Holy Cow - tons of work this week!! I'm not sure how my neighbor took 12 graduate credits last semester - wow. Anyways, moving on...
We continued reading our two books, DigiTales and Presentation Zen. I find Presentation Zen to be an easier read even if some of the ideas are hard for me to buy into. I am staying open-minded though. I think a person's presentation style should ultimately be a mixture of good presenting techniques and the strengths of the individual. I will most likely never be the type of presenter that gives a ton of handouts, for example. I think their distribution at a presentation is clumsy and they often end up being a distraction as people tend to look at them instead of listening to your message. However, I will be more conscious of the strategy of using handouts to supplement the presentation instead of cluttering a slide and perhaps there will be a situation in which it makes sense for me to incorporate them into a presentation of mine. It's all about keeping an open mind as you read these two books. I've enjoyed the research-based findings and have been able to analyze my current presentation style. I am more aware of the things that I do that are deemed effective and now I also have some ideas on how to change some of my bad presentation habits.
VoiceThread was the web tool that we were able to try out this week and it made me think of several excellent classroom uses for it. We almost have the email address thing figured out here at my school (K-8) so that shouldn't be a problem for us anymore. Of course VoiceThread has the obvious application of having students use it for presentations. It allows for voice files for narration, text comments on each slide, or even video narration form a web cam. All great features that would add to the appeal of a presentation. We haven't even touched on the best feature yet, however. Collaboration. I am guessing that our Civil Rights VoiceThreads will be used to collaborate with each other in much the same way that peers can make comments on a blog. To get feedback and deeper questioning from peers is going to be the most powerful aspect of it's use, IMO.
I'm still plugging away with the Posterous pictures. I've found that the easiest way for me to do these is by taking the pictures with my phone and then just immediately emailing them to my Stritch email account. I've played around with it enough now where I'm following 6 other classmates and I have it setup where the Posterous site sends me a daily email with everyone's picture updates. Pretty slick. There is a chance that I might use it once class is over but it most likely wouldn't be everyday. It's one of things that just takes time and has to be in the back of your mind in order to update it enough for it to be useful to anyone. It's less time consuming than doing a Facebook status update every 20min like some of these junkies which is why it's possible that I may still use it. It'd be fun to get my brother to start doing it or cousins that I never talk to anymore or, even better, my family overseas. I was able to hook up with some of them through Facebook but seeing pictures of them and seeing what they are up to would be really cool.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Digital Storytelling CEDO 530 - Week 1
The first week of this new class has at least clarified what exactly was meant by "Digital Storytelling". I kind of had an idea because I had to do some research about 2 months ago on a program called Storytelling Alice but I wasn't sure if this would be along the same lines or not. The one connection that I hadn't thought of was the presentation aspect. Digital Storytelling certainly ties into presentations and their techniques but for some reason I had the two separated in my mind. I was under the mindset that "Presentations were factual and serious" and "Storytelling was emotional and animated". I quickly realized that my way of thinking was part of the problem. Factual and serious usually equates to "boring". The expectation, especially in the business world, is that when a PPT slideshow or similar presentation flashes up during the meeting that it's time for the head-nodding to begin. I really hope to learn of some resources, techniques, and methods to use in making these normally "boring" presentations more exciting and impactful.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
CEDO 525 - Enhancing Learning Materials - Final Reflection
Well this class has for some reason has been the most painful for me to get through. I think the beginning of the school year had something to do with it but I think that analyzing "Teaching Strategies" was the bigger culprit. I had been spoiled with the prior classes that talked about cool websites, web tools and even a class about hardware and operating systems where I was able to embrace my inner geek. This class, on the contrary, made me take a deeper look at my teaching methods and techniques and really assess my integration of technology into my curriculum (and other teacher's curriculum). I am doing fine for the most part but I certainly have room for improvement. It was good to re-visit these 10-12 effective teaching strategies and get ideas from class, classmates, and other resources for new implementations into my lessons. I also was able to take a look at the technology that I'm using and make connections between the lesson and the technology used. The connections were always there but I never really internalized them by saying to myself "I'm using Inspiration so that students can have experience with advanced organizers, which are proven to have a 22% gain".
