EEND 679 Reflection

Throughout this course I was presented with a variety of online assessments that have been on my list of resources to explore, but I never got around to them.  This course forced me to not only take the time to look at the resource, but also to test them out and analyze them.  Analyzing those assessments has set me up to expand me bag of resources to utilize in the classroom.  Of all the discussion and articles from the course, I particularly connected with the module on personalized learning.  The articles helped me realize the importance of being a facilitator rather than a lecturer.  Classmates did a great job responding, supporting, and offering good ideas to be even more successful with personalized learning in the classroom.  I feel that through all the discussions and activities I am better prepared for the topic of assessment.  Assessment is a very difficult topic in my opinion and something that all of us teachers strive to improve to meet the needs of our students.  I now feel prepared to speak on the topic of assessment using technology more so than prior to taking this course.  I will keep the great information, ideas, and resources gathered during this course and share it with my colleagues and offer my assistance to help foster a better learning environment for students.

EEND 679: Genius Hour

Genius Hour is a way to get students to want to learn and showcase a passion they have wanted to learn about.  We always talk about giving students more choice and genius hour gives them that and the power to really do whatever they want. Students motivation will increase as students take ownership of their learning but still master the skills laid out by the teacher.
As I have been going through the Genius Hour project, some of the struggles I have found are when I find one solution, I notice something else I want to address.  I feel that as I dive further into the rabbit hole of my project I find more that I want to do and quickly become both excited and overwhelmed.  I am focusing on the creation of a more detailed vision for my student led technology group, the Tech Ninjas.  I found some victories in communicating better and trusting these students to want to make their new group be successful.
I plan to introduce genius hour to my classroom next semester.  As the communications teacher, this is a great opportunity for students to become experts at something and share it with the whole class through a presentation.  I am looking forward to watching them go through the process and create something their proud and excited to present to the class.
You can read about my genius hour process on the Genius Hour tab above.  Below is the logo of our students led technology group.  Branding ourselves was one of the first steps to get students motivated and excited to be a part of this special group.

EEND 676 Reflection

I feel that I have a better understanding for collaboration after this course. I always thought have students work together is just good for their socialization, but there is so much more to it when you consider the direction our world is moving. We live a changing world of collaboration in the workplace and our students need to be prepared for such jobs. Gone is the teacher directed classroom and problem solving and collaboration is a trend that is here to stay. The higher order thinking that takes place when students are left to figure things out with each other cannot be replaced by a teacher’s lecture.

I plan on making sure that I have a collaborative component to every activity and students understand that their contribution matters and it’s not just group work where everyone gets the same grade. All voices matter! I will be using the collaborative web tool shared activity to be a resource guide for future application considerations.

As a teacher leader, I will not hold onto this information for myself, but I will speak for its importance during planning meetings. I plan to share a majority of assignments with my colleagues and even several articles that I think can help my coworkers understand the power of collaboration better.

EEND 680 Reflection

The module on learning walks was particularly memorable for me. We have learning walks in our building where teachers are always a little nervous and jazz up their instruction on those days for fear of being evaluated. The district has never come out and told us we are not being evaluated, nor have they shared any tools they use to go through the walkthroughs. I think several of the articles in this module opened my eyes to what the district is doing when they do these walks. I plan on sharing this information with my colleagues and if I am given the opportunity I would like to share those resources with administration.

I enjoyed the discussions around challenges we are facing. It’s so important for us as educators to put to words what is frustrating us and find people to help us get through those struggles. I was thankful for peers that can relate or offer their insight to help get through this obstacles.

This course has helped me feel more comfortable in my leadership role. This course has helped reassure that I am doing what is best for staff I work with even if they push back and are resistant to my suggestions or helpful information. I have two classes left and the test to become a certified technology specialist. I’m looking forward to continuing my coaching and to use that title to advance my career.

EEND 680: Module 7 - My ISTE Conference Share Out

I was lucky enough to attend ISTE last week and choosing to write my discussion on some great tips and tricks I picked up! One of my favorite tips was about google drive. It can certainly be difficult to find things on google drive and time consuming to create and sort information in folders. Just label your docs to the units your working on. For example. If you are teaching a social studies class with 10 units, label your activities "SSUnit1 - activity name" this way when you want to find an activity you just need to look up "SSUnit1" and everything will be listed.

The highlight for many at ISTE were the google sessions.  On day one I didn’t really know what I was doing and I thought I could walk into any session that was available.  I learned that the google sessions were rather difficult to get into so I made sure to get in line extra early for the new updates session they offered.  I’m excited to say, if you have not heard, you can now select ‘lock screen’ on a google form quiz! If students are using a chromebook to take a google form quiz that has lock screen enabled, the form will go into full screen and students cannot access anything else!  Mind. Blown. Another great update is in google classroom. Google classroom can get very overwhelming so they have added a ‘classwork’ tab at the top where you can better organize and assign class assignments.

Google Docs also has an add-on audioforslides.com which will allow you to add audio to your slides!

Lastly, for those sneaky children who close out tabs really quickly when you come around: CTRL+Shift+T reopens recently closed tabs!

EEND 678 Course Reflection

As I reflect on this course, I look at how it contributes to my role as an educator and a technology coach.  I found the article Problem-Based Learning: Six Steps to Design, Implement, and Assess has stuck with me the most.  After reading this article I promptly shared it with co-workers.  I thought it was short, to the point, and helpful for designing PBL.  The article included examples to help guide teachers through the process of creating a PBL.  This would be a great article to include in a PBL professional development. When we were working on our PBL units, I loved having the discussion board to show my plan and get feedback.  My classmates had a lot of great ideas to help make my PBL better! That discussion was the most beneficial because I plan to use that PBL I created and appreciated the help. I have certainly grown as a connected educator because of this course through reaching out to classmates I’m reminded of the importance of professional learning networks.  While my school may not have a large faculty, there are thousands of educators eager to create classrooms that share my vision and can offer me great support. I will continue to use my PLN and classmates I’ve met through my studies at St. Francis to development and strengthen my knowledge of technology in the classroom and earn my endorsement. This course was a wonderful opportunity to share with each other the ways we all use technology.  The tech tool hunt and management slides activities were collaborative and something I can share with colleagues immediately. I look forward to using the PBL unit and other class activities in my own classroom!

677- Module 4: Graphic Design

• Why might incorporating graphic design into your classroom be valuable?
• Thinking about how our students absorb information, how might we better support the learners in our classrooms?
• Envision an activity, unit or event that is approaching how might you incorporate some of the design principles?

Incorporating graphic design into your classroom is valuable because of the variety of learners we have.  Students that are visual learners can be overwhelmed by text heavy information.  If we can create lessons that include infographics we are also creating something that doesn’t look boring!  If we as teachers create something that looks interesting, our students might be more intrigued by it and absorb the information better.  We are making the learning process memorable and something then can recall.  

I have several activities that incorporate design principles.  One of my go to activities when learning new vocabulary is to have students include an image or cartoon to describe the word.  Once students create them I choose some great examples and those become our word wall.  Many students are able to recall the words better because of the image they have associated with them.  

My introduction to my class activity is to have students create their own logo and brand for themselves.  This allows them to create graphics that represent themselves and understand how graphics play an important role in our world.  I have had some very creative logos doing this activity and students learn more about each other and recall their names better because of this activity.  They put their logos on all their work instead of just their names!

Within my classroom, I decided this year I would brand my classroom.  All my signs, activities, posters, etc. have my class logo I created and a special font to differentiate my class from others.  My students love referring to my class as Studio 208, not just communications class.