A PLN is an acronym that standing for Personal Learning Network. This is a place were a teacher can go and exchange and share information about teaching. One can go on a online website that is a PLN and look or talk to fellow educators and topics they want to know about. It is very helpful when you want to improve your teaching skills because you can easily look up the new teaching methods or just browse the posting of those who you choose to follow through the PLN.
I used the popular PLN called twitter. This was a great because it was my first time using twitter and I found it to be a very useful PLN. The reason I enjoyed it because I found some of the websites that I look at for educational information such as edweek.org to keep me inform on topics and news in education. The way I came to find that they had a twitter was that I search #edchat. and by doing this they had tweeted the same hashtag so they were brought up in the search and I began to follow them. I can see them post on topics of education and so I didn't have to go to there website to see what was knew. I had them and three other educational twitters that I was following and they keep me informed on the knew methods of teaching. The best part was that if I saw something interesting then I would just hit the link they had on there twitter and it would send me to their website to find out more. Essential the information came to me and I just picked and choose what I want to learn. for example I saw a tweet on budgecuts and how they would affect teachers in california. So I just clicked on the link and it took me there.
But I feel the best thing is that if you have question then you can communicate to them on things you want to know. By directing the question to them and tagging them in it. I never really got a response on a question I asked about one of the tweets I saw but I saw that some of the tweeters I was following did comment and talk to or tweeters users.
The ning group I join was the educators PLN I never new there was websites like this that people essentially build there own soical newwork where they share information on the subject of the ning. I have to say that it does help teachers because one of these groups can show you things about teaching that you would never have known if you did not talk to people or share your thoughts and these website help educators do that. I saw a video on introverts on how they are looked down on by in schools and are told to be extroverts. But then how they are lazy, boring, have social probelms. But that is just a basis. The video suggest that they are thinkers and like to analyze what they take in so that they are not impulsive.
I had a positive experience with PLN because I saw have teachers can gain different ideas and teaching methods forntheir students. The video even showed me how people take in information that will help me to make my lectures more universal for the student to understand and grasp.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Wrangle It with a Rubric
Wrangle It with a Rubric
The article that is present by Regina D. Royer is mainly about the benefits of using multimedia in education. She mentions that by using multimedia students to create their own meaning and process of understand of the material at hand. The multimedia of today allows students to synthesize core concepts, select appropriate media, research topics, and evaluate resources. Also with the new boost in communication between people multimedia has incorporated social networks to be used. Going further for people that have not yet considered using multimedia the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) requires for the use of technology to be used and multimedia fits that requirement that the CCSS has put into place. the article then attempts to give a solution that helps with students getting side tracked or spending to much time on small details rather then the actual content of the material. So they say a teacher should have a rubric on the multimedia that is being used. The explain how many of the tools out there to be used come with guideline and rubric on how to use the program. they even include tutorials that help students learn the programs so that they do not waste time and finding how to do different things. the best thing is that these rubric keep the student on task and allow them to finish with the rubric as a guide. Schools has worked with the CCSS to design a rubirc that works with the multimedia and satisfies the standards for the school.When I went to high school we had a academy with in the school called telecommunications academy that work along side with our history and English. We had a rubric on the things that we had to do for each class but we incorporated video projects, flash work, photoshop, and other multimedia tools that help us with doing our assignments. I have to admit that I did more to achieve a better grade with this program and while i was learning my history or English I also learned how to work a video camera and make a move. So as a history teacher I would really push for my future school to have one of these programs.