Lastly, I had actually gone through several interviews prior to this school year looking for something more in the capacity of a technology integrator or coordinator (unsuccessfully) and I couldn't help but think to myself that I would have done better had I gone through this class first. I would've been able to make stronger connections to these vaunted teaching strategies and perhaps would've increased my chances of impressing the interviewers. I'll get em next time :-)
Lastly, I had actually gone through several interviews prior to this school year looking for something more in the capacity of a technology integrator or coordinator (unsuccessfully) and I couldn't help but think to myself that I would have done better had I gone through this class first. I would've been able to make stronger connections to these vaunted teaching strategies and perhaps would've increased my chances of impressing the interviewers. I'll get em next time :-)
Monday, September 26, 2011
CEDO 525 - Enhanced Learning Materials - Chapter 9, 10, 11 Responses
Closing in on the last week of class. Kind of stressed trying to keep up and balance everything with this class and at school but kind of anxious because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Chapter 9 addressed Identifying Similarities and Differences. Having students use compare/contrast as a strategy has been proven to be one of the most effective teaching methods. According to Marzano, it is #1 on his list of High Yield Strategies. Research has shown a 45% gain when using similarities and differences which is considerably higher than Marzano`s other researched strategies. I was so impressed with this statistic that I have been thinking of ways to incorporate more of this into my lessons. I just recently restructured one of my assignments to include some comparison/contrast. HERE It was a research assignment where students analyzed electronic gadgets and by incorporating comparison/contrast it gets rid of the random nature of their research. It provides a better sense of purpose and the students are asked to think deeper because they must conclude which gadget is best. I already use Inspiration multiple times a year with various lessons like Character maps(5th), Rock Cycle(3rd), animal habitats(4th), animal classifications(4th), and digestive system(6th).
Chapter 10 covers Homework and Practice. The resonating idea here is practice, practice, practice. Practice really does make perfect. I found that out the hard way in college. I was always good in math and when I had Calculus in college it was no different. The difference, however, was that I thought if I could understand the lectures I`d be fine for the tests. I was wrong. I wasn`t prepared for all of the possible scenarios that could arise with such a complex subject as Calculus. Once I started doing the homework and practicing problem after problem the tests became much easier. One of the recommendations of the book is to "vary approaches to providing feedback". That is where I feel I really take advantage of technology. In addition to regular paper grading, students receive many electronic forms of communication and feedback. I have a classroom website where students can find my syllabus, assignment sheets (attachments), instructions, and comment boxes for students that email me notifications. I also have used an online service for submitting assignments ((eBackpack) where students can store and submit assignments to me and I can grade them and provide immediate comments and feedback to students within the system. With these things in place I feel that homework is more effective because the turn around time on feedback is so quick.
Chapter 11 went on to discuss Generating and Testing Hypotheses. Now, in my opinion, this strategy is the one that I think will promote the deepest thinking processes. Not only do you have to deeply analyze the information that you have but you have to do a lot of comparing and contrasting. THEN, you follow it up by making a prediction of what will happen based on your analysis and comparisons. Even if you stop the process right there and have students fully explain their hypothesis it can be a very fruitful experience. If you have time to test the hypothesis then you can have students form conclusions by doing even more comparing and analysis. I think the one drawback to this method is that it is very time-consuming which limits the frequency of classroom practice. Technology can play a large role in the strategy of generating and testing hypothesis. Things like spreadsheets, graphs, databases, electronic probes and other digital gadgets for data gathering, and comprehensive software for data analysis make generating and testing hypothesis easier, faster, and more powerful as a learning method.
Chapter 9 addressed Identifying Similarities and Differences. Having students use compare/contrast as a strategy has been proven to be one of the most effective teaching methods. According to Marzano, it is #1 on his list of High Yield Strategies. Research has shown a 45% gain when using similarities and differences which is considerably higher than Marzano`s other researched strategies. I was so impressed with this statistic that I have been thinking of ways to incorporate more of this into my lessons. I just recently restructured one of my assignments to include some comparison/contrast. HERE It was a research assignment where students analyzed electronic gadgets and by incorporating comparison/contrast it gets rid of the random nature of their research. It provides a better sense of purpose and the students are asked to think deeper because they must conclude which gadget is best. I already use Inspiration multiple times a year with various lessons like Character maps(5th), Rock Cycle(3rd), animal habitats(4th), animal classifications(4th), and digestive system(6th).
