Quiet Semester

So this has been a quiet semester here on my blog.  I have been concentrating on my Library Science classes so I haven't needed the blog for classes.  I have learned about cataloging and collection development though.  Its a lot more complicated than it appears on the outside - Just buy books and check them out!
Cataloging is an exact science and one I am still not sure I understand completely.  Basically, the way you catalog them determines how people find them and once you think of specific details you can see how that becomes complicated very quickly.  How do you catalog a book by HG Wells.  Do you enter his name as HG Wells, H.G. Wells or spell it out?  Picking one eliminates anyone searching for the name the alternate way.  Believe it or not, there are librarian rules for how to approach those problems.
Collection development is also more complicated than just buying books.  You have to buy the right books, spend the school money wisely, and do your best to avoid censorship or bias.  The library often has one of the largest budgets the school hands out so it makes sense they would want that money well spent.  The key is buy with a purpose and always be able to justify the money you spend.
Next semester is going to be crazy, but fun.  I am still concentrating on Library courses so I am taking my Library Administration and my Library Practicum course.  The Practicum course will require me to spend a minimum of 165 hours working in my school library and officially assign Tammy Butler as  my mentor.  She has always been that, just unofficially.  She has really helped me out with questions as I go along and has answered all my silly questions about collections, reference materials and cataloging.  The only class I will have left in Library after next spring is Young Adult Literature and that one should be my favorite - that's why I saved it for last.
I am still expecting to graduate in the Spring of 2017.  Right now that seems like a long way off, but really I only have 18 hours to go.

Teaching is going well and now that football season is over, all I have to focus on is getting our Beta Club ready for state convention in  January.  That is much more complicated than it seems, especially with 104 members.  Its like herding ducks!  Ha!  They are good kids though and fun to hang out with.  I am expecting great things from them this year at convention.  I will keep you posted on how it turns out.

A New Year. . .

The week of in-service has passed, the floors are polished, the rooms are ready and waiting.  The year holds so many possibilities and so many fears.  Excitement and anticipation mixed with equal amounts of trepidation and dread hangs in the air.  Some students (and teachers) can not wait to get back to it; for some it is the end of their favorite part of the year.

For me, its a preparation time for the coming flurry of activity.  I can only prepare so much for what is about to be and I have tried to anticipate and plan.  I will be teaching four different (very different) classes this year - Digital Interactive Media, Web Technologies,  Principles of Technology and Concepts of Engineering and Technology.  I am in varying states of readiness for these classes.  I created and worked diligently last year (and some this summer) to get all of my presentation and classroom materials ready for Principles of Technology.  I have my completed lesson plans from last year for DIM and Web Tech to revise and improve this year and I have all kinds of great plans for Concepts of Engineering.

Personally, I will also be taking six more hours towards my Masters, both Library Science courses - something to do in my spare time.  My son will be a freshman this year and will be so busy I don't know when I will see him except when I am carting him to and from practices and watching him perform.  He is both in the varsity band (Friday night football games) and the JV mascot (Thursday night games).  I wonder when he will sleep.  I have become the Beta Club sponsor and that comes with a ton of expectations for the fall semester.  I am fortunate to have a great group of officers already picked out for me and I will rely heavily on them to get all of the work done between now and convention in January.  We are also planning a big family vacation to Disney at Christmas time and my daughter's twelfth birthday.  Hopefully, things will be more easy going during the spring semester.

Overall, it is going to be a fabulous year.  I know my counselor and PEIMS person has busted tail all summer to get our schedules done and kids assigned.  I am looking forward to meeting my classes on Monday morning and then getting right to work.  My favorite part of this job is that things are never the same; I get to meet lots of different kids and be a part of their lives.

The doors are about to open on endless possibilities.  I can and I will. . . .

End of Year One

Today is the last day of school for teachers.  Tomorrow is graduation.  All the grades are finalized, rooms are cleaned up, the halls are silent.  The district has met and handed out honors and recognition for all our hard work and well wishes have been handed out to those leaving.  I thought this would be a good day to reflect on my first year in the classroom and ruminate on the year that was.

A colleague asked me yesterday how my first year was and I really didn't know how to respond.  The kids were exactly as I expected.  If anything, it was me that surprised me the most.  I learned so much and managed to get everything done despite all the obstacles.  I will certainly do a few things differently next year - I think most first year teachers feel the same way but overall, I like where I appear to be heading and I wouldn't trade this year for anything.

This past year has been so busy with lesson plans, creating tests, taking classes, and shuffling paperwork - it seems to have passed in a blur!  I had three classes to prepare for everyday and I created some resources I intend to use again to make my life easier next year.  I will be teaching an additional class next year and I intend to use this summer to prepare for it as best as I can. I have also taken on a sponsor responsibility next year and I am sure I will learn as I go there too. 

