Week 5 Learning 2.0: Final Reflection

Learning 2.0 has taught me that to learn in the 21st century means to collaborate, communicate, and create. I intend on providing my students with these opportunities in the following ways...

All students have Gmail and access to the Google Drive so I plan on having students submit lab analyses using google docs. This will allow students to work together towards a common goal, based from a common lab experience.

Flubaroo and Google forms are great tools for collecting and organizing data from various assessments and surveys. The results from both of these tools are automatically generated and sorted in a spreadsheet form for analysis. I will create google forms with QR codes for parent and student surveys and will use flubaroo forms for student assessments. I love that these forms can be either multiple choice or written response to accommodate learning preference and instructional flexibility.

Blogger will be used, one blog per class, to make it simple and to effectively share Newman News videos instead of emailing the files. That way the embedded video will be stored on our blog and students can add to it from home. Bye, bye USB and emailing large video files!  Padlet is paired with blogging in my reflection because I really see it as a template for multiple students to add ideas. Padlet is more than a brainstorming tool because it can be used to present electronic images as well as words; I anticipate using it as an alternative to poster board presentations. Save Mother Earth!

Animoto and google presentations are two methods of sharing slides as an alternative to the Smartboard Notebook Presentation and Microsoft's Power Point. These can be embedded into our class blog but if you do not pay for the Animoto upgrade then the video is only available for a limited time. Google presentations are great because students can divide and conquer a presentation and share and continue editing within the drive. Transitions, commenting, picking slide design, embedding videos and images, etc are all as easily accomplished as within power point. Animoto would be a great tool for showing parents during curriculum night, automatically rotating through slides with pictures and background music.

As an educator, just starting to get her feet wet with social media in the classroom, I am comfortably admitting that I continue to hesitate with the real deal including Facebook and Twitter.  I would love to create a Fakebook: fake facebook or Twister: fake twitter feed for students to specifically create historical timelines of various scientists and related theories.

Bloom's taxonomy has traditionally been the path followed to scaffold lessons and optimize high-order thinking within a classroom. The Bloom domains include Remember, Apply, Analyze, Create, Evaluate. This is compared with the technology scaffolding model abbreviated SAMR-Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition. For reference and to gain a better understanding, the following it a host of examples of "walking the wiki above the line" 
 

Create your own Playlist on MentorMob!

The two V's, Voicethread and Vimeo, are online tools for creating and sharing digital stories. Activity 1 asked us to comment on a video created with Voicethread describing the 7 1/2 healthy habits of a lifelong learner. As the class progressed, I played with other tools with similar functions. For Activity 15,  I successfully embedded a Vimeo into Blogger. Using my iPad and the  iMovie app (which had access to my camera roll and did not require internet connection to create the video), I exported and uploaded the video to my vimeo account and shared via Vimeo. It was easily done from my iPad, all I needed was a wi-fi connection to upload and share. Within the vimeo site I could have edited the themes, fonts, music, etc to the movie.

Online conferencing and google+, circles and hangouts allow us to learn and share our findings from the comfort of our own homes. Google+ is an active community where I hope my students can have more meaning class discussions and share articles or news related to science class. I intend to create a circle for each of my classes and encourage them to collaborate by hanging out. I wonder if they will invite me to any online hangouts... it could be helpful when reviewing for tests and other assessments.

Socrative is simply a tool that will replace the promethean buzzers. The creation of daily warm up questions and the ability to set a time for completion make this tool effective and easy to implement! I just have to make sure students have access to the mobile devices or other technology that can quickly get online.

In summary, this online learning opportunity has been extremely helpful. The tools are truly relevant to each of our classrooms. I hope that we continue to share what we try, tweak, or tweet throughout this upcoming school year. Thanks for so many great ideas!!

Follow @menewman3 

Week 5 Activity 15: Digital Storytelling

Here is the final post, its been fun!



Carbon: A Digital story from Michelle on Vimeo.

Week 5 Activity 16: EdTech trends (BYOD & SAMR)

The topic of BYOD-Bring Your Own Device is a topic currently trending in #edtech.  Here is a related google+ live newscast from 2012; the complete report would not embed properly so click here for a video clip of the live huffpost experience and to gain a better understanding of BYOD. The reason I picked this topic is because of the dichotomy I experience within my own classroom regarding BYOD (bringing your own device). As students enter my classroom, they are greeted with a laminated sheet with the apparent universal symbol for no cell phones  beyond this point.

