Read what?

I was informed that we needed to be blogging on  week 5 readings and tutorials.  Well with all the work due this week I did not get to blog on them.  I have watched some of the tutorials but that is as far as I have gotten.  I have saved some and will save the rest so that I can view them in  relax mode when I get back from vacation.  No Internet camping.

The End Is Here!!!!

I have been taking Literacy & Technology for the past 5 weeks and it is our last class tonight.( In 1.5 hours)  I cannot believe how much I have learned in such a short time.  I have to applaude my group/support team (Tara, Lauren, Kim, & Pat).  If we were not going through this together, I do not know if I would still be here.  It was certainly a lot of work for 5 weeks but I succeeded, at least I think I did, hope I did.  I did not realize how much there was to know about technology that you can incorporate into classrooms.  This class has taught me a lot about technology and myself. 


As for me, when I started this class I was afraid to go on sites and "explore".  Now I have no problem, it does help that my husband purchased me anti-virus software to protect my computer.  I now know about LoTi and how to incorporate it into my lesson plans. I have also learned about the NET-S, which I have never read before.  I now know about different sites to use for multi-purposes.  Wiki, webs.com, GoogleDoc's, WYDWYD, GoogleWave, Gloster, and LettePop are some of the sites we learned about and used.  I do plan on using some of these sites in my future as a teacher and as student.  There are so many site that are great for students to use but first we need to talk to them about Internet safety, copyright laws and etiquette,  as a parent I always just signed the paper and sent it back.  Well, I will no longer do that; I will be reading the contract.  Teachers not only have to teach the core subjects but we also have to make sure our students are safe on the Internet. Working in the group, collaborating has given me insight into what it will be like working with different people with different priorities and schedules.  I really enjoyed working with K2TLP members this experience was a positive one and I know I will be ready to work in a group like this with other teachers. All the sites that we found that would be great for students, too many to list, are all interactive ones.  Since we have Digital Natives as students this is the best way to keep them engaged, on task, and absorbing information.  I will still be using the pencil and paper assessments but I will also incorporate alternative assessments like portfolios, webquests, and mind mapping to name some of the great new online assessments that are out there.


We have been blogging on our "blogspot's" about weekly readings and tutorials. I have never blogged or even kept a journal.  This was all new to me.  I cannot say that I like it, maybe if it was just about my feeling and what happen, I would.  I did enjoy reading others classmates blogs and seeing how they see thing or interpret them.  We had to comment on classmate's post (the list of the ones I commented on are on the side under my picture, they are linked) this was fine.  I did find myself mainly agreeing with them or commenting that I did not see it that way and stating my case with questions for them.  Some of the blogs were very interesting and made me really think about what I was reading. I also commented on group projects, PowerPoint and Newsletter.  Everyone did such a great job on all of them.  It was interesting to see all the different ways people interpret the same set of instructions.  Almost every group used different types of technology to do their project, so it was nice to see them work and the final outcome. 


The WOW projects were great tonight, the ones we saw.  Everyone gave such great information and lots of it.  I cannot wait to sit down (after vacation) and really read them and go to all the links. Was and still am not happy that I have to put audio to my presentation because we ran out of time.  Still cannot figure out how to do this, tried screen toast, jing, and tipcamm.  They do not want to work with me right now.  I think I have lost patience with this for tonight.

As far as the class goes, it was a great overall experience.  I had never taken an on-line class before.  I am not a big fan I like to see my instructor and be able to ask questions and get an answer right away.  Just to know that if I have a problem I can talk to them in class.  This was hard for me.  Not being good with computers was really hard at first.  You are told to go do something with no real instruction or guidance.  This was frustrating at times.  The activities, reading, and tutorials were all very helpful and fun to do, read and talk about.


All in all it was a great experience.  I have learned so much new technology information and tools.  I hope to one day use them in my class, but for now I will enjoy them and so will my children.  Bye!!!

WOW, I did it!

This was a very cool project. At first I was not happy doing it but then as I was going through all the different websites of writing tools to teach literacy I became very involved.  I have never heard of most of the sites that I was looking at.  I realized that I will try to incorporate some of the new tools into my classroom.  Some of what I looked at was more for high school students but none the less they were still interesting.  My favorite site would be Bookr, on this site you make your own book with turning pages.  You type in key words and up pops pictures that you can drag onto your page and then you write what you want on the bottom. I really enjoyed making a book that I put in my presentation.  This is something that I will try to implement in my class.  Students would love to do this because it is something that they made.  I think any writing tools would be beneficial to students in their learning.  By have the writing tools on the computer is just how the Digital Natives know how to learn.  Literacy is reading and writing, you need to know how to do both to succeed further in them.  You want your students to write because it only improves their spelling which will help them recognize words when reading.  It all goes hand in hand.  If you can have your students do writing activities on the computer and make it more interesting and fun for them, why not?  Not only are you teaching them reading and writing you are also teaching them technology.
I was suspose to present my PowerPoint to night, July 29, 2010. I was very nervous and still am.   First, I do not like talking to a lot of people. Second, it was all online, so you really do not know what your classmates are thinking. But as far as the presentation goes I still have not presented my presentation.  I got the short end of the stick on this one tonight.  I was totally ready to go but we ended with at least 8 people left.  So because we ran out of time and others took others spots, the ones that did not go have to record audio to go with their presentations.  I feel that this is totally unfair.  I have not idea how to do this using a published PowerPoint.  I looked quickly at screentoast but cannot figure out how to up load a PowerPoint. This class was suppose to be over tonight but now it will not be.  I will not be writing on how my peers received my presentation because I am going on vacation (on Internet access!).  I hope all have enjoyed the presentation there is a lot of great information on my PowerPoint.

