Phixr Review

I had used other photo editing software before so I thought that I would try one that I never had heard of. I found it to be a lot like the other ones. It had many of the same features of other photo editing software. A few things that I liked were the ability to combine photos to make a collage, also it was fun to try to put the faces in other bodies.

Another feature that I thought was really nice for the classroom setting was that they let you use the program without having to log in at all or start an account. I like this feature for a couple of reasons first I have run into issues with parents not wanting to have their kids open accounts of any kind. With this all kids can get on and play around. The second thing that i liked about this is there is will be very little work before you get to the program, a kid can just get on go to the website and get started. It takes a lot of the would be problems for the teacher right out of the way.

What I did to play around with this program is i just took a picture of my wife and saw what I could do to mess around with it. It was a very easy interface to use, and I liked the the features. i also liked how easy it was to upload the photo to a certain thing for example facebook. It was just a click of a button and it was there. You could also personalize your photo on to t-shirts or coffee cups which was pretty cool, i didn't do it I don't think my wife would approve. Overall thought it was like must other photo editing software, but would use it in the classroom because of how easy it was to get going.

Google Docs Review

I was vaguely familiar with this program before I started playing around with it today. My wife's school used it this past year for multiple things but the main one was communication within the school. They mainly used it as a add-on to their e-mail and easily could attach and send documents.

As far what I think of the program I think that is seems like it would be a useful add-on to most schools computer uses. I really like the ability to share your documents with other co-workers. If I am ever sending anything home I like to have a colleague take a look first to make sure that it looks good; with google docs the transfer will be easy and the editing can be done right on the document. Another thing that I really like about it is that if I wanted to publish documents to my class website or to my schools website it can be done without a problem.

Another portion that seems like could be a great idea is with the sharing of presentations. If the principal wants to put together to show the students it just needs to be uploaded to Google docs and it can be shown in all the classrooms without much of an issue. Also the team that I teach with would love to use this to spend time editing our presentations that we make at parent meetings. Instead of one person doing it we could each take parts and them make one presentation out of it. Overall i think that it is a great program and will probably start using it with my class and colleagues.

R/D13

The one thing in this chapter that really fascinates me is the advanced performance tracking. As a coach the example that they gave really got me thinking. I would love to have this technology at my finger tips to help some of my players. First if there was a kid who was having trouble with his jump shot there would be more to it then just looking at film and trying to diagnose a problem, this would actually tell you where you are off from what you are supposed to do. Pretty Sweet!! Then when you put on the the device with its "microhydralic capabilities " where it can take over your arm and help you get the muscle memory that you need to perform certain tasks.

Just made me think of my golf game, golf is a sport that is almost based solely on muscle memory. There can be many different swings, but if you have taught your body how to do it, then you can be a good golfer. This Advanced Performance tracking probably would revolutionize the game. it could help many people become better golfers, and make the game much more enjoyable. I don't think it is going to an average golfer as good is the people that play for living but it could make a frustrating game a little more fun for some.

I haven't really thought how this could incorporate into a classroom setting but I did think that it could be a big help to kids who have physical disabilities. It could help them learn the right way to do a task, not only by seeing and hearing, it but also feeling what it is like. That is why I think this technology is so cool it really gives you many different ways to learn something. I am sure that this technology is years from being mastered and would cost a lot of money to use, but after the way I played the other day, I just need about an hour with that machine and I would be good.

R/D12

I wanted to start by talking with the cognitive processes of learning. I found this section very interesting, I have read a few different things about this and have taken a couple of classes that have talked about these things. It really wasn't until I got into the classroom that I really started looking and understanding these things. Going from my time in school to now a teacher I think that it is amazing the difference in importance these are with the different age of learners. When you are in college you really need things like activation of prior knowledge and encoding these are things that someone would really need, it is all about prior knowledge and being able to relate what you are currently learning. This still happens to a point in the classroom that I am currrently teaching but I don't think that it is the most important thing cognitively for the lower grade learner. The two that I think are the most important at the level I teach are attention and motivation. This is where I believe the use of technology and rich media come in. Kids need to be motivated to learn, unlike a college kid who is pretty much internally motivated younger grades may need a teachers help. Getting their attention will help with motivation, in the text they use the term edutainment which is using multimedia experiences to help keep attention and motivation. It is something that I have always said I wanted to do it takes time to set up but obviously from this text you can see how important it is.

