Here's a short video with my thoughts on Professional Development....... 1. Powtoons
Description: Powtoons is a web based program that’s always users to create fun animated presentations. I has a good variety of animation choices in the free option, and even more choices available for a $19 a month subscription. With a paid subscription you get more animation, music, storage, the ability to download content, and your video can be as long as 15 minutes. However, the free membership gives the user a substantial variety of animation and music. The free option allows you to create up to 5 minute long videos, which you can upload to Youtube. There are many uses for POwtoons in the classroom. In the younger elementary classrooms, the students would need a fair amount of support in creating a video, so more than likely it would mainly be beneficial for the teacher. There would be a wide variety of uses for these videos such as intro to new content, classroom management, how to videos, webquest videos etc. In older elementary grades the students would be able to narrate stories, present reports, illustrate science experiments etc. Pros:
Cons:
I believe Powtoons is a teacher’s dream to create videos to introduce content to the students in a very engaging manner.
2. Haiku Deck
PROS:
3. Little Bird Tales
This is another high quality program to use in the classroom to support all aspects of the curriculum while also promoting 21st century learning. It could be used for creative writing, persuasive or informative texts, reports, math word problems or math stories. Teachers could also use it effective to create social stories, to introduce classroom rules and behaviors, and as a starting point for a PBL assignment. Pros:
4. Prezi
Cons:
5. Draw and Tell
Draw and Tell is a fantastic interactive app that would support and early childhood classroom up through elementary grades. It’s strength is in it’s ability to give students, that aren’t proficient in writing, an option for creative storytelling. The layout is simple and easy to use. It gives the students a variety of backgrounds to start with and then allows for the addition of many included graphics, or the students can write and draw their own pictures. Students are able to quickly link together drawing into a movie and include audio for either each individual page ot the entire video. There is also an option to upload pictures from the camera to use in the project. This would be a wonderful tool for a classroom to use to encourage students creativity in the story writing process. It supports differentiated learning, and is a strong tool for the early childhood classroom. This is an active program for students to use to support 21st century skills in creating and collaboration. Pros:
This is a big winner for interactive programs for the younger grades. There are many areas to use this app and the students would love it. Hopefully in the future it will be available for more devices outside of Ipads.
6. Voicethread
7. Gloster
Glogster in a web based program that creates interactive posters. This is a fun tool for both students and teachers to use to include in classroom presentation, web sites, and blogs. It has a 7 day trial use license and then the price scale starts ot 29.99 for a personal 1 year license. The site has numerous poster formats to use in a large selection of themes for both personal, business and school. You can also start from scratch and easily design your own poster. The site allows students to upload pictures and video to their poster, as well as include audio, video, and text. This tool would be wonderful to use as a cumulative project for a PBL assignment. It actively supports differentiation by giving a variety of formats to include in the poster. Pros:
8. Wordle
Wordle is a web based tool that allows the user to quickly and easily create word clouds with personally selected words. This is a great tool to quickly create visuals to stimulate high order thinking and reasoning. It is a more abstract way to convey knowledge for both the students and teachers. It would be appropriate in all elementary grades as students are starting to learn to write and spell. It would also be a fantastic tool for teachers to use at the beginning of a lesson or class. This would be a great way to stimulate conversation in the classroom. It would be nice if there was some type of way to differentiate for students that has difficulty writing or typing. Talk to text would be a nice option. Pros:
Well, I made it to the end of this data journey, at least for this class. However, I’m now a committed traveler on the data road to improved education for my students. I believe that this process is an effective way for classroom teachers to improve their performance, and also their students’ achievement. The Data Action Model guides teachers into analyzing the data and moving beyond avoidance behaviors that data often elicits. This process breaks down the data into small, explicit steps that help focus the attention into small attainable chunks of information for reflection. It also relies heavily on collaboration, which I believe scaffolds teachers experience with both professional learning and also guiding our students. My final presentation gives more detail and insight into my learning process in regards to data analysis, and also my reflections on my performance and ways to include this in the future. What a busy and rewarding week! This week I was put into a new team with 3 other members with the goal of providing constructive feedback for our action plans. At first, I was a little apprehensive about collaborating with new people since it’s late in the game for this class and I had developed a strong rapport with my other teammate. However, after settling on a schedule for our meeting, which was a little bit of a challenge with four busy people, we easily split into pairs to review each other’s action plans. Our meeting and plan for compiling information for our group slide presentation was completed with ease. I value the proactive and professional behavior of my teammates.