Image by Gyrofrog [CC-BY-SA-3.0]
 via Wikimedia Commons

Students are aware of the signage and for the most part follow this guideline. Occasionally a student will raise his hand and ask if he can use a phone or ipod as a timer or calculator when the battery dies in one of the approved devices in the room. My response is typically a firm, "NO," followed by a brief internal dialogue and in a softer voice, as if I've retreated, "yes, but only this one time." Prior to this task, I was really not aware how polarizing this topic is among educators but here is a video link that summarizes the two sides for any institution considering BYOD . Although some districts see the advantage of letting students bring their own technology to school as a decrease in cost and an increase in student-engagement, other administrators will warn you of the host of security concerns related to BYOD.  Follow this link to read stories from piloting schools and you will discover pros, cons, and online security solution links in the left margin of the article. What I learned from researching this topic is that this seems like a great initiative in terms of creating a 21st century learning environment which is interactive, collaborative, and creative for the students. Below are a few ideas BYOD institutions should consider during implementation- 

• the wide variety of technologies that will require IT support, 

• saving the older devices to have on hand as loaners to ensure equal access,  

• use of the cloud for resources so any device can reach it

• entry through a guest network 

• intellectual property protection

• safe connections to protect student identity while online

My greatest hope is that schools do not prioritize device availability over network security!


Another trending topic in edtech is SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition). It is based on the idea that technology is learning and its implementation becomes more important over time and more invisibly woven into lessons of teaching and learning. To do this effectively, its implementation is a progression defined by the type of tech being used, a scaffold for technology integration.The following graphic, which I borrowed from this presentation by the creator of SAMR,  Dr. Ruben R. Puentedura, is a summary of this edtech model including questions to make the progression 

Previously, I had never heard of the SAMR model so I decided to discover what others are saying about it. My goal was to find specific examples of technology used at each level in order to ascend the S-R ladder; "R" being the highest-level, comparable to evaluate, if we can draw parallels to the bloom's taxonomy. I found the following site helpful, directly applying a Wiki example to climb the ladder -  Using SAMR to Teach Above the Line. In addition, this 120 second video describes Google docs as an effective SAMR tool for using, integrating, revising, and creating new edtech experiences in any classroom. In the future I see the SAMR model transforming the question from which textbook to "which app will students need for class?" The graphic below, which combines Bloom's Taxonomy with SAMR model, may be a helpful guide in making that determination-

The Padagogy Wheel by Allan Carrington is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.  Based on a work at http://tinyurl.com/bloomsblog.

Week 4 Activity 14: Online Conferences

Leveraging the power of social media in the classroom-

Social Media in the classroom - to get specific ideas on how to make fake facebook, twitter, and pinterest walls for effective student engagement watch this!

The premise for this video is that social media in the classroom engages students and effectively tells a story that students can understand and teachers should harness and guide students to learn about themselves and others online. I believe that  I was pretty transparent in my earlier posts that I have a lot of nervousness about social media, especially in the classroom. This video begins by citing, "students spend on average 2 hours and 20 minutes online each day and 80% of that is social media." Naturally, that raises the question of how we can incorporate, rather than shy away from, this learning opportunity into our lessons. What was surprising is the presenter states that students are more likely to believe what they read on Twitter feeds versus newspaper media print, and she adds " if they even read it" - referring to the newsprint.

When I watched this video, and I took a lot of notes while doing so, I learned specific and safe methods to use social media and networking in the classroom. It is true that colleges, jobs, coaches, and others are performing  facebook and google searches to discover the type of person being considered for recruitment. Watch the video or follow this link to discover very specific and effective ways to use the ideas of Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest in any classroom. I will use these types of social media networks for historical timelines of scientists responsible for developing both the Cell Theory in Biology and Atomic Model in Chemistry. After-all, the presenter made a great point, you can give a student a textbook to find information OR you can assign them a task to create a blank Facebook page and ask them to fill it in.

 SPEAK UP! Transforming Classroom Discussions

Classroom Discussions - to learn more about face to face versus virtual discussions click on this link or see video below

The question posed in this presentation is, " in what ways can we encourage more students to engage in classroom discussions?"  This was interesting to me because only six years prior I asked this question as part of an action-research inquiry. After watching this video it has became clear to me that the answers to this question have grown beyond the Fishbowl discussion methods that I formerly used during the genetic engineering unit in biology class.

