Internet Security

I am writing a paper about using Web 2.0 resources during the writing process. Things like google docs, webspiration, etherpad, docstoc, and scribd. I need to include a part about concerns like security issues. My assumption is that if teachers get a parental consent form for setting up accounts with anonymous/pseudonyms that it would be okay with the district. Is that true? Anyone that is teaching right now, do you know if that would take care of it? All of those applications have built-in security features but to be able to have students make accounts is another issue. I'd appreciate any additional info. on this.

On to another topic...as I wrap up this blog for CI 556, I have to say that even though it was a requirement, I did enjoy having to reflect on class each week. This was a metacognitive activity which is really important. Even using blogs as weekly journals for students would force them to think about what they're learning and how they're thinking about it. Hopefully, I will continue to blog under another name or at least, make sure I keep up on others' blogs for helpful information. I'm really going to try.

Check it out!

In another class (I'm always talking about another class on my blog for this class) :-) someone presented a brief introduction to Voice Thread. It's on our 556 wiki but I don't think we discussed it much in this class. I think it's something that you should all check out. You can post images, video, upload documents, pretty much whatever and record either your voice or textual comments about the image on the screen. That may not seem that cool in itself but you can also draw on the image or pause a video and circle or draw arrows to make what you want people to notice obvious. That, I think, is a very cool feature. It can be a synchronous discussion where several people are signed into the same discussion and would be great for online courses. I was thinking that it could possibly be used for teacher feedback on student papers. You could upload their documents onto voice thread and give feedback verbally, make visual notations with the drawing feature, etc. Students could go online and view their paper and hear comments. It'd be like using a podcast for comments like Dr. Schmidt suggested last night but also with the visual of your paper. I have yet another class where the professor gives audio feedback on our projects. He sends it through email. The only problem is that it's really hard to hear...probably a very fixable problem. I don't think he realized that until someone said something the other night. Anyway, check out VoiceThread. There are short videos that explain how to use it on their website, too.

Oops!

I just realized that I never posted a blog for the week before Thanksgiving break! I could've sworn I did. Anyway, I am also excited about the podcasting topic (as Beth stated) because I actually created my TPACK lesson about students making a podcast. They are so easy to make even if you don't have an iPod or GarageBand. In another class's text by Will Richardson (which is a great resource for teachers by the way), he talks about how all you need is a computer with speakers to record audio as an MP3, the internet, and the site Audacity.com. It's like garageband but FREE! It's kind of silly to think that kids would get excited about essentially making a radio show because radio is kind of outdated, but how many kids have actually made a radio show in school? It's creative, it's called a podcast (not radio), and they can be posted online for a wider audience. Some of the mobile learning discussed in the Van 'T Hooft article are really interesting too. All of these technologies that teachers probably don't even realize are out there could really motivate students and be very engaging. It's not just playing games because they are learning things (even if they don't realize it).

Light Bulb

Even though keyboarding is not a real exciting topic, I am really glad this was what we discussed during the last class. I am writing a journal article for another class and want to focus on using web 2.0 technologies throughout the entire writing process. I was going to focus on research paper writing, but decided to generalize a little more. I think I will still address some web 2.0 apps that can be used for parts of a research paper, too. Anyway, during class, a light bulb went off in my head and even though it is kind of a "duh" thing...I thought of basing my ideas about incorporating technology on TPACK. Since we were talking about having the "T" without the PACK, I thought this would be perfect to talk about for this particular paper. I know I don't have a novel idea, but at least I'll be able to use some solid research to support my ideas. I loved Eherpad which is one app I will talk about for revision step. And even some of the keyboarding research that was in the powerpoint will be helpful. Hopefully, all goes well.

Dr. Schmidt, thanks for the excellent timing of this class topic for giving me ideas I needed. :-)

Idea for blogs in the classroom

I am going to share a specific example of a lesson I would use for students to blog about on a class blog. Students would be asked to go to our class blog for seventh grade language arts and read the prompt that I posted. This is my prompt: What would Sandra Cisneros want you to learn from The House on Mango Street? Using what we have discussed in class and through previous blogging activities, create a found poem using what you think is the most powerful excerpt from the book. The poem should portray the theme of the book. Please post your found poems on the class blog as a comment. Remember to indicate page # and paragraph #'s where you found your inspiration.

