Journal #10: Re-Imagine Your Library with iPads

Perez, L. (2013, March). Re-Imagine Your Library with iPads. In ISTE. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-march-april-2013

Summary/Analysis:    In 2011 five different Chicago Public School librarians were given iPads to engage students in reading, writing and listening skills. I found pretty interesting that librarians had to use Google docs, groups and Diigo, which is basically everything we learned this semester! Librarians were also given tips on how to manage their classroom such as color coding iPads with different color cases,  how to clean iPads, track them, manage and learn all the different apps that can be used and of course how to control the volume.  Everyone loves and supports this idea because an iPad is teachers and administration say that an iPad is so much easier to use and starts up faster than a desktop or any other program. Not to mention that using an iPad engaged more students to want to read and actually enjoy reading and to top it of iPads in libraries address the NETS and common core standards.   I'm still not sure if I completely agree this idea, because I feel like we are losing the idea of carrying books around. The idea of going to the library and checking out your own books and just flipping the page seems to be the best way to let your imagination grow.

Question 1: What if librarians don't know how to use an iPad?
Answer 1:  The group of librarians had to attend a 2 day training event where they learned to develop video communication, create rubrics, contribute to apps such as Diigo, and much more.

Question 2:  How were the iPads distributed?
Answer 2: IPads were distributed by different colored covers. If students sit in the orange table they would use orange iPod covers. This also helped librarians manage the classroom and avoid students fighting over using iPads.

Journal #9: Massive & Open

Fasimpaur, K. (2013, March). Massive and Open. In ISTE. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-march-april-2013

Summary/ Analysis:  This article is about MOOC classes. MOOC classes very from the amount of students to the amount of time the professors spend with their students. There are two types of MOOC classes, the first one is cMOOC. CMOOC classes are online classes where students blog and create online projects. The second type of MOOC classes is xMOOC. xMOOC are classes where there are tons of participants in the course, however these classes typically focus on one subject like math or computer science. Surprisingly there are MOOC classes that are now being offered to K-12 students. K-12 MOOC teachers tape their lectures and post them up on websites. However when these classes were reviewed, they realized that people didn't support them as much because people believe that teachers need more guidance. Last year teachers received help from P2PU to help teachers with their e portfolios. Disregarding all the comments MOOC are becoming very successful with student enrollment starting at less than 100 students to more than 100,000. Personally I’m not very fond of online classes because I can’t learn a whole material by myself. I need a teacher to give me an example and then see if I can do it, and get feedback. But if I want to be a teacher I have to learn how all different types of teaching.

Question 1: What is MOOC?

Answer 1: Massive Open Online Courses

Question 2: What is the future for MOOC classes?
Answer 2.  MOOC classes are striving! More teachers are working on their e portfolio and more students are enrolling for online classes and or online school. 

Journal #8: Adaptive Technology

Tzvi, . (2011). 7 Assistive Communication Apps in the App Store. In The friendship Circle. Retrieved April 27, 2013, from http://www.friendshipcircle.org/blog/2011/02/07/7-assistive-communication-apps-in-the-ipad-app-store/

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC). Retrieved from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/AAC/ 

 COMMUNICATION

 AAC, also known as "Augmentative and Alternative Communication" which consist of all forms of communication, besides oral speech, in which we express thoughts, needs, wants, and ideas. For example, when we use AAC when we make facial expressions, gestures, use symbols, pictures, or write. However, people that have speech or language problems rely on AAC to enhance their speech and make it better. Special tools, such as pictures, symbols, communication boards and electronic devices, are available to help people express themselves. These devices not only help individuals with their communication, but it increase social interaction, school performance, and feelings of self-worth. An AAC device is any tool that facilitates nonverbal communication. An AAC device may be an aided device, which means that it is an actual, physical object like an electronic reader or the picture exchange communication system (PECS).

     Augmentative communication can be accomplished through assisted technology devices such as computers or hand held devices. One of the devices that can be used is a app in an IPad. One application that is typically used is Proloquo2Go. This app is only $189 and is a full-featured augmentative and alternative communication solution for autistic children who have difficulty speaking. Easy to set up and use it provides natural sounding text-to-speech voices, high resolution up-to-date symbols, powerful automatic conjugations, a default vocabulary of over 7,000 items and is fully expandable. One way this can be used in the classrooms is share IPads, for there is only a couple of IPads, divide the classroom in small groups and make sure that each group gets time on the IPad where kids can use this application and learn sign language, this will also make your class more diverse.


But what if you don't have the budget to buy an IPad or download this application? Then you can simply use iComm. iComm lets you load picture and audio and record your own voices. Ideal for children with autism, cerebral palsy, apraxia and down syndrome. This is a much simpler.