I think having a fresh perspective on my data action plan was very beneficial since it gave me an opportunity to see if I had truly provided enough explicit information. With the positive feedback I received from my teammate, I was able to add a few more details to the plan that will help focus the process and assessments for the students. I also enjoyed reviewing other plans and helping provide information that I hope helped my teammates. Even though at times in my past I haven’t felt the benefit of group work, throughout this program my opinion has changed. I see the positives of working together to support and elevate all of our work. However, in saying this I want to highlight that I’ve always believed in collaborative work, but you have to have the buy in of all team members. When everyone that is working together has similar goals and expectations the messy aspect of group work such as organizing schedules, and workload gets positively resolved. Throughout this data process I’ve learned from my peers, and grown into the support of active analysis of data. I really see the benefit of using this as a regular, and ongoing process with my school PLN. This is an outlet to use all the tools we have from the students, and look into areas of weakness from all angles. I know now that regular, ongoing data analysis is my duty as an engaged teacher. How I envision the data analysis process . First we start off with the seeds, or students, that all have the potential to grow and transform. After carefully initial cultivation, we must analyze the learning and growing process to determine what each seedling is lacking, and areas of strength. Determining the seedlings different needs ( more water, sun, or food) to continue growing relates to determining areas of instruction or learning gaps. Providing the required support will allow the seedlings to bloom and soak up the sun, or their future. :) So far the data analysis process has transformed how I look at data and has given me ideas of ways I can use it in the future to help guide my teaching. I’ve really enjoyed using the Notice and Wonder process with the following data meetings to really focus my thought process and narrow the scope. So far, my limited exposure to using data has been for the much large picture, such as determining a school-wide goal. I’ve been impressed with how this process has been so much more hands on, and useful immediately in the classroom. Although I’m currently teaching PreK, and using the provided data in the class, it has caused me to network with the Kindergarten teachers to hopefully include data meetings next year in a regular rotation. It has made a believer of the power of using data, and I think by meeting with the K teachers to work together on areas of strength and weakness on both the students and the instruction will benefit everyone involved. On a slightly separate note, this is the first time I’ve used Google Hangouts. I’m still getting used to being on camera, which I find slightly discerning, but really feel that it makes a distance meeting much more intimate than just a phone call. I think that even if you weren’t able to meet after school, you could utilize Google Hangouts to help planning and meeting with your data team in your school. Data Meeting #1 ReflectionIt’s Tuesday, and the last day for the Data Meeting #1 week’s assignments. I planned on the blog reflection being my last assigned requirement for the week, but I had planned on doing this on Sunday night. However, my appendix decided otherwise for me and I ended up going to the ER Sunday evening instead. It’s now Tuesday and I’m currently sitting in the hospital bed waiting hopefully to be released sometime today. I only share this as I had big plans to try to do a Vlog for this entry, but instead due to my hospital bed glamor, will stick to the written word! :) At least the sunrise view is pretty! When I started to read in Venerables(2013) concerning analyzing data to use to guide your teaching I realized that as an early childhood educator, I mainly have relied on microdata. In the younger years, I feel that teachers daily gage their students comprehension, and hopefully are able to set the pace and instruction according to their learners needs. However, we all know that due to scheduling and expectations, this isn’t what always happens. I also reflected on the fact that I haven’t used macrodata very often at all. I taught at a school on a base in the RMI (Republic of the Marshall Islands)for 4 years. During my time there I was on the committee for school improvement, which tied in with our accreditation. We relied on the school’s macrodata to choose an area(reading) for our school improvement plan. While we did analyze it enough to focus on certain aspects to include, it wasn’t as productive as it could be, and it was just a once off to decide on a direction, not a regular on going conversation. After learning about Venerables(2013) Notice and Wonder protocol along with exploratory questions, I feel like this is a procedure that should be included in regular grade level meetings. I appreciated how taking some time to just notice certain aspects about the data can focus your thinking, which naturally leads into the wonder statements. I’ve never looked at data this way before and the procedure made me get more invested and interested in the numbers somehow. For some reason it made me connect to the numbers that resonated, and allowed some creative thought when considering my notice and wonder statements. I also feel that the exploratory questions were an easy transition from these statements, and allow for clear direction to help improve your teaching. The questions my team came up with have clear, and concrete areas that we can research to help improve scores and learning. Overall, I enjoyed the notice and wonder protocol and can definitely see it’s usefulness in improving teaching and learning. I’m looking forward to learning more about data this semester, and that’s a statement I’d never thought I’d utter! Venerables, D. (2013). How teachers can turn data into action 2-15-17 This week starts our Data Meeting #1 assignment. My partner and I have spoken several times on the phone, as well as emailed and texted. At first I was a bit confused on several aspects of this assignment. However, after speaking to the professor, I feel that I have a clear path forward and am looking forward to analyzing the data. My partner and I have a good schedule laid out for the next week in order to stay on top of the task and complete the presentations after using the Notice and Wonder protocol to consider the data. 2-8-17 Overview I just got off the phone with my partner as we visited and got to know each other better. I think it's going to be a good partnership and I enjoyed visiting with her. We're still not completely clear on some details of our Data Meeting#1 activity, I think we have a good plan for the next few weeks and both plan on reviewing tech tools to use for our data presentation. We plan on meeting by phone once a week on Wednesdays to collaborate on our tasks. We also plan on frequent emails and collaboration through our shared Google Document. Following this evening's conversation, we are each reviewing the following tech tools: Voicethread, Glogster, Jing, and Screenomatic. We plan on settling on one of this tech tools for our data meeting#1 and will share our thoughts via email, with followup on our next phone conversation. We also are seeking clarification on the data, and then will agree on a MD Standard and 3 objectives to include for the Notice and Wonder protocol. 1-31-17 I've recently started a new class on my journey towards a Graduate degree in Educational Technology through UMUC. Part of this class will be to create a blog to log my thoughts during this class experience. I've started to create this website for a project in my class at UMUC in educational technology.
|
AuthorThis blog will serve as a place for me to write about the daily activities and projects in my classroom. Archives
April 2018
Categories
|