Final Blog Part C

What do you see as the educational value of blogs in the classroom?
It gets students writing. I teach math and science and need a way to incorporate writing in the curriculum. This is a great way to get students to become involved with educational discussions.

How about outside of the classroom?
I think that the value is what you put into it. I have read some blogs that are therapeutic. People who write about their ailments and struggles. It is a way to get someone to listen or at least to get your thoughts out there. I think that is something that everyone needs at some point. T Hey need that outlet and I think that blogs provide that for some people.

What role should teacher and students have in a blogging experience?
The teacher should facilitate, monitor and direct discussion on the blog. It should not turn into a socail networking site. The student should be involved in the discussion on a regular basis. I think that giving assigned amount to blog will help students keep on track.

In your view, and based on this experience, how can blogs be integrated appropriately and effectively in K-12 classrooms?
There is so much that you can do with a blog that it is hard to get started. In my math class, I could start a blog where I put up questions of the week and students respond with their answers written out in words instead of math terms. In science I could post articles on advances in science and students could write reflections to the articles. I think with internet access as avaiable as it is now, students would be able to interact through a blog with no problem.

Final Blog Part B

What do you see as excellent features of the blogs you participated and why?
The ease of typing something and it being formatted the way you want is something that I love. With web pages, you have to understand HTML at least a little bit in order to get alignments right. With blogger, it does it for you. :)

What stands out from this blogging experience for you?
I think that the idea that blogs are universal and available anywhere is awesome. I love that I can create a blog to showcase my baking adventures. Of course my family and friends are the only ones to look at them. I love this new format to share things. If you want to check it out - here is the link: BatterUp!

Final Blog Part A

What did you learn from this blogging experience about yourself and about blogs as tools for teaching and learning?
I have learned that blogging is fun and therapeutic. I feel that blogs are definitely a creative way to express yourself. I want to continue creating and expanding blogs. I want to start one for my classes so that students can communicate through a different venue. I think that getting students typing about my contents is one way I can incorporate writing in the content areas. Students have a tough time "writing", why not type?

What surprised you about this blogging experience? Why?
It surprised me that I enjoyed it. I thought it might be just "make it up" work. Through using blogs I have learned to embed and have learned about great blogs that I want to keep up with and have created readers, etc. I have really enjoyed it.

Project Based Learning

IT Factor Presents Project Based Learning Proposal

It Factor Project Based Learning Proposal

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This is my PBL Proposal:

7464 PBL Proposal

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This is my project's presentation:

Banking in the Classroom

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These are examples of what students will produce through this project.

Banking in the Classroom

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Ckbk Reg

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Blog 10 - Supporting eLearning

eLearning has completely different demands than a regular classroom has. It is for mature students who can be left alone to get some of the work done at their own pace. I don't think I could see a 6th grader taking an online course. Maybe as an enrichment, but not as a credit course. I think that Egbert says it right when she says, "[eLearning] often requires students and teachers to have different skills and understandings than face-to-face classroom learning does" (Egbert, 2009, p. 207) THis is important for teachers to realize before they accept a position of teaching.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blog 9 - Group Work

I have never been a fan of group work. Why rely on someone else to do the work that I am capable of doing on my own, right? I was not a fan until this project. I feel that I have learned a lot of things about people and the way they work. Our group worked very well together for the most part. I think that giving adults directions is more nerve racking that giving one hundred and twenty fourteen year olds directions. I think that getting past my hesitations about group work has helped me understand what some of my students go through when I assign partners. It is just an interesting perspective.

Digital Storytelling

This our Digital Storytelling Workshop presentation.
Presentation

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This is our Digital Storytelling Workshop Plan.

Workshop Plan

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This is the hand out that teachers will receive at their training. It includes step by step instructions and a PLU certificate.