The second part that I found interesting was a particular quote it says " a learners level of prior knowledge is the single most important individual difference variable involved in learning and is the most important characteristic to know to help you design appropriate training." This is true if designing training in the business sector or for any teacher in a classroom. It is also probably one of the single hardest things that i come across on daily basis, how do I make my lesson so that it reaches everyone. I think that use of rich media and technology would also have an issue with this. You can make the programs to use in your classroom but not everyone will have the knowledge to put it to use. This really is crux of education, you must reach all learners not matter where they are at.

My Google Site

Since the school year is fast approaching I decided to make a website to introduce myself and get the kids ready for the school year. Right now it is just giving the basic facts, Who am I, important dates and events, and things they will need to bring. Normally I send out a letter to all the parents, but if they have questions they have a hard time getting a hold of me. This way they can just comment on the site and i can respond to their comments from home.

7th grade introduction

Screencasting

This seems like such a great tool for anyone who needs to teach and use computers quite a bit. As I read through John Udell observations about what is screencasting, I was blown away by the different generes and things that you could do with this screencasting. The first thing that popped into my head was the How-to genre. A couple things quickly came to mind. First, last year my school bought an online learning system for extended learning and credit recovery. This program although not overly complicted was new to many students and caused quite a few problems for the students. If we have a screencast set up to show them the ropes this would be much easier. You would certainly have to break it down into different parts but that is possible and would make it easier. I would probably start with logging into the program, aftet that is mastered i would certainly go into the meat and potatoes of it and show what the program can do, this portion would be the most important and would have to go into great detail. i also had another idea in the how-to genre, it would be a how-to pass this class. It would certainly work best in a computer class of some kind but at the end of a year or trimester the kids in the class would make a screencast on how to pass the class that would be given to the kids next year. This would be a great review tool for the kids and will show them just how much they learned. For example maybe you did a unit on power point, they would then create a screencast showing all the stuff that learned on power point. Then the next year you have a tool to either get the kids excited about what they are going to learn or can be used as a pretest for what they already know.

Another genre that i thought was great was Animated whiteboard. I would use this for my basketball team as a study tool for them to learn plays. The play could be drawn on the whiteboard with my explanation behind the drawing, they then could listen to this to prepare for games. They probably don't want to hear my voice more then they already do, however it could be a great tool. They could even make there own plays and then present them to the team to see if we want to use them. It is a great interactive tool for learning.

The last genre that I like was the software demo, this would certainly need to be for very high level classes, but you could give them certain software to look over and learn about, they would then have to do the voice over of what they like and didn't like about the software. This could be a very powerful lesson because they would have to think critically about what they like and don't like about the software. If you put everyone on the same software, you could probably get some really great discussion going because there will be parts the some people think are great, and others think need improvements.

R/D11

The thought of working in the field of educational technology has always interested me. It is an ever changing field that seems like it could be a constant challenge for someone in the field. It also seems to be on the leading edge of k-12 education, we have just scratched the surface of what we can do and develop in this field. With that said there are some competencies that I wonder about when it comes to my skill set. I have also zero experience in dealing with the fixing of hardware and creating of new soft wares. I know that this isn't something that everyone has to deal with when it comes to this field but, but with the way budgets are getting, I wouldn't be surprised if schools start to look for the jack of all trades candidate.

