Scenario

I am very excited to become an educator soon! I have strong attributes as an educator, but like all teachers, I also have challenges in the classroom. I see my future challenges as being a young teacher in a classroom with older students, and trying to find the correct boundaries and classroom management in those situations. A challenge I also see myself having is disciplining students when it is necessary. I have not been heavily involved, as a teacher, in those type of classroom situations yet, so it will be a challenge to find my own way of dealing with a difficult situation like that. However, I have many attributes as an educator. I enjoy using technology, and plan to incorporate it into my teaching to help students learn in a variety of ways. I also am very passionate about what I will be teaching, so I see that as a positive attribute as well.

In three to five years I see myself as an educator in a classroom. I would love to be teaching both English and Journalism, but if not, I would be happy to just teach English as well. I want to be an involved teacher, so I could see myself helping students oversee the school newspaper or book club. I would enjoy connecting with my students outside of the daily classroom, and get to know them better. I want to be able to can adapt my lessons so they really reach my students on a personal level, and I think getting to know them is the best way to do that. I plan to get to this point in my career by staying up-to-date with the different technology that students can use in the classroom, and by attending professional meetings to learn these different technologies and how to incorporate them into the classroom.

 I think technology really impacts student learning. I believe that using technology in the classroom is the future of education, and using it will engage the students more. Technology can be used simply to get students attention at the beginning of class, but you can also use it in many other ways. Showing videos or pictures in class will help students who are visual or auditory learners. Having students create their own projects using laptops or iPads can help the students who are tactile learners. Also, for projects, students can make their own videos, and that can engage students who are kinesthetic learners. Technology is great, because it can easily address all different types of learning needs. Also, students who have special needs can use technology as a great resource. Computers can now read text to students, and there are a lot of features on computers you can use to enhance learning material for students. For a student who has problems following along with a PowerPoint or Prezi in class, you can share the document with them, and then they can follow along with it in class. Students can now download a lot of free electronic versions of books, so this would be helpful in an English classroom where a student has a hard time following along. They can let the computer read it to them, or they can enlarge or highlight the material the help the follow along better. There is so much you can do to help a multitude of students with technology.

I would integrate a lot of technology into my classroom in a simple manner. I would use Prezi for classroom presentations. I would also use Voicethread, Animoto, Toondoo, Story Bird and Glogster for students to use to present information. I would also use Delicious to continue my collection of resources in the classroom. This technology has had a huge impact on my education at K-State and how I plan to teach in the future. I would encourage schools to increase the use of laptops and iPads in the classroom, so students can work more individually with these resources.

My Wow Moment

I think what surprised me this semester was how many educators are involved in getting a lot of aspects of technology incorporated into schools. There are a LOT of educators online, especially twitter and other social networking sites for educators, that are passionate about using technology in their classrooms and work to incorporate it all of the time.

When I saw Cyndi's list for how many educators from all over the world are on twitter, and tweet to each other to try to help with learning and technology, I was really surprised. I was also surprised when I saw the other social networking site that educators can join and just answer each others questions about lesson plans and being a new teacher. I had no idea that I had these type of resources available to me, and I think they will be really helpful as a new teacher.

Another "Wow" moment for me was when I learned about Delicious. I think Delicious will be helpful for me for a long time. You can easily collect hundreds of websites and organize them to find them when you need them.

Overall, I found a lot of great resources I didn't even know existed this semester.

Podcast Favorites

I listened to a lot of podcasts this semester. They were all very resourceful and easy to listen to. I think my favorite podcast was Kevin Honeycutt's podcast Driving Questions in Education 2011.

I learned a lot from these podcast, but what I learned the most about was technology. It is a really hot topic right now in education, and all of these podcasts talk about different aspects to it: why it is important to incorporate, how to incorporate it, what to use, and how to use it. They talked a lot of iPads and how to use them. They also talked a lot about different google features you can use in the classroom.

Kevin Honeycutt's was my favorite, because he is really easy to listen to. He is also really knowledgeable on the topic of education, and what we can do to keep improving it. He had some great guest speakers who had great ideas on how to help education and incorporate technology, also. I learned a lot from his podcasts.

