MrsPascaleParra's Blog

Online learning environments are becoming more popular with more options for free learning systems. Course management systems (CMS) have the potential of changing the classroom environment forever. This slide show shares some implementations of CMS in the classroom.

Slide Show

My differentiated lesson plan created in week 6 was successful, but not without faults. The pros of the lesson were that students enjoyed the short tutorial video and were able to take notes, worked well with a partner while accessing the three practice balancing chemical equation sites. In my original lesson students were working independently the first day, which I found that most needed the support of a peer.

Students were to write out one of the problems they solved from each of the three practice sites. Some students thought that meant that they only had to solve one problem from each site, which I had to clarify several times even though I stated it initially. Next, it seemed that students choose the easiest problem to do. Next time, I will ask for the third, fifth, or seventh problem solved from each site to ensure students do more than one and move on.

I intended this to be a one-day activity, but after assessing students ability to balance equations on their own, the next day I soon realized they needed another day of practice. One the second day, students were to work independently on the site that they felt meet their learning needs the best. If students scored well on the informal assessment I asked them to try 15 intermediate then 15 advanced problems from one of the websites. If students again scored well, I had them move on to another activity.

The second day I added a new tutorial video that began with a simple explanation of balancing equations then moved on to solving more difficult problems. Students were told they could choose to watch the first 7 to 8 minutes only if they wanted or if they wanted to see how to solve more challenging equations they could view the whole 14-minute video.

I was impressed as I walked around how engaged students were once they were asked to work the second day. Students knew what they needed to do to increase their level of understanding without my instruction. I had students re-watching the first video, watching the second video, or on one of the three practice sites available. All students were engaged.

Jean-Marie

The GAME plan that I developed six weeks ago and put into practice over six weeks allowed me to became more conscious of how I use technology in my classroom, how I integrated technology into my lesson, modeling proper use of grammar and etiquette when on the Internet, sharing documents, and technology. When I was modeling proper use of grammar I asked my students why it is important for people to use proper grammar and when is it appropriate to use slang or abbreviated words. This created a great teaching moments with my students with an important discussion, but more time is needed to fully have the opportunity for students to fully comprehend both proper use of technology and that technology is not a phase or a new teaching theory that teachers are utilizing. Technology is here to stay and it has its place in education.

While blogging about my GAME plan I have had the opportunity to share with others what I am doing in my classroom. During one of my blogs I was discussing how I would be integrating and using Inspiration, a concept map software. The only person to respond to my blog that week was Sarah who blogs for Inspiration software. Through her comment to my blog she gave me some support and direction about the Inspiration software product. This was very helpful for me for my lesson and for truly understanding the power behind blogging. I never thought that anyone other than my peers in my class were reading my blog weekly, but I was proven wrong in a good way that week.

This week I have changed my lessons in my current chemistry unit to include students creating digital stories on an element from the periodic table. This caused me to quickly start learning and practicing the digital story software on my student computers. I still have some mastering to acquire, but I am defiantly on my way to continue showing my students that technology has a place in education while learning how to utilize the technology.
Jean-Marie

My GAME plan has focused on me modeling for my students. Modeling that technology is relevant to the classroom environment, and modeling proper use of grammar, etiquette, and respect while using technology. For my students I want them to practice what I have modeled.

Following the NETS-S standards for students, I want my students to practice what I have modeled in communication and collaboration. Giving the students the standard and expectations before an assignment using a wiki, storyboard, or concept map of which they will be working with other students to create an artifact can help students to develop proficiency of the standard. Incorporating specific strands into the rubric can also help guide students of my expectation of them throughout their project.

Since the start of school, I have incorporated collaboration and communication with my students without giving them the standards. This year I have given students more opportunities to work with a partner to complete learning projects. I have seen more cooperative interaction, great content discussions, communication of ideas through technology, and peer-to-peer help with technology. Printing the NETS-S standards for students will help them consciously become aware of how the standards integrate into their assignments and learning. Adding the standards to the assignment rubric will enforce the importance of following the standards because students know that they will be graded on them, otherwise why follow them. Today, as my students were working collaboratively with a partner I observed some of my students become teachers to other students outside of their group, and I feel that I am slowly converting from an in control of everything teacher to a facilitator of student learning. It was the one of the greatest feelings a converting teacher can feel.

Jean-Marie

Resources:

National Education Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S) located at: http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Student_2007_EN.sflb.ashx

Week 6 Blog

Goal 1: My goal is to use technology to enrich lessons that demonstrates my knowledge of both content and technology and displays my skills as a professional learner. By using technology as a professional and creating lessons that use technology, I am modeling to my students that technology has relevance in the classroom.

