Tool #11 - Self Assessing and Reflecting

Favorite Tool. Many tools to choose: first this blog, is amazing to have a place to shared, to write and opinion, to show your point of view and for us as teachers to interact with our students and parents. I liked tools as Animoto, Google Docs, Wordle, Wallwisher, and others. I will be incorporating Wallwisher within my Language Arts Work Station, Guided Reading and Whole Group mini lessons. This is such a great way for students to interact with each other using a new form of stickies from our original form of "stickies!" I am very excited to receive my iPod touches and netbooks and use the app database when school starts! There is a plethora of activities at my fingertips, so it will be easy to plan and incorporate our new technology. I feel a lot more confident in using Google docs with my team.

Vision. With all the tools that we have now, all the technology devices that we will have in the future and of course the pressure from our own students we are almost obligated to set up our classroom so we can provide those technology tools and use them as part of our daily curriculum but first we need to build the bases for students’ accountability and digital citizenship as cornerstones for an effective classroom-21. I think that I am becoming more aware of how important it is to integrate technology with lessons in the classroom. I feel like I have been slowly getting to where I need to be as far as technology goes. I really want to make sure that I use the websites and technology tools that have been shared throughout this whole process for my lessons and class projects

Surprises. I didn't realize I would be exposed to so many wonderful educational websites. The 11 tools was a bit overwhelming! Yes, it was a bit overwhelming, however it was exciting to get started. It's also exciting to see all the new "tools" that are out there to assist us in educating our students. It's a lot of information to take in but I am confident that I will utilize technology proficiently in my classroom! I was also surprised at the amount of time it took to do these activities and I need to complete the final test. The time we spent creating our 11 tools, outweighs the PDLC credits that we get in return.

Finally I am surprised at how much I liked the useful websites and my want to use them in my classroom this coming year

Tool 10 - Underneath it All - Digital Citizenship

I think the students need to know that there are appropriate ways to address or post a comment on blogs and how to post a negative comment without being offensive. They also need to be reminded about appropriate language used in messages and limiting any personal information when dealing with on line sources. To help inform the students about digital citizenship, I would start with a conversation about what it is means, and then I would make connections to their lives. I would also show some videos like "Cool Cat Teacher” advice when she discussed that digital citizenship was helping the students to live safely and civilly in the digital world. BrainPop had some nice videos about blogging and email and chats. I think it is important to continue to discuss with your students about how to be safe and participate in the tech world. Copyright with CyberBee is a great resource for helping the students understand the rules for using information, images, and videos from the internet. Digizen also has a good video about digital citizenship. All of these videos are on the Power to Learn site from the district. Digital citizenship is a topic that must be revisited often in the classroom.

It might be helpful to discuss this topic during the school open house.

Tool 9: Incorporating Classroom-Based Devices as Tools for Learning

Technology is just like everything else we plan to teach. We have to have an objective when teaching language, math, science, and social studies. The iPod Touch is just as important. If teachers are going to spend the time in researching the apps and websites then it needs to be meaningful to the students and not just wasting their time.

Holding kids accountable in centers is important because play is a child's work and that there is something truly legitimate in allowing children time to make their own choices, discover new things and construct their own learning. I think these new technologies will be the same way...so we need to offer some choices with guidance and see their progress throughout the year. For instance, some of the apps are truly just for entertainment while others offer more substance. So just which apps we put on the devices is one way to make sure they are doing something more educational.

Tutpup was a neat website. I played the math games and it allows you to choose from a variety of levels. It would be great for some students that needed a challenge. Students could record on paper some of the problems they answered (they may need to do this with a buddy as the math problems are timed) for accountability. Learning Games for Kids offered lots of different games in a wide variety of subject areas. These sites aren't like Starfall which is easy for a child to use independently. I can see this happening in small groups or a whole class if you could project the app somehow. One thing that will be important is to thoroughly introduce the children to these sites and make some kind of chart so that they will know which games and what levels are appropriate for them.

I can see those using apps like ABC Phonics, ABC Tracer, ABC Lite and Dr. Seuss’s ABC in small group for phonics and word warm up. Children are used to interacting with technology at home and they would be eager to practice these skills with the iPod Touches. The accountability in this would be discussion, interaction such as tracing a letter correctly and the app signals if it is correct or needs to be repeated, and if students work in pairs collaboratively they would check each other for accountability and staying on task.

Students could easily use the iPod Touch in small group/stations/centers. The first thing to accomplish with students would be device etiquette and application. This isn't a onetime lesson but I know that many children 'catch on' quickly to technology. I would use gradual release as I observe mastery of the iPod Touch. It would also be easy to see which children are 'experts' that could help mentor, teach, and help in general in the classroom.

Tool 8: Taking a Look at the Tools

As a Kindergartner teacher here at PSE I will have access to iPod touches and netbooks. As a result, I will be able to sync them to my personal laptop. I think one of the first things I will need to do is schedule in time for teaching the children how to log into the netbooks and teach procedures.

I am hoping to use the iPod touch as a workstation for additional review and practice for mathematics as well as grammar and word work.

There are a lot of trainings in Atomic Learning to get more familiar with these devices. When I watched the tutorial videos, I was excited to hear that the netbooks come with a webcam and camera already intact! This feature could be used for the class to monitor their growth in a certain content area or for students to evaluate their own performance on a certain assignment. For example, the students could be recorded in a guided reading group at the beginning and end of a nine weeks period and the teacher could play the videos back to them in order to increase their motivation and give them a visual of their progress.

