time I would have broken the class into groups and had them complete the activity together, forcing more accountability then just a few students responding. I wrapped it up with any questions and comments. I stayed within the allotted time and tried to avoid “death by PowerPoint” as I used limited text on slides and incorporated sound and relevant images.

Bon au revoir

Goodbye to the class, but not to what we have learned. I appreciate having Monday evenings free now, but I take away a great deal of knowledge. I graduated from NYIT with a masters in Instructional Technology in May 2006 and took inservices to stay up to date with technology, so I always felt rather tech savvy. This class made me aware of how fast the digital world is changing and how many new tools are available that I did not know how to use and didn't know even existed. I was very overwhelmed in the beginning and gradually became more comfortable with Web 2.0 tools, a term I had never even heard of. I appreciate that technology has shifted to becoming more interactive and collaborative.

I was exposed to so many new applications: blogs, wikis, podcasts, gliffy, slideshare, slideboom, sliderocket, social networks, photo sharing, twitter, moodle, wizig, elluminate, etc. This is the first time I have ever had a blog and certainly never considered using blogging in my classroom. I like that blogging can enhance classroom collaboration and communication and give students more purpose to their writing as peers have the availability to read and comment on entries. I love being able to upload PPT presentations to the web using slideboom or slideshare to access them from any Internet source and to easily share with colleagues. I particularly liked creating the digital story and I see great value in having my students create one. I think Movie Make is a powerful tool that allows students to be creative and motivates them as they write about something relative to them and for a wider audience. It is also a practical and meaningful way to learn new technology. I apprectiate being updated and brought into the world of Web 2.0 and look forward to using many of the new tools with my students.

Facts about Digital Storytelling

Facts of Digital Storytelling

• Use of computer-based tools to tell stories
• Centered around one theme
  
• Enables students to be creative
• Improves technology skills

Cooperative and Collaborative Learning

I had always thought cooperative learning and collaborative learning were homophones, but have since learned that they are two dimensions of the same thing. They have these five similar elements and are beneficial to students because it:

• has children learn to work with all types of people
• exposes students to differences and similarities
• builds social skills such as listening skills and how to give and appropriately respond to constructive feedback
• has students actively involved in learning
• allows for more personal feedback since students have the opportunity to make more exchanges in a small group

These elements are valuable skills for students to obtain to meet success inside and outside of the classroom. The only drawbacks to collaborative and cooperative learning are student’s conflict can interfere with learning and in mixed ability groups stronger students are often left to teach weaker students, which can be burdensome. This can be a bit burdensome, but I also see teaching peers as valuable be because the best way to learn something is to be able to teach it.

I since learned that collaborative learning is more open ended and complex as students team to explore a question or create a meaningful project. As they work towards their goal there is an equal distribution of the work and everyone contributes so everyone grows and matures. The students particularly grow as they receive feedback from their peers. Cooperative learning is more structured and teacher driven as the students have specific roles and are individually accountable for their part of the task. Cooperative learning prepares students for collaboration as they learn how to complete a task and how to contribute to a group.

Grading made as easy as 1, 2, 3

There were several things I liked about Engrade.com. First, it is free, which allows all teachers to use it despite their district’s economic condition. The self explanatory tool is an easy and efficient way to manage grades, assignments and attendance. It only took me minutes to set up my class and it would save teachers time since they would not have to manually calculate student averages. I was pleased that I was able to quickly enter grades into the program by being able to use the up and down arrows to go between students opposed to reaching and clicking the mouse each time.

Another benefit is that it is an online program so teachers have the availability to enter grades from home or school. Also with this system parents and students can view grades and upcoming assignments online with individual access codes. This would enable them to monitor a student’s progress and be informed about upcoming assignment. A disadvantage to this is teachers have to stay on top of their grading and update the system assignments regularly, which could become burdensome. Also parents and students could not benefit from this tool if they did not have internet access readily available.

A drawback to this program is teachers have to manually input an identification number for each student and if you change a student's number after entering assignment scores, the student's grade will be reset and you will have to re-enter each score. Also it would be helpful if you could sort students by grade for a specific assignment and not just by overall average, ID number and name. This would enable feedback at a glance of how students performed on a specific skill and alert the teacher which students needed remediation.

I always wanted to be a film producer

Crossword puzzle fun

Plants Crossword Puzzle: Puzzlemaker

This project shows how teachers can incorporate the use of technology with curriculum. I think this project would help students to learn how to use Excel and reinforce content vocabulary in a unique way. I do think students could spend a great deal of time formatting and designing a puzzle on Excel, which takes away the focus of reviewing vocabulary, but it teaches them the software. It depends on a teachers focus. For a quick vocabulary review I think Puzzlemaker is more valuable because student's can easily make the crossword puzzle, but it does not allow for any creativity or learning a valuable software. Puzzlemaker was very quick and easy to use, but there were limitations to the crossword design because I am not a member and it was difficult to share. I would only suggest this application if you were solely printing out the crossword puzzle for a paper and pencil task. Excel can also be used to organize data, perform math formulas, create graphs and much more. One of my favorite activities I do with my students is have them record the number of different color M & Ms in a package and create a bar graph using Excel.