Since there are very short chapters in this book, students choose their favorite one and make a new comment on the blog. They need to indicate the 1-2 paragraphs from that chapter that they think are most powerful and put page # and paragraph #’s. (i.e. p. 28, para. 1 & 2). In a found poem, students choose no more than 10 interesting words or short phrases from those paragraphs that capture what they think is the theme of the novel. Then they put the words/phrases they chose into a poem. The poem should be ONLY the words they chose from the excerpt. They would also be required to comment on one another's poems with positive feedback and what they think their classmate's poems mean. I would then share the "best" poems with the students in class and our discussion about theme in this story could continue. This activity has students interacting with one another, offering feedback and thoughts on each other's creative work with poetry. It also promotes classroom community by having everyone's poem available to view.

Constructivist Technology Use

Niederhauser, Dale N. and Denise Lindstrom. "Addressing the NETS for Students Through Constructivist Technology Use in K-12 Classrooms." J. Educational Computing Research. 34.1(2006): 91-128.

The second research article I chose is research done by Dr. Niederhauser, who is an ISU CIT professor, and Denise Lindstrom, who we actually met in this class. I thought since this was close to home and tied in with our class, it would be perfect to summarize for my blog.

This article analyzes how teachers are using technology in the classroom according to the six National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) that were created to promote a more constructivist hands-on use of technology. One interesting thing about their research is that they used anecdotal findings to evaluate their research. They did this by creating questions that teachers answered during an interview which are available at the end of the article. The research included 1078 "technology-using" teachers in K-12 classrooms. By filtering schools based on technology use in a core content area, they had 716 stories that were used for this research. Coding of the data was based on the NETS core ideas...i.e. student use, communicate information, reporting the results, etc.

Standard 1 requires that students are actively engaged in using technology as a tool to help them understand information. The research found that only 38 of the 716 teachers used technology exclusively for students to absorb such as showing videos or searching online for information. The other teachers did engage their students in using either hardware or software to develop their technological skills. There is a chart that shows that computers (hardware) and web browsers (software) were used by students most often.

Standard 2 requires students to be responsible, critical, and ethical users of technology. It is interesting that only 58 of the 716 teachers reported any mention of responsible use like citing sources or avoiding inappropriate sites. I think it's interesting because web browsers are the most used software tool. Another aspect of standard 2 is collaborative work which was pervasive in many teacher stories. Most instances were "intentional collaboration" where they were teamed up, but some were "spontaneous collaboration" where students helped each other when needed. This standard is important for 21st century workplace skills of collaboration and cooperation.

Standard 3 addresses using technology to enhance creativity and learning. They coded the types of products students produced. Some examples included first graders creating a KidPix original graphic, desktop publishing document, and graphic organizer in Kidspiration. Seventy five percent of the activities reported had kids creating at least one product with technology. The products are moving from word processed to desktop published documents which shows a move towards greater creativity and higher-order thinking skills. Multimedia presentations were actually the most created product using software like HyperStudio and PowerPoint.

Standard 4 wants students to be able to successfully communicate with others within and beyond the classroom. They coded one-way and two-way communication of their data. Seventy four percent were one-way communication where mostly students would present a powerpoint to their class. Because constructivist theory says students should be engaged in real-world tasks, they also looked at audience as either inside the classroom, inside the school, and outside the school. In only 8 percent of the cases, students communicated to an outside audience which did not include their families. One group worked on a service-learning project which required communication for an animal shelter. Only 7 percent of the cases involved students interacting with an outside audience through something like email or blog.

Standard 5 requires students use technology to retrieve information (research). They also need to be able to select the appropriate tool to collect information and analyze it. Most commonly students located or collected information. Several activities combined different research skills. They believed the activities where students used teacher-selected websites were merely collecting information but unable to use the real-world skill of analyzing reliability of websites they found on their own. The cases where students evaluated reliability were rare.

Standard 6 is very important. It addresses the need for students to use technology for problem-solving and decision-making. They discuss using real-world, ill-structured problems as the best activities because they allow for multiple "correct" answers. They do not limit the students' ability to search out information they think is relevant. Overly structured activities do not encourage students to develop problem-solving skills. As mentioned earlier, multimedia presentations were widely created but only 28 percent of them actually involved students in a real-world meaningful task.

