KSP667 - Week 7 Reflection - Podcast in the Classroom

Podcasts are one of my favorite forms of media. That being said I had never considered their potential for use in my classroom.  I have a very “A-ha” moment while investigating the uses for blogs.  I am an avid “blended learning” proponent and yet this is one form of media I have yet to explore.  

Creating my professional development podcasts on utilizing podcasts in the classroom was an eye opener for me.  I see that a podcast combined with other delivery systems can create a bigger impact.  Rather than only have my students use Google Classroom to access reading, writing, and video content, I can have provide voice recorded content or instructions as well.  

This is especially helpful with my E.L. students who really benefit by oral instruction. Creating a short podcast of instructions to be offered hand-in-hand with the text instructions increases their potential for understanding.  They can see how the words look while hearing how they sound.

On our Yammer page this week we posted our favorite PodCast.  I stepped a bit outside the realm of Ed Tech targets and posted my favorite podcast - Science Underground.  At school the kids call me the “Science Lady”.  Not because I teach science but because I love science!  The fact that this podcast is hosted by a female scientist makes it exponentially better in my eyes!  Check it out: http://scienceunderground.org/

KSP667 - Visual Media Resources

In a classroom where our students are creating their own presentations and multimedia projects, it is good to have a list of useful tools on hand. This week we compared a variety of Visual Media Resources. Use a QR code reader to link to each tool's website for more information.

KSP667 - Podcast - Using Podcasts in the Classroom

For this week, I created a podcast series aimed at help teacher use podcasts in their classroom.  I addressed four questions:

1. How can podcasts enhance the use of social media?
2. How can podcasting enhance teaching?
3. How can podcasting enhance learning?
4. How might you use other audio or music in teaching and learning?

I find creating podcasts quite fun and am looking forward to utilizing them in my classroom more regularly.  

Here is a link to a Google Drive folder that contains all four of my Podcasts.

KSP619 - Research Paper

My research included information about the benefits and barriers to teaching coding (programming) in an elementary classroom setting.  While my intention was to focus purely on the use of Scratch, it become increasingly obvious that the greater topic was programming in general.  Researching this topic reignited my desire to teach coding to all of my students.

This is the link to my research paper titled: Benefits of Teaching Coding in the Elementary
Classroom with the Aid of MIT’s Scratch

KSP667 - Week 6 Reflection - Social Media Platform Comparison

There are many social media platforms available for use but choosing one that is appropriate for your students and for use in the educational setting can be tedious.  This week we investigated several options and compared them based on these points:

• How the platform can be used for teaching and learning
• The age group the platform is appropriate for
• The cost (if any)
• The concerns or considerations of use
• The benefits of use
• Any other information you deem useful

We compared Facebook to Edmodo, and Twitter to Instagram.  We found that Edmodo is the safer choice for classroom use because it is a closed network where the teacher has total control over who can access what content.  

Between Twitter and Instagram there is really no significant difference. Both have privacy settings that allow a teacher to restrict viewing of posts but there is still the need for students to have accounts and there is no way for teachers to control what they do with them outside of school.

My personal beliefs on social media definitely get in my way when it comes to planning for use in the classroom.  As I have mentioned before, I teach elementary school, so there is a greater risk when my students join a social media network.  They are just beginning to understand the nuances of in real life (IRL) relationships.  Transferring this IRL knowledge to cyberspace is often difficult for adults and therefore not developmentally appropriate for most 10 year olds.

KSP667 - Social Media Organizer

This week our group did a comparison of four different social media tools.  We focused on Edmodo, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  We focused on benefits, risks, cost, and target age group. We found that tools like Edmodo, which were created for educational purposes, had less risk and offered much of the same functionality of the other tools.

Here is the link to our groups Social Media Comparision Graphic Organizer.

KSP667 - Week 5 Reflection - Blogging in the Classroom

This week was all about blogs!  This happens to be one of my favorite subjects because over the past 15 years i have always had at least one blog going.  I have blogged about everything from random crap to books to my daughters stroke recovery to - yep, you guessed it - educational technology!  I love the medium for expressing myself.  As you can tell by my chosen digital portfolio format.  

But I have gone off course a bit - no pun intended!  This week we looked at how blogs could be used in the classroom.  And you can bet that I have a lot of ideas about this.  I have been in a battle with my district all year trying to be allowed to use Blogger in my classroom.  My vision, which is not supported by my administration, is to teach my fifth graders how to use a blog effectively.  I wanted to assign them as authors on my blog, let them post to their own pages, and teach them some web design while we were at it.  Blogger is one of the only free blogging platforms that let’s you edit both the HTML code and the CSS code.  You can customize your entire blog!

The districts resistance had a lot to do with their previous issues with some high schoolers who were never taught about being good digital citizens.  I did find a “sort of” way around the policy - we use KidBlog.  It hasn’t worked out the way I wanted it to but my students are loving this avenue to share their ideas.

One of the main tasks this week was to share our favorite blogs on the class Wiki.  I am a bit sad that this information wasn't gathered in a way that we could all walk away with a list of resources!!

KSP667 - Blog or Wiki Lesson Plan

For this task, I created a lesson plan for that integrates Social Studies with a Historical Fiction writing assignment.  It requires my students to create blog posts as if they are either a fictional historical figure or a real historical figure.  In my fifth grade class, my students love to write on our classroom blog.  This assignment will make Social Studies even more engaging because of their love of writing!

This is the link to my Blog Lesson Plan.

KSP619 - Annotated Bibliography

In preparation for my research paper, I created an annotated bibliography.  Using Prezi I was able to present my sources in a fun and engaging way.  Creating this helped me become more comfortable with Prezi while gathering valuable information for my research paper.

This is the link to my Annotated Bibliography Prezi.

KSP667 - Week 4 Reflection - What the heck is Web 3.0?

This week we covered a few topics but the one that struck me the hardest was the concept of “Web 3.0”.  This term wasn’t even on my radar before this week.  I knew the term “Web 2.0”, and was just snobby enough to think it was outdated and not pertinent to any aspect of my life.  Web 3.0?  All I could think was, “This must be fake”.

Turns out there is a ton of information online about it.  It also turns out that “cyber-stalking” aspect of ads on my Facebook wall are completely what they are talking about.  It is this idea of dynamic content that monitors your activity and tailors what you see to your patterns and content.  It is almost frightening this that this was literally happening under my nose without me understanding the full impact of it.

The evolution of the web and its content is freakishly awesome and at the same time terrifying.  What started as a way to post ideas and possible gather feedback or comments has turned into an almost fully functioning life force.

Couple this with augmented reality applications and we no longer have to think for ourselves.  It is very reminiscent of the movie Wall-E. And not in a good way.

KSP619 - Screencast - Google Classroom

Professional development opportunities are often the key to success for teachers.  They provide information and training that allows teachers to expand the use of technology in their classroom.  For this task, I have created a screencast showing how to use Google Classroom. This tool has become invaluable to me as an elementary school teacher.

Here is the link to my Google Classroom screencast.