Final Blog Reflection

Here is the link to the blog Also here is the link to my lesson plan on the wiki.

Now for my final blog reflection. I have narrowed it down to the two most useful technologies that I will plan on using in my classroom. The first is the class website. I have been thinking about how I could create a mini-Blackboard in my own classroom: a place where I can upload assignment sheets and links. Though I would never place grades on my class website, it is a useful source for my students to have access to outside of school. I don't know how many times I forgot an assignment sheet in my locker--or even my book at school, and this website will help students be able to access any document and helpful links from their homes.

The second technology I really enjoyed was the Wiki, which I chose to explore for my Personal Technology Project. I know when I do group projects here at college, my inbox is flooded with random emails from all group members or the conversation links fill the entire page and I can't find the information or link I need. The Wiki solves all of those problems. It's efficient and easy to re-examine previously discussed topics, as well as easy for me as a teacher to see which students are participating and who is doing most of the work. And for educaitonal purposes the Wiki is free.

I would just like to end by saying that I really enjoyed this class. I learned so much about how to use technology effectively in the classroom--not just throwing in technology for the sake of having technology in the classroom. Also, it opened my eyes up to so many FREE resources we have access to as teachers. I will definitely use the things I have learned in this class in my own classroom. Thank you so much for a wonderful and educational semester!

Week 15

On my google reader I found this blog post about a technology called Tagxedo. Basically it creates takes a letter, speech or just a paragraph of written words and transforms them into a visual picture. For instance, you could take The Gettysburg address and turn it into a picture of Abraham Lincoln. This could be a fun idea to help decorate your classroom--like and English teacher could have a group of action verb create picture of a person moving/running. Or, you could take student writing--such as a poem, or essay or list of words they choose to describe a book and create a picture for them to have in their portfolio. I thought it was a pretty cool idea.



picture from tagxedo.com

Week 14: Informing Another

So I have a little brother who is seventeen years old and I decided he would be perfect for this kind of thing. First I asked him what kind of personal information he puts on the internet and then we discussed the risks of each item he listed. I talked to him about what I had learned about being able to get a one-time-use credit card number or email account. I also shared with him about the importance of not becoming consumed in cyberspace and shared with him a couple of quotes from Elder Bednar's talk. I also cautioned about identity theft and the importance of keeping parents informed of what they are doing on the internet. It was really easy because my little brother is an intelligent person and really paranoid. He already untags himself in pictures online, ignores friend requests from people he doesn't know and an email account he only gives out when websites ask him for an email address. However, he was interested in the fake email website which would be safer than a single email account that he always gives out. So overall, I felt like he learned some new things and I was able to learn a lot to prepare my little lesson to give to him.

Week 14: Becoming Informed

I was really fascinated by all of the sources I read and watched about internet safety. It really helped me reinforce the importance of teaching children internet safety as we teach them to look both ways before they cross the street. This is something that needs to be taught from a young age. I decided to post my top three favorite sources I viewed to kind of give an idea of what I learned.


Here is the link to the PBS/FRONTLINE documentary on the problems with not monitoring children and their use of the internet. I remember being in high school and junior high and finding freedom in MSN chat and myspace and other social websites, but I can see that the generation coming after me is consumed by it. It is no longer adding additional benefit to their lives--it is their lives. I hope that since I grew up with technology I will be able to monitor it a little better because I have a better understanding of technology than my parents had. The very last clip of this shows a boy who figured out the parental filters and was able to manipulate them to his advantage. I think that is a very important thing to remember--technology is not reliable and there are ways around filters. I think as a parent I will never have a computer in child's room and I will never allow my children under the age of 16 (and maybe not even until they graduate) have a smartphone with access to the internet. Also, time limits for personal computer, and monitoring of children when they are writing papers. I don't intend to sit right next to them the entire time they write their essay, but walking in and out on a consistent basis to make sure that they are writin their paper and not just surfing the internet.