They found in their conclusion that teachers are beginning to use technology in ways that students need to become proficient according to the NETS but the NETS were definitely not fully addressed through the types of activities teachers were using. They wanted to emphasize that teachers failed to help students become aware of ethical issues, communicate with outside world, use technology in meaningful research, and develop strong problem-solving skills.

That is a long summary of the article, but it is pretty long. I liked that they used anecdotal data to conduct their research because it gives more life to the actual technology use going on in classrooms. I was appalled by the small number of teachers who either feel unable or do not understand the importance of teaching their students about responsible internet use. That is definitely something that needs to be emphasized because without providing these ill-structured problem solving opportunities, students will not be given the opportunity to explore what the WWW has to offer. They will constantly be relying on their teachers to tell them which sites they can and cannot use. Of course some kids will take advantage of being given that freedom, but they have to learn somewhere. Better at school than somewhere they aren't being monitored.

Random Thoughts

I have not been in any schools where they use interactive white boards. I am regularly in Ankeny, Ames, and Ballard school districts. Almost all Ankeny classrooms have an Elmo which is really nice...no more making transparencies. And there's a math classroom in Ames that has an Elmo. I asked her if she liked it, and she is thrilled by it. I'm sure it cuts down on the time it takes to prep materials for her students. Anyway, it's funny because just the night before (yet again) I saw a presentation on how to use the Promethean board in another class. Everything just seems to line up in all the classes I'm taking this semester. Having an interactive white board would be great...but the cost is probably why more classrooms don't have them.

On another note...I have started writing a script for my digital story. I am going to use my photo essay that did not have any narration and turn that into a true digital story. I won't say what the topic is here though. :-) It was fun watching the examples of successful digital stories and not so successful ones. I am going to strive to make this one even better than the last. I'm glad we have quite a bit of time to work on this one, too.

Digitalize!

Class was interesting and a little cold last week. :-) I didn't even know that making a book in iPhoto was possible! I am always learning new things in this class about either Web 2.0 resources or software programs. I added a couple podcast entries on the class wiki during last class also. There are so many interesting podcasts out there that I wish I had time to listen to all the time. I guess I should make some time, huh?
As I'm reading through the articles for this week, I am again seeing the relationship between all the classes I'm taking this semester. In CI 501, I created a photo essay which was a little different from digital story because it had no narration, no audio at all. It was simply supposed to tell a story (deliver a message) through pictures. It was interesting to see how others completed this project because it was obvious that there were cultural barriers for me when viewing some people's projects. Of course, it is important to consider the audience, but to them, they were going for a personal connection, something they knew and could convey to others. In CI 505, I created a digital story! It is actually a very fun process. I got to tell a story about something personal but tell it in a way to see if others would be affected by the emotion of it. Some of the class's stories were tearjerkers, but so fun to watch! You learn so much about somebody by a short 1-2 minute story. I look forward to creating a digital story for this class as I now know what to expect and what makes a "good" digital story. I actually received 4th place for my digital story. Not to brag or anything. LOL

Podcasting

I missed class last week but Dr. Schmidt recorded class on an iPod for me. Yay! It was really cool to be able to listen to what you all did in class. I think the recording started a little late and maybe ended early? There was only an hour and a half on the iPod. Anyway, I'm glad I got to hear about the expectations about the TPACK lesson plan since we hadn't heard much about it yet. I can hopefully use a lesson I've already created to integrate technology into. Unfortunately, I did not have the capability to post the podcast onto our class wiki from my home computer. I had to rush the iPod back to the CTLT anyway so it wouldn't be late.
We are actually going to mess with podcasting next week in another class, so this was interesting for me to take part in a quasi-podcast. I also had an assignment where I had to find a podcast for use in the classroom, and there are so many great resources out there. I found one that is an interview with Sandra Cisneros from npr.org. Very interesting and I think would be motivating for students to hear straight from the author about why she wrote her book. I will be acccessing more podcasts in the future because they are so cool! Students would have a blast creating them as well. When I get a chance, I'm going to post a few podcast resources on our wiki.