Semester Favorites

I had a lot of favorite resources I learned this semester in Educational Technology.

- Animoto
Animoto is a great website, and it is one of my favorite websites I learned about this semester. It is very versatile. You can use it for fun, and for educational purposes. You don't put a lot of text on it, but it is a very visual resource. I think students can use this to show their knowledge of a topic, but teachers can also use it to give a fun introduction to a new topic to the class. 

- Glogster
I really like Glogster, because it is a 21st century way to have students make posters. It looks like a poster, it is simple to make, and you can put just about any type of medium on it: pictures, text, links, and videos. I think students can easily use this as a quick assignment or end of a unit project to show their knowledge of a topic. 

- Wordle
I think Wordle is a lot of fun, and visually appealing. I'm going to be an English/Journalism teacher, so Wordle is perfect in a classroom. You can easily use it for  vocabulary words. As a teacher, I could make a World of all of the vocabulary words and students would know what to study for a test. It is just an easy and pretty way for students to know what they need to learn.

- Toondoo
Toondoo is a great website, and I think it would be perfect in a middle school classroom. It is interactive and easy to use. You can make your own comic at this website, and choose from a lot of options for people and backgrounds. You insert your own text into the comic. I think that this would be a great tool for students who want alternative versions to assignments. A student who has problems focusing on writing  a longer paragraph could use this tool to get their point across in a shorter form. It is just a good alternative for students to use to display their knowledge.

Podcast Reflection #12: Edtechweekly #189

I listened to a Ed Tech Weekly podcast from the Ed Tech Talk website this week. You can find the podcast here.

This week they talked about connectivism. Connectivism is basically the design and delivery of using social networking in learning. The talked about the pros and cons of connectivism and how it works in the classroom. They also talked about pros and cons of getting an LMS for their school district, and how some teachers are not willing to fully commit to the aspect of this online learning. I think it is a highly debatable topic.

They also talked about how Journalism is affected with the addition of new technology. I think this is an important topic, because I'm going to be a Journalism Teacher. I think that teachers need to learn technology and understand how technology is going to work in the journalism field in the future. A lot of journalism online is replacing paper journalism, and the future of journalism is kind of up in the air.

Overall, I think it is important to incorporate technology into the classroom, but I'm not sure how far the incorporation should go.

Podcast Reflection #11: Chimping, Virtual Stickies, App Woes, Firefox 4 (Tony Vincent)

I listened to a Tony Vincent podcast today from the Learning in Hand podcast website. You can find a list of Tony's podcasts here. 

Tony talked about a lot of things in his latest podcast, but one of the interesting things I learned about was "Chimping."

Tony describes chimping as taking a picture with a digital camera, and then immediately your camera around to look at it. I thought this was interesting, because this is something I do a lot. They call it chimping because you are looking at the picture going "oooh ooooh oooh!" to admire your shot. Meanwhile, you are missing whatever is going on in the scenery that you were just taking a picture of.

As a future journalism teacher, I think it is important to teach students to be aware of their surroundings when they are shooting photography or film, as well when they are taking notes to write articles. It is fine to "chimp" when you are taking personal photos, but you want every chance to get that important picture when you are doing it for an article. I think students need to be aware of their surroundings to be a journalist.

Podcast Reflection #10: Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education.

This week I watched Salman Khan's video on Khan Academy. You can find it here.

I really like the idea of Salman Khan's videos. Students can watch these video lectures at home, and do more interactive classwork. Teachers say that they are now having students watch these lectures at home, and what used to be homework is now classwork. Students get to work more with teachers now. Students get a self-paced lecture.

The only thing I don't really like about these lectures is that you can't really make them your own. As a teacher, I would like to put my own personalized touch on lessons. You don't really control the lectures or content with these videos, although you do get more class time working with students. The issue may be that students could not watch these lectures at home. So in order for this to work, students may need to take notes on the lectures to turn in for credit so that you know the students are keeping up with the lectures.

These lectures sound like they are really helping students, so I like the idea of using them and getting more time to interact with students in the classroom. It might make subjects much easier to understand, especially math. I probably could have used these lectures when I took math in high school.