Goal 2: Model proper use of grammar, etiquette, and respect when using the Internet, shared work, and technology.

So far I have learned I need to proof read slowly, especially if students will be reading my work in front of me because they tend to search for mistakes. I reward my students when they find mistakes that I did not find when I proof read, and I use this time to explain the importance of proof reading and having someone else proof read your work. I find that I tend to not find all my mistakes when I am rushed, so I also explain that procrastination shows in their work. I also have noticed students ask me question about what I am learning in my classes, some students are genuinely interested in knowing what I am learning and become excited when I share with them my visions of what type of assignments I would like to create. This keeps me motivated on enriching assignments with technology when it adds more substance instead of novelty.

I am still working on modeling the proper way to use shared work. I feel that this goal is extremely important because students can easily copy and paste with technology today, and most students do not realize that just because something is posted on the Internet does not necessarily mean that can be reused without permission.

Moving forward I would like to set a new goal to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. School does not always allow students to express their strengths through their work, and I would like to create lessons that allow students to be more creative in their learning. I would like to focus on “engage[ing] students in exploring real-world issues and solving problems using digital tools and resources” (NETS-T). This is going to be difficult for me because I am not very creative. I do not know if it is because I did not have teachers that let me explore my own creativity or if I am genetically missing the creativity gene. Any suggestion on how I can jump-start my own creativity?

Thank you,

Jean-Marie

Resources:

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved September 13, 2010. http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

I taught my students how to create concept maps using Inspiration software. I gave my students a word bank for the vocabulary and helped them start their map. Students were able to choose images that came with the software. I had planned on teaching my students how to use creative commons to search for images, verify student reuse of the image, and how to cite the image.  Unfortunately, I did not plan for student computers to have the copy feature blocked. One of my high-tech students showed us a long step process on how to get around it, but I did not plan for such a long process for each of the four images I wanted them to search. Overall, students created well thought out maps, used appropriate links, link wording, and images.

Following my action plan for my first goal, I am currently working ahead of my self by integrating technology in to multiple lessons. After reflecting on the first concept map, I feel that students work well with the software, but need to be reminded to print preview to see what their overall project looks like and check to make sure their arrows are pointing in the correct direction. My students and I are excited to create concept maps again. I really enjoyed listening to the conversations about what images to search for within the software that would be good examples.

I have not been as successful following my second action plan to read blogs, but I am still expanding my knowledge of through all the required reading from this class. I find that I just do not have free time right now. I did search how to footnote using MLA style, so that I could teach my students during their concept map. I will have to save this lesson for later since we could not copy images.

I was excited last week to have someone from Inspiration contact me through my blog. Since it happened over the weekend I was able to become a member of the blog, but unfortunately I did not have Inspiration on my personal computer, therefore I could not access the shared maps. When I got to work on Monday, I tried using my teacher computer to access the shared files to find that I was unable to upload files because ETIS has teachers blocked from uploading files. I could have screamed! I feel that I am working very hard to use the technology given to me, yet I am unable to use it to its fullest potential.

I will be in contact with ETIS to get the Inspiration software for my personal computer so I can have access to other files. Also, I will be asking for the copy feature to be enabled for my students so they can actually copy images, otherwise I will be spending the time to show each of my classes how to copy images the long way.

Jean-Marie

Goal 1: My goal is to use technology to enrich lessons that demonstrates my knowledge of both content and technology and displays my skills as a professional learner. By using technology as a professional and creating lessons that use technology, I am modeling to my students that technology has relevance in the classroom.

Goal 2: Model proper use of grammar, etiquette, and respect when using the Internet, shared work, and technology.

Since last week I have not had much more progress toward my goals. I plan on showing my students how to use Inspiration software, so that they can create concept maps with the use of images. I also plan on showing them some videos that I found on youtube. I am modeling how technology can be resourceful in education.

At this time I do not feel that I need to modify my action plan.

I am noticing students are more aware that others, especially classmates and peers, can read their responses to their blogs and the grammar has improved. The students have taken using technology seriously, and have shown proper behavior especially respect to others while using it within my classroom.

When using images that come from the bank of images, do you have to cite them? And if so how? The images are obviously not taken by the user, and are for public use. Any suggestions?

Recap of goals:

Goal 1: My goal is to use technology to enrich lessons that demonstrates my knowledge of both content and technology and displays my skills as a professional learner. By using technology as a professional and creating lessons that use technology, I am modeling to my students that technology has relevance in the classroom.

Goal 2: Model proper use of grammar, etiquette, and respect when using the Internet, shared work, and technology.