Accessibility:

An input device  is a device that can be used to insert data into a computer or other computational device. Thing like a barcode reader, graphic tablet, keyboard, mouse, scanner, etc.  For example, The Accessibility Wizard this is a Microsoft program that guides you through the process of customizing your computer with tools designed to help meet your vision, hearing, or mobility needs. Accessibility options (such as StickyKeys, ShowSounds, and Mousekeys) help users with disabilities to make full use of the computer. Some of the options, such as MouseKeys, may be of interest to all users. Once the Accessibility tools are set up, they can be accessed through Control Panel and the Accessibility menu.



Adaptive keyboard is another great tool that can be used. These types of keyboards allows bigger key pads which make it easier for students to use computers, iPADs, any electronics that require typing.

Here is a link to get more information on Software for Students with Learning Disabilities.   Intellitools

Journal #7: PLN

  

The 21st century has brought so much change in technology, communication, and education. People all over the world have learned to use this to their advantage by creating a PLN, Personal Learning Network.  PLN consist of different individuals who share and gather information with tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Storify, Diigo, and blogs. With the help of Twitter, Diigo, and Storify I was able to create my own PLN. These tools have helped me gather and share information about education. I joined Educator's PLN. This is a discussion forum where I am able to learn and share different education topics. This is a great way to share ideas with different teachers all over the world who want to increase their own PLN by sharing information on what we can do as teachers to make education better. This PLN has different chat rooms, blogs, videos everything you need to start your own PLN or if your new to PLN like myself. Not to mention it is also a great way to meet people who have the same aspiration and dream of becoming a teacher or who already are teachers.

   

Twitter is a social network place where people can share information and connect with one another based on a common interest. When I first started to use Twitter a was a little nervous because it was very new to me. My first tweet was a test drive, it was simply answering my professor's question on what was my favorite food. This is where I learned to reply to someone's tweet, join in on a conversation and the importance on hash tags. Hash tags are important because it is a way to share your information to anyone who shares a common interest. For example if I tweet a about a website that has tips on classroom management, then I would have to use #classroom #management and anyone who is interested in classroom management will be able to look at my tweet and share it with their friends, and their friends can share it with their friends = creating a social network! My use with twitter has been good! I love how easy it is to simply join in on a conversation. On March 27th I joined my first chat room on twitter. By simply using #ntchat (New Teacher Chat) I was able to partake in an interesting conversation with teachers all over the world. That evening the topic on #ntchat was Earth Day. Should we teach our students about the importance of recycling and going green? How can we create fun and exciting lesson plans? I was very amazed and taken back on all the information I was able to absorb with #ntchat and look forward to being part of this incredible #nt network community.

  Diigo is a social bookmarking website that allows you  to bookmark, tag, highlight and add notes to any webpage. The fun and easy thing about Diigo is that it can be accessed from any computer. The only thing you can to do is create a account for free. I have used Diigo to look at very interesting websites and have bookmarked them as some of my favorites, by simply tagging them as education, bullying, teaching tolerance. Tagging websites allows me to share the information I have gathered with my PLN. Not only am I expanding my PLN by following people, but I am able to learn from their interest and see what they are bookmarking.

   

In the beginning of the class, I was a bit worried because I'm not the best with technology. Looking back I am very surprised with all the work I have done.  After creating my very own blog, Twitter, and Diigo account I was able to create my own PLN. My PLN has helped me gather so much information from other teachers and people who are interested in education. For example on Twitter I follow  Lisa Dabbs and Larry Ferlazzo who are successful teachers and have amazing resources. Through them I was able to follow topics like, Reading Rockets, which gives me ideas on how to teach students to read, especially those who are struggle with reading. Edutopia is another great PLN that gives teachers ideas on what works and what doesn't work on education. These are just two out of many of my PLN where I have shared and gathered very useful information. All this has all taught me to not be afraid of technology. Technology is actually very useful and there are a lot of different resources (FREE resources) that I can use in my classroom or even in my everyday life. 

Educational Chat Storify

Journal #6: "10 Reasons to Get Rid of HW (& 5 Alternatives)"

Spencer, J. (2011, September 19). Ten Reasons to get rid of homework (and five alternatives). In Education Rethink. Retrieved March 11, 2013, from http://www.educationrethink.com/2011/09/ten-reasons-to-get-rid-of-homework-and.html

Summary/Analysis: In his article, John Spencer writes why teachers should get rid of homework. He gives 10 valid reasons of teachers should not overwork their students with homework. I agree with all 10, but there is 3 reasons that stocked out to me the most. The first reason is that young children are busy. Children get easily distracted and it is very hard for them to concentrate for a long period of time, especially in a something they are not interested in. Second, older children are even more busy. As children get older they have more in their plate like sports, extracurricular actives, jobs, babysitting their siblings etc, that they simply don’t have time to sit down for a 2 hours and do homework because all they want to do is relax. And finally homework teaches bad habits. It teaches students to do homework because they have to, not because they want to! It sucks the fun out of school because they feel like they are forced to do work. He goes on to say if adults want to teach children good work ethics have them set goals for themselves like learn to ride a bike, read a book on their own,  make a puzzle, write a poem anything that THEY decide to do, not something that is being pushed on them.