With all that being said, I think that some of the biggest things that you need to be in this field is a great leader,decisive with your decisions, and a good teacher. I really believe that anyone in the teaching profession already is a born leader. Being a leader or advocate for your colleagues can be different however. Being a leader is not something that is given to one person it is something that is earned. It is earned through hard work, respect for people, and a willingness to listen and take action. These are things that I try to bring to all aspects of my life, and what I think I would bring to the field of instructional design and technology. The part about being decisive is also key in any leadership position you need to be decisive ; especially in this field. There would be many important decisions to make, and they should be made in a timely matter. The last thing that I think I can do and what is important in this field is the teaching aspect. At some point you will have to teach new technologies to people. This goes right back to the question that was asked, a good teacher is competent and knowledgeable about their field. You need to know the program or idea that you are teaching like the back of your hand, if not then there could be holes in your teaching. It is because of this reason that I know that I have a long way to go before I ready to be a leader in this field, but with time hopefully I will be there.

R/D10

Development, Development, Development, after reading chapter 22 and going back through the previous chapters on instructional design it seemed that the key word in all of this was development. It took many different shapes however, in the corporate context it seemed like it was the development of materials to be used by employees, the P-12 aspect it seemed to be the development of ideas and a whole enity with the systematic change. Instructional design in the realm of higher education seemed to be the development of all three. A professor would have to develop students through teaching and guidance. They would also have to develop materials through there writing in journals and other periodicals. They have to develop whole enitites in what they call faculty development. The key in all of these is that something is being created, to take this back to teaching terms we as teachers are also constanting developing things, we have to develop materials and ideas so that we can develop the minds of our students.

Another thing that really jumped out at me while reading chapter 22 was the emphasis on the hierarchy of higher education. It seems that every synopsis written by one of the professors delved deeply into the what exactly everyone's role was and that there was a ladder that needed to be climbed to get to a certain point. Now, I know that there is a hierarchy in life, and there that people are always trying to climb the ladder to get to certain points. I see it at my school, although we are all teachers and in the hierarchy of the school are ranked the same, so people get more things then others. This usually comes from experience and leadership tendencies. I am sure that this is the same idea in the business sector. They may not have the distinct roles like in higher education, but they do have promotions, some businesses have manger programs that can work on a hierarchy. I wonder if this idea of the hierarchy can work in a k-12 environment? to me seems like it has some merit. After a teacher becomes tenured there are losing part of what makes someone work hard which is working to keep your job. Many people will still do the same if not more because of the value system they have, but not everyone. If there were steps to climb past tenure could this make a difference? I think it could. Older teachers sometime get a bad reputation as mailing it in to retirement, it my short career it has been the opposite the older teachers I have encountered have been great mentors and some the best teachers I have seen, maybe we should reward them for their time spent and leadership the exude.

Google Map Activity

View Places of the Civil War in a larger map




In this activity the kids would have to use the Google maps in order to find famous places of the Civil War. This could be used as a review at the end of the unit, a pretest to see what they know. You could also help all levels with this. If you have students who need a challenge they can just get a blank canvas and go to work. If you have kids who need more direction, you can give them a list of places to find. The teacher could add as little or as much detail as they deem fit.

R/D9

So far I have thought that the class is great, and has given me a lot of things that I plan on incorporating into my classroom. None of the tasks have been super challenging, but they have introduced things to me that I didn't previously know or use so it has been nice. I find the amount of support you have provided to be adequate, also having a forum where you can discuss things with classmates is nice. As far as having this class early in the program it is great because it is a wide variety of things that are being done.

R/D8

1. The first thing that I found interesting was the Ecological systematic change. After reading it I immediately thought of our school districts and the State of Michigan. In it it says that systematic change is based in a clear understanding of interrelationship and interdependency within a system of interest. If there is a large change in one part of the system it requires changes in the other part. It remind me the the school funding issue, back when we were under proposal A there were many schools who were doing just fine getting enough money to support themselves just from property taxes. There were other schools that were not even close to making it. When we got rid of the Proposal A, we became interdependent on the state much more then we were. It was great for some, and has probably hurt others. regardless when one changed all the others had to change. It still happens today as must schools have to adjust and readjust budgets according to what the State provides. There is a definite interdependent relationship.

