#6 Using Twitter, Blogs, and Websites in the Classroom

Two things that will work as a classroom teacher:

1.      I believe even in a kindergarten classroom, I could tweet about upcoming dates.  I could remind          parents of school parties, field trip, or if a child needs school supplies.
2.       Live tweeting field trips would be a great idea for parents who can’t make the field trips. This would    allow them to keep up with what is happening during the field trip.  You could also let the parents        know a better time frame of when the children will be back to school.

Two things that will not work as a classroom teacher:

•        Some of the ideas in this article,50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom are a little difficult for a           kindergartner.  For example, a kindergartner could not create a career list with Twitter.  Most             students are fine tuning their writing skill, and to create a list like that would be difficult.
•         Kindergartners also could not take or tweet notes on twitter.  They need to be able to write with a       pencil first and master that motor skill first.

I do believe that using Twitter will help children even kindergartners learn easier.  Technologies are changing every day, and why not incorporate our kindergartner in some new technology now.  Technology is just like foreign language, you learn easier the younger you are.

Two ways I could use a Blog in my classroom:

1.     I love meet the author idea.  That would work great in my kindergarten classroom.  I could invite         the author to talk to our students about the book or writing the book and then as a class we could       write back questions we had for them.  This could be done all year.
2.      I also like Blog pals.  I think this would be a great way for students to talk to other students in             different schools about what they are learning and how it differs.  I know as a student we wrote to        pen pals, and I really enjoyed getting my letter back.

I am so glad that I have learned how to create a class website.  I plan to use a website when I get my own classroom.  I think a class website can be helpful in so many ways.  You can keep your parents up-to-date on the happenings of your classroom while also getting to know your parents better.  I plan to make my class website more student or parent friendly by making sure my website is clear and easy to read.  I also want to make sure I am consistent, but yet capture the attention of my audience.  I think for me, I would want to test it on my family first, and see if they could navigate easily.

#5 Technology Action Plan

Three Things I am good at:

1.      I am good at troubleshooting.  I usually try turning off my computer first and then next I might try turning off my mifi.  This usually fixes whatever issues I might be having.

2.      I can use the web for anything.  It was a little scary at first, but now I am pretty good at finding what I need on the web.

3.      I have always been good at trying new things.  I think as a teacher you have to be able to change your curriculum and how you teach or you won’t be very effective.

Three Things I need to grow in:

       1.  I need to be more confident in productivity tools.  I can create a spreadsheet; it just takes me a 

            while.  I don't create them often, so I usually forget how to set them up.  I have found that it is

            easier to set up a table in Word vs. creating a spreadsheet in Excel.

       2.  I don't know how to indent markers.  In fact, I'm not sure I even know what that means.

       3.  I'm not sure I remember how to create columns of text either.

Two ways I would use technology outside of the classroom to enhance dialogue with students in the classroom:

        1.  I will have a blog where I can talk about what we did in the classroom each day.  The students

             can go to my blog and comment what they liked or disliked about the day and what they learned.

             This will change my method because I am getting feedback so that I can adjust my lesson to meet

              all diverse learners.

        2.  I think I would like to try the flipped classroom.  If the students have any questions or problems you

             can email or blog outside of the classroom.

I think teaching something "Naked" means teaching without using lectures.  We need to teach in a way that we engage our students other than by just the students listening to the teacher talk and they listen or take notes.  The students need to be involved in their learning hands on.  When the teacher is teaching "Naked" the students need to be doing something like working on an ipad and using the information that the teacher is lecturing about to perform a function.  The student can watch YouTube videos to learn a task.  Some students need to visualize the task first and then do it.  

Blog #4 Responding to Changes

Wow, I have learned so much from this lesson.  Technology is changing the way we as teachers can teach our students. 

Free online instructional videos for k-12

 I love what Kahn Academy is doing for Education.  I especially love the idea of the flipped classroom that they talk about in the Kahn Academy video:  The future of education?  I think the flipped classroom where you go over the concept at home, and then do the homework in class is a great idea.  Kahn Academy is not just teaching a concept, they are assessing the student on how well they learn and what they need help with.  In the article UVA to offer free online courses it discusses that just because they take online courses does not mean that they are educated.  You have to be able assess their learning which is what Kahn Academy does.

 Free online university classes and MOCs

I was really impressed by all the free online courses you could take that the MOOC List had described.  These kinds of classes could help students like me, a non-traditional student who does not remember English and writing essays.  For example, they had a course for college writing, and principles of written English that may not give you a college credit, but it can get you ready to go back to school and take College English course.

