Week 8

The majority of the work that I do with my class I make sure that I am using my district issued computer that is broadcasting on a district provided server.  I feel safer using the district's spyware rather than having to pay for my own, or rely on possibly a cheaper issue I had purchased.  Although, if you read my discussion post you will see that there are still flaws to a district spyware program.


I like to do a lot of journal writings while we are in class, rather than as homework, so the students can seek guidance since they are not formal papers.  However, I love the idea of blogging so that I can grade each submission as it is posted, rather than having to wait until all 25 papers are turned in.  Even if I could work on a few at a time it might free up some of my time rather than having to spend several hours looking at all of the works.  It would also be great to be able to provide feedback to the student, and the student could review that feedback at any time.  Many times, when students receive a graded paper back, they discard it and it is never to be looked at again.  If all of the papers were collected on one website and they could easily flip through each assignment, the student might be able to observe their own growth.  They could see the work they did at the beginning of the year, and see how they progressed and worked through my suggestions to where they ended the year.


In my classroom right now, the only communication tool I really use is email, and this is mostly with other teachers and parents.  I have a lot of primary elementary students and they are not reliant on email like the rest of us.  We are lucky we can get them to enter their ID to login.  However, blogging is something they would be able to use and would get them entered to the online world.  Before I could expect my students to create/use a blog I would have to create a classroom blog so they could see what one setup would look like.  I would also have to spend some time walking them through the steps of how to create a post and make sure it was accessible to the people it needed to be accessible to.  I would also provide the parents instructions on how to use the blog so they could help their children at home, as well as monitor their child's work.

Week 7--Software

The software that I have used in my classroom was the Lexia Learning software.  I have found this software to be a HUGE help.  I will warn anyone reading this, that is software is VERY expensive and I feel very privileged for my Principal to have purchased it for our school.  This software focuses on the reading skills of students.  I would classify this software as a tutorial type.  When a student first starts to use this software they take a test that will gauge their reading level.  Once the computer has determined what their strengths and weaknesses are, it creates an individualized plan for that student.  For example, I used this primarily with a second grade class.  Some of my readers were able to read entire chapter books, while other students could not even string all of their syllables together.  I would be able to take a class of 20 to the computer lab and know that each student was going to be challenged and practice their respective skills.

The computer would generate games that the students would play that would focus on their weaknesses.  For example, some of my students would struggle with the "silent -e".  The game that was created for them was in a basketball setting.  The student would be "playing" basketball and a voice would tell them a word and give them certain letters.  The student would have to use those letters to create their word.  If they got the word right, their team would receive a point, but if they got it wrong, the other team would get the point.  While that was easy for some of my students, others would play a reading game, where they had to try to "out-read" the computer.

This software is also very helpful in that every week it generates a report for the teacher that identifies where the students are struggling.  Along with identifying these weaknesses, it also provides lesson plans and worksheets to help the student with these concepts, while not on the computer.  This was very helpful because it allowed me to work with these students back in the room.  Every teacher would love to be able to create a worksheet that specifically hit each students' weakness.  However, back in reality, that is not possible to do with 20+ students every week.  These worksheets provided by Lexia would allow me to foster a small group environment in my room, and I was able to work one-on-one with these students on a regular basis.  We saw GREAT improvement on our MAP reading scores.

Week 6

The WebQuest that I created was : http://questgarden.com/127/81/1/110613044905/
The purpose of this WebQuest was to get the students thinking about economics and their responsibility to the environment.  I geared this lesson towards a fifth grade group and they needed to create an argument for the Principal to provide an iPad to each student in the school.  I really wanted them to think about the ways that the iPad could be used to reduce cost, and make the learning process easier.  They would be conflicted in that most students would want an iPad because it is the "cool, new" thing, but I wanted them to go beyond that.  I wanted them to think about how much it would initially cost to provide these to every student, but how much we would save with reducing textbooks, and eliminating a lot of the paper waste.  I also wanted them to think about what type of distraction this tool would place in the classroom.  Students would have the opportunity to abuse the privilege of having a "computer" at their desk.  There would be many opportunities for the students to open a game app and the teacher would never be aware.  These were the things I wanted the students to wrestle with.  I really wanted them to create an argument through an economic lens, rather than from the perspective of a 5th grader that wanted a new "toy."