My own alternatives;

Homework= Home fun!

1.       Find something of your interest whether its soccer, drawing, acting and look for a club in school that practices what you are interested in. If there is no club, then you can simply start your own!

2.       Math is a subject that a lot of students have difficulties with. One thing students can do is count how many minutes it takes for them to walk home from school throughout the week. Average out their time and see if they can beat their own pace each week.

3.       Write! Make a blog or journal/diary and write down how your day was, what you had for lunch, your fears, etc. Writing this down will not only help with your writing skills, but also let your emotions out.

4.       Download games into your computer or phone that teaches you a particular subject you are having difficulties in this will help you with your school and helps you get good grades

5.       Have students (from ages 5-15) read a book with their parent in their own language. For example my parents speak Spanish. So whenever they took me to the library I would get a book for my reading club and they would get one in Spanish. Something children can do is before going to bed they can read a book in their own native language that way they will dominant both English and Spanish or Chinese, or French!

Homework is good!

1.       Review Session- During my K-12 school year I enjoyed homework because it was a way to review everything I had learned in the day. Also if I wasn’t paying attention in math I would simply go to the chapter, read over the objectives and review the examples that were given in the text this made it my homework easier to do.

2.       Work ethic- Homework teaches students that there are deadlines you have to meet and teaches responsibility.

3.       Creativity- Group projects or take home projects led my imagination flow and taught me to be creative. Homework can be fun! Even if it means you have to make a poster or power point on George Washington you can make your poster or power point come to life and use different patterns and colors to entertain your classmates.

4.       Confidence- I always loved getting my homework back from my teacher and having a stamp or a sticker because this gave me confidence in my work. It was also a way to motivate myself to work hard and make my parents proud of my work.

5.       Reality check- If I was every having trouble with homework it meant that I was probably not understanding the class or the material. Therefore I would ask my teacher for help, pay more attention in class, take very good notes and learn when I needed to ask for help.

Journal #4: "Join the Flock" & "Enhance Your Twitter"

(NETS 3, 4, 5)




Ferguson, H. (2010). Join the Flock!. Learning & Leading with Technology, Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-march-april-2013
McClintock Miller, S. (2010). Enhance your twitter experience. Learning & Leading with Technology, Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-march-april-2013




Summary: This is a perfect article for people who are opposed to twitter and other online websites. Hadley Ferguson writes about how easy and helpful a twitter account can be. Twitter has a community of PLN where individuals around the world communicate about education. Their mission is to improve education and make it the best it can be. In order to be part of this PLN community is to create a twitter account. In your twitter account you must include a bio and a photo; this will give people an idea on who you are and what you are interested in. As soon as you get your profile started you can begin to follow people by simply searching for their name in the search box or search for a particular topic you are interested in. Twitter is not something where you have to participate in and be 24/7 but the amount of time you decide to spend on PLN is completely up to you. It is a good idea to set aside at least 10 minutes of your time everyday to get used to twitter and meet other people that are interested in education.However the more you tweet the more you will get people to follow you and vise versa. Another way to get more followers or to get people to notice you on twitter is to simply re-tweet what other people are saying. Twitter gives people the free opportunity to express yourself and build your own social network.


Question 1: What is PLN?
Answer 1: PLN is a group of people around the world that are learning together. They start out as strangers, but with the help of Twitter they become a community that is dedicated to make learning and education the best it can be.

"Enhance Your Twitter Experience"

Summary: In this article Shannon McClintock Miller gives the reader useful tips that can transform your teaching with the simple use of Twitter.  Through twitter she was able to get teachers from different places in the world to teach her class. For example she got Ruggero Domenichini, a teacher from New Zealand to teach her 7^th grade class about his 2.0 tool. Thanks to twitter Shannon McClintock Miller was also able to meet people in the ISTE 2010. McClintock Miller writes that twitter can be a good experience as long as you use a Twitter Organizer by adding TweetDeck which is a simply way to reply, retweet and reply to direct messages. Twitter is also easier if used with a Bookmarklet. Hootlet is a form one way to bookmark your tweets and share them with your friends. You have to have a good strategy while using twitter. 70% on your time on twitter should be spend sharing people’s voices or opinions while 20% should be responding to messages, collaborating, and connecting to others and 10% should be spend on your personal life. If you use the strategies given then your twitter experience would be much more fun and will help you build your own PLN!

Question 1: What is a Twitter Deck?

Answer 1: TweetDeck is a tool on twitter that is divided into columns. Tweets are divided by friends, mentors, direct messages, or any other search criteria in which you are interested in.