Homework Day 3 Quizzes/Tests

Thank you for letting us use the website that our school uses. I was able to find a way to write a test/quiz and have it enter into my current gradebook. Of course I can't have anyone take the test right now. I did see how to assign the quiz to any of my classes. Of course this was very easy and I could have been doing this in the past. Our gradebook was new to us this last year. I was having to insert every assignment into the program every time I wanted to record something. I am hoping that those are all in now and this year all I will have to do is maybe change the date or number of points possible and recording grades this year will be so much faster. I anticipate only using this feature for short quizzes or for reasons to just check procedural understanding or maybe homework checks. I also set up a rubric in Rubistar.4teachers.org. This too was very easy. I chose a topic that was listed which was art/collage. All I had to do is choose from the possible topics for each section. There were set criteria that came up for me. I was able to edit those to work for my own purposes. This is definitely a useful tool that can save a lot of time. I was able to save the one I made. I can access it again if I ever want to use it. Normally you would just print it and be done.

Homework Day 3 Avatar

Wow, How fun. Of course like the other programs it would be so much better if you bought the teacher version. I like the idea of being able to use my phone to do the talking. A great use in the classroom is for students to be able to listen to directions sometimes instead of always having to read them. This could help the auditory learners. The students are so used to computers and colorful and dynamic information from all their devices that this may come close to that. If I could get into the habit of updating everyday, I could use this to give information to parents about upcoming events or things that happened that day at school. I know I wouldn't be good enough to remember to update homework this way everyday. Of course watching each other's avatar in class was fun. I think I may want to be more creative and have different avatars teach different things. The different accents would be fun also. So basically there are many ways I could go with this.

Technology Standards Response #3

Oregon Technology Standard #5
Digital Citizenship
Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to digital technology and practice legal, ethical, and responsible behavior.

I hadn't really thought of this as something to cover separately.  I heard another class member talk about how their school teaches this at the beginning of the year.  I feel this would be very helpful.  As a Christian school we generally cover human, cultural, and societal issues integrated within our classes.  It wouldn't be hard to cover digital technology too.  Most of the time our families are pretty conservative and protective of their children and what they see or hear, so it is probably covered at home as well.

We as teachers should continuously talk about what is acceptable use not only at school but in all situations.  Probably the most difficult concept to teach about is plagerism.  Every year we have students copy internet sources and turn the information in as their own work.  Of course one of the most important things for students to learn is that the internet is a source of all types of information.  There will be information they should not see or read that appears even with a firewall.  These unfortunate situations can't keep us from utilizing this very useful tool in education.

Homework Day 2: Book Part 4

Homework Day 2:  Part 4

Well I have been putting this project off.  I read the chapters days ago, but was ruluctant to work on a project.  Of course after working on this today, I am reconsidering my final project.  I sort of combined chapters 18 and 19 for my project as of now.  I have a Power Point slide show of pictures.  It played with the functions on changing from slide to slide and spent time adjusting the picture on the screen.

I worked on adding music, but I have not actually perfected that yet.  I chose to put together a slide show of some pictures I took of my students at Outdoor School this year.  I had actually tried to put one together for a chapel presentation last May.  I gave up and just showed my pictures as a slide show.  I like to make my pictures available for the students and parents so that they can print and keep them for memories.  My goal now is to  make the slide show available in drop box for parents to watch it.

My final project is supposed to be a narrated slide show, so I better figure some more out.  I have downloaded the Microsoft Photo Story 3.  Now I need to plan a project to try it out with.

I originally posted this and then remembered I needed to include how I would use this in my classroom.  I'm proud of myself for figuring out how to edit my blog.  I will use more power point in my classes because I will have a mounted projector and document camera in my room.  The time it used to take to set everything up kept me from projecting anything last year.  My students are experts compared to me when it comes to power point.  I'm glad they can utilize their skills this year.

Response to In TASC #2

My second standards blog is in response to In TASC Standard #10

--The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the profession.--

This is a tall order for me.  I think I will be able to seek leadership roles within my school staff.  I will be able to contribute to our technology committee and at least let them know what resources I learned about.  This should encourage other members of the staff to break through some of their insecurities with technology.  "If I can do it, you can do it," will be my motivator. 

We are ultimately responsible for student learning opportunities within our own classrooms.  I really like the fact that there is a list of others to help us.  We should be working with the family, our colleagues, and any other people who care for our students.  Taking advantage of parents and their skill sets is very important to a small school like mine.  We are fortunate to have parents willing to take on leadership roles in advancing the technology at our school.  This year will definitely be challenging in many ways.  My challenge for myself is to take on one leadership opportunity and do it well.

Day 2 Homework: Tool

My group project is from Chapter 13 Microblogging.  My group includes Diane and Louise.  We had a struggle getting started for many reasons.  We chose Edmodo for the blogging.  I initially thought of many ways that I could use the tool.  The struggle was getting a common idea for 3 different grade levels to use.  We decided on one of us setting up as the teacher and the other two as students.  What actually happened was two teachers and 1 student.  The cool thing is that we were able to see what happened if two teachers had access to the same class.  Both Louise and I as teachers were both able to give assignments and grade them.  Well I will actually present our findings.

I really see advantages to being able to have students respond at home or anywhere outside the classroom.  I like that I was able to link sites for them too.  The possibilities seem endless.  I think this Edmodo microblogging is a good use of my time.  That is my ultimate matrix test!