Technology - For What?

As a part of my first masters programs I thought and wrote a lot about the appropriate use of technology in education.  We were beginning year two as a Classrooms For the Future (CFF) school, and it seemed like many people were using technology for the sake of using technology, instead of thinking a lot about how technology allows our kids to have a completely different experience (where warranted) than student could only a few years prior.

Things have gotten better since then, which is likely a combination of an improvement in the tools (software and hardware) that are available to students to use, and a relaxation of our administrators attitudes toward technology use in the classroom.  Despite the improvement, I don't think that one has to look too hard to find examples where teachers think they're offering their students a transformative experience because they're using an online tool, but in reality the change is offering no real improvement in the learning or the experience of the students.

The following link will take you to a flowchart that I created when I was writing.  It shows the different ways that teachers use technology with students. It may seem a bit dated (again completed in 2009), I like to think that rather than engaging students using technology, we engaged them with content and meaningful tasks, and use technology when it fits organically with what our students are doing.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-S3mRr_GPMublNXdEYwbEJqdkU/view?usp=sharing

Science Outside of the Classroom

Hi everyone!

I have been brainstorming ways to use blogging in my classroom and content area. One of the things that I try to advocate and promote in my physics class is how the science that we are learning about pertains to real life. Throughout the year I try to have my students do short writing assignments where they relate the content we are studying to an interest or hobby that they have outside of class.

Blog posts might be an effective way to do this in the future. Using a class blog, an assigned student each week could be responsible for blogging about how the content studied that week relates to something that they do in their free time. If they are comfortable doing so, they could include pictures or videos of themselves to make it more personal. Or they could add images and diagrams to help explain the scientific concepts. The other students would then comment on the post, adding to or critiquing the science applications.

Blogging in the Science Department

Hi Everyone!

After reading the posts from Sandra Porter, I have become intrigued about the possibilities associated with portfolio blogs.  I believe that having students create and maintain a portfolio throughout a class (or even throughout their four years at South Western) could benefit them immensely.  I have been impressed by some of the websites produced by students in other departments for performance-based classes, but was not sure how a similar project fit within our science courses.  Having students blog about laboratory techniques they have encountered, as well as data analysis and results, could be a good starting place.  I look forward to discussing these ideas with my colleagues and possibly coming up with a plan that would allow for a consistent experience for the students in several different courses.

Blogging idea for my class

Hello everyone!
Ever since I started the reading for this week I have been thinking about using blogs in my class all the time. I even brought up the idea of a reflection journal during an IEP meeting today and thought that this would be a perfect topic to use for this blog posting. My idea is to have students create a reflection blog that they could make entries on two or three times a week. Topics for their postings could include a brief reflection on what we are learning about at the time, interesting comments or questions that they thought of about the topic, or even a place for them to share stories about related topics. Even more important than the actual blog posting itself might be the responses that the postings could get from their classmates. Responses could answer the questions posed in the original posting, they could also give advise or talk about the topic in a student voice.
I have previously used a bi-weekly current events blog assignment in my AP Environmental Science classes. Students were required to locate, read, and blog about a current event in the environmental sciences every other week. If students weren't writing a new post that week, they would have to leave comments on the posts from two of their classmates. I really liked how this assignment highlighted how the topics in class were actual news events and not just a chapter in a textbook. At the time, we used Blogger and Google+, but I'm sure that there are many other options for a classroom teacher.
Thanks for reading my post- Have a great rest of the day!
Jason

Branches of Biology Pictures

Edcamp: A new form of PD

I'm so excited to share more info about Edcamps! Myself and 7 other planners were working hard all year to put together our second annual Edcamp Hershey, which occurred on Monday morning. Have any of you ever heard of or attended an Edcamp? I might be biased, but Edcamps are probably some of the best professional development around.  Edcamps are considered an "unconference" and are run by teachers, for teachers.



Here I am speaking to the Edcamp Hershey 2016 participants.


Edcamp started with a group of teachers in Philadelphia who wanted a different kind of PD.  Now, it has grown into the Edcamp Foundation, with hundreds of Edcamp events held all over the world! In order to be an Edcamp, the event must adhere to the following tenets:

• Free
• Open to anyone
• Vendor-Free
• Sessions created by participants the day of
• Sessions facilitated by anyone
• "Rule of Two Feet"

As an attendee, when you arrive at Edcamp, you receive a sticky note and are encouraged to write a topic you are interested in learning about, want to discuss, etc.  You do not come with a prepared presentation, nor does on particular person run a session - it's merely a conversation to share resources and ideas with other educators interested in that same topic.

Organizers of Edcamps will then put together like ideas to create the session schedule board.  That's it! Participants can then go to the sessions in which they are interested.  The "rule of two feet" encourages you to move around sessions, especially if a session is not meeting your needs, or if you just want to go to multiple sessions in the same time slot!