Not so much paper & pencil test anymore.

That's right, teachers need to cut back on the hand written tests and do more alternative assessments.  We need to assess the students FOR learning not what they have memorized.  "Assessment FOR learning is the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there."(Barrett, June 2006).  I feel the best way for a student to show what they have accomplished is my doing a portfolio and now that we live in a world of technology, E-portfolio's would be best.  My children at the end of each school year bring home their Art portfolio's (paper versions) and want to save every big piece of art work but cannot.  Not only as a Mom but as an older student it would be great to have this type of work on a CD, DVD or on a devise you can save.   This allows the students to always have it and can share their work with  anyone at anytime.  To a Mom it is a memory piece/chip that we would keep to show them when they get older.  This gives me an idea,  make one of these e-portfolio's for each child at the end of each school year with all the class work and art.( My own children, too many students in a class to do this for).

You want to assess my work how?

Using E-portfolio's, is how teachers will want you to be assessed in the future.  A portfolio is a collection of work that a learner has collected, selected, organized, reflected upon, and presented to show understanding and growth over time: "A purposeful collection of student work that illustrates efforts, progress, and achievement in one or more areas", say Helen C. Barrett, PhD in the article Using Electronic Portfolios for Formative/Classroom-based Assessment.  An e-portfolio is a portfolio that on the computer, students use different media to present their work like; audio, video, graphics, and text.

There are many benefits to using e-portfolio's: (from the following website)

• The use of rich media is often a hook for the learners. “The use of multimedia tools is one strategy that involves and engages learners” (Barret, 2005)
• The paper portfolio can't reflect the learning process as well as an e-portfolio.  As Ian Fox said: “The power of ‘student voice' should not be underestimated. To hear students reflecting on their own work, in their own voice, with their own intonations and expressions, conveys meaning in a manner that is simply not possible in written form."
• The e-portfolio encourages and facilitates the learner’s support network to participate through appealing social networking resources
• The quality, not just the quantity, of feedback is enhanced and facilitated via social mediums.
• The e-portfolio encourages and enables the process of reflection, self-evaluation, and action planning as a process for lifelong learning. The e-portfolio not only develops skills, it develops approaches to learning.

•  The student ought to be able to carry the e-portfolio device with him or her wherever he or she goes, and use it to record, assess, evaluate, and reflect at any time.

Above is a diagram of cycle of an e-portfolio. The purpose for doing a portfolio is to share and celebrate achievement with yourself, teachers, parents, and  anyone else you want to view your work.  You are getting supportive assessment for learning through, criteria, feedback, feedforward, peer/self assessment, and reflection.   By having/posting your work and receiving feedback on the work submitted you are showing ownership in your learning. You are seeing and reading how you have grown over the months and this has happen because you are listening to others as you go and fix/improve your work.

But students using e-portfolio's they are in control of what is being seen.  By the students using technology to demonstrate or just publish their work makes it assessable to all to see.  I feel that this will be a good way to do an assessment in the future.  I know many art classes do a paper portfolio, so why can't teachers use one to and be green while doing it.

Read all about it! Get your Parent Newsletter.

This was probably the most exciting group project we did.  A parent newsletter is something that every teachers will have to make or do when they are teaching.  This is not your regular newsletter, it is an interactive one which makes it even better.

Newsletters are a great way for teachers and parents to stay connected.  I think the key to a great school year is communication between parents, teachers, and administrators.  By posting your newsletter on a website or a wiki page your parents will always know what is going on in your classroom.  This way communication  can take place before the event happens and everything is post for all to see.  This way the teacher is showing her schedule before and she/he is not surprising anyone.  By the teacher and parents having a good line of communication there will be no surprises for either side.

I will definitely be communicating with my students parents by newsletters on my school website.  This is a great idea.  My one sons teacher did all of his announcements, posting of homework, party notices, and any other important information that we need to know about on his page of the school website.  He told us in the beginning of the year and it worked out great.  If he need to talk to us he would e-mail or we e-mailed him and he got back to us within hours.  I loved the way he set up his way of communicating to the parents and this would be the way I would do it in my classroom.

In our newsletter we talked about new assessment techniques that we feel would be a good way to assess students besides the old standby, pencil and paper.  We like several different ideas but the ones we liked the best were; blogger, podcasts, webquests, Avatars, and Gloster.  Each one of these on-line assessments are interactive and fun for the students to do.  As a group we decided to use Gloster to do our newsletter, because it had some great designs, a better selection of layouts, and graphics (as you can see above). 