Chapter 10 covers Homework and Practice. The resonating idea here is practice, practice, practice. Practice really does make perfect. I found that out the hard way in college. I was always good in math and when I had Calculus in college it was no different. The difference, however, was that I thought if I could understand the lectures I`d be fine for the tests. I was wrong. I wasn`t prepared for all of the possible scenarios that could arise with such a complex subject as Calculus. Once I started doing the homework and practicing problem after problem the tests became much easier. One of the recommendations of the book is to "vary approaches to providing feedback". That is where I feel I really take advantage of technology. In addition to regular paper grading, students receive many electronic forms of communication and feedback. I have a classroom website where students can find my syllabus, assignment sheets (attachments), instructions, and comment boxes for students that email me notifications. I also have used an online service for submitting assignments ((eBackpack) where students can store and submit assignments to me and I can grade them and provide immediate comments and feedback to students within the system. With these things in place I feel that homework is more effective because the turn around time on feedback is so quick.
Chapter 11 went on to discuss Generating and Testing Hypotheses. Now, in my opinion, this strategy is the one that I think will promote the deepest thinking processes. Not only do you have to deeply analyze the information that you have but you have to do a lot of comparing and contrasting. THEN, you follow it up by making a prediction of what will happen based on your analysis and comparisons. Even if you stop the process right there and have students fully explain their hypothesis it can be a very fruitful experience. If you have time to test the hypothesis then you can have students form conclusions by doing even more comparing and analysis. I think the one drawback to this method is that it is very time-consuming which limits the frequency of classroom practice. Technology can play a large role in the strategy of generating and testing hypothesis. Things like spreadsheets, graphs, databases, electronic probes and other digital gadgets for data gathering, and comprehensive software for data analysis make generating and testing hypothesis easier, faster, and more powerful as a learning method.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
CEDO 525 - Enhancing Learning Materials - Week 4 Chapter 7,8 Responses
Chapter 7 covered Cooperative Learning. The book talked about things such as:
-Keep group sizes small
-Combine cooperative learning with other classroom structures
-Don't worry about grouping by skill levels
-Use different types of grouping (Formal, Informal, Base)
-Do not overuse
In our group work the week prior we talked about the above book recommendations and added that we felt roles needed to be defined and progress should be evaluated frequently. Group work is good preparation for life outside of school. It teaches many important life skills like communication, conflict resolution, organization, project management, meeting deadlines, exposure to other points of view and more.
One thing that I feel is really important is to make sure that the project you assign the group has a good variety of different types of activities. You want to make sure that everyone in the group has a chance to use a skill that they feel is a strength. If the project is an art project, for example, it may alienate the group members that are not strong in artistic disciplines. By providing a variety of facets to the group project it will allow each student a chance to shine.
The Chapter 8 topic was Reinforcing Effort. The book talked about the importance of having students believe that effort can make a difference. It also recommended having students keep track of their effort and achievement and effort. I think keeping track of those two things is where technology can really help the students and teachers. The hard part will be defining effort and getting the students to see what true effort looks like. In order to help the students see what "effort" looks like they suggest using a rubric that maps out behaviors that are indicative of someone giving effort and having different levels for each behavior displayed on the rubric. I think this can be an effective model. I have used rubrics like this before but never for something that is hard to see, like effort. Once students see what behaviors they need to exhibit it becomes a matter of proving to students that putting the effort forth makes a difference. This can be more challenging than you think, especially for students who can cruise through and get good grades without putting forth a lot of effort. In order to convince those types of students I found it best to give them "post-assessments" a few weeks later to see how much they've retained. In most cases they will not retain as much as the students that put forth high levels of effort because they most likely crammed right before the test, scored well, and then didn't retain the info. With good study habits, note taking, and homework completion (all categories of effort) they will see that they can retain more info. Spreadsheets are probably the best way to analyze data so that you can show progress, compare and contrast data, and show relationships between effort and results. Spreadsheets can get kind of boring (not to me!!), though, so using something like Google forms or Survey Monkey might be a good way to more actively engage the students while still providing data to play with.
-Keep group sizes small
-Combine cooperative learning with other classroom structures
-Don't worry about grouping by skill levels
-Use different types of grouping (Formal, Informal, Base)
-Do not overuse
In our group work the week prior we talked about the above book recommendations and added that we felt roles needed to be defined and progress should be evaluated frequently. Group work is good preparation for life outside of school. It teaches many important life skills like communication, conflict resolution, organization, project management, meeting deadlines, exposure to other points of view and more.
