CEDO530 - Post #5 - Creating Pecha Kucha

Okay, so in my last post I was pretty excited about creating my Pecha Kucha. Now, not so much. I have to say, while it is a good concept for presentations, it takes way too long to create! In my previous blog entry, I stated that the storyboard was easy to create from my handout. My handout only took about 30 minutes to create. The handout was what I would originally do my presentation from during the board meeting. However, the Pecha Kucha has taken me over 10 hours to do and I'm not even finished yet! There is no way I could or would spend 10+ hours for a presentation that only lasts 6 minutes when a simple report would be just as effective. I understand that digital storytelling is a great way to present, but in this situation, when reporting to a school board who has limited time, I just don't have that kind of time to put into a "quick" presentation. However, not all is negative. I could definitely see students using a Pecha Kucha for different presentations, but typically, students are given several classtime hours to work on their projects, unlike teachers who have very little time to try anything new.

CEDO530 - Post #4 - Creating Storyboards

Sorry this is late guys...

I just finished a draft of my storyboard and I have to say what worked best for me was to organize the presentation around the handout. My Pecha Kucha is my technology/LMC updates presentation to our school board meeting...which works out really well since I only get approx. 10 minutes to speak...the Pecha Kucha (6+ min.) design fits in nicely in my alotted timeslot. Anyway, I had a handout already created. So, I went off the handout and pulled out the pieces that I would attached pix to. Much of the voiceover text comes directly from the handout. This process worked great for me - first, create handout; second, create storyboard; third, create presentation. Much easier than I was expecting!

CEDO530 - Post #3 - Picture Superiority Effect

In the book Presentation Zen, I really liked the chapter on Design and Techniques. The image examples on pp. 133-152 were fantastic! It really hit home with me how less is more. I would have to say that 99% of presentations that I have viewed are not good. Too many words, too many graphics, just plain out too busy looking. The book gave me great ideas on what types of graphs are visually attractive and yet get the point across. I also like how many of the examples showed images taking up the entire slide and putting only short phrases over the image...again very powerful.

CEDO530 - Post #2 - In What Ways Can I Use Digital Storytelling in What I Do?

In Digitales, a story idea that was suggested is to "create the story of the impact of a grant on the students". I really like this idea. Throughout the last few years, our district has been part of a consortium with 6 other districts where we write for large grants that focus on technology integration in the classroom. Since participating, our district has received over $8,000 in technology purchases that we have used to assist us in incorporating 21st century skills into our classrooms. Every few months, I have to report to the school board on technology updates throughout the district. Instead of just giving a report on what we've been doing, wouldn't it be cool to create a short digi-story showing the board members how teachers/students are using the technology in their classrooms? Most board members never make it into the classroom and several aren't aware of new educational technologies. I think they'd appreciate a visual story rather than my boring report.

CEDO530 - Post #1 - What do I hope to learn?

I hope that I will learn to break the habit of using powerpoint simply because it is easy to use and is the most common media presentation software available in schools. I have to admit, watching powerpoint presentations is mind-numbing. Almost all of the teachers in our district use powerpoint for their's and their students' presentations. Before I became a teacher, I worked in the private sector and have had to endure 50+ slide presentations during staff meetings, workshops, etc. I had a hard time staying focused during many of those presentations, and now it troubles me to see so many of our students being taught that powerpoint is the only presentation software available. I loved the 2 articles we read for class, especially "Powerpoint is Evil". I agree completely with these articles. However, I am a typical teacher with very little time to learn a new "tricks". Powerpoint is the old standby when there is no time to learn new ways for presentations. So, in short, I'm hoping to learn new presentation techniques in this class so that I can put powerpoint in the past.

CEDO525 Week 5

Strategies 9 - 11: Students learn comparisons the hard way right from the start of school. It doesn't take long before they are comparing each other's clothes, the backpack they carry, the scores they receive on homework, or even cold lunches! Sadly, this type of comparison leads to students having a negative self image, which is exactly why as teachers we need to teach the positive aspects of comparisons. Students need to learn this strategy to help them problem-solve and make appropriate choices in their life. Graphic organizers provide the perfect tool for students in identifying similarities and differences.