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/assets/videos/?vid=fauxpaw_video

Here is a clip made by BYU to help kids understand the dangers of the internet--specifically chat rooms. I think this would be a useful video to show as a teacher--probably only to grades 8 or under because it is a little childish, but it is useful to show kids that the internet is a place where crime takes place.


Last here is a link to a talk given by Elder Bednar in a CES fireside last year. I had not heard this talk before, and was quite surprised at the bold statements Elder Bednar declares about the evils of letting technology take over our lives. I had never associated that wasting my life on line in a cyber world and not using my actual body would be offensive to the Lord. Neither had I known about the idea of living in another reality such as Second Life and creating an avatar or pseudonym that I am denying myself who I truly am and to be able to devlop. I think this is an article I would share with my children if I felt that they were wasting their life away obsessing on the internet. It is a powerful talk. Also, it discusses the benefits of the internet which is a nice way of showing our children that there are many wonderful blessings of living in an age of technology.

Week 13

I attended the presentations for the IIC competition this afternoon. First of all, I should have watched their videos before I went because many groups just assumed that they were presenting to an audience who had already viewed their projects. So, it's hard to say if my feelings from their presentations were accurate since I'm not exactly sure what some projects were about.
I felt like most of the projects were strong--so I am going to pick my top three (in no particular order) and discuss briefly why I liked each of them.

Group 4:
Mainly I liked this project because this couple put in A LOT of work into their entry. Their website seemed functional, eye-appealing and fresh. I loved how the man said they did not use technology for just bells and whistles--they wanted to make common websites like Facebook and YouTube useful. I also felt like it was a solid base to an entire idea for a classroom. Everything is in one place and the website could be very expansive. I liked this project because it was expansive. It didn't just pick one or two technologies, but many and showed how to harmonize different technologies for a single project. It's a very forward thinking into future teaching in schools. I don't feel like its completely feasible right now, but give in ten years and maybe every classroom will have a website similar to this one.

Group 5:
I liked this idea because the pair implemented the idea in an actual classroom and it worked. A lot of the entries appeared to be too forward thinking to be applied on a global level immediately. It would take a lot of learning, money or technology in the schools to make their ideas work beyond a single classroom. The other thing aspect of this project I thought was strong was its appeal to a global classroom. In my major, we discuss writing in context. Students put more effort into polishing their papers if they feel like someone other than the teacher is going to read them. The beauty of the interet is allowing students' work to be shared with a real life audience--producing a real life context. This is brilliant. It gets kids talking--even kids who don't normally participate. It gets kids thinking, and if teachers can find other teachers across the the country to be their sister classroom for the year--I think it would be a wonderful opportunity for students to see new cultures, ideas and places without leaving their own classroom. Wow, even though they didn't have a PowerPoint--I really liked this idea.

Group 7:
If the bugs can get all worked out--which I trust Apple to fix---iPads are the new computers that will be put into classrooms. Instead of rotating laptop computer labs, there will be rotating iPad labs. However, this will take along time before class sets of iPads are a standard classroom tool like the computer is now. First of all, the first model always has problems--and the first model has not even been officially released!!!! Second, education is getting budget cuts all over the place right now--few school districts will be able to afford iPads. Third, I'm pretty sure kindergartens will be one of the last grades to get iPads. All of this, of course, is just my personal opinion. However, their ideas is wonderful. Sounds, picture, touch and words all in one lesson. It's just plain brilliant. Also, its exciting and interactive. Five-year olds would be all over this idea. And applications for teacher lessons would be all over the internet and easy to find within just a few years of becoming regularly used in classrooms. Teachers could develop their own applications for a personal lesson, or borrow from other teachers. It is just a good idea. Simple as that.

Week 12

For this project I chose to make a book trailor for the YA novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I would probably use this to replace a book report--paired with a question and answer period and a single paragraph explaining their favorite scene in the novel and why. This could easily be done individually as well in groups. It would help showcase the student's ability to pick out important themes, ideas and scenes from a book they have read; at the same time, it would also give the opportunity to showcase thirty books (if I chose to have them do it individually) to my class in a quick, effective way. It might help my students find other books they would be interested in reading and maybe pick up a book without me making them for a grade.
I could also use this as an introduction for a new book we are reading. It would help the kids get excited about the new novel we are reading--maybe I could even make Romeo and Juliet or Huck Finn appear interesting to my students. It could help motivate them to read the book to learn what happens in the story.

