Oregon Educational Standards #1

Creativity and Innovation- Students demonstrate creative thinking and problem solving skills to develop innovative products and processes using technology. After taking this class, I feel more confident in using some new tools in technology that will help my students meet this standard. I like the idea of using the wiki for collaborative writing. Having the students work in groups or work with a buddy class will help with creativity in writing projects. I think kids will really enjoy the editing process when using this new tool. We now have Ipods for class use and pairing students to explore the games and activities together will definitely lead to new learning through problem solving. I downloaded a tool called kidspiration. It teaches students how to organize their thoughts using graphic organizers. I think this would be fun to use at the beginning of the year when we do an "All About Me" brainstorming activity.

Quizzes, Tests, and Surveys Post

I worked with Susan and Jennifer to create a test using Google forms. After clicking on Google Drive, we used "create" and "form" to begin our test. Susan and I have created tests for our science units with word processing, but this was much better as we were able to choose from a list the types of questions we wanted. I created a short digestion test for 2nd graders. I was able to add questions that were true/false, multiple choice, and fill in the blank. It will be nice to be able to easily edit the test if we see that a question needs changed or new ones need added. We sent our tests to each other to take and realized that we needed to add a blank spot for a name, so that we knew who took the test. Another thing we learned was that we needed to click on "make this a required question" so that if a child skips a question, it will tell them to go back and finish it.

Avatar Post

I enjoyed creating the Avatar and especially enjoyed seeing how creative others were with their Avatar. I would like to spend more time exploring this to understand all the choices available. I know 2nd graders would love to see an avatar present information to them, rather than it always be the teacher. I teach themes throughout the year and it would be fun to introduce each new theme with an avatar. I didn't record my voice, but would want to do this if I was using an avatar to introduce myself to the kids at the beginning of the year. I would like to use the idea mentioned today to use this tool when teaching and reviewing the rules with kids. In my classroom we talk a lot about the traits of the characters we read about, and I thought it might be fun to create avatars with groups of students and have them come up with character traits for their Avatar.

Wiki Using Google Docs

Jennifer, Susan, and myself decided to learn how to use a wiki for collaborative writing. We already had a Gmail account, so all we needed to do was load google drive. It was very confusing at first, but once we were told that the person writing the paper needed to give it a title, it started to work for us. After someone writes a document and titles it, they share it with others by putting in their email address.   The people you share it with can edit, add to, or help you with your document. Each person has a different color when they type, so you can see who is typing. We were thinking this might be fun to have one child write a paragraph and their partner could add adjectives, more specific verbs, etc. Another idea might be where one student writes a main idea sentence and the next student adds a detail to go with it. This could ping pong back and forth until the wrap-up sentence. If you have a buddy class, a wiki would be fun to do collaborative writing during the holidays.

Oregon Educational Tech Standards #5

Digital Citizenship- Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to digital technology and practice legal, ethical, and responsible behavior.

A. Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and digital technology.
B. Model and practice a positive attitude toward using digital technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity.
C. Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning.

My 2nd graders had a great experience this school year by meeting with a 3rd grade class who taught them how to use Ipods for various learning activities. We first had discussions on responsible use of the Ipods and how to use them carefully with their 3rd grade partner. They loved reading books out loud while the partner recorded it with the Ipod. The 3rd graders were then instructed to teach my 2nd graders the various games to practice math and reading. The 3rd grade teacher that I was working with did have one student use the Ipod inappropriately, which was a reminder to me that even though we are working with young children, safe and responsible use cannot be understated when using technology.

Audio

After reading about using audio in the classroom in chapter 15, I decided to learn to use Garage Band on my Mac.  I asked my children to teach me some of the components, which was quite overwhelming, but I knew I wanted to learn how to record my 2nd graders doing reading assessments. I am required to assess my students using a DRA reading test three times a year, and sometimes more with students who are not at grade level. I plan on recording the students read the story, and then will save each one to a DRA folder. It will be very helpful to listen to the readings at home, and because they are recorded, I can easily go back and listen for fluency and accuracy and fill out my paperwork at home. It takes a few weeks to complete my entire class of DRA tests, and by the time I finish with my last one, I can't remember how the first child sounded. This will enable me to go back and listen again if needed. I try to use the assessments to group kids who need a certain reading strategy, so having the assessments recorded will help me do a better job in this area. I do plan to eventually let students record themselves in order to listen to themselves read books in order to work on fluency.

Oregon Educational Technology Standard

#3 Research and Information Fluency: Students select and apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, validate, and use information.

My school has recently put in computer labs right outside my classroom door. Last year the students were able to do IXL math and visit some reading web sites, but not much else. They did have some weekly instruction from the library aid, but that was mostly games. I am hoping to use my new social bookmarking tool to set up a research category that will be appropriate for primary students to use to locate information. I have tried to help students use the web for writing reports, but have found that much of it is to difficult for 2nd graders to read and understand. I have saved one site to my bookmarking tool, Enchanted Learning, that we often use when doing animal reports, but will continue to look for others that are at a primary reading level. I do quite a bit of instruction on how to read information and then summarize it into a graphic organizer. I would like to look at the webspiration tool to see if it will be a useful organizer for our ocean animal reports.

Response to Preface/Chapters 1-2

After this reading assignment, I realized how in the dark I have been about the Web. It was interesting to read how it has changed from being able to read the available sites to now being able to comment, share ideas, etc. Because this blog thing is completely new to me, I was amazed at the increase in the number of blogs over 8 years, growing from 100 to fifty million on Xanga. That certainly proves there are a lot of people out there wanting to share information and ideas. Chapter 2 got me thinking about my teaching strategies and how important it is to implement new tools that will be useful and will enhance the way I teach. The matrix will be useful when thinking through which tool to use and if it will benefit me and my students. I am excited to share the social bookmarking tool that Susan and I created. I know it will be very helpful when we ask students to practice math games or look for information for a report.

Organizational Tool #1

I chose to implement a social bookmarking tool and used a site called 'Delicious'. This tool is for storing and organizing favorite web sites for any individual. It can be accessed on any computer, not just the computer where you bookmarked the site. At the site there are stacks (categories) to group things that go together. Our district has adopted new math and reading curriculum for this coming year and there are home online components in both programs. So, I now have those sites in the collection, as well as other sites, such as IXL math, which is often used by students at home. I was able to save some of my favorite teaching idea sites privately, so that only I have access. Our students use the Enchanted Learning resource site when researching for a curriculum area, so I now have started a stack for research sites. I will be sharing my address to this site in the fall with my parents and am hoping it will benefit them as well as myself.