This connects with research and information fluency because students use the tools of technology to achieve a better understanding of the material that they are studying. They gather info and inquire how to use the info gathered. They also use Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making to do research and manage their projects in a way that will be the most beneficial to them in the assignment
Royer, R. D. (2012, October). Wrangling It With A Rubric. Learning and Leading, 20. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201211#pg20
Excellent Educators
Excellent Educator
Matt Cuathron has a very unique classroom that he allows his students to become very interactive with his students and also allow his students to feel some control of the education the want. He does this through Apple challenge- Based module that help his students to create inspired work. With these modules the students are allowed to pick challenges that are collaborate, authentic, and competitive to decide on how there assignments and projects will be done. As I have written in my pass blogs this style of teaching that allows students to pick their path of doing work motivates the students into doing their work because they pick how they do it and in what order. The students are doing the same work and probably even more do to the fact that they want to do the work. In Mr. Cuathron class the students do not just learn art but they learn the business work of art, the internet, portfolios, and other material. The great thing about this type of teaching is that in almost all the cases students just don't learn the classic but with technology integrated also. So the students are learning more than just the main material. I feel this keeps the student hungry for more. Matt works with artist around the world to create more of these challenges to for students to be more interactive in the module.As a future teacher I love to read how teachers allow there students to be free in a sense on how they do there assignments and projects that I had mention earlier in this blog I believe that studetns get the most this way. I would love to use a program where I can work with historians or a museum that creates or collaborates to help build education modules that students can work with and use technology to finish there projects. This would be a great help in my history class because many students don't understand or its hard for them to understand history with out experience the ideas that are trying to get across. With this the students can gain interactive experience that put them in situations of the past and would make them analyze it as if they were there.
In the end of the article form this teacher, Matt, we see that he does not only try to help his students but the rest of the people that like to access this system for educational purposes and not just but also the contributors benefit form this because they get to see what works and what does in article for learns of the trade. So it benefits the learner and the learned.
This goes with communication and Collaboration because students interact with artist around the world that design this modules and challenges for these students. But not just that they communicate and work with their peers to work and complete these modules that they have chosen to do in their class room.
Cuathron, Matt. "Learning and Leading - November 2012." Learning and Leading - November 2012. N.p., Nov. 2012. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201211>.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Promote Digital Citizenship Through School-Based Social Networking
Promote Digital Citizenship Through School-Based Social Networking
The author starts the article with the notion that with today's technology and having many social networks used to communicate with fellow class mates and teachers are creating many concerns with the issues that have new developed such as teacher-student communication and cyber bullying. The author continues to say that this has left the school with some responsibility to show their students digital citizenship but now schools have created there own social networks for teachers and students to use that tighter on control over them. They are school based networks that are very similar to facebook or myspace. These school social networks are just like those that are accessible to the general public but the great difference is that the school ones are easier to control and are more limited to only the students, teachers and administration at the school. This allows for the school to get rid of spammers, predators, and unwanted dangers that can reach these students and protects them from them. It also eliminates the privacy of sending messages that not all can see. With these new networks everything that is posted, commented, messages is made public so there is no inappropriate activate between students and students, also students and teachers. It creates a safe place for students and teacher have job security knowing they are both safe to use this network for education. At first they introduced it to middle school students because many did not have public social networks so they were still new to the idea and it was not as big as a high school to monitor them and how it was used. Within days if it being introduced the students themselves found out how to used and began to work with the school based network to its utmost. The curriculum was then integrated in to the social network that extend their technology in the classroom and as fast as the students got the hang of it they began to use it for school work that teachers had assigned on it.
I would love for the school I teach at to have a similar thing such as this school based social network so that I can use with my students and not worry if my students are safe online and that I have a comfortable place to communicate outside the classroom with my students and know that school approves of it. This will benefit students a lot and give them an interest in school.
The end of it is that more and more schools and introducing the type of online community for middle schools and high schools. It is showing an increase of participation and decrease in cyber bullying do to the control that the school has over the website.
The article relates with the NET-S of Digital Citizenship because it shows the student everything that is on that list. Such as proper etiquette and gives them a safe place to communicate with their teacher.
Winn, M. R. (2011, December). Promote Digital Citizenship Through School-Based Social Networking. Learning & Leading, 10–13. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20111201#pg14
Into The Virtual Frontier
The article that I choose for number five was "Into the Virtual Frontier". It has to do with a women teacher that gets a job offer that allows her to become a teacher online instead of the classroom. this to me was a new notion of teaching until I got into college. The teacher in the article is the author and is sharing her views and experience with this new way of teaching in the K-12 system. she first goes through the issue of how she would set up the class and how to get started. she explain that it was very hard work because she had to find out how to make her lesson plans work online because it was not the same as in a classroom. Also she had to figure what type of programs she would use to communicate, teach, and would do activities with. So as she explains all this work she comes to know that there is a really huge difference from teaching in a classroom to teaching a to online students.