I made this movie with Windows Movie Maker.

Week 11

So for this blog post I am going to insert a little tip that I learned while using movie maker. If you are having issues adding music add it into your Windows Music Player Library. I know, with iTunes, who uses WMP??? But, for some reason iTunes cannot change it into the right format. Sometimes it won't even accept mp3s. It has to be in a format that Windows Media Player can read or it won't work. The second thing--which I'm not sure why it took me so long to realize this. Instead of editing the time of the clip by going to Edit: Clip: Time -- just change yourself from storyboard to timeline and you can change the timing of each invidiual clip by just clicking on it and adjusting it with your mouse (you can do the same thing with the music clips as well). It's super easy to make some clips longer than others without the hassle of going through four different tool bars. Also, while storyboard is good for adding effects and transitions--the timeline is the best way to view and work with your movie anyways.

Week 10

Wow! I can't believe we have already arrived at week ten. So here is my storyboard for the movie we are making. I am pretty sure I'll use MovieMaker since I have a PC, but my husband does have a Mac, so if I start having issues, I'll probably just use his computer. So I decided to make a book trailer for The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is an assigment I would have my students do--maybe in groups or individuall. I would use it as a replacement for a book report. However, in addition to making this movie, I would probably have them write a 1/2 page about their favorite scene or character in the book and why--just to make sure they actually read at least some of the book, since most of the information needed to create a book trailer can be found on a wikipedia site or the back of the book. Second, I would probably have a question/answer session (to help fit the core curriculum even better) where both the students and I would ask questions about the book, plot, characters, etc. after this movie was shown in class. I think its a very clever idea, and I'm excited to actually make my storyboard into a real movie!

Week 9

Video from TeacherTube Number 1: From: Sadowskij

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=163946&title=Introduction_to_The_Catcher_in_the_Rye

This video introduction to Catcher in the Rye is rather creative. First of all the good things: citations at the end of the clip, use own drawings for some of the images, uses own voice for the narrative. The things this teacher could improve: the citations were fuzzy, small, hard to read and scrolled quickly, the citation for the music just said who wrote the song--we're not sure where she got if from or whether it was a legitimate source that gave her the authority to use that song. I like her drawings, sometimes its hard to find specific images for what you are describing--so she just created her own. No need for copyright there!

Video from TeacherTube 2: From suzannecanup

http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=4423&title=Classroom_Rules

Well, this video is creative and probably entertaining for high school students. Let's switch it up this time; we'll start with the problems: no citation for the music he used, he also used the rhythm/tune of the song to create his own rap. Good: it was his own video, he thanked the officer :), and there were no logos or other such things in the background that could get you in trouble. Also, I'm assuming that since the police officer agreed to it, there's no copyright on his uniform.


Okay, I had serious problem trying to embed ANY video from TeacherTube, I googled why it wasn't working (and stumbled onto the correct way to post a TeacherTube video on my blog: I must include who the created the video and a link to the webiste). I looked in YouTube but found nothing worth while. So hopefully this is sufficient. Sometimes technology can be insane!!!!!!!! It just didn't want to work for me. So here you go. Maybe I'll try again on Saturday when I have time. So sorry that they are lame links and not cool embedded videos.

Week 8

First: here is my lesson plan and I've added you as a user to view my PBworks wiki. Let me know if you can't login or you didn't get the invite.