2. In the section titled needs and Future directions it brings it all together nicely but also brings up a couple great points. One multiple occasions it says whole-system improvement. This is key in anything school, business, and life. If everyone is not on board it never is going to work. if there is one person who doubts what the final picture is going to look like it is going to be a failure. This is something that is dealt with in coaching a lot. It needs to be a whole- system improvement, or a whole team improvement. Just like in coaching your whole school needs to buy into improvement in order for it to work. Seems easy enough, however it is says in the text it isn't the easy way to do it. The easy way is to stay where you are, but with that attitude there will be no whole-system improvement.

R/D7

From reading chapter 18 on instructional design in business and industry couple things really jumped out at me. First was in the section called technology-based training delivery. I personally have never truly worked in the business and corporate field, so everything I have ever known is things I have seen, mostly through TV. These things can be sensationalized so much that it is hard to know what is true. When I saw the fact that 70% of all training is still done classroom and lecture style, I was blown away. I always thought thought that large corporations used the latest and greatest technology to get their employees up to speed on the company and procedures. After reading that it made me think of the field I am in, and how those numbers relate. I wonder how many classrooms are still led by a teacher who stands in the front of the room and lectures about a certain topic? Could it be 70% or more? My guess is that it is close to that. Is this method truly the best method to reach our students? Most studies say it isn't and just by personal experience, things that are done hands on in learner first manner are almost always better received and recalled much easier. To relate it back to the business sense, it seems like using technology to train your employees will probably cost a little more up front, but could save you alot down the road. Not only do you not have to pay the trainers, but you are developing a much more technical savvy work staff which could pay dividends in the long run.

Another thing that I found was the discussion of globalization of training. For this i want to just think of teaching as training, truly that is what a teacher does they train someone for future endeavors. In this section it talks about all the things that you need to think about when designing training materials. Some of these seem a little old fashioned and out of date, but they bring up a good point. Do we think enough of the culturally differences in our classroom? I know it isn't something that I really think about, but maybe I should. You never really know if something this bothering a student if they don't tell you, so maybe you could be offending someone without even knowing it. One way I try to avoid this is by building a relationship with the students and making a safe environment for them, so if something is bothering they share it.

D/B6

HPI or Human Performance Improvement is a term that I have never heard of until reading chapter 14 of the Trends and Issues book. However after looking into what it means and some ideas they gave about it, I would say that it sounds like what most k-12 schools want to accomplish.

On page 135 in the book it says " conceptually, HPI is a movement with a straight forward mission-valued accomplishment through people. Via systematic means, from analysis of performance gaps, design and development of appropriate, economical, feasible, and organizationally acceptable interventions." this really sounds like how most classrooms are run in 2010. First a teacher is looking for what needs to be taught by doing pretests, which could be searching for performance gaps. Once those are found you want to design and develop ways to solve these problems, this is just like in the HPI where it says you will need to look for appropriate interventions. This happens in the classroom all the time, if a student isn't getting something the teacher needs to step back and say how can I do this differently so the kids understand?

I could also see where this would apply to someone in the field of educational technology. If you took someone who was maybe a network administrator at a school, this person would want to build the best and strongest network possible. They would look for gaps in the performance of the network, they would then try to find a ways to fix it. The previous quote uses words like feasible and economical which are both great words to describe what someone in this position would look for when they are trying to fill in performance gaps in their network.

R/D5

First off as a relatively new teacher, I have always said that I don't know how people taught before the Internet. It is such a great tool and can make the life of a teacher so much better. Having information at your fingertips 24 hours a day is something that really is amazing. I think it sometimes gets taken for granted what the Internet has done in the classroom. It has come so commonplace that people don't even realize how much it gets used. In the first ten minutes in my classroom I use the Internet to do at least five different tasks. it really is incredible, and is such a time saver.

With all that said, I wonder if the Internet has a plateau??? Could there come a time when there is nothing new created for the k-12 classroom? I don't really see that happening anytime soon, many programs are in their infancy and have so much room to grow. For example, at my school we have just started online learning last year. The program is great but there are so many things that could be better. In fact they have just upgraded and improved the program to add AP classes. I for one have never used a podcast in my classroom or linked up cellphones to use them as an educational tool. These are all things that have either just been introduced or in the grand scheme of things just for a little while.

