Final Reflection

The first new tool that I used was a blog! WOW what a learning experience...It was hard for me to get my head around it at first, but once I started playing around I found it quite easy! I still have to check a few places when trying to find something, but the more I use it the better I get:) Embedding is probably what I have gotten the best at. After uploading the YouTube video and Popplet I found that I now understand how to Upload/Embed to my website and blog!I found Popplet very useful, however Storybird, although neat for student created work, not very useful for me as a teaching tool. I also had no idea all the things our email provided us. Doing the screen cast and then putting it on my YouTube channel was great! I still struggle with both of these, but I had no idea we had the ability to do either:) The study tools was more challenging just to think of how I would use them in my class. I think both the Timetoast and Taxedo were both great tools, but I don't see myself using them too often with my kindergartners. The calendar function of our email was also wonderful to find/use. I think at new teacher there should be a day just to go over all that gmail offers!!! I also liked the polling tool, but don't see it being used as often for my instruction. 

The tools that I used in this class have really been amazing for me to learn about and use! I know many of them will not only enhance my instruction, and lesson appeal, but also my communication with parents! I have already added a great deal to my website to make it more informative for parents:) I hope that we will get additional classes for continued learning and support of these tools!!! THANK YOU:)

Activity 10

I decided to update my website! I took a few of the things I learned how to do with the web2.0 class and put them on my site!
Here is the address: http://vlstruthers.wix.com/vschmidt
You will see that I put my classroom calendar on the front page, as well as created a website tab with my screen cast on it! 
I also worked with signupgenius.com to create a communication time sign up and have linked that on my communication tab:) The sign up will be activated once school starts!!!

Activity 9

#2-After hearing a presentation at a conference, your principal Mr. Smith has banned all Web 2.0 tools for students and teachers including Facebook, Skype, YouTube, wikis, blogs, and Flickr. A number of teachers and many students are upset with this decision but Mr. Smith cites legal reasons for blocking the sites.
1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved. I don't think there are any real ethical issues; however, many students and educators feel that technology and various web2.0 tools are a critical part of learning and teaching.
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy. Although there are no physical issues associated with this, there are issues associated with what is truly the best for student learning. This all or nothing attitude is not what is best for students. It is important to teach about moderation with all parts of life and by banning all web2.0 tools that lesson is not being taught. 
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario? I think it would be important to discuss what web2.0 tools are currently being used in the school and then find research supporting the use of these tools within the classroom. I would also find information to share about possible classes that teach about using web2.0 tools responsibly and suggest the school/teacher participate in a class like that. 
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario. I don't have any personal connections to this scenario, but I know that often people can be apprehensive about technology. I think the thing to keep in mind is that if used properly it can been a very powerful too. I also think that when teachers choose to use these tools it is important that they really research it and understand how a certain tool works before asking students to use it on their own. Again, it goes back to being responsible. 

#5-Mr. Lopez, a social studies teacher, has been using the same PowerPoint to introduce content on the electoral-college for many years now. He recently saw a Prezi his high school-age daughter created for a class and asked her to teach him how to create a Prezi. He was able to link images and video content instead of just text and found that his students seemed more motivated and lively in a debate about voting politics.  He decided to have his 7^th graders create Prezis in small groups outlining their main points for the election debate.  What Mr. Lopez discovered in the computer lab is that as students were creating Prezi Edu accounts and told to use their school provided email when registering, they could not activate their Prezi accounts because the school email settings only allow emails internally, and therefore cannot receive emails from outside the district. Mr. Lopez’s assignment was suddenly dead in the water.

1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved. Similar, to scenario #2 I don't see a real ethical issue with this. Unfortunatly what happened to Mr. Lopez could happen to any teacher. Often when you plan a lesson with a focus on technology, there can be unforseen problems, despite being a reponsible user/teacher of web2.0 tools. 
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy. This scenario does not have a safety issus. The main problem is what to do next??
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario? If this happened to me I think I would plan to make a Prezi as a class and then talk to the IT people to see if the email system could allow for this lesson. 
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario. I have been in situations similar to this. Sometimes things like this can happen because a teacher has not done the proper reseach before using a tool; however, often issues like this can happen even when the proper research has been done. I have had cases where my home computer has allowed me to use a website/tool, but when I get to school the access is blocked. Luckly, I have never been infront of the class/ middle of a lesson, when something like this has happened.

Activity 8

I did a poll about favorite apple colors. Apples are our theme early in the year and because you could do it whole group, I think this poll would work with my kids. I think polling could be really fun in a number of different ways, and I liked that you could use pictures, which would make it better for my kindergartners. I could also see using polling more on my website with families!

Activity 7

I did a class calendar as my cloud computing. I did not know that you could have multiple calendars and that you could share just one of your calendars!


I am excited to use this on my website and share it with parents! I think this will be very a very helpful tool for parents. I really want them using my website to find information and help answer questions The Google calendar will allow them to not only know what is going on, but also to find important dates and hopefully answer questions easily! The one thing I need to remember to do is to make every event public. I am worried that I will forget and because I will still be able to see it on my calendar, I won't know that others can't.

Activity 6

The assignment for this week was hard for me. Study tools are not something we use a lot in Kindergarten. I decided to play around with most of the tools to see how I liked them. I started with Studyblue thinking that I could use it for sight words- using audio or for position words with a picture; however, when I went to do this it required a finical upgrade to be able to use more then just text in your flash cards.

Since I wasn't sure how I would use these tools in Kindergarten I decided to try a couple of the others and just make them more personal, not school related.

Here is a timeline from when my husband and I met to when we got married. I really liked Timetoast's layout abilities. I like that you can view it easily as a timeline or as events in text, without being overwhelmed by either layout. I still haven't thought about how I would really use it with Kindergarten, but feel that it could be a very powerful teaching tool! The only way I could see using it, is as a way to document our class activities. It would be fun way to share with students and parents the main events of the year! One thing I didn't like about it was that you had to put an exact date into it. If you could be more vague about the date it would allow me to use it in more ways, like as a sequencing tool.



I also did a Tagxedo because it reminded me of Wordle and I thought that would be fun to do. I used the lyrics of my wedding song. I can see using this in school for a number of activities! One thing I did with Wordle was to do an adjective lesson where students wrote down adjectives describing each student in the class and then students typed their list into Wordle to see the words that describe them. I think activities like this wold be great to do as a whole class with Tagxedo and then be able to choose your layout!!! It would be a fun way to show what your class had learned about a unit, or you could do a small group author study or character analysis!!

Activity 4 and 5

I used SMART Recorder to create a screen cast to help my students open up the internet and find links to websites that are listed on our schools website! I also created a YouTube account so that parents can then find this screen cast and know how to access websites for their children.



SMART Recorder was VERY easy to use. It took about 10 mins from start to finish! I see myself using this in many ways. I teach computer skills, so screen casting will be very helpful! I know I will use this specific screen cast, and because it was so easy I already have ideas of other step by steps that I would like to record!!
Uploading a YouTube video was also very easy! I like the idea of parents and students being able to find videos and screen casts that I use/like. I see myself using this tool of our Gmail! I wonder what else our Gmail offers that I didn't know about???:)