While the "homework and practice" isn't one of my favorite learning strategies, it is very popular with many teachers who don't want to think outside the box and rely on the same lessons and assign the same homework year after year. I've been the student of these teachers and can say from my own learning experiences that that type of learning isn't very fun for the student. However, the type of assignments I learned the most from were the ones where I was given a hypothesis to test. When given the chance to test different scenarios, I found that having a hypothesis fail wasn't necessarily a bad thing, it took the negativity out of the learning experience and taught me that making mistakes and learning from them in an educational setting can be transferred to life skills as well.

CEDO525 Week 2

Strategies 1 - 3: Setting objectives for students has always been something I felt I could use more practice with. For many years, I think teachers used the teaching standards as objectives, many times not expanding on the standard...like the old saying goes "teaching to the standard". However, throughout the last year, during the training I've received with PBL, I've learned that if the objectives are clearly stated and also shared with the students during the introduction of the project, I have a greater success with the end product of the project. I also find that having clear objectives makes assessment an easier task.

Providing feedback and recognition is crucial in getting positive results from students. Especially important is providing timely feedback. It can kind of be compared to discipling your child as a parent...if you discipline your child now for him/her coming home late 2 weeks ago, it doesn't have the impact it would have if you had addressed the issue immediately when it occurred. Same thing with feedback, students need to know right away how they are proceeding through a project because the positive reinforcement will motivate them to continue to want to do well as they finish the project.

CEDO525 Week 4

Strategies – Chapters 7 thru 8: My first experience with collaborative learning was using a webquest with my 5^th grade class a few years ago. I didn’t create the webquest; I found it online, however, I can’t remember where/who created it. The primary task was to analyze 3 different brands of chocolate chip cookies and while working in teams, research the nutritional value of each cookie and create a powerpoint of their findings. This 5^th grade class had some very distinct personalities, so I asked the classroom teacher to assist me with placing the students into groups. While we placed students in groups of four, we did not assign students roles. It was their decision to determine who would be the “researchers” and who would be the “reporters”. Each student had to contribute one slide to the powerpoint. As I could only meet with the students weekly, it took about 7-8 weeks to complete the project. I have to admit, there were some conflicts in the beginning, but I was amazed at how the students were able to divide the tasks and how they helped each other. Some were stronger at the research skills, while others were more skilled on creating the powerpoint. They worked well as teams and were very successful at answering their questions within their groups before coming to me for assistance.

I reinforce reading effort with my students with an “I Caught You Reading” program. Each week I select one student from each elementary class who I “caught reading” in the library throughout the week. I interview these students as to why they feel reading is important and to name three books they would recommend to other students. I currently place their photo and interview on the library bulletin board for all students to see, but I can now see the advantage to posting it to our website as well. The only drawback to this would be that we have many parents who have chosen to not have their students’ photos or names placed on our website for online safety reasons.

CEdO525 Week 3

Strategies – Chapters 4 through 6: I have found using multimedia for graphic organizers and nonlinguistic representations to be very successful in the classroom. I tried it this year when introducing an epals unit on New Zealand to my 5^th grade students. Students would be corresponding with students in New Zealand and learning their culture, environment, etc. As we progressed through the details of the project, I showed them videos and other interactive websites portraying the history and culture of New Zealand. When students began corresponding, they had a mental picture of what their new friends talking about when describing where and how they lived. The strategy provided my students with a good knowledge base of the project and having that introductory knowledge led them to inquire deeper details from their epals. I just recently used the summarizing strategy with my 9^th grade students. Biology students are required to research short articles based on current events in science and then summarize the article into a short paragraph. I created a model that included a copy of an article where I had highlighted the important points and also the summary paragraph that I produced from the article. This assignment is always given at the beginning of the school year and this is the 3^rd year I have used the summary model. I’m amazed at how many past students still refer back to the model in assisting them with other assignments. It’s nice to see that they retained this summarizing strategy.