For me, Edcamps have become a second home, where I have found some of the best PLN members around! The energy and excitement is contagious, and I have left every Edcamp attended with ideas that I could immediately put into action.

At Edcamp Hershey, we had 215 attendees, with participants from as far away as North Carolina! We started with breakfast and schedule building, official kickoff, three sessions (11 sessions during each time slot = 33 total sessions), snacks, smackdown (resource sharing), and lots of raffle prizes donated by awesome sponsors! It was a wonderful day of conversations along with sharing on Twitter via #sweetpd.  Feel free to check out the Edcamp Hershey website; you can see the session schedule and even click on the resource notes for each session to get some ideas of your own.

I encourage everyone to check out an Edcamp near you! Especially keep an eye out for Edcamp Hershey in 2017!  For more info on what Edcamps are, to apply for an Edcamp Foundation grant, or to see the Edcamp calendar, check out the Edcamp Foundation website, or visit Edcamp Hershey.

Blogging to know you!

Howdy!
It seems that one of the best aspects of blogging is to get students to collaborate and get to know each other better.  I have found that students can be very unaware of the other students around them.  Often at the end of a school year, students cannot tell you the name of another classmate.  Someone they have been in class with all year!  Perhaps by adding in a "get to know you" blog at the beginning of the school year would help the students develop a sense of community.  If they know and like each other, they will work together and be more productive in the classroom.  Students love to take "selfies" so why not incorporate them into the blog?  After creating a community within the classroom, the students could then venture onto more curriculum based activities with the blog.

So, here are some of my top pics of the summer!  See if you can identify the locations!  Have fun :)

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3.
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My blog fog is lifting...

After our online discussion about the benefits of blogging last night, I feel a little better about the benefits of blogging in the classroom (see my own blog's 1st post for my initial thoughts). What Ben had said about not necessarily adding blogging to my list of class activities, but rather seeking to replace something made a lot of sense to me. Teaching in the block schedule really creates a time crunch for those of us who have so much content to cover. Yet if I play my cards right, I could use that need for time to cover complicated topics to my advantage (and my students') by requiring them to blog about what they do not understand, creating questions that others could answer. This could be done during class or as homework that evening. It seems like a smarter way to utilize that online forum. I know there are plenty of similar sites out there on the web that answer all kinds of science questions, so why shouldn't my students participate in their own forum? I would like to try this in the fall by starting small, and see where it goes from there.

Blogging in the Classroom

I love blogging in my personal life to help remember important dates and details, as well as sharing recipes. I have never really thought about using a blog for my classroom, but I did start a website for our Mini-THON, so maybe we could start a blog as well!

I love the idea of having one class blog where each student is a contributor.  I have often thought about how students could blog in class but 32 students each with a different blogging address would be a nightmare to keep track of.  With one blog with many editors, it is a one-stop shop and would be a lot easier to manage.

I think that this year I am going to try what was discussed in the video we watched where each day, a student is assigned to do a blog post of what we did that day.  I may assign it as a partner activity in case one of the students is absent on their day.  Starting with just words the first time, and adding a picture the second is a great stepping stone process for the students to get comfortable with blogging.

I can't wait to try it and hopefully help with the "What did I miss yesterday" problem that we all face!

This has been a perfect  example of the problems behind having too many  Google accounts. After two failed attempts the third wooden one finally worked and I can finally post to this blog.

I guess it could also be a lesson in the pros and cons that we are expecting all of the kids. They have to log into Google, but that also login again to blogger.  Considering several of the kids may have personal accounts as well as school accounts, they could conceivably have the same issue. This whole thing goes along with Bill's post,  which I also commented on.

This is my first blog post!  I really like how versatile these posts can be!

Blah, blah, blah, BLOG

Yes, once again, it took me awhile to figure out how to get to this spot.  Blah, blah, blah....but finally I am here.  I even created my own blog page prior to me figuring out how to post to this one.  I am slow and I like to make technology as difficult as possible.  (Not really but that is the way it seems to go for me.)

Blogs....well I am not quite sure how much I will be doing with a blog in my class.  My first thought is that it is one more thing for me to manage and do I really want that?  I will keep an open mind though and keep looking for ideas and benefits of having a blog at the 4th grade level.  The good news is that I know my kids in my class will love it.  They seem open to everything that I have thrown at them so far that is technology related.  I even gave them an assignment that involved looking up and defining the vocabulary words for the upcoming unit.  I gave them a choice of doing it on paper like in the past, or they could do it on Goggle Docs....17 out of 19 kids did it on the Chromebook.  I was very impressed.  Because they can't type too fast yet, the two kids that did it on paper were finished sooner but it didn't seem to bother the other kids.