One-on-One Laptop Program Research

Silvernail, David L. and Dawn M. Lane. "The Impact of Maine's One-to-One Laptop Program on Middle School Teachers and Students." Maine Education Policy Research Institute. University

of Southern Maine Office. Feb. 2004.

I chose to do one of my research blogs on a laptop program because we talked a lot about United Community's program that they just began. I was curious to see the effects that other research found on student achievement and engagement due to a laptop program.

This particular research was done in Maine (2002-2004) at a middle school where all 7th and 8th grade students were provided with laptops and teachers were also provided with training opportunities on how to incorporate laptops into their curriculum. Some highlights of the research was that over 70% of teachers said it helped them to meet students' needs by providing individualized curriculum and 4 out of 5 teachers said it improved students' motivation and engagement. In fact, teachers said students prepared better quality of work. Students reported that the laptops helped them to stay organized, get work done faster, and produce better quality work and ninth graders who no longer have laptops said their work quality has declined. This is very interesting and what I would expect.

The program started as the idea of former Gov. Angus King. He wanted Maine to move beyond what education had traditionally been doing to shift into the age of technology.In 2002, 17,000 seventh graders and their teachers received laptops. Wow! That is a huge number compared to United. When we were talking about bigger schools not being able to do provide this program, I thought that was definitely true. But 17,000 students getting laptops? That is amazing!

Of course teachers were found to use the laptops mainly for producing instructional materials, but interestingly, they were underusing them for handling student information and assessments. One teacher said that they are still "paper-based" when it came to that. Students used their laptops most for finding information, then organizing information, and finally for taking notes. The lowest use is for taking tests/quizzes using laptops. Some teachers no longer used textbooks because of the up-to-date information they could find using their laptops. Many teachers reported that they were better able to meet the learning standards for their school.

Overall, this research shows that a one-to-one laptop program has significant benefits for student work and teacher quality. I am excited to see how the program at United turns out. I wish there was enough money out there to provide more schools with this opportunity. It is a great step toward changing the mentality of the past and turning students into successful citizens in the 21st century.

Digital Books Galore!

It's times like last night that makes me wish I was a lower level teacher...just a little bit. The Web 2.0 resources just keep coming. I've started a Google Doc of a list of the resources we've talked about and it's getting pretty long. Hopefully, I remember what they all are. I can't believe the FREE stuff out there. The sites for the children's books were awesome! I would also totally use them with older kids, even high schoolers because they like that kind of thing sometimes. Just for a change of pace. I would use children's books for a struggling reader class I taught, and even though they acted like they thought it was lame, I know they enjoyed being read to in that "elementary" way.
I mentioned students being able to distinguish between unreliable and reliable websites last night. We had just talked about that in CI 501 a couple nights before and how important it is that teachers don't limit the exposure students get to the internet. That doesn't mean they should be able to do whatever they want, but giving them a list of websites they CAN use totally defeats the point. In a reading for that class, it said that web browsers were the most commonly used technology in the classroom but teachers were not comfortable with teaching about the responsibility that students need to take when sorting through information. It's a skill that everyone needs to learn in order to be critical readers in this digital world. Maybe teachers need some professional development that shows them how to give some power back to the students in that area of using the web.

Elementary Activities

I actually enjoyed class the other night. Even though we did mostly elementary activities, it was fun! I found myself thinking of higher level applications for some of the programs we used. Probably couldn't use the scholastic site at the middle/high school level, but I can see how great of a resource that would be in elementary schools. Too bad it's so expensive. I had no idea why we brought our 10 "things," but it was a nice surprise to create our own "I Spy" pages. What a great idea! All of the activities would engage students.
I'm disappointed that the speaker is coming on Oct. 7 because of course, that's the one class I can't be at! Would it be possible to podcast it or videotape her, so that I could see it later? That question is obviously for Dr. Schmidt, so hopefully when she reads this, she can answer that question. :-)
I guess I don't have much to say this week, but I'm definitely excited about all of the web 2.0 resources we are finding out about. I wish I could use them in a classroom, but since I can't, at least I can share the wealth of knowledge with teachers I know.

I appreciated Dr. Schmidt's comment on my last blog about TeacherTube being already safe. I, personally, haven't used it but will be suggesting it to those AMS teachers when I go there to sub on Friday.