Sitting in the cafeteria today, we recognized the teachers that will be leaving us next year.  Some will be retiring; other just moving on to hopefully, bigger and better things.  One of my favorite things about this job is that things are constantly changing, evolving in to something new.  Today, maybe it is the people who are leaving or just a result of the emotional rollercoaster this year has been, but it was hard for me to say goodbye to these co-workers.  My daughter's UIL coach is going to a district closer home and moving up to bigger and better things, but all I wanted to do was grab her and tell her she can't go!  Our district is less without her.  Two of the most influential and inspiring teachers I know have retired this year and I know they will enjoy a well-deserved retirement.  At the same time it breaks my heart that my two kids will not have the opportunity to experience them in the classroom.  I know whomever is hired to replace them will be excellent and they have earned a rest, but I will miss them.

Graduation is tomorrow morning and it will be hard to say goodbye to these students.  Since I have worked as this district for six years now, I have known most of these graduates since they were silly, scared freshmen coming in to pick up their schedules four years ago.  It has been gratifying watching these students grow and mature in to wonderful young men and women and I hope I have, in some way, influenced their lives for the better.

I am looking forward to next year and hope it will be more fun and less work (although I recognize the improbability of that!)  We will have some new administrators and I trust our campus will be better for their coming.  Of course, there will be staff changes, a new schedule, as well as the expected new pile of students to get to know.  On top of that, my son will be in High School and busy with all of his activities (mascot, band, theater, honors classes, etc.) and my daughter has bumped up to Middle School.  I will also be continuing my pursuit of a Masters and will be completing two classes next fall - Library classes as part of my Library Certification. 
I am wondering now why I ever started the book challenge last January!  I mean, who has time to read?!

ETEC562 Article Review

I accidentally reviewed two articles, but I didn't really use the first one, but I included it here anyway.

 Short, D. (2012). Teaching scientific concepts using a virtual world - Minecraft. Teaching Science: The Journal Of The Australian Science Teachers Association, 58(3), 55-58.

I read this article first and I wanted to include it in my blog post.  This article is several years old but gives a broad overview of how virtual world games, and specifically Minecraft can be used to teach science.  The article is really intended for people who are unfamiliar with Minecraft and all its possibilities so I was kind of disappointed in it.  If you are not familiar with the game and its educational applications, please read this article, but know that this article only talks about science curriculum.  There are tons of other uses in curriculum from art to math to literature exploration. 

After reading this article and not really learning anything new, except that you can use Global Information Systems (GIS) to create real world replicas in Minecraft.  Basically that means you take GPS information that is publically available and have Minecraft replicate that in game so players can experience their community (or other locales) in game.  I have been doing research on exactly how that works, but I don’t have it all figured out yet.  Anyway, I decided to look for a newer article that might provide more incites in to gaming as an educational technology tool.

Q & A: Journalist Steps Into Realm Of Digital Games. (2015). Education Week, 34(28), 9.

This article was published a week ago, on April 22, 2015.  Because it was so recent, I was hoping for a current view of how gaming is changing things in the classroom.  This article is an interview between the Education Week staff writer Benjamin Herold and Greg Toppo, the author of a new book titled “The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Children Smarter.”  Toppo set out to discover how teachers are using digital games to increase engagement and improve learning.

During the interview, Toppo mentions several instances where students were doing amazing work while playing video games.  4^th graders in California are using video games to complete advanced mathematics, or kids completing a full opera in Minecraft, making the subjects students do not normally enjoy engaging because it is coupled with computer gaming. 

Some schools are also pushing up class size by incorporating more gaming.  When computer gaming is doing the teaching and students are engaged, teachers are more able to manage larger class sizes.  This does not mean, of course, that teachers are going to be replaced by computers and games, but Toppo things computers could (and probably soon will) replace textbooks.

The article also mentions Amplify which I had heard about in other similar discussions about gamification.  Amplify is a company that is going out to intentionally create educational software that kids enjoy by grabbing up popular software programs and modeling their educational software after already popular games.  Maybe someday soon we will see a division of EA Games called EA Education!

For me, this article is a validation of things I am already seeing from my kids at home.  The article mentions the drawbacks and concerns about gaming – less social interaction, less physical activity, too much screen time, but says we are already asking students to sit still and be quiet most of the day anyway. And students are more likely to sit still when engaged.  Gaming in this case allows students to experience (and possibly enjoy more) a subject they may not have liked before.  Gaming helps them ‘get it.’   Despite what they say about concerns of lack of social interaction, my kids have learned to work cooperatively and collaborate when playing together.  They play to their skills.  When playing Minecraft, my son is the explorer/fighter.  My daughter is the builder and I am the resource collector.  They know if I am playing they do not need to chop down trees, because “Mom does that!”  They work together to plan huge cities and divide the work.  My son plans out and builds the streets while my daughter gets started on the house or store.  They have also learned to work cooperatively when fighting bad guys.  I often hear, “I’m nearly dead, you get em!”