We all really liked doing this project together.  As always we, K2TLP, work great together and all get along really well, which helps in collaboration situations.   Kim did a great job pulling it all together and adding the final touches at the end.  I liked our class newsletter so much that I would not change a thing if I had to do it or another one again.  We all put a lot of work into making this letter creative, unique,  and to the point.  Go K2TLP!!!

What have you learned?

Mind maps, what a great way to help students breakdown what they know.  Mind maps can be used several different way; before lesson (to see what the students know), during (as an activity do be done as they are learning the topic), and after (to use for studying purposes).  This site, Inspiration or one like it, is one I will try to use in my classroom.


I picked History because I have a degree in history and I really enjoy learning new things about the history of the world we live in.  I picked the branches of the United States Government because I remember my son having trouble remembering who was in charge of the different branches.  I drew out what I just did on Inspiration for him to study from. This allows him to see the big picture of the United States Government, who is in charge of each main department, where they are located, and their main jobs.  If I did this in my classroom I would make this part of a webquest assignment.  I would have the students do the webquest and then do different mind maps for different parts of  the lesson they will learn. Mind maps will help students organize the main points/parts of the lesson which then the students can use a study guides. 


The most important lesson I learned from mind maps was that it is hard work brain storming.  It took me awhile to decide what my topic was going to be and then how the students were going to get the information.  Once I started it then became easy, then the hard part was deciding what shapes, colors and designs to use on the mind map.


I really liked this software, maybe because I have worked with it before and felt comfortable using it.  I really did not look at any other site for mind mapping, which maybe I should have.  The graphics are real cool and colorful.  The only thing I wish was that every time you typed in the different shapes you had to pick the font, size, and color each time.  There should be a paintbrush button, so you can just copy your font, color,and size in each shape you write in.  That was the most annoying and time consuming part of this project.


I will be checking out other on-line mind mapping sites before I do or assign this to my future class.  There maybe a friendlier site out there with a lot more graphics to choose from.  When it comes to assigning a mind map assignment I realize that you have to be very precise in your directions on what and how you want the project done.   You can do these maps several different ways and students can interperate your directions differently, so I will make sure that I put what I want from my students in black and white.


All in all I really like and enjoyed do the Inspiration mind map.  Like I said, "I will be using this tool and site again".

Making our lives easier --- Rubistar.

I really like looking at these sites that will one day make my life as a teacher a little easier. I reviewed some of the rubric generators' sites and the ones I looked at were great. Some did not work but that was OK since most did. I liked that they had ones for Pre-k/K rubrics. I really did not think you needed a rubric for kindergarten class. I played around with a couple of them but I made one on Rubistar. I did it for a history project, making a map of the United States features. They make it so easy for you, all you have to do is pick what you want and you are done. No sitting and pulling your hair trying to come up with what you expect. I think if you really want a rubric that is very specific you need to make your own. But these sites are good for basic rubrics. I had fun make my rubric and I would/will be using this type of site in my teaching career.

Do you know what your child is looking at?

Do you think about this? 

When my children come home the first week of school and hand me the computer permission sheet to read and sign.  I have to admit that I really have never read it in its entirety.  I never thought about how much work goes into protecting or children on the Internet. Our children/students are told what to do and what not to do on the computers. I never realized that as they get older they are taught what web sites are good and which ones are bad to use.  It is important that students are taught, if not already, to use a criteria for evaluating web pages.  This will come in very handy to learn as they will have to do more papers.  If the students are using web sites in there papers they need to know that the site they are using is creditable and the truth. One of the readings we did was the "Five criteria for evaluation Web pages" this was a great chart to us when viewing a web page.   It tells you why you need to evaluate that certain criteria and then gives you example questions that you need to ask yourself to make sure the web page meets the requirements. Students need to be able to critically evaluate information; this is very important skill to have in this information era. "The acquisition of digital literacy skills is dependent up in the student's ability to find information, determine its usefulness and accuracy."(Classroom Connect, Dec98/Jan99)  I will start using this chart when I am looking at a web page.


Another very important part of using the Internet is the safety.  Students need to be taught all the wrong things that can happen on the Internet.  They need to be taught computer netiquette, how to surf the Internet correctly, the rules of e-mail, and the dangers of chat rooms (the good ones to).  I know teachers do teach this to their students as they get in the older grades but parents need to also do their part in tell their children about the good and bad of the Internet. 


With the world that we will soon be submersed into one day, students need to be very computer savvy.  Children need to be on their toes when it comes to all the problems and bad things that can happen on the Internet.  I know that I teach my children what I know about the Internet, in hopes that they will not run into any problems.  As a future teacher I will also do my best to educate my students on Internet safety and how to evaluate a website.

Take a Poll anyone?

I just made my first poll.
I first tried to use Survey Monkey but it would not load correctly.  Thank You Kim for coming to the rescue again.  She recommended addpoll.com instead.  I love that site, it is just like it says 1 2 3 to make your own poll.  I will be playing with my polls and changing them from time to time.  I could see a teacher using this, a poll, to get feedback from parents.  If you have a teacher page you could post a poll.  I also really liked that you can design your poll to look cooler than just a bunch of words on the page.
Check out my poll next to this blog entry and answer the question.