Compare/Contrast online graphic organizers: Bubble.Us is a free website. It has all the usual organizer features and can be shared with other people. One feature that separates this website from the others that I reviewed is that is it multilingual in some languages. I believe Webspiration is much better than Bubble.Us for many reasons. First, I like how it is categorized into professional, college, and educator levels. It provides many sample maps in these categories as well as tips, trick and FAQ’s are categorized into the three levels as well. It is a well designed website, easy to use, and is also free. One sample map that I will be researching further is the “virtual book club”. Mindmeister is the Cadillac of online organizers. It has many more features than Bubble.Us and Webspiration, however, the basic version is free. The premium versions that contain several more features have an annual fee. There are thousands of sample maps to use of get an idea on where to start your own map. The icon user interface is very easy to use and the website has a great online tutorial. Webspiration is my favorite online organizer, but Mindmeister takes first place overall.

CEdO 525 Week 1 (Research Study & Teaching Principles articles)

Student Outcome Research: This study was very confusing to me. It took a couple of readings for me to gain a better understanding of it. One point I found very interesting was the finding on the positive effects of small-group learning over individual learning. Considering this study was done 7 years ago, I find (in my district) that most teachers still do not use small group study very much. I don't know if it's because most of our teachers are nearing retirement and don't want to change up their curriculum, or if they just don't believe that students working in groups can be productive. Along that same thought, another point that was made in the study referenced that technology can help in changing a teacher's practice from teacher-centered to student-centered, where students work cooperatively, make choices and are more active in their learning. This made me think again of the teacher's I work with and how I run my own projects. I have to say that having students work in groups is something I've learned from the many tech integration workshops I've attended. I wonder though, why isn't group collaboration and technology integration taught at in education colleges? I attend UW-W in 2003, when this study was conducted, and these study techniques were never addressed. Nor were they prevalent in my student teaching experiences.

Teaching Principles: In reading over the theories and principles, I can totally relate to "effective teaching involves recognizing and overcoming our expert blind spot". This is my biggest struggle. I work with students from PreK - 12th grade. One hour I could be working with 1oth grade students on a biology research project, the next I'm working with 2nd graders teaching them fiction vs. non-fiction books in the library. Previous to this job, my experience had been with grade 6-12 students. I learned right away that when working with elementary kids, every step needs to be directed to them. Nothing can be assumed. I learned that I had to break my project tasks down to every detail in order for them to succeed at the project we were working on. It was very frustrating to me to introduce the steps were we going to take in a fun, new project - only to have blank stares on their little faces. They had no idea what I was talking about or how they were to complete the task I had asked of them because I did not specifically communicate each keystroke they needed to make on the computer. Several failed projects caused me to get ideas from the elementary teachers on how to teach the students at their level and now the fun and adventure has come back into my projects for the elementary students!

CEDO520 Class # 3 & 4

This has been an awesome class! I have learned so many new Web 2.0 tools that I can share with my staff this new school year. I'm amazed at the amount of information that I can use immediately. Many of these websites I will be linking to my district's LMC webpage. One of my main focuses this year will be teaching internet safety to students of all ages. The WebWise website provided great resources that I will be using in my instruction as well as sharing with staff and parents.

CEDO520 Class #2

This week I encountered many new websites that I will be sharing with my staff and students. NoodleTools is fabulous; the possibilities of this website are endless. There is virtually something for everyone on that site...from elementary to college level students. I'm also impressed with the success I've had with Google Alerts. I know it's been around for awhile, but I hadn't used it before this class and I'm so glad that I was introduced to it. What a great way to stay current on any type of topic. I'm looking forward to creating a website evaluation form as the one we have in our district is over 5 years old and it was on my to-do for this semester. The websites that discuss web eval are very good and I can see that they contain alot of info that will be useful on the new form that I create for my students.

