Reflection #8

What? I am learning how to work effectively with my partner on our digital story. My assignment is to continue working on our digital story.

So What? This means to me as a teacher how important it is to get along with your colleagues when working on projects, lesson plans, etc. If you do not have a good relationship with your colleagues then you may not produce and deliver great results. My partner and I get along great and work great together. We are doing this so we can have somewhat of an experience of what it will be like to work with future colleagues. This technology is great because you are able to communicate back and worth with each other by using Google docs to put together your digital story.

Now What? This technology is great for my future students because they are able to show creativity with something they feel deeply about for example, a student may have a personal interest with World War II because their great-great-grandfather was in a concentration camp. If we were doing a unit on World War II this would be a meaningful assignment for this student to do. I would hope as a future teacher to incorporate digital stories into my classroom and also try my best to get along with all colleagues when working with them. This will help me become a better teacher when working with my colleagues. At times it will not be easy and sometimes my idea might not be chosen but I will have to learn that not all the time others will like my ideas. It is important to be patient and have an open mind with working with future colleagues.

Relection #7

What? I am learning about the importance of copyrights. For this assignment we are more aware of all the copyrights out there. I am able to copyright my own work through Creative Commons.

So What? This means to me as a teacher the importance of copyrights. To know not to use something when it is not copyrighted. Also it will be beneficial for me to copyright my work so someone does not steal my creations. We are doing this to be more educated in copyrights and also to one day teach our own students about copyrights. At a very young age several students plagiarize, but if we teach them about copyright sooner the numbers will hopefully decrease. When working with colleagues copyright is essential say if you were working on a unit and you did not copyright your work and a colleague used your work. They now have all the credit for the work that you did. You need to be aware of copyright. That is why there is great information out there and websites that will help you know what you can use such as creative commons.

Now What? The technology means a lot to my future students. They need to learn at a young age what copyright is and how it works. If they learn at a young age we will have less problems with copyright, as they get older. This day in our society everyone uses everyone’s work from downloading music, images or downloading papers and more it is all accessible with one simple click. I would hope that this will change me as a future teacher by letting my students know that you cant steal from other people. An assignment we can do with copyright is doing an introduction to it for example; I could assign a topic and have the student’s research on the internet on a specific site then come back to class and share. Then I would go through and see who plagiarized and begin telling about copyright. This will help me become a better teacher by teaching my students at a young age and hopefully what I teach them will have an effect on them, as they grow older. Also I will be able to learn more about copyright myself. This will help me become a better colleague by knowing whose work is who’s as well as having my colleagues know what work I have done.

Reflection #6

What? I am learning about digital stories. This week we have to fill out the storyboard which includes an idea for an image and script for that image.

So What? This means to me as a teacher a great way to organize my digital story before it comes to life. With using the storyboard it makes it easy to see how everything will play out. The great thing is that it can be easily changed at any time such as the order of the images etc. We are doing this to organize and write our ideas down before we actually start producing our digital story. If we just started our digital story without doing a rough draft it would probably not flow correctly and we would have to spend a great amount of time editing. This technology is greatly appreciated because I am a very organized person so with using the storyboard chart it is indeed beneficial! This is great with my colleagues because we can share and compare ideas we have for our digital stories if we were doing it on the same topic etc. Then we are able to get ideas from each other and come up with one final storyboard.

Now What? The storyboard will teach my future students how to put their thoughts and ideas down in an organized manner. Assignments I can give my students are introducing a topic and having them go home and get ideas for their digital story then they can come back to class and fill out a storyboard. I would hope that this would help me become a better teacher by preparing students in the process of digital stories. There is a lot of behind the scenes that make digital stories work. It is important for me to take it step by step and not to fast as we start this process of making a digital story. I want my future students to know that the sky is the limit for digital stories as long as they meet the criteria they are able to create anything!

Reflection #5 Vidcast Reflection

Jorduyn’s Day

This vidcast connects with the 2^nd grade Social Studies core curriculum Standard 2, Objective 2: Identify individuals within the school community and how they contribute to the school's success.

I chose to do this topic because of my dear friend who has lymphoma. She was diagnosed when she was fourteen years old, and her family was having financial problems. For example, her mom had to get a job to help with all the bills because her dad was not making any money selling his pieces of art. My friend has really been an inspiration to me. After seeing her positive outlook on life despite all her trials and tribulations it made me want to do something for someone else. That is when I decided to do “Jorduyn’s Day”.