One thing that I feel is really important is to make sure that the project you assign the group has a good variety of different types of activities. You want to make sure that everyone in the group has a chance to use a skill that they feel is a strength. If the project is an art project, for example, it may alienate the group members that are not strong in artistic disciplines. By providing a variety of facets to the group project it will allow each student a chance to shine.
The Chapter 8 topic was Reinforcing Effort. The book talked about the importance of having students believe that effort can make a difference. It also recommended having students keep track of their effort and achievement and effort. I think keeping track of those two things is where technology can really help the students and teachers. The hard part will be defining effort and getting the students to see what true effort looks like. In order to help the students see what "effort" looks like they suggest using a rubric that maps out behaviors that are indicative of someone giving effort and having different levels for each behavior displayed on the rubric. I think this can be an effective model. I have used rubrics like this before but never for something that is hard to see, like effort. Once students see what behaviors they need to exhibit it becomes a matter of proving to students that putting the effort forth makes a difference. This can be more challenging than you think, especially for students who can cruise through and get good grades without putting forth a lot of effort. In order to convince those types of students I found it best to give them "post-assessments" a few weeks later to see how much they've retained. In most cases they will not retain as much as the students that put forth high levels of effort because they most likely crammed right before the test, scored well, and then didn't retain the info. With good study habits, note taking, and homework completion (all categories of effort) they will see that they can retain more info. Spreadsheets are probably the best way to analyze data so that you can show progress, compare and contrast data, and show relationships between effort and results. Spreadsheets can get kind of boring (not to me!!), though, so using something like Google forms or Survey Monkey might be a good way to more actively engage the students while still providing data to play with.
CEDO 525 - Enhanced Learning - Week 4 Response to TED talk
The video that I chose to respond to was the one addressing "Cognitive Surplus" by Clay Shirky. The main idea that was trying to be conveyed was that people are finding more constructive ways to use their free time than in the past. Shirky maintains that people have been enormously consumptive (consume or take-in things vs giving output) but feels like that trend is changing with the advent of online tools, especially ones that allow for collaboration. Shirky thinks these online tools are helping transform people into "creators" rather than "consumers". Instead of watching hours and hours of television Shirky says that people are creating things, going online, and sharing them. He notes that even though some people might be creating silly, meaningless things (he uses LOLCats as an example) that it is still creating and that eventually good things will come of it. I tend to agree with Shirky on several of his main points. Shirky states that when the printing press was developed "it took 150 years to graduate from erotic novels to Scientific journals" and I think that is a really good example. An example that I thought of is YouTube. YouTube started out with goofy videos of people doing ridiculous things, sports highlights, Vlogs, etc. and slowly started being used for more productive things like "How-To videos". Now there are so many educational uses for it (Khan Academy) that it has spun off into several other "Tubes" like Teacher Tube for example. I'm not sure how many people are making the shift from consumer to creator but let's hope that Mr. Shirky is right about people making better use of their free time because it could produce some amazing results as these online and digital tools are discovered and used for bigger and better things than LOLCats.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
CEDO 525 - Enhanced Learning - Comparing Online Mind Mapping Tools
I compared 3 of the online tools from week 3. Here is the entire list of choices so I can come back and look at this later:
1. Bubbl.us (http://bubble.us)
2. Webspiration (http://www.mywebspiration.com)
3. MindMeister (http://www.mindmeister.com)
4. exploratree (http://www.exploratree.org.uk)
5. http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/graphic_organizers.htm
6. CMAP (http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html)
I had heard about MindMeister a few times during classes in this grad program so I was eager to check that one out first. The first thing I needed to do was sign up for a free account, which required you to activate it through an email. Having email addresses for students is a problem for us right now but it is something that I am working on. The free account allows you to have a max of 3 mind maps at a time, which I thought was adequate. I liked the familiar interface and I thought it was very simple and easy to create idea bubbles and modify their contents. It was easy to insert pictures by using mindmeister's library, through a search(which tied into Google images) or by pasting the URL of a picture. I didn't get to try any collaboration but that would be a powerful feature if it worked well. I had a little trouble creating idea bubbles off of existing branches (child bubbles), however, so that was a little turn off. Maybe I was doing something wrong but if I, the technology teacher, was having trouble that's not a good sign.