Time is the greatest resource I will need to carry out my GAME plan. Using time appropriately in planning, organizing, and incorporating my two goals is a challenge. Currently, I am planning to reconstruct my technology project based lessons so that I can teach how to search the Internet, verify validity of web sites, and how to create a storyboard before second semester. I have met with one colleague regarding creating a classroom blog, and I have a meeting with another teacher to learn a new software available at my school site.

To further help me reach my goals, I need to search for new technologies or even technologies that I am not very familiar with so that I have an understanding of what they are. Practice using technologies I am not very good at such as recording pod casts and uploading them to my class website so students can listen and review content. I am piloting a new online grading program at school, and I am practicing my self-directed learning skills.

So far in reaching my goals, this past week I created a power point where I found images on creative commons to help with my students put an image with their new content vocabulary, and in doing so I cited all the images and created a work cited page at the end. I have also updated my classroom website and blog (from which the students will leave comments). I have searched for videos and websites to use enrich the next unit and planning ways to enhance lessons with technology.

Jean-Marie

One of my personal goals is to get my students using computers more in my classroom for research and creating artifacts. To achieve my goal I will be using the National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for teachers (NETS-T). Both goals I choose are focused around modeling because I believe that students need good role models on how to use technology respectfully. I will be using Cennamo’s self-directed four-step GAME plan to help me achieve my goals (2009).

My first NETS –T is Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. I feel that modeling is an important skill for students to observe when learning. I want to teach students through examples that technology belongs in the classroom and the workplace. Prensky writes that teachers need to give students opportunities to use technology in school to make school more relevant to students (2008). This is my GAME plan to make my classroom more relevant.

Goals: My goal is to use technology to enrich lessons that demonstrates my knowledge of both content and technology and displays my skills as a professional learner. By using technology as a professional and creating lessons that use technology, I am modeling to my students that technology has relevance in the classroom.

Actions: I will reflect on previous lessons and determine where technology can be integrated to enhance the learning objective. I plan to integrate technology into five lessons to improve student engagement and comprehension of content.

Monitor: My plan is to modify two lessons in chemistry (before January), two lessons in physics (before April), and one lesson in astronomy (before June) this school year.

Evaluate: I will reflect how well I believed the lesson went. Reflect on what worked in the lesson, and what needs to be altered and revised to improve the lesson.

The second NETS-T is Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility. Today, young people use technology at younger ages than the generations before them and are not necessarily learning appropriate behavior or etiquette. I will model appropriate behavior and conduct for students to replicate.

Goals: Model proper use of grammar, etiquette, and respect when using the Internet, shared work, and technology. 

Actions: Stay informed through educational blogs concerning ethical use of technology. When posting my own work, verify that it models good citizenship and respect towards others. Also, I want to give proper credit for images, videos, power points, or any other borrowed work I use in my classroom. I do not want to model how to plagiarize in my class, but rather how to give credit to other people for their work.

Monitor: When using other people’s work I want to create a resource page and in-text citation all the time. Read one blog a month focused on ethical use of technology, or find one website or blog through delicious.

Evaluate: Reflect on lessons that include images, videos, power points, etc. to verify rightful credit was given. Review lessons once a week.

Resources:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach. (Laureate Education, Inc., Custom ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf.

Prensky, M. (2008, March). Turning on the lights. Educational Leadership, 65(6), 40–45.

Learning new literacy skills such as information literacy and digital literacy, I am astonished by how much and how fast the world is changing. I was shocked to learn from Dr. Hartman that girls are producing more content online than boys (Laureate, 2009). I also feel that I am learning with my students and at times I am learning from my students. I agree with Dr. Hartman “students can also be teachers” and “[it] makes students [more] confident” (Laureate, 2009). I see myself learning from my own students and I see how they change their tone and manner when they are teaching me.

I am very motivated, after taking this class, in integrating these new skills in my lessons. I feel that I now have a guide and understanding of what to expect from my students and myself. One practice, I am most excited about learning from this class was Fair Use Policy. Within my unit I created a lesson that helps students understand what plagiarism is, and how to give other creators credit for the work they have created. I am excited about teaching students the proper way of incorporating other peoples work into their own and citing it. My hopes are that students will continue to make the right choices in high school and college, so that they can be more successful. Another practice I feel ready to teach my students is how to search for information on the Internet. I think I am excited about this because I use to get very frustrated when I would do research, and now I feel like I can find what I am looking for much more quickly. Thus, saving me time and a headache.

Professional development goals I have are to continue learning about information literacy and educational technology. I will use my research skills to search the Internet and follow educational blogs and journals to continue my learning. Some sites I will continue to follow are education week-digital education blog, edutopia.org, and the top 100 emerging technologies. I also would like to share with my colleagues what I am learning when I feel that it will benefit them and their students.

Resources:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom. Baltimore: Douglas Hartman.