The best thing about Wikis and You Tube is the endless amount of information available on literally every topic. The worst thing about Wikis and You Tube however, is the exact same thing, endless amounts of information. The key is how you parse though it. If these 2 existed in the early days of my undergrad life would have been both simpler and more complex.
I found both to offer very credible information on topics. In the case of Wikis, I generally use them as starting points to go deeper into a topic. To me it is like an onion with hundreds of skins. Peeling back the right one to get to what you want and following that path. There is definitely extraneous information at every Wiki but, again, narrowing the field of a particular and following that path leads to great research opportunities. I never start and end at a Wiki. I use the wiki to give me more food for thought.
I use You Tube for similar research. During my Elementary Literature course at times I found it very helpful to research a book and find a video of someone reading the book. It gave me a great deal of help in understanding the appropriate cadence and inflection when reading the book to students.
I use You Tube a great deal in my professional and personal life as well.
Professionally I can nearly always find videos on how competing technologies are used in a classroom. This helps me prepare a features and benefits presentation of the products I represent and a better understanding of how we measure up to other products.
Personally You Tube is a go to for me for all sorts of things like creating a blind hem on a sewing machine or learning a particular cooking technique. It is all out there, you just have to be patient when researching the content.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
PLN
When it comes to blogs and twitter I really do not get as much out of them as I could. Incorporating them into the fabric of my daily work responsibilities does help me to stay abreast of industry trends and ideas that are new on the horizon. For those things I rely on Edsurge.
https://www.edsurge.com/
I have been reading Edsurge for a few years and find it tremendously helpful when incorporating trends into discovery meetings with schools. Edsurge has a twitter feed as well but, I prefer the news letter.
As a substitute teacher I always attempted to strive for something new that could help fill a void. Even the best of lesson plans left me with empty space because I was never as prepared or fluid as the teacher who taught the class full time. I relied on a number of current event type sites and like the children's Book A Day Almanac
http://childrensbookalmanac.com/
I knew in advance the grade I was teaching and could reference a new book or author and share with the students or bring up the website if I had access to the technology and discuss new books with the students.
In my K-12 studies as an undergrad I majored in social studies and always found maps to be fascinating. I hoped to share my love of maps and how interesting they could be and stumbled upon this site from Wired Science
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/maplab/
It goes beyond the traditional map and provides opportunities to explore.
My twitter usage and feeds really reflect industry technology trends in K-12 and eLearning and revolve around MACUL and ISTE. The content is impactful for my day to day tracking of industry trends and who's who.
https://www.edsurge.com/
I have been reading Edsurge for a few years and find it tremendously helpful when incorporating trends into discovery meetings with schools. Edsurge has a twitter feed as well but, I prefer the news letter.
As a substitute teacher I always attempted to strive for something new that could help fill a void. Even the best of lesson plans left me with empty space because I was never as prepared or fluid as the teacher who taught the class full time. I relied on a number of current event type sites and like the children's Book A Day Almanac
http://childrensbookalmanac.com/
I knew in advance the grade I was teaching and could reference a new book or author and share with the students or bring up the website if I had access to the technology and discuss new books with the students.
In my K-12 studies as an undergrad I majored in social studies and always found maps to be fascinating. I hoped to share my love of maps and how interesting they could be and stumbled upon this site from Wired Science
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/maplab/
It goes beyond the traditional map and provides opportunities to explore.
My twitter usage and feeds really reflect industry technology trends in K-12 and eLearning and revolve around MACUL and ISTE. The content is impactful for my day to day tracking of industry trends and who's who.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
SAMR
I am a sales professional in the Interactive Classroom Technology space and have represented products that include interactive white boards (IWB), clickers and the like. I have the opportunity to work with faculty from all grade levels in orientation and training pertaining to the technology the school has adopted.
One of the examples I have used in orientation for the IWB is a traditional worksheet. In the case of substitution, rather than handing out individual sheets the worksheet is shown on the IWB. The worksheet can now be annotated over, notes and other pieces of information can be written on it and the entire image can be saved. The saved image can be emailed to students or saved as a PDF to be printed later.
Common classroom activities, such as quizzes, can be augmented with basic clicker/responder technology. The quiz can be distributed to the students either on paper or projected on the board. The students take the quiz and respond via their clickers/responders. The answers roll directly into the software and are scored via the teacher's key that is built into the software when the teacher creates the quiz. Valuable time is saved for the teachers and depending on how the feature is set up the students can receive their scores immediately or the teacher can choose to provide them at a later time.
With virtual library collections becoming more available in the K-8 community new options for comprehension and vocabulary become available and leads to my idea on modification. The company Star Walk provides the opportunity for the entire class to check out the identical book. Readers progress is stored and can be accessed by the teacher. The reader can virtually high light passages, words, phrases and any content they have questions about. This content can be revisited by the student.
I am citing an example that was shared with me by a physics teacher at Ludington High School for redefinition. He used Edmodo extensively in his classroom. Edmodo is a "social learning platform" website for teachers, students, and parents. It is often referred to as the Facebook for schools. He would share videos or video tape science experiments for his class and the students would view them at Edmodo and collaborate and interact with one another identifying what was happening in the videos. He cited that often precious resources for experiments were not always available and posting these videos expanded the experience for his students.
One of the examples I have used in orientation for the IWB is a traditional worksheet. In the case of substitution, rather than handing out individual sheets the worksheet is shown on the IWB. The worksheet can now be annotated over, notes and other pieces of information can be written on it and the entire image can be saved. The saved image can be emailed to students or saved as a PDF to be printed later.
Common classroom activities, such as quizzes, can be augmented with basic clicker/responder technology. The quiz can be distributed to the students either on paper or projected on the board. The students take the quiz and respond via their clickers/responders. The answers roll directly into the software and are scored via the teacher's key that is built into the software when the teacher creates the quiz. Valuable time is saved for the teachers and depending on how the feature is set up the students can receive their scores immediately or the teacher can choose to provide them at a later time.
With virtual library collections becoming more available in the K-8 community new options for comprehension and vocabulary become available and leads to my idea on modification. The company Star Walk provides the opportunity for the entire class to check out the identical book. Readers progress is stored and can be accessed by the teacher. The reader can virtually high light passages, words, phrases and any content they have questions about. This content can be revisited by the student.
I am citing an example that was shared with me by a physics teacher at Ludington High School for redefinition. He used Edmodo extensively in his classroom. Edmodo is a "social learning platform" website for teachers, students, and parents. It is often referred to as the Facebook for schools. He would share videos or video tape science experiments for his class and the students would view them at Edmodo and collaborate and interact with one another identifying what was happening in the videos. He cited that often precious resources for experiments were not always available and posting these videos expanded the experience for his students.
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