Plans for free online degrees

I love the idea of free online degrees.  Online degrees would help people who have to work while they go back to school and raise a family.  On the ted talks about free education for the world they claim that offering free online courses not only teaches the content, but it gives ways to research how people learn.  This gives the student a more hands on technique with their own learning.

New writers/sources of textbooks

In states like California they are already implementing using technology instead of textbooks.  Online open text is free to students.  This alone would save college students tremendously.  They also claim in the 5 Sources Of Open-Source Textbook, that it could also help your back.  I think it is better to go to digital textbooks now before we are mandated to.  Digital textbooks are a great tool for the teacher to be able to download context that is usable and get rid of what is not.  I plan to use digital tools like the ipad to aid in student learning in my classroom.  I know that students need diverse ways of learning, and I believe that digital textbooks can offer that.

Blog #3 Message and Copyright Information

I have to admit that before reading this article, 10 Big Myths about copyright explained, I had no idea of all the copyright laws.  I always figured that as long as you gave credit where credit was due that you were safe.  After reading that article I know that what just a myth.  I did not realize that if you talk about a story, you can only mention instances that happened to you.  Just because part of the story was yours, does not mean you can add someone else’s story to make your story sound better. 

I also did not know that you could not record a video singing someone else’s song without permission from that artist.  It makes since to me now that I think about it.  I know that when I was a kid my mom videoed me singing a tone-loc song.  Although we did not have internet back then and we did not post it online for others to see.  I believe when in doubt just don’t use someone else’s work without permission. 

I did not know when a copyright law expires. After reading What is Copyright Protection I have learned that a copyright is good for 25 to 50 years upon creation.  I have to admit I have never really thought much about copyright laws.  I have always tried to give credit for everything I write.  I also did not know that copyright violation was a crime until reading it in the 10 Big Myths.

In my kindergarten classroom I will first educate them about what a copyright is by showing them the copyrightkids.org website.  We will discuss what is and is not a copyright violation by doing some matching games with different scenarios.  I plan to abide by the copyright laws in my classroom as well as in my personal life.  I believe that copyright laws are important, because it make us do our own work and it protects someone else's work.

Blog #2- Content Curation

I have to admit that before reading Teaching with Content Curation, the term curation was not familiar to me.  Content curation is the process of researching and gathering information about a specific subject on the web, and putting it in a central location. This benefits the student by eliminating the time necessary to compile the information on their own. 

I believe that it would benefit the educator as well.   By gathering the information personally they can tailor it to the diverse and specific needs of their students.   Often, this might meet their needs better than a textbook.  In this article, the educator replaced the textbook because she saw that her students were having problems with certain subjects and this could help her zone in on what they needed. 

Because differentiation is important, I plan to use something like Livebinders in my classroom to help me meet the diverse needs of my students.  Livebinders would be a great resource for assessing each child’s needs and creating lessons to meet them.  For example, if I knew that one of my students was having problems differentiating between a “b” and a “d”, I could gather the materials in a Livebinder to assist them. 

I also plan to use to use various interactive content forms such as those used in my SMART Notebook lesson.  In Kindergarten it is common to use sorting for learning shapes, colors, number and letters.  As mentioned in the Rosetta Stone Demo, learning happens more easily when there is a visual aid attached to the concept for easier recall.

In the 2013K-12 Horizon Report, it was stated that it is more common now for students to bring their own mobile electronic devices to the classrooms.  I believe that it would benefit the school and the student greatly to incorporate these devices for the purposes of researching, playing educational games, etc., to promote learning. 

In conclusion, I believe that content curation will be a valuable asset to me in my classroom in the future.

Blog 1: Visual Literacy

I thought this article was very interesting, and I plan to use visual literacy often in my kindergarten classroom.  The article Picture Perfect:  Teaching to Visual Literacy talks about how important it is to incorporate images in the classroom.  Learning is so much easier if the students can attach an image to a subject.   An image gives a student and easier visual to remember that subject.   For example, in my kindergarten classroom; I would use a constructivism method where I would incorporate images with learning the alphabet.  We would discuss at the carpet what the letter of the day is, and then write it on the Smartboard .  We would then brainstorm all the different words that start with this letter sound.  We would then write all those words on our Smartboard.  Finally, we would print out the list of words and go back to our desks and individually draw the letters.  We would put these all together and make our own individual Alphabet Book.  I would also like to use Voicethread and video in my classroom.  This would also be the constructivism method where I would have each of my students answer questions about themselves using video and Voicethread.  Lastly, I would use the constructivism method again and I would have my kindergarten classroom set up to where all my centers are set up with visual cards with images that visually explain what the student is supposed to be doing at that specific center.