If I would guess the Internet has been in the k-12 building for probably 15 or less years, there is room to grow. There are probably way less teachers who know and can use the Internet to great capability then can teachers who rarely use it and depend mostly on pen and paper. This is why programs like the one we are in are so important to the future of the Internet in the classroom, first we need to build teachers who are capable and after that we can have students who are the same.

Teaching the Civil War using Technology

Have talked a little bit about the Civil War and how much I enjoy teaching it, but this is a blog that I have used previously, and while doing this project found a podcast to go with it.

The Blog


The Podcast

Home of the 2 time National Champions

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Grace Bible College Basketball

R/D4

Using a photo sharing activity in school could be a tricky thing. I have run into numerous instances where a student could be photographed in case it ended up on the Internet, it really is sad but that is the world we live in. With that said there could be some cool things you could do with this i would certainly make them get permission from a parent or guardian before doing anything with the photo sharing. If I was going to do an activity I would probably do it early in the year as a get to know you activity. You could have them start an account and then have them so what they did over the summer, another thing that I would do is make them teach them about themselves, but give them a limit of pictures they can put in their album. So for instance they have to show us everything possible about themselves in five pictures. This makes them get more creative with their pictures and saves the teacher time in those first few days which are always so hectic.

As far the assigned reading from Trends and Issues, as I read through the chapter i kept coming back to the Six characteristics of Industrial design on page 13. These steps remind me so much of my thought process as I am putting together a lesson. The first two probably ring true for most teachers when you are creating a lesson or unit you always want it to center around the learner or student. Which goes right into the second characteristic, which is goals. I always think of the goals for a particular unit, what should a student learn from this? How are they going to learn this? Setting goals is part of almost ever part of life so I am not surprised that being goal oriented pops up in this book. Without goal setting there would be no finish line and it would just continue to move forward. The fourth characteristic of instructional design also sticks out as something that I think about a lot when developing a unit. It is also really taking over education in the last decade with data driven results. That is what I pick up when I see outcomes can me measured in a reliable and valid way. In teaching we call this assessment, and it can have many different forms, but instructional design I can see this be a much harder thing to develop and read. When you are teaching someone new technologies there can be so many different levels of proficiency and understanding, also there can be many other factors then just an assessment of knowledge. You must put into the equation that it is ever changing field that is constantly updated; getting real and valid data can be a tough thing. Coming for teaching history which is pretty constant in its information, I take the ever changing landscape of educational technology has a challenge.

R/D3

Social bookmarking is a new concept by name to me, but something that we have done at our school for a little while. All teachers at our school have a link to a public file where we can share resources and make files for all to look at and use. This is sort of the same idea as a social bookmarking. i really think that this concept has a great use in the teacher to teacher relationship. It is a great way to share information with fellow teachers. In one of the introduction it explained itself as "sort of" a file sharing system, as far as i can see it is close but still probably wouldn't be mu first choice for the teacher to teacher sharing. I would probably go with a a WIKI, a feel it is more versatile in its functions. The intermediate school district that I am a part of has one set up for math instruction and it is a great tool for teachers. Also with the WIKI you could link to your delicious site.

As far as the teacher to student, it would be great to have a professional delicious site that could have helpful websites for students for each section you are studying. For example in one of my classes we spend a lot of time going over the constitution and beginnings of our government, so an assignment could be to make a delicious site with as many relevant websites as they could find. Also as the teacher I could make a site that gives them study options for homework and other projects.

