Final Reflection

Wow, have I learned a lot this summer in camp!  In a way, it has been a little like drinking out of a fire hose - with many many new things and experiences.  I look forward to taking the time, as our year goes along, to refining and integrating what I have learned.  

Although I enjoyed everything that I tried, in particular, the webcasting will be invaluable as I begin teaching Technology again this year.  My second graders loved working on their websites at home but found it difficult at times because they would forget things they learned in class.  Having a webcast tutorial as we go will be perfect.   I can also see great potential for Edmoto (or Twitter) for my HP Math kids.  It would be fun for groups of kids to post math problems or challenges for each other to solve.  And both will offer another way for parents to keep "in the loop" on what's happening in my classes.    I absolutely loved Storybird.  I wish I had known about this last year, when I was working with struggling readers.  What a great format for kids.  I am hoping to be able to use it in some way in my Technology class (creating a class book, perhaps?)   

At times, I found it challenging to learn new technology.  Sometimes, it was frustrating when you are following the directions perfectly and things still aren't working.  What a good reminder for me of what it feels like to be a 1st or 2nd grader in the same situation.   The things I am teaching are easy and intuitive for me but brand new for kids.  They may be digital natives, but they are still young learners and I need to keep this in mind.  This class really helped reinforce that for me.  

I have used blogging in the classroom and enjoyed using it as a format for this class.  One interesting discovery that I made was how much I really did enjoy comments and feedback on my posts.  When I got none (other than from the instructor) I would be a little disappointed.  Again - this made me think of kids and how important my feedback is to them - and how important it is to make sure that all kids are receiving somewhat equal feedback if kids are responding to kids.   What valuable learning experiences for me!

I loved being a learner this summer and am so glad I was at camp.  There were no mosquitos, poison ivy, or homesickness to worry about.  Just lots of learning and fun.   Thank You!  :) 

Activity 10 - Free Choice!

I have been looking for a way to create a community that my Tech students and HP Math students can be involved in so I chose Edmoto for this activity.  I have gone back and forth on my thoughts about virtual communities.  I would love for there to be a sort of "Facebook for kids" and I have found a few:

                                   Kids Social Network     Scuttlepad    Kidzworld     

Each one is well monitored but I haven't completely decided my purpose for introducing kids to online communities.  Do I want it to be strictly educational?  Social?  Both?  There are a number of issues that surround this, including the possibility for bullying and leaving some kids out because they don't have internet access.   Edmoto seems to be a sort of educational twitter from what I can tell.   I love Twitter but found it difficult to use with my Technology students because I only see them once a week.   For the way I would use it, Twitter works better for kids I see daily.  My nephew's class in Colorado tweets up a storm and it's fun.

I plan to spend some time playing around on Edmoto and getting to know it better.  Hopefully, it will be just the platform I am looking for!   Here's the link:   Ms. Wolf's Edmoto

Activity 9 - Fitness Assessment

This week's activity was especially pertinent for me in my role as Grade 1/2 Technology Specialist.  Last year, I worried about many of the issues touched upon in these scenarios.  Since I work with much younger kids (and for many, this is their first school exposure to the internet) I feel a particular responsibility to ensure safe use, understanding of copyright, and other issues.   Fortunately, I had no major issues last year but I think technology, wonderful as it may be, has introduced a variety of new challenges educators face.

Here is my response to Scenario 3 (Anonymous Blogging - Ms. Gifford and the inappropriate use of blogs)

Since Blogger is blocked for elementary age kids in MV, this scenario hit home for me.  So far, my blogging has been a matter of me posting things that kids can respond to.  I would like to let them create their own blogs but am concerned about the exact issues Ms. Gifford has faced.  One thing that I want to do better next year is keep the parents informed about what I am doing.  I felt like I did a pretty good job of helping the kids understand internet safety and privacy issues but I did not include the parents in this.  Consequently, it was the parents who helped the kids post photos (of the kids) on their websites, something I absolutely did not allow because of safety.  Parents also helped their kids embed copyrighted things into websites.    Oops.  It was an easy problem to fix since I have administrative access to kids' accounts but it showed that parents didn't really understand what they needed to know.  

Although I know there are other blog platforms that elementary aged kids can,  I am still hesitant for kids to each create their own blog in Technology.  I am also not sure what educational objective I would attach it to since I don't teach reading or math (or social studies, etc.) to kids. For this upcoming year,  I thought I might start by setting up a "class" blog for each class and blogging together once a week when I see the kids for Technology.  