Podcast Reflection #9: The Role of School Administrators (Kevin Honeycutt's Driving Questions 2011)

This week I listened to Kevin Honeycutt's podcast, Driving Questions 2011.

This podcast talked about school administrators and their roles. His guest was Tim Holt, a director of instructional technology.

They talked about how important it is that a school administrator models what they want from the school. If you are not modeling the behavior you want to see, no one who works underneath you will either. They discuss how principals and teachers take their cues on their actions from school administrators, and school administrators take their cues from superintendents.

They think that school administrators need to push the importance of technology and how they use it in the classroom. If they don't push it forward, teachers aren't going to use it to teach. They are going model after the administrators. They think administrators need to address what type of technology is important and how to use it.

I think that administrators play a huge role on what a teacher teaches. A teacher isn't going to use certain technology if they believe the administrator doesn't like it. I think it is important the people above me address what technology they want us to learn, and how they want us to use it in the classroom.

Reflection: Comics

There are a lot of websites out there where you can create comics. A lot of those websites are also directed at teachers. I think making your own comics is fun, and can be used really creatively in the classroom.

I used ToonDoo to make my comic. You should check it out. It is very easy to use.

I think using comics could work really well to introduce a concept to the classroom. I think students can use it to show their knowledge of your subject as well. If the students had to do a project over a novel, they could use a comic website incorporate that into the project.

Teachers can use these to engage students. It can get a student's attention. You can definitely try to make your comics funny, and use your comic as a set when you start class.

Here is the comic I made...

Reflection: Podcast, Website, & Mid-Term Critiques

In class we got the chance to look at two other peoples' websites and listen to their podcast.

These are the two websites I got the chance to look at: Kelsey and Christina.

Podcast: I liked both of the girls podcast. Christina did a partner podcast, and incorporated images she talked about that were at the websites, rather than a screenshot of the websites. I think this looked nice and showed she put extra effort into her podcast. I liked Kelsey's podcast also, she had a lot of informative websites on her podcast.

Blog/Website: I thought both blogs and websites were nicely done. Christina uses iWeb for her website and blog, which I think is really cool. It is what I would use if I had a Mac. I really liked the layout of her website; it looked very clean. I also liked that her blog was a part of her website. Kelsey has a cool website and blog also. I liked her quote at the top of her website. Overall, they were very nicely done.

Reflection: Fun With Text

A while back in this class we learned how to use Wordle. Wordle is a very cool website. You can use it to make "word jumbles" or "word clouds." It is very easy to use. You just type in the words you want to show up, and choose how you want it to look. The more times you type the same word, the bigger the word appears in your wordle. The bigger the word is, the more important the word is supposed to be.

I think Wordle could be incorporated into my classroom some day very easily. My students or I could use this to help with vocabulary words. It would be a fun way to remember vocab words, and also an easy way to students to know what words they should know.

The only bad thing about Wordle is that if you publicly save your work, it is almost impossible to find it later. So it is easiest to do a screen capture, which is best to do on a Mac. I don't have a Mac, so that is kind of a bummer. My Wordle(s) look good, but you also get the outline of the internet browser you are using as well.

Podcast Reflection #8: Creating Energy, Space & Time (Ed Tech Talk, 21st Century Learning)

I listened to a different podcast from the Ed Tech Talk website this week. This podcast was called 21st Century Learning. You can listen to the podcast here.

This podcast was discussing a webinar and book about the topic of creating energy, space and time in your life. Mainly, this topic deals optimal performance in your life. It talks about designing your life to be your best self at work, but also at home and just in life in general.

They talk about how timeliness is so important in your life, especially in your workplace. I believe that this is so true. I hate waiting around for classes to start, and I also hate when a teacher is still lecturing to you even after class was supposed to end.

The podcast speakers were talking about how they have applied this book to their lives. They are getting more sleep and going to be at a decent time.

A key point they make is that people can only intensely work for 90 minutes straight before they need a break. I think that this is true, but I think that the time limit is way less for a teenager. I think that teachers need to make sure their students stay in motion during class, especially if the class is on a block schedule. 