My challenge in creating this was balancing the lesson plan look, with the look of what my students will be reading.  I wanted to establish the background of the lessons, while still providing the opportunity for the students to follow along and participate.  When I was researching WebQuests I found several different layouts that I liked better than the questgarden site.  Questgarden supplied the tools to create this tool, however I found it to be more lesson plan styled, rather than student interactive.  I think some students would have a challenge navigating through this site.

This was a tool I had never heard about or learned anything about.   This is now a tool that I plan to use and I LOVE the premise of it.  It was, however, time consuming to create, and is obviously not something I would use everyday, but rather would use on the bigger projects of the year.  I also think this tool is geared towards intermediate students more than primary students.  It would be difficult for a K student to be set free with this tool to read its directions and complete the tasks at hand.  They would need too much help for this tool to be effective.

Week 4

PowerPoint is a program that I have become fairly familiar with.  Lately, I have used this program with a third through fifth grade group of ELL students.  We had been learning about different animals and how each animal lived and what its habits were.  We were preparing for our trip to the zoo, because many of my students had never encountered many of the animals, and definitely did not know how to say their names in English.  I created a PowerPoint that was a review game of the animals.  I downloaded a sample Jeopardy board off the internet and I changed the categories to fit my class needs.  Pictures and sounds are key for my students.  The less confusing words they are, the more likely they are to retain the information.  One of the columns on the Jeopardy board I made into animal sounds.  When the student selected this column they would be presented with a link that would play the animal sound.  The students would guess as to which animal that was, and once they had given their answer I would switch to the answer screen where there would be a picture of the animal with the animal's name written in BIG, BOLD letters.  The students were very excited to play this game!!  They had a great trip to the zoo, and they would even walk through the zoo quizzing each other on what the animal names were.

I knew that this style of Jeopardy board existed on the internet, but I was very proud of myself for figuring out how to insert a sound into a specific slide.  This really was a hit with the students and I was glad that it worked as planned.  Usually, there are at least a few hiccups with a project like this, but the presentation went off without a hitch.  If I did this presentation again I would also include some harder questions.  I was focused on my lower students and catering to their needs, but in doing this, my higher students became a little bored.  They were still engaged with the game, and were excited to play it, but the questions were too easy for them.  It will be a tricky balance for me to use a whole group game like this with my students, so that I keep the higher ones engaged, but don't completely lose my lower students.  Overall, the students loved the presentation, and that it was in a different format than the ones we had used previously in the year.  They were able to be actively involved with this game, and they took a lot of information away from it.

Desktop Publishing

When I hand out materials to my students and parents, my materials need to be formatted differently than most anyway.  I work with the English Language Learner population and we try to make our materials more visually appealing and self explanatory through pictures.  Along with adding pictures to the document to help explain the message we use different font styles and highlighting to help parents understand where they might need to sign, even if they can't understand what each word would mean.  There is no way we can translate each of our documents to suite each language we cater to, so we try to try to be as fair as we can across the board.

In the flyer about our class field trip, it was originally created in a word processor.  There were very few pictures, colors, or textures.  This was quite a boring document and we had a hard time getting the students excited about this trip and make sure the parents received the flyer.  However, now that the file is recreated to be more visually appealing, the kids love the pictures of the bugs and all of the different colors and pictures.  While we loved this new document and would love to pass this document on to our families, our school cannot justify spending the resources to print sixty five flyers in color.  We have decided that we will print the flyer in black and white, but we will also email this document our to the parents that have provided an email address.  At least several parents will be able to see this visually attractive document that their children are very excited about.

The original message did not appeal to anyone because it was very bland.  It was on a white page with small, plain font.  On the second page of the document we had the parent permission slip and we did not receive many completed forms.  However, we are confident that now that the document is "pretty" we will receive completed forms back.  On the parent portion of the document, we have the required fields highlighted so they stand out so that the parents will not have to search for the parts they need to fill out.  The kids were very excited to take these pages home to show their parents.  Little did the parents know that this document did not take an extreme amount of time to create.