Digital Storytelling Handout

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Blog 8 - Supporting Creativity and Production

I found Joy Egbert’s definition of creativity is very interesting (Egbert 2009). She states that there are more than one way to define creativity, but she defines it as, “the creation of original ideas, processes, experiences, or object” (p. 130). This stood out to me because it is like the key that unlocks all types of possibilities into the human brain. It is different from critical thinking in that it is a complete process. Creativity extends from beginning to end.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Supporting Learning with Technology

Egbert (2009) talks about supporting student critical thinking in chapter 4 of Supporting Learning with Technology (p. 98). She describes critical thinking skills as the ability to "analyze, evaluate, infer, interpret, explain and self-regulate"(p. 101). She describes how critical thinking skills are a major part of higher order thinking skills. These skills are also described in Bloom's Taxonomy. Critical thinking skills allows students and teachers who are interacting with technology to delve into the information and understand where it comes from, where it is going, and much much more. I think that these skills are skills that teachers must foster through teaching.

Blog 7 - Math Ownership

This year, I have had to step up and help out with our math department while the department chair was on maternity leave. Being in this situation has made me more involved in the planning process for my curriculum area. Last year when we would meet for content, I would just take away from each meeting what the others wanted me to do. This year I am contributing ideas and activities and I feel a greater ownership in my lessons. I think that being in a leadership role in other aspects of my job has also helped with my openness in meetings. I am very excited to continue on this path and I feel that it is beneficial for my future as an educator.

Blog 6 - Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

In the book, Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice, I thought the guidelines for designing critical thinking opportunities were very appropriate and easy to use for all different grade levels and ability levels. The guidelines show the teacher how to create the right opportunities to foster critical thinking (Egbert, 2009, p. 107). According to Egbert, you must “ask the right questions, use tasks with appropriate levels of challenge, teach strategies, and encourage curiosity.” These are things teachers have in their foundations for teaching, but sometimes are held back because of all the focus on standards based classrooms or passing the CRCT. I believe these strategies can easily fit into your everyday classroom and foster a greater understanding through critical thinking.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Blog 5 - Comic Life

Comic Life is an excellent computer program that students and teachers can use to get their information across to an audience in a more fun and creative way. I have been brainstorming ideas of how to incoporate Comic Life into the mathematics classroom. I was thinking about a step by step instruction of how to solve equations. If you have an idea, please respond! I have enjoyed these project the past few weeks. Very cool!

Blog 4 - Supporting Student Communication

To understand student communication, Egbert felt that we should define the related terms. She defines communication as "a general term that implies the conveyance of information either one-way or through an exchange with two or more partners" (p. 67). Communication is important for student success. Not only do you have to effectively communicate ideas and concepts to students, but they have to learn how to communicate between each other, not just converse. There is a big difference.
Collaboration is "social interaction in which participants must plan and accomplish something specific together (p. 68). Collaboration is when each member of a group contributes equally and effectively. As teachers, it is a lot of times hard for us to collaborate ourselves, much less teach students how to do it. A big part of effective collaboration is effective communication.
Collaboration and communication go hand in hand in every classroom situation. To effectively integrate technology into student learning, these things must take place. I feel that as a teacher, I am expected to utilize group work in much of my instruction. However, before I can expect positive results from that type of instruction practice, I must first teach and demonstrate good communication skills and good collaboration skills.
On a different note, it is important that a teacher chooses the right technology to utilize with group collaboration and communication. The use of technology for group projects is a great way to further a student's understanding of effective collaboration and communication.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

VoiceThread Article

I found an article on www.edutopia.org about a teacher who has encorportated the web tool VoiceThread into his classroom. Bill Ferriter is a 6th grade social studies and language arts teacher. He wanted to engage the students on a different level and decided to "steal" some of their online minutes. I think that this is an excellent example of how the internet is a powerful tool. He started using VoiceThread so that his students could interact on a whole new level. He describes the feed back he got, "you don't have the loud one or the popular one. they can think about their comments beforehand. In the classroom conversation, there's generally one strand of conversation going at any one time, and if you're board by that particular strand, you're completely disengaged." I think his observations and assessment of the online versus classroom discussion is right on. I think that students can really feel comfortable saying things when they don't have a group of their peers staring at them. I also beleive that it benefits the student when he or she has time to formulate a response instead of having to be "on the spot".

This program has an educators section that is safe for students and private for the specific class. No one not in the class can respond or contact the members. This is a great saftey net and I feel that this would encourage many teacher and schools to utilize the program. It would also make parents feel much better about it.