Second: the coolest thing I've ever read in my Google reader so far. It's called Drop.io. Now that our society is turning to technology and email to do homework assignments, a teacher's inbox can get full very quickly. Or, sometimes its hard to separate work and personal emails--or even fellow faculty versus student emails. The last thing we need is to lose a student's paper. This is a widget you can add into your website or blog that is almost like a digital dropbox on Blackboard. It keeps homework separate from other emails, but allows digital copies of homework and essays to be turned in. And its free. Or at least it says it is. :)

Week 7

All right so as mentioned in my last post, I have decided to use PBworks for my Personal Technology Project. Now for the problems, I did have initial problems adding users, but I think that was because I was trying to log in from the same computer. It kept automatically logging me in with the original email address, so I wouldn't let me sign out and set up another account. But, I figured out the bugs by just starting up with a new email browser, so my students--even if using the same comptuer at school--shouldn't have problems I had. Now PBworks is surprisingly easy! Wow. I was impressed. Basically its edit, write, save. That's it. It's perfect for working a group project because up to 100 users can have access to the same wiki. Its really easy to create new pages for different sections of the project, it as a comment button so people not only can edit what is being written but comment on ideas or suggestions in a separate place. I am really excited about creating a lesson plan. I will definitely encourage my students to use this for group projects. It's a thousand times easier than email. In fact, I have a group project coming up for one of my classes here at BYU and I suggested we use a wiki because its so much easier, especially since we're all so busy to find time to meet together. Its kind of like a working meeting. I love it.

Week 6

For my personal technology project I have decided to figure out PBWorks. I have decided to use the free version, but if I fall in love with the program and need expansion as a teacher, I can subsribe to it on a yearly basis. While it is similar to the website, with PB works I can add up to 100 users who can also add and edit on the wikipage. Also, I can set it to private and only allow those 100 users to be able to access the page. I actually have a professor that uses this website to allow us as teacher to upload different examples of grammar in texts that we read. I thought maybe I could use this to create a class dicussion of a book or as a source to upload information for group projects. Since it is private, it gives me more freedom to have students upload comments and projects without worrying about outside sources stumbling on it.

Week 5

The blog Free Technology for Teachers has a really good video about how to create quizzes using Google Docs. Especially as education keeps moving toward technology, I believe online quizzes like BYU students take on Blackboard will become more common in high schools. This is a great way to give a quiz and have it graded for you. Grading can be very tedious, especially as an English teacher with so many written assignments. This is time saving and an excellent way to give a quiz. While, I will probably not use this within my first years of teaching because I know some students still do not have access to the internet in their homes, it is exciting to move forward towards this or even try to use it when we have a computer lab reserved for the class to write or research essays.

Week 4

Every week I get more excited about how to integrate technology into the classroom. One of my blogs from my Google Reader popped up with this video last week. I thought it was very interesting to see the kids using the computers in the classroom and hearing actual students' feedback on Twitter in the classroom. This video motivated me to use social technology in the classroom. Before I was a little skeptical, as I wasn't sure social technology could be taken seriously in the classroom or may blur personal and professional lines. However, the teacher in the video made an excellent point: if you do not engage your students in the lesson you might as well be teaching to a wall. I've already found that in my few teaching experiences that students won't learn if the way you present the material is not engaging. Social technology is an easy way to grab the students attention. Twitter is a program they are familiar with, its a program they're favorite TV or music stars use. Plus, it truly is a 21st century literacy. English teaching is about literacy and that has now expanded to include technolgy.
While this video clip did not provide specific examples of how to use social technology in the classrom, the blogger attached a link titled "21st Century Literacy" by the NTCE. It has an entire page of "vocabulary" definitions of different technologies that can be used in the classroom. Specifally with Twitter, however, I feel--similar to our Voicethread participation--Twitter could be a good way for students to discuss in small or large groups their thoughts on books we have been reading--which maybe in class they didn't feel comfortable sharing. I considered that by using Twitter--or some of the other internet communications discussed in this week's lecture--it could help place students in a real life situation. In my grammar class, we've been learning about teaching grammar in context and how creating real life situations are important to helping students see the importance of good grammar. If students are writing things to the outside world via the internet, it will help them take a more serious approach or atleast be able to apply subjects taught in the classroom to a real life situation. People tend to be a little bit more careful with grammar or developing their thoughts if they know someone other than their teacher will be reading it.