I think these are simple things teachers and students should be doing. Teachers should come to class with the mindset that they will be educational, and if they do that... then student will come to class expecting to work. They will know that their time won't be wasted, and that the will be expected to participate in class.

They book they were talking about was by Tony Swartz and it is called: The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance.

Podcast Reflection #7: New iPod touch (Tony Vincent)

This week I listened to Tony Vincent's podcast. He talked about how he had gotten the latest iPod touch, and he compared it to the older versions.

The coolest thing about the new iPod touches is that they have a microphone built in. I think that is a huge advantage. You can easily record a podcast for your students with an iPod touch now. Another thing he said about them is that they take very good pictures, but they don't have a key element that iPhone 4 and iPads have...IPS. IPS stands for in-plane switching, and it has to do with the coloring of what you are looking at.

Tony Vincent does podcasts to teach teachers how to use iPods, iPads, and iTouches in the classroom. I think that is very helpful to many teachers. I have an iPod. I would love to be able to afford an iPad, but I don't know much about incorporating it into the classroom. I think it is good there is someone out there to easily explain these concepts to teachers.

You can listen to Tony Vincent's podcasts here.

Kan-ed Reflection

Kan Ed Website

The Kan Ed website is very, very helpful for teacher and student resources.

One of the best resources on the website is Thinkfinity. It was my personal favorite. You can find lesson plans, and they are really in depth. There are a ton of free resources. You can look up a lesson plan in about any subject area, and it goes into immense details. There are many lesson plans to choose from. Once you choose one, you use can read through it. If you don't want to use that exact lesson plan, you can use any of the links in the lesson plan, because they are all provided. This is a very cool website.

KERC is also a resources found on the Kan Ed website. KERC stands for Kansas Education Resource Center. KERC is very helpful in making sure you, as a teacher, are meeting your classroom standards. It is very simple to use. You go into your content area standards (for me, that would be Reading and Writing) and click on the grade level. It takes your right to the standards, and it is helpful so you can align what you are teaching to make sure you are meeting the standards.

The last resource I will talk about that is found on Kan Ed is netTrekker. I love this website! It is very helpful, because it gives you lesson ideas, refers you to websites, and makes sure that everything on their site aligns with standards. For instance, I can click find Language Arts and choose an area of LA I'm going to teach. I can select reading, journalism, speech, etc. Then I can click on what I want to teach within that category, and it lists websites as resources.

Classroom 2.0 Reflection

Another website we talked about in class today was Classroom 2.0.

Classroom 2.0 is kind of like an educational Facebook. It is a social networking site for people in the education field.

What I really liked about this website was the Forum. It is kind of like a Q&A section on the website. People can post questions and others can reply with answers. It is interesting to look through, because a lot of people posting are new teachers or soon-to-be new teachers. It is nice that I have that kind of resource. You can ask for lesson plan ideas, or just ask questions or concerns you have about the education field in general. People seem very helpful and nice on the website; they want to answer your questions.

There are also video and photo resources on the blog, as well as live shows and podcasts to listen to about education.

You can ask a "host" or watch a video to learn your way around the website, which I think is really helpful. Overall, this seems like a great website with a lot to offer a new teacher.

EduTecher Reflection

Today in class we learned about a new website called EduTecher.

This website has a lot of great resources for teachers. The first awesome resource I found on here is the website Books Should Be Free. I loved this website immediately. You can download a lot of free audio books on here. There aren't very many new books available, but there are some classic books on here, which is great for teaching. A lot of times English teachers need to teach the more "classic" literature, so this website would be good for students who are better auditory learners. They can listen to the books.

Another resource I found was Breaking News English Lesson. This website is more for ESL/ELL teachers, but I think it could be very useful. It helps ESL students learn English by working with current events and news. That is where I come in - Journalism content! If I had an ESL student in a journalism class: this website would be great! They can use their ESL skills and also be working with news in a journalism setting.

Another resource I liked was Got Brainy. It is used for vocabulary words, but in a fun way. Students or teachers can make or view vocabulary words that are paired with ironic or sarcastic pictures. I think this is perfect way to get students to remember vocabulary words, and it also helps for a student who is a visual learner.