CEDO520 Class #1

I can't believe the amount of information I have crammed into my brain over the last few months from these classes! I'm very excited about exploring even more educational technology websites from this class. Just the few links we've looked at for this first class have given me ideas for my students when they come back in a few weeks. The internet's "superhighway" really has turned into "information overload". It's no wonder our students feel lost when trying to search the internet...I feel that way myself...and I've spent years fine-tuning my researching skills. The trick is to pass those researching skills down to my students in a way that is relevant to them. Find something that is important to their lives and show them how the internet can help them locate information needed to succeed in their daily lives.

Look up for my cartoon from ToonDoos!

Technology Integration in Education

I have spent the past several months writing our district's technology plan. Many of our goals for the next three years of our plan are based on the NETS and the integration of technology into our curriculum. Much of the information I read in these first two chapters was addressed in my technology plan. I have spent the past year assisting the teachers in my district with technology integration as well as incorporating higher-order thinking skills (a.k.a. - 21st century skills). The resources found in the text are invaluable and in reviewing many of them, I am confident that I will be using and sharing them with my fellow teachers.

What have I learned in this class?

Everything I've learned in this class has been very relevant to my personal life and to my job as a Library Media Specialist. I've eased my fear of tearing into a computer. Also, I've learned alot about some of the great features I'd love to have when I win the lottery and build my perfect computer. The most relevant portion of the class for me was learning more about viruses. I've gotten them before and have them cause me much frustration about losing files and spending time having to reformat my hard drive. I also loved watching the Nerds movies. That may sound kind of strange, but I really learned alot about the history of the computer. So much so, that I actually shared some of what I learned with my students! They, too, were interested. Also, the research I did on the wireless components of a computer was extremely interesting. When I came out of the dial-up age, I was fascinated on how my laptop can hop on a network wherever there is a hotspot. With all that said, this class was definitely a lot more work than I anticipated, however, the amount of knowledge I gained far outweighed the workload.

How to manage computers

Managing my computer at home is a lot like managing the computers in my library at school - I have to be constantly aware of what kids are doing on them. With viruses running rampant on the internet, kids never think a computer crash will happen to them. They never think there are viruses out there just waiting to invade their files, or that a power surge could cause them to lose their documents. I've learned the hard way how blocking the fan on the computer with a picture frame will cause the hard drive to overheat. I've also learned that not paying attention to my battery life on my laptop may cause me to lose my working document if I haven't saved it recently. Yes, I've had my share of hard knocks when it comes to computer management; I try to pass those lessons down to my kids and my students so that they don't have to suffer the frustration of losing files.

Is it important to understand hardware?

Understanding the components of computer hardware is essential in trying to troubleshoot problems. As I was dissecting a computer for the Under the Hood assignment, I learned alot about how certain components work and how they contribute to the computer running successfully. But, I am still very fuzzy on how so many of them work. When I look at the motherboard, I am completely lost as to what each little part does to make it work. There is still no way that I could repair a computer, but at least now I have a little better understanding to what the inside looks like.

What do I know about computers?

I know that I could never be a computer repairman (woman!). I can't even figure out how to take the cover off the CPU. I can barely get the cables hooked up in the right places. Software, programming, that's more up my alley. But, anything remotely related to computer hardware scares me. I'm really hoping this class helps me conquer those fears!

I touched my first computer in high school during my junior year in math class. There was only one available for student's to look at...we weren't really even allowed to touch it without the teacher present. None of the teachers or office staff had computers, everything was typed on a typewriter. All I really remember about the computer is that it was a beast...huge, heavy, not very attractive. I remember thinking that it would be a fad. That was over 30 years ago.