Week 3

The websites have me a little worried about my technological ability, but also very excited about what I can do once I master the technology. I am really grateful we are learning how to create a website for our classroom.
While at BYU, I've learned how important it is to be able to communicate with teachers outside of the classroom. I've discovered how convenient it is to have access to my class assignments, readings and calendar outside of the school. As a teacher, I have been wondering how I would be able to provide a similar opportunity without Blackboard. Websites are the answer. If I constantly update my website calendar with due dates for projects, book readings, tests, etc. my students will have a reference after they leave school to turn to for questions. Also, I love how you can upload documents or explanations for homework assignments. I understand that after a long day of classes, its easy to forget specifics of homework assigments.
Furthermore, I enjoy the website because it gives students access to me without creating personal communication. The website is professional, and directly related to school. It is not my personal email or cell phone. Especially in my first years of teaching when I am only a few years older than my students, it helps keeps professional and personal separate while providing information during my personal hours.
Another aspect of the website I really enjoy is the opportunity to post extra information or assignments here as well. While they tend to be few, there are always students who wish to know more about a certain book they read in class or want more challenging assigmnents, books, research, etc. The website can provide the opportunity to upload documents or attach links to sites I trust and know are factual. I can link to pages for proper MLA format or upload example essays for a certain assignment. The possibilities are limitless. The more I work on my website, the more opportunities I see to create a class community online. Technology, when used properly, can greatly. benefit education.

Week 2: Personal Learning Network

The first blog, I subscribed to in Google Reader is titled "Free Technology for Teachers." I looked through the bloggers recent posts and all of them were filled with websites or programs teachers can download online to enhance their teaching in the classroom including acquiring more storage, getting the most out of Wikipedia and creating podcasts. Also, the dates on the post were roughly a week apart, letting me know this blogger will conintue to update regularly.
The second blog is titled "The Power of Educational Technology." This blog was nominated last December for and Edublog award which gives the blog more credibility. While there are some posts about personal experiences (which can actually be beneficial and entertaining as a teacher), most of her posts provide links to or information from other education websites or her own ideas that were successful or not. It is written specifially for English teachers, but it does involve integrating technology into teaching.
"Mr B-G's English Blog," however is specifically for English teachers. He also has several other blogs linked to this blog, including one addressing technology in the classroom. I read through many of his posts (ten have been written since around Thanksgiving) and really enjoyed his insights and stories into teaching English. His blog posts are not too extensive, and not all words. As a busy student or teachers, concise is wonderful.
The fourth blog is titled "The English Lab." While it is not a regularly updated blog, it was a blog I will refer to for website and ideas on vocabularly or grammar quizzes and information online. Also, it provides tips and ideas for teaching ESL students--a very challenging aspect of English teaching.
The last and final blog I chose to subscribe to in Google Reader is called, "Successful Teaching" by a teacher named Pat Hensely. The top post on the blog (which was actually posted today) titled "Where to Find Free Teaching Worksheets for the Classroom" got me hooked. It includes 10+ links to different worksheet varying assignments. In one of her blog posts she even mentions Personal Learning Network. I am very excited about this blog! Who knew so much teaching-specific information was just at my fingertips!

Week 1

I am new to the blogging world. Though, I am excited (as I'm sure my Mother will be as well) to learn how to use a blog and feel confident in creating blogs for my personal and work use. As and English Teaching major words dominate my life, and am excited to use this rapidly expanding technology to project my words publicly for others to read. Its almost like Google books.:)

Like most in my generation, computers are nothing new or scary to me. I feel fairly confident in my ability to follow the directions programs provide or fiddling with my computer enough to figure out what is going on. I've worked with mainly Microsoft Office (Vista and previous), though my husband (tall man in the picture above) does have a Mac and I am quickly learning how to manipulate his computer, as well.

I look forward to this class, though, I am slightly scared since I added a little late and missed the first face to face meeting. But with many emails and lots of outside help, I'm sure I will be able to pass this class and harness this technology to my advantage.