She goes through the different types of things she needs to do such as how she will communicate with the students. She explains that because you do not have a physical presence with them, then you need to find a way to motivate them and have them keep with the class. This seems to be difficult because she explains how all the students are different and have different communication needs. For example the ones that do very well in the course contact the teacher about how they are doing or to get help on homework and assignments, then there is those students who need a little more attention and she goes into how she calls the student or the parents to make sure that they are on track. So to me this would be very very hard to keep up with the students needs. But something that does help she adds is Skype to have that face to face interaction that helps very much with motivating students to participate in the modules that are placed for them.
Next she moves on to lesson plan and curriculum that have to be place and how she does this. She says that the school provides many basic lesson plans for the course that is being thought are just basic. What I thought that was really great was that the teacher is able to modify the lesson plans to what they think is better and have them be more higher thinking modules and make them think critical. Not only this but how does the teacher help the student when they are doing work at that time and she implemented weekly work that is handed in at the end of each week. So the week would start on Sunday and end in Saturday night. So students learn time management and are allowed time to get help and have that responsibility on them. She saw that it worked a lot better than just giving them an assignment and having a deadline. This allowed them to choose what they wanted to first and then work their way through the week.
In all honesty I don't find a way that I would use the things on this article to my future teaching career because it all relates to online teaching and that had never been an interest to me because I feel that i can help a child a lot more with the in classroom teaching rather than online.
Communication and Collaborative is one way that this article relates to the NETS-S because the student and teacher are using digital media programs to contact each other on the things that are happening on the online course share the the homework, assignments, and projects that have been given to all those in the class. Next is the Digital Citizenship because throughout the whole online schooling students are made aware of proper conduct and proper etiquette on issues related to technology and the internet.
McBride, H. (2012, November). Into the Virtual Frontier. Learning & Leading, 24–27. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201211#pg28
She goes through the different types of things she needs to do such as how she will communicate with the students. She explains that because you do not have a physical presence with them, then you need to find a way to motivate them and have them keep with the class. This seems to be difficult because she explains how all the students are different and have different communication needs. For example the ones that do very well in the course contact the teacher about how they are doing or to get help on homework and assignments, then there is those students who need a little more attention and she goes into how she calls the student or the parents to make sure that they are on track. So to me this would be very very hard to keep up with the students needs. But something that does help she adds is Skype to have that face to face interaction that helps very much with motivating students to participate in the modules that are placed for them.
Next she moves on to lesson plan and curriculum that have to be place and how she does this. She says that the school provides many basic lesson plans for the course that is being thought are just basic. What I thought that was really great was that the teacher is able to modify the lesson plans to what they think is better and have them be more higher thinking modules and make them think critical. Not only this but how does the teacher help the student when they are doing work at that time and she implemented weekly work that is handed in at the end of each week. So the week would start on Sunday and end in Saturday night. So students learn time management and are allowed time to get help and have that responsibility on them. She saw that it worked a lot better than just giving them an assignment and having a deadline. This allowed them to choose what they wanted to first and then work their way through the week.
In all honesty I don't find a way that I would use the things on this article to my future teaching career because it all relates to online teaching and that had never been an interest to me because I feel that i can help a child a lot more with the in classroom teaching rather than online.
Communication and Collaborative is one way that this article relates to the NETS-S because the student and teacher are using digital media programs to contact each other on the things that are happening on the online course share the the homework, assignments, and projects that have been given to all those in the class. Next is the Digital Citizenship because throughout the whole online schooling students are made aware of proper conduct and proper etiquette on issues related to technology and the internet.