Week 2

In researching spreadsheets and databases, it was hard to come by many sites that explained, in detail, how to implement these tools into the classroom.  However, I have found that there are many college classes that are starting to be formed around using spreadsheets and databases.  There are so many possibilities with these tools that entire college classes still cannot cover all of the information necessary to fully understand these programs.  

One website I found is: http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/ict/ict2.htm  This website does not really explain how to use the programs, rather it more shows different ways to explain these programs to primary age students.  For me, this website is beneficial to to create ways for students to become more familiar with using these programs.  If I have the opportunity to incorporate spreadsheets into my everyday routine, and teach the students about these programs, they might be more likely to be inspired to use these programs themselves.  Students tend to "pick up" what their teachers do, so the more I use spreadsheets, the more they will become accustomed to it.

One thing I did not realize about spreadsheets is that the information can be organized and exported directly into a website.  Therefore, it is not necessary to duplicate information.  This would make it very easy to have a class website and easily share the information with the students and the parents.  Also, since I am not yet "website savvy", but I am more knowledgeable with spreadsheets and I can easily navigate them, I would be able to "cheat" and create my website.

Personally, I have used spreadsheets in our home on a regular basis.  I have used them to organize our shopping trips to our household budgets.  As a student, I have created checklists for myself to help keep me organized in all of my classes to insure I have all of my assignments completed on time.  In the classroom, I have used spreadsheets to help collect necessary information from my students, keep track of my classroom budget, and organize and display my students' grades.  In my classroom I have implemented a program that helps my students visually see their grades on a regular basis.  The Excel spreadsheet tracks their progress.  Every week they will be able to see where their grade was last week and how it has changed this week.  In each cell, it will be color coded to help the high and low points stand out.  If a student's grade has improved, the score will be highlighted in yellow, however if their score has gone down the score will be highlighted in red. 

Week 1

What did you learn this week that you will use immediately in your classroom?

• In learning about technology this week, I have come to understand that integrating technology into my everyday life will be essential to creating a technology-friendly environment in the classroom.  I want to try to implement technology into every aspect of teaching.  This will include technology in the planning process, throughout the teaching, assessments, and sharing assessment results with the students and parents.  I have also learned that technology is still constantly changing around us, and we need to be open to the change that is coming.  I cannot comprehend how different our technology world will look like in 10 years, and what steps we will need to take to keep our students engaged.

What steps will you take to implement this in your classroom?

• Some of my students' grades have been falling and to show them visually how their grades look over time I will create an Excel spreadsheet that tracks their progress.  Every week they will be able to see where their grade was last week and how it has changed this week.  In each cell, it will be color coded to help the high and low points stand out.  If a student's grade has improved, the score will be highlighted in yellow, however if their score has gone down the score will be highlighted in red.  
• I will also incorporate technology into the lessons that are presented everyday.  At our school, we have a system called CPS that allows the students to have a remote control that they can use to indicate their answer choice in a multiple choice setting.  This system is one that the students become excited about and really encourages them to be involved with their learning.  I will use this software on a regular basis, in different formats, to obtain more information from each students, as well as keep them interested.

What challenge(s) will you face when using this in your classroom?

• My challenge when using the spreadsheet will be to input the grades on a regular basis so that the report will accurately reflect the students' grades.  I will also need to make it a habit to make these reports accessible to the students and the parents.  This will be an additional responsibility on top of inputting the grades into the regular gradebook.  
• In wanting to use CPS I will need to become creative in integrating this into everyday lessons.  On the days that I plan to have more of a lecture format I will need to leave space for the students to have an opportunity to use CPS.  Additionally, when Centers are being used and I don't necessarily have the whole group's attention at one time, CPS could be difficult to integrate.

What will you do to overcome these challenges?

• Hopefully, I can also create a system that will export the information from one program to another, so that I will not need to enter the information multiple times.
• Once I become more comfortable with the CPS program and I can see how it works with my students, I will be able to better gauge its impact and alter my plans accordingly.  Instead of asking questions to the entire class expecting hands raised, I will adjust my expectations to have information relayed to me through CPS, rather than expecting to hear each students voice.  I will also need to keep a balance and make my expectations clear that the students can ask questions at any time, and do not need to rely on CPS to communicate with me.