Then I checked out the "teacher tools" on the EduTech website.

One of the websites under the teacher tools category that I loved was 21st Century Literacy. It is a journalism website that you can use to teach your students writing/reading skills using journalistic methods and digital tools. I like that it is used in journalism style, that way I can use it in my classroom.

Another website I liked under the "teacher tools" was 60 Second Recap. This gives you 60 second video recaps of classic literature (and other books as well). The point is to engage the students in wanting to read the books, and to make the information relevant and easy to understand. I can see myself using this website to introduce a new book to the class.

EduTecher has a lot of interesting resources, so you should check it out when you have some time!

My Avatars

Voki
Build Your Wild Self

Podcast Reflection #6: TCEA (Tech Chick Tips #81)

This Tech Chicks podcast was about the Texas Computer Educators Conference that these two women attended.

The conference taught them a lot more about Google: Google Art Project, Google OCR, Body Browser, etc. They also learned a lot about mobile learning: iPods and iPod touches.

I think Google is obviously taking over the educational world. I think it is nice that teachers are able to attend conferences like this, so not only computer teachers, but all teachers, can learn about advances in education through technology. I think that as a future teacher, I will enjoy going to conferences like these. You can obviously take advantage of going to them to learn as much as you want.

I like that tech chicks give links to everything they discuss in their podcast. It gives me a visual to work with when they are talking about what the learned.

Overall, I think the tech chicks give interesting and easy to listen to podcasts.

You can listen to their podcasts here.

Podcast Reflection #5: Teachers Teaching Teachers #232 - Skype in the Classroom with George Mayo and Brianna Reynaud (EdTechTalk)

The podcast I listed to this week was about using Skype in schools and classrooms. 

 Skype is a very cool program. I use it to talk with my sister and brother-in-law, because they live in Texas. Skype is nice because you get to have face time with someone, and see their surroundings. It is also good because you can chat while you skype, or just make calls to them over your computer. It is free to download and I think it is very useful. 

The podcast was interesting, because they talked about students using Skype to work with students in different classrooms or schools. However, some districts would not allow teachers to have Skype on their computers, because they see Skype as a personal tool. I think this is where it could cause some problems. Skype is a very fun, interesting tool to use. I think that it's availability in the classroom would be cool, but only sometimes. Do you really need to connect to different classrooms during class? I could see Skype being more of a distraction in the classroom than helpful. 

I think Skype could offer some very good things in the classroom, like being able to have guest speakers or teachers talk from all over the world or just from a different state or district. However, I don't know if I think it should be used on a regular basis. 

 If you are interested in listening to this podcast, you can listen to it here.

Using Twitter as an Educator

I think Twitter is very useful to an educator. I have a personal Twitter account that I've been using for about a year and a half. Here are some things I do and don't like about Twitter.

Likes:
- As an future teacher, you can really connect with other teachers.
-You can learn about news sites and new information simply by logging on and seeing what people have posted.
- It gives you a great place to ask for advice or responses to your questions as an educator.


Dislikes:
- I do not have unlimited internet access whenever I want it, wherever I want it. This makes it hard to keep up on Twitter.
- I do not always like being constantly connected to the Internet and reading what people are saying on Twitter. I don't like the idea of having to post something regularly just for other people.
- It is not a habit of mine to log into Twitter like I do with Facebook. So I can easily forget about Twitter for days (or even weeks) before remembering to check my Twitter.

Follow me on Twitter.

Reflection: Animoto

Animoto is sooo cool! It is very easy to use, and yet it comes off looking very professional. Very little time has to be put into something that ends up looking amazing.

I like that you can use Animoto's music, but I don't know any of the songs on there. However, I wouldn't want to edit my own music for 30 seconds, or risk violating copy-rights, just to use my own.

What I liked best about Animoto was how simple it was. I think anyone could figure it out in a short amount of time. I think if I was a teacher, it would be worth $5.00 to buy their more advanced usage.

If you want to make a short slideshow, you should really try it! It is so simple. Check out the Animoto website!