Weir, L. (2008). VoiceThread extends the classroom with interactive multimedia albums. Edutopia: What Works in Public Schools. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/voicethread-interactive-multimedia-albums

Classifying Shapes

This is a VoiceThread example about classifying shapes. I created it using PowerPoint and then uploaded to voicethread.com. I commented on each slide and students are supposed to respond and classify the shapes using two different Venn diagrams. Please view this and comment as you wish.

Blog 3 - VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a digital storytelling medium that we are learning about. I created my VoiceThread on classifying shapes using Venn Diagrams. The students visit the VoiceThread and classify the shapes.

I found this to be a very cool program. I feel that I have a lot of options with incorporating this into my classroom. Check it out here: Classifying Shapes

When I began to read about the project, I was very concerned. I wasn't sure what VoiceThread was all about and how to go about beginning. Another group member shared his and I was floored. I was excited at the possibilites with this free program. I began to think about all the different types of activities we could use this for at my school.

VoiceThread is easy and students of all ages can use it. My niece, who is 6, responded to my VoiceThread like she was an old pro.

TPACK - Where do we go now?

TPACK is an acronym for technological pedagogical and content knowledge framework. This framework is an ideology for effective technology integration.This framework first came about in 1987 as pedagogical content knowledge. The article discusses how teacher need to have knowledge in both pedegogy and content in order to successfully provide students with opportunities to learn and be successful.

The article states that "though teacher knowledge does impact student learning, educators have moved past the belief that teacher content knowledge is transmitted directly to the students in the same form" (Polly & Brantley-Dias, 2009). This is so true and so important for teachers to recognize. Just becasue you know something, does not mean that the students know it. Teacher knowledge is very important, but it is the whole package that is essential to the success of the student.

TPACK prepares teachers for the technology integration that the WILL do in their classrooms. In the "21st Century Classroom," teachers are expected to be able to utilize the technology provided. TPACK helps the content specific teacher understand the benefits and uses of the given technology specifically for that classroom and content area.

Brantley-Dias, L., Polly, D. (2009). TPACK: Where do we go now? TechTrends 53(5).Retrieved September 5, 2009 from Ebscohost.

About Me

Hi! For some reason I cannot get the blog to show my "about me" section. So, here it goes!

My name is Ashley and I am a math and science teacher in a middle school in Georgia. I have been teaching for4 years and have loved every minute of it. I am from a family of teacher and lifelong learners. I believe in keeping up with the technology that is around us.

My goal for this blog is for it to be a sounding board for educators and other regarding technology in the classroom. What works, what doesn't? I hope you add me to your blog list and come back and visit soon!

Blog 2 - Supporting Student Content Learning

The chapter Supporting Student Content Learning is a great opener for this class. I thought the explanation of the different types of knowledge were excellent. I think that learning about the three types creates a more thorough understanding of student learning. Declarative, structural and procedural knowledge are the types of knowledge that we see students reach each year. I thought that the way the author described each of these as sort of scaffolding and working independent of each other as well as working together. I feel that procedural knowledge is the type of knowledge the GPS is geared toward with performance tasks.

There are also many ways to use technology to enhance these types of knowledge. Having a compute in every classroom that is solely for student use is very important. My school has yet to achieve this goal, but I feel that it is just around the corner. A lot of the other types of technology described is used at my school. I have seen great success with items like the AlphaSmart and Promethean board.

On another note, I really feel that this book is a great workbook in grading your classroom on how well you are incorporating content learning in the current technology age.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Welcome: Goal and Purpose

Welcome to the Mathematics blog for the IT Factor group. This blog will be devoted to the discussion of ideal technology practices in the classroom. We will discuss how the different technologies available can influence the mathematics classroom. Please feel free to critique and/or respond to any posts. Thank you!

Blog 1 - Working Definition of Technology Integration

Technology Integration is a combination of many things. It is the way teachers use technology in the classroom. It is what teachers use to integrate their lessons. Technology integration happens when teachers use the tools that they have available to create a learning environment that allows students to explore the world of education through many different tools. In a classroom, the teacher’s responsibility is to prepare the students for the future. This future includes today, tomorrow and 10 years from now. A teacher should show students how technology can be useful in all types of academic situations. This happens when the teacher is appropriately integrating technology through the regular curriculum.