Switching gears to the Trends and Issues chapter that we had to read for this week. It was interesting to see the changes in the definitions throughout the years, the definition that stuck with me the most was most recent definition by the AECT. It states " Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and managing appropriate technological processes and resources." There is a key word in this definition that I see myself doing in my future career and that is facilitating. That really is what I would hope to do. I would love to be up to date on the latest technologies and then facilitate and teach those to a staff so they can implement them into the classroom. I also love how it says improve performance, in my future endeavors I would to improve teachers use of technology but also the students, but in turn I hope to improve the performace of the whole district. The part the scares me the most from this definition is the managing of technological resources, I don't see myself as a guru on fixing hardware and software, I see myself much more as a leader and facilitator.

photos and bookmarks

Here is the link to my photos. I will be adding more later.


Here is the link to my bookmarks. As you will see I read a lot of newspapers.

D/B2

As I reflect about the blog and the RSS Reader, with me it always come back to how is this useful for me today. This a very shortsighted outlook, but it is the way I am wired so I have no choice, and for today I find that I would have a great use in my teaching right now for the RSS Reader. I had always seen the RSS Reader as I tooled around the Internet but never really knew what it was. I am very surprised at what is and can't wait to use it in my classroom. As far as the blog goes I think it still has the cool factor with kids so it still could be a great tool to get them writing creatively or informational without putting a pen or pencil in front of them.

As far as where it fits with Dale's cone that is very hard to determine, each of these tools can take many different shapes. For example if the students were to go on a camping trip and blog about the things they saw and experienced while there, I would call that a much more concrete learning environment, I would put that towards the bottom of the cone in the contrived experiences or direct experiences. However, if I posted a question on my blog and the kids had to log on at night to answer the question, I would rank this much closer to the top of the cone in the text verbal symbols. The range is large and really depends on the authenticity of the assignment. As far as the reader I haven't come up with a ton of uses off the top of my head, but it is a great source of immediate information, which is great and can come in many forms from just text to pictures and audio.

The one way that I plan on incorporating these tools into my classroom is with an assignment that we already do but with this will improve it greatly. Every Friday in my room is generally current event days where we discuss what is happening in our country or world. The RSS reader is perfect for this assignment, before they would have to look at newspaper, but with newspapers becoming more and more obsolete, this is a great time to switch over. Another strength of the Reader is that it can be such current information, also with it we can put all of the sources in one area for quick retrieval. I also would like to incorporate the blog because one the strengths of that is the ability to respond to postings. I would probably incorporate this by having a personal current event blog that they then would have to respond their thoughts and ideas on.

My Very First Wiki

Check it out!!!

R/D1

"Educators must realize that using technology to support what they are already doing is not a productive course of action when compared to using technology to transform to an attainment based method" (Reigeluth & Joseph).

I really don't know what think about this quote from the text, I agree with parts but looking at the big picture of it I don't know how attainable it truly is. First, the conversation of switching to an attainment based paradigm is right along with my thinking. I agree that some parts of education have become archaic and need to be refined. i also agree that students learn and all speeds and levels and we need to teach to that, and that we need to make sure that students are prepared for the 21st century and we should be preparing them in things that they feel they have a future in. Personally, in secondary education I don't know if we are completely ready for a complete transformation of using technology to get to our "attainment based method." I think that it has been a successful transformation at the higher education level, this grad program being an example of a success. However, at the secondary level with the uncertainty of funding and and schools having to cut teachers I don't know if we are ready to go full steam ahead until there is some stability. For example, at my school we got the Plato online program in order to give students more depth and options for their learning. We however have had trouble affording this, and having schedule where we can have an instructor there to assist. It is my belief that in the near future we will be ready for a full transformation, but as of right now we are stuck in the pattern of using technology as a support item in the classroom. With that said, there are many great ways and programs that teachers can use to intergrate technology into the classroom; these things should and I hope are being in use in all classrooms to better our students.

In the article Of Luddites, Learning, and Life by Neil Postman, I commend his ideas and the way he lives his life, but I don't think is right for me or education. Unfortunately the world is going to continue to put out and create new technologies if we don't keep out students abreast of these we are doing them a disservice. The world is not going to stop for our students so we cannot stop for them, we need to keep teaching them and providing them with new technologies.



Sources:

Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph, R. (2002). Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation.Educational Technology, 42(4), 9-13.