The next one I tried was Bubbl.us. This one is really simple, even concerning the effort to get started. You actually could start using their mind mapper without creating any kind of login. The drawback there is that you can only print, not save your mind map. Even so, you can create a quick login by simply providing a username and password. No real name and no email addresses are necessary. The features of Bubbl.us are scaled back in comparison to MindMeister (no picture insert, less formatting options) but I thought the interface was a lot easier to use. You can print and you can save into their online folders. It looked like you could have up to 3 mind maps just like MindMeister. I didn't see a collaboration feature so that would be a minor drawback. Overall a nice, simple little Web 2.0 tool with less hoops to jump through in order to use it.
Webspiration is the last one I evaluated. I have used the regular software package for Inspiration for over 10 years now and I think it is excellent. I had already tried Webspiration last year when it was in it's beta phase and it was working nicely but I ran into 2 problems: 1) It required email addresses for accounts and 2) It was going to be expensive once the 30 day trial had expired. Looking at their website, it looks like they eliminated the need for students to have email accounts with their School Subscription structure in which they designate a Webspiration Classroom administrator who sets up and manages faculty and student accounts. The problem that still exists is the cost...$9 per account. That could really add up if you used it for a lot of students. Webspiration itself is an excellent mind mapper. It is easy to use while manipulating your various idea bubbles, inserting pictures (either from gallery, from file, or online), and it has an amazing amount of formatting options which help make your mind map look great. It even has it's popular Outline view which creates an outline behind the scenes as you form your mind map. The collaboration capability worked really well but you had to make sure that you limited the amount of users who were actually trying to add things to the mind map because sometimes it froze and other times it was chaotic trying to figure out what was being added to the mind map. All that said, I know we wouldn't use it because of the cost (and we already have the offline version of Inspiration).
1. Bubbl.us (http://bubble.us)
2. Webspiration (http://www.mywebspiration.com)
3. MindMeister (http://www.mindmeister.com)
4. exploratree (http://www.exploratree.org.uk)
5. http://www.educationoasis.com/curriculum/graphic_organizers.htm
6. CMAP (http://cmap.ihmc.us/conceptmap.html)
I had heard about MindMeister a few times during classes in this grad program so I was eager to check that one out first. The first thing I needed to do was sign up for a free account, which required you to activate it through an email. Having email addresses for students is a problem for us right now but it is something that I am working on. The free account allows you to have a max of 3 mind maps at a time, which I thought was adequate. I liked the familiar interface and I thought it was very simple and easy to create idea bubbles and modify their contents. It was easy to insert pictures by using mindmeister's library, through a search(which tied into Google images) or by pasting the URL of a picture. I didn't get to try any collaboration but that would be a powerful feature if it worked well. I had a little trouble creating idea bubbles off of existing branches (child bubbles), however, so that was a little turn off. Maybe I was doing something wrong but if I, the technology teacher, was having trouble that's not a good sign.
The next one I tried was Bubbl.us. This one is really simple, even concerning the effort to get started. You actually could start using their mind mapper without creating any kind of login. The drawback there is that you can only print, not save your mind map. Even so, you can create a quick login by simply providing a username and password. No real name and no email addresses are necessary. The features of Bubbl.us are scaled back in comparison to MindMeister (no picture insert, less formatting options) but I thought the interface was a lot easier to use. You can print and you can save into their online folders. It looked like you could have up to 3 mind maps just like MindMeister. I didn't see a collaboration feature so that would be a minor drawback. Overall a nice, simple little Web 2.0 tool with less hoops to jump through in order to use it.
Webspiration is the last one I evaluated. I have used the regular software package for Inspiration for over 10 years now and I think it is excellent. I had already tried Webspiration last year when it was in it's beta phase and it was working nicely but I ran into 2 problems: 1) It required email addresses for accounts and 2) It was going to be expensive once the 30 day trial had expired. Looking at their website, it looks like they eliminated the need for students to have email accounts with their School Subscription structure in which they designate a Webspiration Classroom administrator who sets up and manages faculty and student accounts. The problem that still exists is the cost...$9 per account. That could really add up if you used it for a lot of students. Webspiration itself is an excellent mind mapper. It is easy to use while manipulating your various idea bubbles, inserting pictures (either from gallery, from file, or online), and it has an amazing amount of formatting options which help make your mind map look great. It even has it's popular Outline view which creates an outline behind the scenes as you form your mind map. The collaboration capability worked really well but you had to make sure that you limited the amount of users who were actually trying to add things to the mind map because sometimes it froze and other times it was chaotic trying to figure out what was being added to the mind map. All that said, I know we wouldn't use it because of the cost (and we already have the offline version of Inspiration).
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