Webinar/Carpe Diem vs. St. Mary's

That was an incredibly interesting Webinar and is the prompt for creative discussion.

I can say right off the bat, I am against the fully implemented Carpe Diem model.  High test scores are not the end-all-to-be-all.  There still needs to be social education, working in teams and in groups, personal interaction and personal communication.

In real life, we do actually have to interact with other real people.  We learn this skill by doing it.  Interacting with a computer all day would stifle that part of growth and learning.

I cannot imagine relegating a child to a cubicle for a major part of the day for the drill- and-kill.  Yes, drill-and-kill does have it's place because there are educational tidbits that need to be just plain memorized. However, not at the expense of personal interaction and learning.

I much prefer the St. Mary's method.  In real life, things work better when they are in balance.  Much like a diet, one cannot be healthy and lose weight by just eating less or eating one type of food or by just exercising.  To be successful in dieting, one must balance the food consumed with exercise.

The St. Mary's method seemed to have a balance of the 'old school' method of education in having the children interact in addition to using newer technology.  It seems that higher level thinking skills are being used and the information is not just learned, it is retained, synthesized and applied.

I am gradually integrating more and more technology into my classroom.  I have truly been uncomfortable with technology for two reasons:  one, I have been 'afraid' of it because I don't know much (but am learning) and two, it scares me because I don't fully trust it.

As I learn and explore more, I find I am getting more comfortable with the use of technology.  I use the Promethean everyday in my room, when I loved the old fashioned white-boards.  I integrate the use of online vocabulary storage and play, use Safari Montage for video clips, and the use of online project development.

As a teacher, I am limited as to what my school system offers in the way of technology.  I'd like to be able to download certain things we have learned in this class, but can because that function is blocked.  Our system is moving slowly toward technology.

I think it would be great for students to be able to download our student agenda to their phones; however, the agenda companies we use are 2 years away from this format and some teachers buck the idea of kids using their phones in class for fear of them texting.

Full technology integration has to be mastered from several perspectives:  Administration needs to be trained to train us, teachers need to be trained to train the kids, and all of the adults need to be onboard and fully trained on how the technology can be used.

Just dumping the devices or software on us won't help.  Like getting a kid to read a chapter, we need to have a purpose for learning it first to make it relevant and important to what we do.

I do think all teachers need to take a class like this one.  I have learned so much valuable information that I had no idea was out there.

A school-wide initiative should not be shallow scaled and devices bought just to have them.  To make full use to them and to benefit the students, the appropriate devices and software need to be fully studied and investigated first.  Only after teachers are sufficiently instructed on their use, purpose and how they can be used in classes to benefit student learning, should they be rolled into the classrooms for student use.

Exel Data for Comparing Nationwide Mean Scores to Virginia Mean Scores

This was an ordeal!  I operate on this old Mac and have to do a whole lot of figuring.  I initially tried this assignment on the Mac and it was an exercise in futility.  I ended up borrowing a friend's laptop to complete the assignment, thus the delay in getting it posted on time.

In analyzing the data for 4th Grade Reading Scores for 2011, Virginia ranked 41 in the mean scores with 220. 4077.  There are eight states ahead of Virginia; Massachusetts being ranked first.  Washington, DC is the lowest ranked, with 200. 62.

Virginia is above the average with 226.37.

Being able to analyze data is critical as the educational pendulum moves toward Formative and Summative assessments on a regular basis through the school year.  We need to be able to look at our students' performance to determine the how well the students are absorbing what is being taught and in which direction we need to take our teaching.

This assignment corresponds to ISTE #3 because, in completing it, we had to locate, analyze, and evaluate data and use digital tools to make it happen.

Raider Readers Corner Website

Well this was an adventure!  It's interesting to see now how easily a website can be created, when I thought one would have to pay an exorbitant amount to have such thing.

We have a school website with links to our own professional part of the site.  I copied some of the information I had on our school site and placed it on my new site.  The linking of the information took a bit of time to get straight, but I think it will work.

I have to say, that this trial and error method is an impressive way to learn.  Perhaps we should allow students more opportunity for trial and error.  It's made me think.  I always give students a chance to correct their answers because it does help to retain material and it gives them a chance to work the important stuff out on their own.  I wish more of my own teachers had given me the chance to fix my answers and figure out what was correct.

One of my colleagues was sitting next to me today as I was beginning to fool around with the themes and templates.  She was so excited with the prospect of creating her own site, that she began poking around to start the process too.

This is my site!!
https://sites.google.com/a/su.edu/raider-readers-corner/

This assignment, for me, completely revolved around ISTE standard #5-Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership.  By learning to create this site, I have had to pull together and apply many of the tools and resources we have discovered during this course that I could readily share with my colleagues.

I am proud of myself for being able to conquer this.  This assignment was on the top of the list to give me ulcers.  LOL!  I look forward to adding to my site and making it better and better and sharing it with my students and parents.

Rubric-Harry Potter Final Assignment

Rubistar is a wonderful tool for busy teachers!  I cannot wait to share this with my colleagues.  This tool effectively demonstrates ISTE #3--this clearly helps students, parents and teachers collaborate in the use of digital tools and is a resource to help student success.

In my 8th block 21st Century Literacy Strategies class, we are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  These reluctant readers are loving the story line.

While introducing this intriguing story, I used my Google map of England, taking the students on Harry's journey from Little Whinging, while living with the Dursleys, to Hogwart's itself.