I plan to use Minecraft next year in my Engineering classroom as a building area to teach basic construction methods as well as managerial concerns, like figuring out how much of each material you need BEFORE you start building, building quality structures on a limited budget, etc.  I am excited about this and I am sure you will hear more about how this works out here on my blog.

ETEC562 Technology Integration Unit

The Prezi featured in this video.

Links to Materials Used in Lesson Plan:

Google Slides for Chapter 26 can be found here

The Notes, created in Google Docs can be found here.

The Sound Lab, also created in Google Docs can be found here.

The PhET Simulation used for the lab can be found here.

The assessment was created in Schoology, a screenshot can be seen here.



ETEC562 Article 2 Review

Reference:

 

Muller, D. A., Sharma, M. D., Eklund, J., & Reinmann, P. (2007). Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an authentic physics setting. Instructional Science, 35(6), 519-533.

I chose this article because I have a vested interest in whether or not students learn by watching videos.  I use videos often in my science classroom to perform experiments or demonstrate concepts that are hard for students to grasp because I feel the video and illustrations help the concept stick.  They are definitely more demonstrative than just me talking.  Using YouTube videos for science this year, I have discovered Veritasium (which means an “Element of Truth”) which is a YouTube channel devoted to science and engineering.  The videos are hosted by Derek Muller who happens to have a PhD in Physics based on a thesis including part of the ideas behind the article reviewed here.  He challenges the normal theories about how to engage students with video most specifically about how a video can change a student’s pre-existing concept about Physics.

In this article, “Conceptual change through vicarious learning in an authentic physics setting” Muller showed students two different physics concept videos.  One was a student-tutor dialogue which addressed the concept and common misconceptions about the topic.  The other video presented the same exact physics material in a traditional science video style without presenting the misconceptions.  After watching the video, students were tested and interviewed to determine if they learned anything or changed their previously incorrect assumptions about the topic.

Muller took existing knowledge about reform programs that use dialog as way to change pre-conceived notions and created a science video that would essentially do the same thing about incorrect notions of physics.  The purpose of the study was to determine: (1) is the dialog video was as effective as traditional videos in teaching the material even though it contains more information (in the misconceptions), (2) would the student-tutor dialog encourage reflection on learning by those watching, (3) can videos mimic real classroom discussions, (4) would it encourage students to ask more questions in class?  Students were tested over the same material before and after the videos as well as interviewed to help answer the questions above.

Students who viewed the dialogue-based video had significantly higher post-test scores.  Students said they did not often ask questions during lectures because they were afraid they would look dumb in front of other students.  Students seemed to agree that only a handful of students ever asked questions and they were usually beyond the scope of the lecture, not asking for clarification of it.  Students felt the dialogue video was asking questions they themselves would have liked to ask in class but were too afraid to ask.  They also enjoyed the dialogue style because it seemed more authentic and the extra dialog helped them absorb the concept better.

The article seems to prove that dialogue based videos presenting the concept along with common misconceptions about the topic help students absorb and re-think the topic.  Vicarious learning (watching videos) can be used to change student’s misconceptions and increase student confidence but cannot replace teachers and textbooks.    

I have often used videos in class but as the instructor, I pause it often to emphasize something or help explain what we are seeing. I also pause it to ask questions or assess student learning.  This seems to help students follow along and hopefully get more out of the videos I use.  I also try to choose short videos that get right to it.  It scared me a bit when I first heard that students might not be learning anything from all the videos I had been showing.  I immediately wanted to know what to do about it!  This article really helps me better understand how to help reach students better by challenging their existing notions about science and allowing them to work it out in their head or verbally so they can discover and recognize the error of their thinking and change it to the correct way of thinking.

There is also a great YouTube video at https://youtu.be/AcX3IW00nuk in which Derek further explains his reasoning and his findings.

 

 

 

ETEC562 Article One

Herold, B. (2014). Chromebooks Gaining Popularity in Districts. Education Week, 34(12), 1-12.

I chose this article to review because I was interested in how other districts are tackling the problem of providing for the technological needs of students and using them for educational purposes.  Our librarian has been a big fan of the Chromebook ever since a few were purchased for her library a year or so ago.  I felt this piece connected to our Clark/Kozma debate of last week in that each piece of technology has its limitations and its best usages.  The schools who are using Chromebooks are choosing to do so because it fits their instructional style.  Yes, Clark fans, they could instruct differently and achieve the same results, but they are making technological purchases based on their instructional method and which type of technology enhances that method best.