Later, I kind of taught myself how to program code at a huge insurance company. Later, I was involved in data security. I ended my career at that company as an investigator where I had created a huge database on the specs of all my cases. The first wordprocessing program I used was DisplayWrite, the first spreadsheet I used was Lotus. Are these two programs even around anymore? I learned all these skills on the job, so I guess the programming part came kind of easy to me.

Now, as a teacher, I have 3 computers at home and work at a district where there are well over 100 computers and not one typewriter in sight. I am still pretty fluent in learning software technologies, but I'm still stupid about hardware. I hope this class changes all that!

Session 2

Wow! I can't believe how much I've learned in this class in such a short time. Using the webcams is pretty cool. I'll be Skyping with a classroom in New Zealand next month; I just need to figure out how to get my whole class in the webcam view. My students have been correponding with this class for over a month learning how environments and culture affect their lives. It's been a great project, courtesy of www.epals.com. Using all this new technology to share documents over the web has given me another idea. Wouldn't it be awesome if I could get the New Zealand classroom to collaborate over Google Docs with my students? My students are paired up with individual students in New Zealand working on a final collaborative project. We were just going to email the projects back and forth, but after seeing how user-friendly Google Docs is, I think this would be the best avenue for the collaborative piece of the project.

On a different note, I like the idea of online storage; Box.net and DropBox are the two I am most interested in. They have similar features and both appear to be very user-friendly. Both have free accounts, which is great. Box.net offers 1 gb free space while DropBox has 2 gb free, so I'm thinking DropBox is what I will go with. Again, with my New Zealand project, we are going to be sending photos and videos to each other and I was worried about space issues. If I save these files on DropBox, I can allow the New Zealand teacher to share my folder on DropBox and won't have the space worries.

My first blog!

This is my first blog. I have to admit, I was very intimidated to start one. I've been tempted to write one, but I always wondered who would care to read about my daily rantings? Strangely, it somehow feels liberating to put my thoughts out onto the world wide web. Anyway...enough philosophical ramblings.


To be truthful, as the minutes ticked by during class the other night, a feeling of uneasiness slowly crept over me. I'm not sure if it's the anxiety of starting a new journey with my master's degree, the anticipation of increasing my daily workload with homework, or just the good ole' fear of failure. It's the same feeling I had when I walked into a college classroom for the very first time at age 33 and looked around to see if I was the oldest student in the room! I'm not sure why I'm so agitated about this...learning new technologies has always come easily to me. I'm sure all will be good once I get into the homework routine again.


Anyway, back to class. First, a little backstory...This past year my school district has been part of a consortium, along with 6 other districts, who received a $75,000 ISSAC grant to be used to introduce new technologies into our classrooms, as well as integrating 21st Century skills into our curriculum. Our consortium received another $115,000 grant for the 2010-11 school year. It has been through the workshops and participation in this consortium that has allowed me to learn about many of the Web tools we discussed in class Wed. night. As part of the steering committee, I made edits to the grant on Google Docs. We also use Delicious to bookmark any websites that we come across and share with the rest of the committee members. As you can guess, blogging is new to me. But I've been interested in trying it out with my students by using it as a communication tool to share book reviews on new fiction books. This is my 2nd year as the LMS at my school. While it is considered a K-12 library, students did not use the library past 5th grade. There was only 1 bookcase dedicated to young adult fiction with three shelves filled with Loius La'mour, Agatha Cristi and Stephen King. I have brought more than 200 new YA titles into the collection and revived a middle and high school reading interest. Kids are so excited to read now that they want to share their ideas and thoughts about these new books. I want to start a bookclub with them in the fall; I think including a blog as an extension of the bookclub would create a great resource for their ideas.

As for internet browsers, I'm an IE fan. I've used Firefox when IE was down, but only when forced to use it. I'm excited to research all the different browsers out there. One aspect that I totally love about this program is that the homework will enable me to explore all the new technologies that I have always wanted to try, but never had enough time to. Learning these new tools has been promoted to a need rather than a want.

I'm excited to be a part of this esteemed group. I look forward to all that we will learn from each other!