I needed a final project for my class and had been contemplating an all-encompassing one so that the students could demonstrate their knowledge of the story line and facts about England in addition to using their own imagination and creativity to conjure up a school of their own.

The rubric asks the students to create brochure detailing a school where teen-age students come to learn.  It's up to the student create the class names, what is covered, which teachers teach the classes, and the names of the textbooks to accompany the course.

I think my students will enjoy this assignment.  I plan on announcing the it this week and giving them some class time to complete it.

It would be great to have them actually complete it before this class is over so I could post them to my blog for you to see.  (If we don't get done in time, I'll still share them when we do get done.)

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzMCUKf1ScVgUmV6clllQkV6bG8

I think this Rubistar site is an amazing time saver.  I can link this to our online grades website for parents to see.

Self-Grading Form

This self-grading form will be great once I figure out how to make the formulas work.  I must have input incorrect information somewhere along the line because one cell keeps entering a 0 for the score when, in fact, it's correct and should read 100. 

This would be a great way to create that reading inventory that I want to make easy to give to all English teachers. 

This would also be a creative assignment for my students.  They would create a test for at least 3 of their classmates to take.

Using their own information to create a test, would force them to actually know some of the information we have covered in class because, in the creation of the test, they'd have to know the answers.  With each student taking several different tests created by their classmates, it reinforces their learning. 

I am always looking for creative tools for students to study.  I think this will be a new development!!!

This lesson applies to the Technology standards that require students to use technology to learn.  This hits the nail on the head!!!

This is the form: 

https://docs.google.com/a/su.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dG85Q1ZfTHh4Wk5TX3NXMDhnejJxTmc6MQ#gid=0


This is the spreadsheet.  It still needs some work, but I get the idea.  I'm not sure why that last cell won't calculate right, but I'll figure it out. (See below--I figured it out!!)

https://docs.google.com/a/su.edu/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjMCUKf1ScVgdG85Q1ZfTHh4Wk5TX3NXMDhnejJxTmc#gid=0

When the good professor pointed out that I didn't have my link public, I went back to wiggle a few things around.  I changed the URL to public and I figured out why I couldn't get the last cell to calculated the average.  I had put the /3 inside the parentheses instead of outside.  ONE TINY LITTLE OVERSIGHT changed everything.

With this, I realized, yet again, how very important the tiniest of details are.  I had watched the Youtube video many times trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.  I watched today with fresh eyes!!

Google Forms

Happy Sunday everyone!

This is a survey I created that I would use at the beginning of the year to see exactly what my students' reading preferences are in addition to assessing their skills in reading from a textbook.

I usually do a number of informal surveys and interest inventories before we get into gear for the year.

This availability is the answer to my prayers!  We have been looking for an informal reading assessment that I can make accessible to all English teachers to get a basic before/after grade level.  I can create an assessment using this feature for each grade level (9-12) and will begin working on this asap!

This has been important because we are in the day and age of assessment in order to show the progress of our students from the beginning of the year to the end.

I am so glad to know how to do this.

Below are the links to my spreadsheet and my form.  I'm going to have my students take this tomorrow and Tuesday.  I think this is awesome!!!!

Spreadsheet link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjMCUKf1ScVgdHhuR2U4QXNBaTZMN0VFWVhwNndNWkE


Survey Form link:

https://docs.google.com/a/su.edu/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhuR2U4QXNBaTZMN0VFWVhwNndNWkE6MQ#gid=0

Prezi-Reading Non-Fiction Text

What a cool application!  As usual, it takes me a bit of time to figure out which 'buttons' to push to make things happen, but this is how we learn.

This will be a great tool to show my students for use in their content courses to use for long-term projects.  I will use this as an option to wrap up our novels next quarter, for my students' projects.

We are planning parent workshops to help parents better help their kids at home regarding homework, study skills and organizational strategies.  This would be a great tool for parents to know how to access so they could easily help their kids with projects, especially when their son or daughter says the night before, "I need posterboard for a project due tomorrow!"

Who needs posterboard when you can use this!!!!  This is almost interactive.  The movement alone would engage the viewer, wondering what is happening next.  A powerpoint is pretty much stand-alone and very much the same thing over and over again.  The Prezi opens a whole new world of creative demonstration of knowledge for the student.

This will also be a great workshop for my fellow faculty members.  I'm betting there are quite a few that don't know about it but would love to use it.

This lesson applies to Standard #3 in that teachers can have a greater working knowledge of this type of technology to share with their students.  It will inspire student learning, Standard #2, because it will allow students to use some imagination to create promising presentations through the use of this technology.

http://prezi.com/ey0tviu-okks/reading-non-fiction-text/

Digital Movies from PowerPoints

Well, this was an adventure!  I couldn't install anything from the original assignment's directions because of my very old Mac.  So, I had to figure out a way to make this work from what Mac provides.........AND I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!

Mac has two features:  iPhoto and iMovie.  I figured that these would be the tools I'd need and I had to poke around to figure out how to do the same thing as the Windows directions.

I had to use some different steps:
I saved my ppt as photos using iPhoto, the dragged the file over to iMovie.  I had to narrate each slide and clip the sound to match time I needed.  My voice overlapped several times but I clicked a few buttons until I understood how to edit the sound and coordinate it with the timing.

Man...........this whole thing took about five hours but I am so very psyched to have done this!!!  I am going to celebrate with some chocolate right now!!!

Here is the link to youtube.  I checked it and it works---sound and all!!!!!!!