In this video, I discovered that students participated more and stayed more on topic in virtual discussions. It is explained that,  "the females are freed from the constraints of whole class discussions and males are less likely to react without thinking," during the virtual experience. The argument for face-to-face discussions is that they are more authentic and real. Interestingly, however, the virtual has longer lasting repercussions so the theory is that all students, not just the male population, think more about their response and the resulting quality of discussion is greater. I plan to experiment with my classes over time and find which method works best for the culture within my classroom as it too is dynamic. Here is a summary of virtual discussion tools that the presenter assures are user-friendly tools for classroom collaboration-
wordpress, inoodle, titanpad, today's meet, twitter, & google-drive for live chat and discussion. 

 

Week 4 Activity 13: Formative Assessment (Flubaroo, Socrative, Padlet)

Blog: Write a reflective blog post based on Formative Assessment and technology. How do you see yourself rolling out some of these tools in your class? How can you share with course team members? What are some uses for these tools outside of Formative Assessment?

This has been my favorite week so far because I am always looking for the quick method for checking-in or ways for students to engage in formative assessments other than labs without thinking of it as the dreaded test! I am sure there is lots of theory supporting these methods and tools but in my opinion it is more about the opportunity to engage the students with interactive assessments. One of the toughest tasks for many teachers is finding the time to grade the work of more than 90 students on a bi-weekly, weekly or daily basis. Now, if we could figure out how to model hospital systems and be able to create electronic records for each student by simply attaching importing the results of the quizzes, either quantitative or qualitative, to such grading systems as Infinite Campus from online assessments. Is this concept too lazy? Just think, we could spend the class time learning, playing, discovering new tools, reinforcing the learning targets, and measuring outcomes with online tools that grade themselves and data dump into student electronic files. Okay, okay I am done daydreaming now but I really enjoyed learning about flubaroo, socrative, and padlet!!

I see me using the flubaroo with homework quizzes and general quick quizzes to check-in over long weekends, reinforce important learning targets, or even pick a few important concepts from lab analysis questions. 

ALSO--  I downloaded the QR barcode scanner from the itunes app store and scanned Maureen's formative assessment slideshow and in less than 5 seconds it was open and flipping through the presentation on my phone. Wow, that was easy!

Socrative will definitely be used for the DQ (daily question) and I LOVE that it can be student or teacher time-paced! Classroom time-management 101, yay!

Padlet will be used by me first week in biology! We usually do posters for brainstorming the BIG BIOTHEMES and now we have an interactive padlet and no need for hunting down old National Geographics and newsprints from the library, especially because they are becoming more obsolete as we continue to conserve!

Week 3 Activity 12: Open Educational Resources (OER)

Explore Ted-Ed, Khan Academy and MIT.* Find a lesson that you could use with your students.(Hint: World Language teachers, search Humanities) If you can't find something to use with your content-area students, find something you might be able to use with your own children, nieces/nephews, homeroom students or other group. Save a link to the resource you found most engaging, include the link in your blog post for this week. Be sure to label/tag your post with Activity 12. Also, remember to comment on the blogs of at least three other classmates.

The resource I find most engaging is the MIT Open Courseware. It offers lessons, links to lectures with embedded demonstrations, and best of all it's title is "Chemistry In Action" which depicts science as an active learning experience!  By following the link, science teachers and students can hear directly from the experts. In these videos you can learn about content, visualize direct applications, and hear from the MIT scientists planning and implementing real research. 

Link to MIT Chemistry in Action Video

Week 3 Activity 11: Creative Commons

Task 3

Write a blog post reflecting on how you think Creative Commons may affect you professionally and/or personally. Be sure to include "Activity 11" in your post title and to include your quiz score somewhere in your post.

Creative Commons-- I got lucky!

The following is the picture selected from creativecommons.org  > fotopedia.com for this log post. I consider it a "real-time" device according to this wikipedia explanation "the producing and analysis of images at display time." Although the photo can't be embedded, reused, remixed, or analyzed online in its original form, it does capture and display a moment in time in a moments notice. I find myself, at times in the classroom, wishing that I could have a polaroid to capture the moment and paste it on a poster, billboard, etc without the hassle of an SD or USB. In the words of Polaroid, lets wait and  "See what develops!"

                      Photo Credit: Polaroid Supercolor 635 (Håkan Dahlström) / CC BY 2.0
reflection on creativecommons.org
I have finally found time to play with the CC logo and corresponding websites! As a result, I updated my the Polaroid picture above, making proper attributions to the owner of the photograph. I will continue to consider it for future data sharing and become more knowledgeable of the sciencecommons.org licensing.

A drawback to consider may be the loss of creative control and the possibility that you may not get compensation for the original creative creation! In regards to the Polaroid above, it just seems so safe. Point, shoot, and be creative. No need to Copyright but you may be limiting yourself on what your waiting "to see what develops."