Ultimately, what I discovered last year, is that 1st and 2nd graders can be a bit naive in their use of technology.  They are not quite sophisticated enough (yet) to use it as a weapon (ie - bullying) and in the same hand, they don't always "get" how unsafe it is to do things that we talk about as being unsafe (such as posting their address or pictures of themselves.)    As I said, I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility when I work with primary aged kids in Technology.  It's a great new world, but one that needs to be handled with care when it comes to kids.  

 

 Scenario 5 (Email Complication)

Okay, I actually laughed as I read this scenario because this was pretty much my life as a first year Technology teacher last year.  Things were ALWAYS going wrong - even when I prepared and double checked and did everything I thought I could possibly do before teaching a lesson.  One of my personal examples is when I went to show first graders how to access their home folders.  I went through the lesson beforehand, by myself in the lab, using the Smartboard, and trying to anticipate everything that could go wrong.  Finding your home folder can be a really complicated situation for first graders because there are a lot of steps and a lot of words - and first graders can't always read.  I thought I was totally prepared and when I finally had the chance to actually teach it to my first class, I discovered that the platform on the teacher computer looks entirely different than the platform on the kids' computers.

My solution to a complete Technology lesson meltdown has been to either: 1. Stop the lesson and do something else.  I had a set of back-up plans for just such occasions   2. Have the kids read picture books (always had a basket of those available) while I showed a few "teacher" kids how to do the assignment, then let them teach others while I circulated around.    

For my own personal scenario above, I had the kids read picture books while I trained about six kids in, who then trained the others.  This worked for my first class and then I had time to figure out how to do it differently with my second class.

I would love to be able to say that you can prepare for everything and there will be no problems, but I've discovered there are just too many factors with technology to be able to anticipate it all.  You need to be incredibly flexible and able to change "on a dime." I had situations where I had a lesson prepared that utilized the internet and the internet would go down just as we were starting the lesson - or I would come in to the lab to discover that the class before me had done things to the computers so that my kids couldn't use them properly - or the Smartboard or teacher computer would not work.    I think those moments were teachable times for the kids as well.  They were able to see how I handled frustrating circumstances and also learn to be flexible right along with me.  

   

Activity 8 - Polling and Data Gathering

The first time I see a MN State Fair Commercial always marks the beginning of the end of summer for me.  And since August 1st, the commercials have been in full swing.  Since I've had the MN State Fair on my mind (cheese curds, corn dogs, everything on a stick oh my!) I decided to create a state fair poll using Poll Everywhere.  It was very easy and very fun.  Since I will be teaching HP Math this year, I can see many different ways this activity would fit.  I imagine using it as a teacher - creating one poll that kids can answer.  And I imagine kids using it themselves to create polls and collect data from friends and family members.  The possibilities are really endless and once again, I've discovered something that will be very useful in the upcoming year.  

Activity 7, Cloud Computing

For this week's activity, I chose to create a survey that could potentially be used by my second grade HP Math students.  Our fifth grade did some interesting things with math interviews this year and I would like to do something similar.  This survey would serve as a nice a start.  In addition to math, I can see possibly showing kids how to do this in my Technology classes.  I think students would find it very fun to create their own surveys and link them in their websites.  It will depend on where they are at skill-wise if I try this or not.  However it is used, I think that the "cloud" has many different opportunities for classroom use.   There are many pros as I can see it being a useful tool to embed in a website and allow parents access to share thoughts on things.   And it provides students with a different way to express their thoughts and opinions about various topics.  Some of the cons would include parents who do not have internet access or who do not speak English.  This has been a challenge at our school and could be a challenge for collecting information using an online survey.   But overall, I really like the possibilities that come with Google Docs.

Here is the link:

Math Survey

Activity 6 Second Try!

For Quizlet, I'm giving up on trying to embed it and just providing the link to my flashcards.  Here we go:  

 Learning about the World Wide Web - Click Here!

Activity 6 - Study Aids

For this activity, I decided to create one study aid for my Technology position and one for my HP Math position.

In Technology, we spend a lot of time talking about what the internet is, how to maneuver around while on it, and being safe.  I decided to create flashcards based on some of what we talk about.  I used Quizlet and found it incredibly easy.  The challenge was in embedding it in my blog.  For some reason, I had a number of issues getting Quizlet to confirm my account.  Then it wouldn't let me paste HTML code.  I was able to copy but not paste.   I think I have it figured out though (hopefully) below:

<iframe src="http://quizlet.com/24752582/familiarize/embedv2/" height="410" width="100%" style="border:0;"></iframe>


For HP Math, I chose to make a word cloud using Tagxedo.  This was easy and fun for me.  I can see it having some creative applications for my Technology students.   Kids could create one and embed it in their website.  I think they'd love it!