Tool 7: Reaching Outside your Classroom: Online Digital Projects

This tool took a little more time and research than the others. I would like to get involved in throughout the school year. I would like an ongoing project on Science and thought it would be interesting for my class to be a part of it. It would help them to see the differences between Plants, needs of a living being, changes in seasons, etc. After a long time thinking about a collaborative project to share, I decided to make a project aboutPlants. We can Skype and use Google Docs to share my student's ideas, with fellow educators from our school, district, and nationwide.
Content objective - Teachers and students working together will explore and research the plant’s part and difference between plants. I want to implement it during the plant’s Unit. I think I can use Skype, Google Docs and one of the web albums that can be used online to store our pictures. I think it would be great for us to make an Animoto of our pictures. I would create a Google Document and have my students share their ideas on what they know about plants. Afterwards, I would share this document with the teachers that my classroom is in collaboration with. Once the students have shared their ideas, the educators will have the students research some of the Plants and create a new document showing what they have learned. Finally, the classrooms can either Skype or share a Google Doc, in which we will all compare and contrast the different plants and plant’s part

Tool 6: Using Web Tools to Promote Discussion in and out of the Classroom

Today I created a Diigo account and subscribed to Wallwisher. The Diigo account makes easier to do research and share ideas with teammates. I also created online notice board using Wallwisher. It was very easy to use. It’s basically same as if I used a bunch of post it notes in my classroom to remind me of to do list. This is great to use among school to ask and answer questions or concerns with administration. I could see myself using it with parents and getting their feedback on things, that way they could put their name on it or not which would get more to post. I think, this tool can be used by parents or teachers as reminders for each kid what to do.

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/ApEnIpnhRU

I have also used Skype and Google Docs before. I think it would be fun to Skype with other classes on campus as well as at other schools. I see the students being able to share their thoughts without being scared because at some of the sites you don't have to give your name.

Tool 5: Producing with Web 2.0 Tools

I explore most of the sites suggested for tool #5. I found each one of them pretty interesting and fun. I used Wordle and I created a document called " K Palabras Frecuentes" where I typed some words that are very frequent to use with K and the students will be able to see them in different colors very important to review vocabulary.

I tried ABCya, and I find this one more friendly for younger users. If you scroll down on this page (ABCya) you can click on your grade level and you will find a couple of kids computer games. They are good, most of them are for math or LA. They can be used in a center.

I found Bookr, Tikatok and Storybird very similar regarding the objective of the tool which would be have the students create their own books. I created a book about Shapes using Bookr. I used this tool last year with my students and they really enjoyed it but we had problems saving/posting their book back then. Hopefully this year will be better since we are getting all this new technology!

Tool 4: Moving Up to the Clouds

I could use Google Apps by making documents that have not been finalized available for my team to see as opposed to emailing each other back and forth and saving the same documents too many times.

I'm not quite sure how to use it with my kindergartners since they are young and this is a little bit more complicated for the little ones.

I think is difficult using Google Apps with my parents because at this point I would say about 5% of my parents have email, but I could send them notes and they could reply right there instead of sending it back and forth.

Google docs and forms are going to make it easier for me and my team to share and work on items that we all use in the classroom and planning on team stuff. We are all going to easily modify documents. With Goggle Docs, the document is in one place and each of us has access and we can adjust one! We can even add our comments in different colors from the text. As teachers of the same team could work together from our own room with our own materials to discuss topics or produce lessons. I plan to use Google Docs more often now that I somewhat understand how they work!

Tool 3: Finding online video and Image resources.

Using videos and interactive stories with our kindergartners is an amazing resource to use because is engaging and allows teacher display more information, and enhance student learning.

I'm familiar with Discovery Education and I've used that one often.
I couldn’t embed a YouTube video about Spanish Alphabet, I just pasted address and it is very interactive and fun to remember.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EGdmBnY370&feature=related

I visited several sites and I signed for Teacher Tube and School Tube because they had good videos, but not too many. I embedded these videos about Spanish Alphabet and Needs of an Animal

The other sites were good too and they had so many things to choose. Since I hadn't done this before, it's going to take me a little while to learn how to navigate them.

I learned about copyright and fair use is that the laws are not very clear but as long as something is used for instructional purposes it's okay. Also you can not publish to the public in general, only to a secure site and for educational purposes. It’s a good idea to check with our librarian about copyrights.

I think Picasa and Flickr are great sites where we can find many photos and I will definitely use them with my students this year.

Tool 2: Building Community in the Online Environment

I found learning and creating PLN's very beneficial professionally. It’s very helpful to share and view other colleagues thoughts and ideas on any subject matter. I am always searching for new ideas, and it is so much easier to visit the blogs of other teachers to see the kinds of things they are doing in their classrooms rather than searching many sites on the internet or through textbooks.

Sharing my thoughts publicly is an issue for me because there are times where we can post something wrong and it might be the crux of our argument, luckily it’s very easy to emend our mistakes and we can-and have to- do it in a graciously manner.

I found Google Reader interesting but difficult. I bookmarked some great sites, subscribed to a few interesting sites on Google Reader and I am following 2 blogs, still a little confused but making progress. I have no doubt that if we use effectively everything internet has to offer it provides schools with an excellent opportunity to engage the community we serve.

Collaboration and team community is the survival technique of all educators.

11 Tools. Tool 1: Getting Started

I worked in this blog – 23 Things - one year ago and now I am ready to continue with 11 tools. A slow start but I hope it will be funnier, easier and more productive than 23 things.