The article is titled “Chromebooks Gaining Popularity in Districts” and is dated November, 2014.  I thought it was also important to find an article that was somewhat current as technology changes so fast.  The article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of Chromebooks, provides examples of districts who are successfully using Chromebooks and examples of districts who have chosen to take a different route to meet their technology needs.

The most compelling advantage of the Chromebook seems to be the inexpensive cost and the Google Apps for Education that is provided free from Google for all educational institutions.  The biggest disadvantages cited were its inability to install and run familiar programs like Microsoft Office and its inability to do much of anything without internet access.  I have summarized the advantages and disadvantages of Chromebooks in this table to simplify the process:

Advantages	Disadvantages
Low Cost (about $250 each)	Internet based, meaning no hard drive to save information.
Lack of hard drive means less susceptible to malware and virus as well as computer hacking.	No hard drive means no Microsoft, or other educational software that requires installation.
Chrome based apps, including Google’s Apps for Education to support student and teacher collaboration.	New software to learn – does not use Windows or iOS.
Fast to turn on and get to work.	Not a tablet
Long battery life.	Requires wireless infrastructure to be useful
Cloud based storage, for less file-management for administrators.	Google privacy concerns

 

An example is cited in the article of a district who is using Chromebooks to collaborate using Google Slides and Forms.  The teacher assigns groups of students to work on different slides of the same slide show.  Once it is complete, the students view the entire slide show and learn for each other’s contributions.  Then they write a book review using a Google Form created by the teacher.  The teacher says she has done similar projects before the Chromebooks using posters and hand written book reports, but the process now is quicker and much more engaging for students.

Other districts are choosing to stick with i-Pads and conventional laptops.  Most districts cited said they wanted their new technology to blend with their existing platforms and by necessity this eliminates Chromebooks.   One school decided on the HP Revolve which is a hybrid laptop-tablet because they did not require the internet to work and would still run the Microsoft Office products students and teachers are accustomed to using.  The district chose these devices even with the $1,100 price tag.

One thing the article seems certain of, Chromebooks are selling like hotcakes!  The second quarter of 2014 saw Chromebooks with a 29.4% of the market share and growing.  With free Apps for Education and low cost Chromebooks, Google seems to clawing its way in to the educational market.

My personal reaction to this article is excitement.  I am a big fan of Google Apps after using them for only a year.  I email my student’s their assignments and grading rubrics and have them submit their assignments by replying to my email.  In my experience, Google Slides, Docs and Sheets are very similar to Microsoft products in form and function.  My technology classes use many of the online services like Animoto, Schoology, Kahoot!, and Prezi so the lack of hard drive does not matter as much to me.   I am able to share Google Docs in Schoology and upload Google Slides to NearPod.  I would have to re-think our digital imaging software for some type of online editor, but I am sure that is possible. 

The price tag is also a big selling point. Our district cannot afford to spend $1,000 a piece on computers for students.  As we move to digital textbooks (our Science department has done this), Chromebooks become more cost effective because they are no more expensive than issuing a student four or five hardbound textbooks (about $70 each).  Our library is also offering digital books available anytime online.

Chromebooks appeal to me because students cannot download or install anything to corrupt or damage the computer.  All you have to make the computer ready for the next user is log out.  As testing approaches, concerns for existing computers grow and we realize we need more functioning computers if we want to complete all STAAR testing online.  We have spent the last week preparing computer labs by cleaning them up, updating software and checking for proper settings.  It was a big hassle followed by several days now during testing when we are unable to use the computers for fear of messing them up. At this time, I do not think Chromebooks are an option for online STAAR testing because they require installation of the TestNav and Java software.  I have read on a Region 10 website that TestNav is supposed to become Chromebook compatible for the 2015-2016 school year.  If this happens, Chromebooks are going to become a lot more popular in the State of Texas for online testing alone.

While I do not think I would buy a Chromebook for personal use (too many video games I need to install), I can see how Chromebooks could be a cost effective, easy-to-manage solution for schools.  It would provide students with full computer functionality while allowing them to access textbooks and Google accounts without fear of downloading unwanted software.  Teachers and students would be free to collaborate and create with relative ease using Google’s Apps for Education.

Here we go again!

I am a three quarters of the way through my first year teaching and beginning a new set of courses for the Spring.  I do not know how I managed in two short semester classes or how they both are the same short time, but I am beginning two seven week courses this week and am already feeling a bit overwhelmed.  I am always excited to take Ed Tech courses - its kinda my thing and I am always looking for ways to expand my Tech horizons.  I am also taking my first Library course towards my Library certification and am excited about learning new things there.
Look for more posts coming soon. . . .it looks like my new Ed Tech class will be using this blog so there should me updates soon!
Thanks for reading.