Summer School 2012

Tool # 11; Finally...

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox? Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.
 

My favorite tools are: 1. Skydrive/ Dropbox - to store multimedia files to be shared publicly. 2. Edmodo - using this to keep up with grade and post assignments digitally so students can assess at home or wherever there's internet. 3. Comic (creators) - create comic strips telling math stories/ problem solving. 

2. How have you transformed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom? How has your vision for your classroom changed? Are you going to need to make any changes to your classroom to accommodate the 21st Century learner?

Changes that will take place in my classroom will be students using devices to teach and learn as often as possible. Students will be making videos to share with other students about problem solving in math.

Tool #10; Digital Citizenship

1. In order to be good digital citizens, students need to be able to know whether the contents are facts or fiction. They need to know information can be altered and shared instantly by anyone that can't be controlled. Finally they need to understand that there will be consequences, might not be immediate, for contents being created and shared digitally.

2. Alan November Learning is a good resource that can be used to teach students digital citizenship or commonsensemedia.org is another excellent resource for teaching not only to students but to parents.

  

3. Digital Citizenship Tips for Teens

"Think before you post or text -- a bad reputation could be just a click away. Before you press the "send" button, imagine the last person in the world that you’d want seeing what you post.

What goes around comes around. If you want your privacy respected, respect others' privacy. Posting an embarrassing photo or forwarding a friend’s private text without asking can cause unintended hurt or damage to others.

Spread heart, not hurt. If you wouldn’t say it in person, don’t say it online. Stand up for those who are bullied or harassed, and let them know that you’re there for them.

Give and get credit. We’re all proud of what we create. Illegal downloading, digital cheating, and cutting and pasting other people’s stuff may be easy, but that doesn’t make it right. You have the responsibility to respect other people’s creative work -- and the right to have your own work respected.

Make this a world you want to live in. Spread the good stuff. Create, share, tag, comment, and contribute to the online world in positive ways."

4. Digital Citizenship Tips for Parents and Teachers

"The Internet’s not written in pencil. It’s written in pen. What teens do online spreads fast and lasts long. Remind them to think before they post.

Nothing is as private as they think. Anything teens say or do can be copied, pasted, and sent to gazillions of people in a heartbeat. Make sure kids use privacy settings and that they understand that the best way to protect their secrets is not to post personal stuff.

Kindness counts. The anonymity of the digital world can lead kids to say and do things online that they wouldn’t in person. Encourage them to communicate kindly, stand up for others, and build positive online relationships rooted in respect.

Digital cheating is still cheating. Right and wrong extend to online and mobile life. Impart your values, and tell kids not to plagiarize, download illegally, or use technology to cheat in school.

Embrace their world. None of us wants technology to isolate us from our kids. Do some homework, and ask kids to share the sites they visit, the songs they download, the gadgets they love. It’s up to us to join the fun and help them seize the potential."

 Source - Commonsense Media

Tool # 9; Incorporating Devices

We are in a technological age and it is very important to tie technology to the objective because it is what students use, interact, and engage with everyday, but most importantly they are attracted to technology like magnets. If we can tie technology and objective together, they will be more interested in learning using technology as a guidance. Students should be held accountable for stations/centers because it is a place where students show off what they know and give them a sense of accomplishment to their classmates. Also stations/centers is created so that each student have a specific task to accomplish by working together, not a specific person accomplishes all the tasks and distributes to everyone. Mangahigh and tutpup grabbed my attention the most based on their competitive nature. Students, same as adults, like to compete against each other. I have not thought of a way on how to use these as stations. It could be that set up a game at the end of each unit and put a time limit on each problem to let students compete against each other. This way, first students show off their skills, second they have a limited time on each problem so they need to think fast and not goofing around. A few apps that I think will be useful are Showme, storylines and Toontastic. Showme allow users to record their writing and voice, which is useful for explaining problem solving. Storylines is very interesting. A person starts with a topic and pass it along to the next one so he/she continues with the given topic then to the next person. I have not use this yet, but it seems very interesting. Toontastic allows user to create comic strip to tell story. All these apps are great for creating presentation videos of problem solving. Time is not an issue if expectations and time limit are clearly defined before beginning the "fun" activities. As a note, these are all free apps :). One other way I would use the ipads would be students making video presentations.

Tool # 8; Use and Manage

1. I am very familiar with Ipads and apple products. There is not a lot that are new to me from the tutorials. One thing that I will implement is using the devices as video capture devices which allow students to create group or individual video presentations. Another feature that I will be using a lot throughout the school year is working with educational apps to allow students more interaction and engagement to current topic. At this time, I still have not decide on which apps to use, but I am very positive that there are many free educational apps out there for us to use. 

2. Managing portable devices probably is very difficult sometimes, but a set of 4, will not be a problem. Clearly label each device with teacher's name is one way to keep track of them in case of misplacement. Assign a device manager is another way to keep track of devices right before class ends. Also group students in four groups and each group is assigned with a specific device(s), which they will be responsible for each class.

Tool # 7; Online Digital Projects

Content Objective: Given a topic and in groups, student will create a how-to video presentation to share with their classmates and other classes.

Implementation: I will implement this a few times in the fall and spring.

Tools: Ipads, netbooks, online resources such as youtube, math tv, etc...

Description: Students will use ipads and netbooks to make a video presentation of problem solving. They can use online videos as a model to create their own video presentation.

Tool # 6; Discussion

I've used today's meet before and it wasn't a success. A few tools that caught me eyes on the list, namely polleverywhere and Edmodo. Poll everywhere is a good tool for a quick warm up, quiz or review. Edmodo is something brand new to me and it seems very cool. It's like a virtual classroom. It allows you to post assignments, keep up with grades, and communicate with students among other things. I will attempt to use this tool next year. Below are a simple example of poll everywhere and Edmodo (there's no embedding code, so I posted an image instead).