McBride, H. (2012, November). Into the Virtual Frontier. Learning & Leading, 24–27. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201211#pg28
Friday, October 12, 2012
Teachers Beware
Teachers Beaware
The article is mainly about if a teachether has or would have a social network account of any how kind they should be aware of the dangers and effects that it could have to their teaching career and there teaching methods. The author of this article, Harry Ess Belch, gives many examples across the nation and even international about how many teacher have been disciplined for showing, depicting and writing inappropriate material online. Many of them had nothing to do with the school but according to the article and the laws one has the 1st amendment but you can still get in trouble depending on some other rules in placed for teachers. One is the amount of trouble you can get in depends if you have a continuous contract, if you behavior has a nexus to your effectiveness as a teacher, if the behavior show is or can cause a problem in the educational process of students, and/or if what has been posted is damaging to the school or reputation. So the purpose of the article is to inform teachers that there social network can be damaging to their career because it could have a bearing affect on their job. the author wanted to show how it could do this damage and what could be done for a teacher to protect themselves on what not to do. So he found out what schools are doing to help teachers not fall into these issues. He explains how schools have placed guidelines and restrictions on how teachers can use social networks, such as they are not allowed to privately contact students over these sites, they are not allowed to accept any invitations from students or invite them to one on one contact, and if they use social network in the school with there equipment then there privacy is under the same rule the school has established. They also urge that teachers should be careful on what they post because it might be offense to others.
They way I would use this information in my class is that I would familiarize myself with the rules and restrictions of social networks because I know that I would be using some for educational reason. They will allow all my students to connect with each other outside of the classroom and give them a chance to get extra help and understand of the material in class. So it would be in my benefit to make sure that I am aware of the does and don't of using the these types of programs.
In conclusion, the author educate his colleagues in how they should use these websites and how they should protect themselves. He informs them on how they need to know that just because they are out of school and it there own private account they still need to think about what they post could affect there teaching. After his awareness session he told his co workers to write down what new things they have learned and many wrote that they did not know that they could get in trouble for what they posted on their social networks.
Now it was hard to relate this to the NET-S for students but I feel that it looking more into it it connects to Digital Citizenship. Because just as the teachers need to practice safe use of technology so do students so they need the example of a good model of this.
Go Digital
Go Digital
Edwards, M., Wirt, T., & Smith, S. (2012, October). Go Digital. Learning & Leading, 12–15. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20120910#pg16In the article "Go Digital" the authors write about how Mooresville Graded School District need to find a way to integrate technology in a community that has a divide of technology due to economic reasons. The article by Mark Edwards, Scott Smith, and Todd Wirt explains how the School District wants to become more technological driven in the classroom but the issue is that many of the students do not have the financial backing for the technology that is required for the change. The school district decided that because many of the families in the school districts could not afford
this that they would provide laptops for the students for the whole school year and allow them to take home. Essentially it is there own computer. By having the school move into the technology age it made the students interested in school and it had a improvement in their education. Test scores have increased and drop out rates decreased since this had been implemented. It was about more than five thousand laptops that were lent out and also the program did not just stopped there they allowed for students to work at the help desk to gain more technology and use it as an elective. The purpose of the article and the point that the authors are depicting is that in a school with low economic students, low test, and high drop out rate that one change in teaching could turn students education for the better. Even though it was a lot to provide for these students the return that they get from the students is a positive one and have motivated students. They let the technology playing fielded for their students to level out. The Digital Conversion program extended the education of the students and allow them to expand their education horizon.
By reading this article I was trying to imagine a way I can use this in the future but I realized that I needed to use this information not in the classroom but with the actual school because the article dealt more with how the school integrated the Digital Conversion program to help students be up to par with technology; so if I taught at a school that needed to improve there students I would purpose a similar program that the Mooresville Graded School District did.
By actually stepping into one of these classrooms one can see and experience the effectiveness of what the program has brought to the students of MGSD. This was also seen by the superintendent by how the students would be in such rush to class and also they would cut some of there recesses time to continue with technological education that they are receiving. This was something never seen to the faculty before and the staff even thought something wrong was happening because they had never seen the students be so eager to participate in the new methods of teaching due to technology.
In accordance with NETS-S this article fits within two categories, the first is 1) Creativity and Innovation. What the Digital Conversion Program does is that it generates new ideas and processes for students that have never been able to do with out the technology provide for them.They can create work that expresses the usage of this new program and allows them to explore more complex systems of work. It also can fit within 2) Communication and Collaboration because by having new technology provides an opportunity to connect and collaborate with their fellow peers through programs such as pwoerpoint, blogs, social networks, etc... Not only that but they can also gain more information and share their own ideas with everyone they choose.
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