Today, I'm subbing at Ankeny High School for a special ed teacher and although (admittedly) I'm not doing much, I did sit in on an Economics class where the teacher announced that tomorrow the kids will be using a program to calculate auto insurance costs with purchasing or leasing an actual vehicle. This is potentially a good project where kids are using technology and real-life context. Unfortunately, I will not be able to see how it goes. I've been reading about transfer of learning for another class and they talk a lot about not "overcontextualizing" learning because students won't be able to transfer those skills to another context. I hope this car project is general enough to help the students actually have some transfer of learning. I feel like it probably will be successful at that because they're looking at different options and such.

Back to CI 556 last week...I thought it was funny that Dr. Schmidt said that TPACK was what she'd been doing all along but just hadn't put it together into a framework. I had JUST said to the person next to me how the reading about TPACK was kind of "duh, I've heard this all before." That probably sounds bad, and I don't mean it to but really, TPACK makes perfect sense, so I guess someone had to put it into a framework for teachers to "neatly" be able to utilize. I liked the activity we did with it, too. It was pretty clever and made it a very visual concept.

Great new Web 2.0 resources!

Class this week was...interesting for me. Since I am secondary, I was pretty bored with Bailey's Bookhouse. Because I sub in all areas, I have had experience with the "center" use of programs like that. I can see how obviously using it ALONG with an instructional purpose would give it a more meaningful learning experience for kids. But I can also see how teachers sometimes just need fillers, and Bailey's would provide that purpose also. The other resources were much more interesting for me. They are a lot more open-ended which lends itself to all levels and grades of students. Seeing just a few of the thousands (I'm sure) of resources I could use does actually make me miss being in a classroom full-time. There's soo much I could do with these resources! I guess I'll have to be content with sharing them with the LA teachers I do work with and know pretty well.
Speaking of sharing resources...I did share Wordle with a 7th grade LA teacher, and she kinda brushed it off! I didn't actually have time to show her a Wordle creation, so that probably would have helped, but really...she could have acknowledged that there are resources she could be using that she doesn't even know about! Anyway, that kind of upset me if you can't tell. :-) I also had a conversation with that same teacher about how Ames schools have blocked YouTube. She and her co-teacher did actually use it for educational purposes last year, so she's very upset that they have chosen to block such a great resource. It's funny because her husband works for Ballard school district and they have chosen to keep facebook and YouTube accessible to students and teachers. They are just trusting that teachers will be responsible and use it appropriately. I feel like it's pretty much censorship when the technology director (or whoever decides these things) block sites that do have great possibilities to enhance learning. I know it happens in a lot of school districts, so is there something that can be done to reverse that? Can teachers get together and document their use of these sites so they see the benefits of them? I don't know if some teachers care enough to do that, but I think they should definitely try!
Moving on...I started reading the Mishra and Koehler article and I love that they give examples of the Web 2.0 resources they have used for their research of TPACK. I plan on researching some of them (especially the specialized search engines) and possibly using them for my resource review in CI 505. Very cool technology out there that is right at our fingertips!

First CI 556 Class

Although I wasn't sure I needed to be in this class at first, I have decided to stay! I am an English major, so I am definitely interested in all of the information we will cover in this course. Because I want to focus more now on the CIT aspect, I thought that this class may not be one I needed to meet the needs of what I want my degree to be. I was excited that I learned about Wordle. I had never heard of it and plan to share it with some of the AMS language arts teachers I know when I sub there next week. They will love it (if they haven't already heard of it) and I'm sure will use it with their seventh graders. It's so important to have middle schoolers (which is the age of kids I would LOVE to teach) be able to see word usage graphically. I feel like they would understand the power of words in a much more meaningful way using something like Wordle. I haven't thought of a particular lesson I would use it with, but I will by next class. (considering that's an assignment):-) I'm also glad to stay in this class because it will definitely be beneficial as I'm taking my intro CIT courses (CI 501 and 505). I will be able to share some Language Arts related resources that I may not have known about otherwise. Overall, I was happy with the first night and am sure I will learn a lot. I'll be honest about one thing...I'm not too excited about writing lesson plans since I did that sooo much in undergrad, and as of now, my goal is to have a career outside the classroom when I'm finished with my masters in CIT.