My Animotos:

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Podcast Reflection #4: Ed Tech Talk #148 1:1 iPads with Peter Smith

Peter Smith is the Middle School Head at a school in Savannah, Georgia. He talks about his school using iPads. They moved over to them after using 7-8 year old PCs and having all of their information Hardwired. They were started using interactive boards and they decided to move to iPads. They did a complete infrastructure overhauls. iPads are available to every student in the school on a 1:1 basis.

I think this is such a good idea. I think this is what the future of schools are going to be like. Students are using them day-to-day. The faculty is using Apps on the iPads that are free and assist the in educating the students. Students can e-mail assignments and get them back with comments that same day. I believe I will be using iPads in my teaching eventually, if I do not start off using them when I first teach. I just think every school is going to be getting rid of big, bulky, expensive textbooks. They are going to be using iPads for electronic books and resources. They are also going to be saving a LOT of trees. Paper is going to be saved so much if students can do assignments and papers electronically.

If they aren't using iPads in the future, it will be something similar to it: Kindles or Nooks. Any of these are viable options, and I think will just increase the quality of education for children today. The podcast is online here.

Podcast Reflection #3: Facebook Talk from Driving Questions in Education (Kevin Honeycutt)

In this podcast, Kevin Honeycutt discusses how Facebook is affecting the educational world. His website where he lists all his podcast is here.

Bullying is one of the main issues in this podcast. One thing they discussed in the podcast is how lasting the effects of bullying is on Facebook. I would have to agree. They said how someone could post something mean on Facebook, and feel bad about it later. However, that doesn't really make a difference, because so many people have already seen the mean post. A lot of people could have liked it, or gotten tagged in a mean picture, and next thing you know, the whole school has seen the post. So even if you feel bad about it later, it has already been out there for the whole Facebook community to see.

Facebook has gotten so large that people don't just stop using Facebook. It is very hard to stop students from using a social networking site that they can access from their phones, their iTouch, or their home computers.

I access Facebook multiple times a day. It is my go-to website when I am bored.

They talk about how hard it is to get a page down on Facebook immediately. If a student is getting bullied, and a parent wants to get a mean page down FAST, they just can't. After you report an "imposter" page or profile, you can't just make something go away.

This is so sad, but I don't see a way to control Facebook in school. Bullying is bad, and we need to find a way to stop it with this new world of technology. The entire internet, including Facebook, can ruin someones life or reputation. Not just a students, but also a teachers. A teacher's job could be in jeopardy because of a Facebook post or a Facebook picture. I think people need to just learn how to be responsible when using online technology, but this is no easy feat when you are talking about teenagers. It would be best if the school had some kind of rules or regulations against Facebook bullying.

Reflection 2: CDK Education Technology Place

I discovered at this website that Professor Danner-Kuhn is very passionate about teaching in Kansas and just improving the educational field in general. I think that is very cool. It all seems very inspirational, and helps me feel inspired about teaching.

The website is very helpful on showing course content and even presentation information she has done. You could learn a lot just by spending half an hour at the website.

I like that the website also has fun information. The “Gotta Keep Reading” flash mob video was fun to watch. Overall, the website just has a lot of useful and cool information. I think it has helped me learn more about what kind of teacher and person Professor Danner-Kuhn is. 

Professor Danner-Kuhn's website is listed below:

http://www.cyndidannerkuhn.info/CDK/Home.html 

Reflection1: Technology Bits, Bytes & Nibbles

Professor Danner-Kuhn’s blog has a lot of very useful information. The tip on using Keychain Access was very interesting. I don’t have my own Mac, but it would be very helpful if I ever do, or while using one as a teacher. I wish my own laptop had this feature.

I was really surprised to read about Kindergartener’s using laptops, even though I probably shouldn’t be. My boyfriend’s nieces already want their own laptops, and the oldest one is only nine. This just reinforces the idea that when I am a teacher technology will have a huge impact on how I teach. It also reinforces that technology is very important, so I should try to learn as much about it as possible.

Learning about the Bubble Ball application was really interesting. I do not have my own iPhone, and don’t usually spend my money on apps. I just think it is amazing a 14 year old made this. 

Professor Danner-Kuhn's blog is: http://www.technologybitsbytesnibbles.info/