A blog is yet another door that has never been opened by me before so here I go!  I am going in only because of my kids and trying to keep up with everything.  I don't want to be left behind and even more important than that, I don't want my kids to be left behind.  They need to be "up" with all the latest things.  Even if they come and go quickly.  At least they will not be afraid to try new things and will be prepared for all the new great things that are still to come.  (Unlike me that has trouble figuring everything out and wishes it would just all slow down.)

Blogs!  I read them...mostly when I go on Pinterest to find my latest DIY project.  I enjoy them but never felt that I needed to utilize them past that "informational" level.

Within the reading for this module, I liked both the idea of assigning a student to make a blog post to re-cap a class AND the idea of using it as a component of a resume.  I'm going to have my Chem II kids do the notes - but for your viewing pleasure upon my first post, I am going to run with the "things I've done" take on the blog.

My youngest child turned the big "1" on St. Patty's day - we had the big 1st birthday party over the weekend.  I am very frugal (read:  cheap) and refuse to pay for anything that I *might* be able to do myself.  Enter Pinterest.  My kids will always have a fun decorated cake/cupcakes for their birthdays.  Low-cost for me, but looks great to all the outsiders.  I can usually rope a friend or a sibling into helping me.  Usually these decorating escapades take WAY longer than they should, but in the end, because they are low-cost, it's worth it to me.

Enter Michael's birthday theme:  Jungle Animals.

My first attempt at using fondant.  Not the most tasty thing you've ever eaten (my homemade buttercream icing is WAY better) but it looks good.  And heck, when you're going for the "wow-factor" - isn't that what counts anyway?  (haha - my best friend made all the cake from scratch so don't worry, this actually tasted amazing).

Here's some documentation of my 1am night making cupcakes:

And the previous projects over the past few years.  I have a lot of kids, so that equates to a lot of cakes.  I also have a few friends whose kids get cakes too.  I'm way too busy to do this as a "side business" but I take pride in the fact that although my kids won't get a "made from scratch" cake, they will always have one that they think looks fun!

Questions, questions

So, my feelings about blogging have always been lukewarm- not sure exactly where it would fit in, not sure what benefits it would provide for my students, concerns about making sure that student written content is appropriate, how is a blog different from a document....

This week's reading have me rethinking blogging, especially Sandra Porter's students using blogs as a portfolio. This project really seems to have practical value for students. It is always a challenge to make sure that students connect the lab work that we do to the content and that this leads to better retention. This year, I have been trying to document lab activities with photos, both taken by me and by students. We've been sharing the photos through Instagram and recently through Google photos and I have started to require photos as part of lab reports. Wasn't sure at first how to share the photos, now thinking that a blog may be a possibility since it would add the writing piece and the ability to comment...still questioning if a blog is necessary or if the same thing could be done with a Google product that doesn't require another log in.

This may take awhile to get used to.
Honestly, I am very happy with the way my high school students can collaborate via the LMS we use with our school. I do not see myself additionally requesting that they begin a blog separate from or LMS. The LMS also allows me to very closely monitor their activity.
I do see the value of a blog for a student to keep record of his/her personal and academic experiences, especially college or graduate level. A personal blog also belongs to the author and can be shared at his/her discretion and never goes away. Discussions and activities through a LMS essentially belong to the school which provides the account and when the semester or school year is complete or the student graduates the activities may be deleted to save space.
I liked the suggestion by Sandra Porter in our Pre-Reading #3, that college and graduate students  keep a blog showing their lab, research, and internship experience in order to be able to share for job hunting reasons. Prospective employers can be very impressed with the organization of experiences.
Porter also suggests in "The Ten Commandments of Student Science Blogging" that what you write is what you know and have experienced personally. When asked about items you post, you had better be able to recollect and discuss in detail. Your blog can give prospective employers a platform to generate interview questions. You in response have the luxury of fielding questions which otherwise may never have arisen in your interview and possibly your skills overlooked.
I agree for older students, blogs may indeed have their place.
Candace

I have a google of googles.

Took me a while to figure out how to get in, then I realized my mistake, I was trying to log into this blog from the wrong account. Duh!  You would think that using 3 google accounts for years I would know better, but apparently not.  A couple of years ago google made it a little easier, but allowing you to switch user accounts from within Chrome without having to log out, or us multiple browsers.  With the number of people that have a work and personal account, you would think that they could make it even easier by linking them so if you tried logging in with the wrong account, Google would notice and alert you.

Google account
1 for school
1 for University of Phoenix, though they recently dropped it in favor of Office 365 and I quit working for them
1 personal google account. 
defunct accounts
1 UOP account that I created so I could migrate my material when they closed the google apps access, but you couldn't share across domains yet.
1 google account for my school email, before we became GAFE
Manage
my 3 daughter's accounts

Google should pay me, seriously.  and while I am ranting, why does one have to pay to become Google Certified?

Anyone one else juggling multiple google accounts?