This public service announcement was to help students, faculty, and the community be aware of this cancer and the trials that occur. This is also to help raise money for the family. Even if people were not able to come to the day we planned, it was to let the community and people be aware of things that are out there and ways they can help and get involved. It helps others to put aside what they may be struggling with at that particular time to help someone else, and help some other family with something that in a lot of cases, have bigger things on their plate to deal with.

In the NETS standards, this vidcast connects to the 5^th standard, which is Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership. This vidcast uses technology to promote an event allowing students and teachers to get involved and head up a project to help someone in need from the community. The teachers that are involved are able to participate in the local community and to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning not only about lymphoma but also about how to put an event like this together.

In the INTASC standards the 3^rd standard, Engaging and Supporting All Students in Learning, connects best with our vidcast. Under this standard engage families as partners in learning and accommodating individual students physical growth, connects with this vidcast in getting parents involved in learning about this type of cancer and helping the students accept someone for being different, and allowing the student with cancer to still feel comfortable at school regardless of their disability or health state.

A potential drawback that I can see is that Jorduyn’s day only happened one time and is not an ongoing event because Jorduyn may not be around forever; although, we can do this event every year, but not for a specific child. We could be able to continue this event as a lymphoma awareness charity event. All of the money raised would go to cancer research to help save children in the future. I think that it definitely is something that we will be able to refer to and brainstorm off of to get other ideas about how we can help other children or families in the community.

Reflection #4 Vidcasts

What? -We learned about vidcasts, which are video broadcasts. We are creating an educational vidcast that is 2 ½ minutes to 3 minutes long. We have several options to choose from and tools to use to create this vidcast.

So What? -This means to me as a teacher that there are several options to use to create vidcasts. You can create a vidcast with a how to video, tutorial, public service announcement and introduction to content. Also there are many tools to use such as photostory or jing. This makes it great because you can find the tool that you feel most comfortable using and create your own vidcast. When using vidcasts in your classroom they will meet many needs you want to accomplish with certain curriculum. This will be great to share with colleagues for example, say you are doing a unit on the Declaration of Independence each teacher could create and share a different vidcast to cover the unit. By doing this your colleagues and you will save time and have a variety of things to cover the unit. We are doing this to be more educated and comfortable with this tech tool more and more people are using vidcasts daily.

Now What? -This tech tool has several options for my future students. I think that they will really enjoy using this tool. Each vidcast is their own creation and they can be creative and let their personality shine. I am excited to incorporate this tool into my classroom. We can all benefit from using this tool. I think a great assignment I could have my future students do is to create a how to vidcast on the proper way to fold the American flag and to teach them flag etiquette. The tool you could use is the flip tool. I think that this will help me be a better teacher because children currently live off YouTube. They love it! Using vidcasts will be great because I can connect with my students and show them that they to can upload to YouTube. Vidcasts are truly fun for everyone!

Reflection #3 Podcasting

What? We are learning about Podcasts, which are pre-recorded files that can be broadcasted over the Internet. We are creating a Podcast that is 1-1 ½ minutes long and then uploading it to your website under tools. Becky and I created a public announcement about a girl who has cancer and ways to help raise money such as a fair.

So What? We are doing this so we can learn how to create them and also upload Podcasts. Podcasts are great in many ways. I think that they will be beneficial for kids who were sick or were on a family vacation. As a teacher I could record my lectures or the class discussions we had that certain day. With colleagues we could share information or even our lectures on specific units. This technology tool is a great tool. I think I will definitely use this in my own classroom.

Now What? Podcasting can be very beneficial to my future students if they were sick, had a death in the family etc. Podcasts can be used for lectures or just general information. It is another way for students to refresh what we did that day or if they did not understand the assignment given. For an assignment I would love to do is to create a public service announcement on a specific unit that we are doing. For example, creating an announcement about Lewis and Clark and their Expedition. This will help me to become a better teacher because I will be more educated about all the tech tools out there. I want to be able to accommodate all types of learning styles. As we get further into the semester the more I am learning about meaningful and functional tools that will help not only my students, but also my colleagues and I.

Reflection #2 Google

What?
I am learning how to sufficiently use google docs and all that is within google docs. The assignments we are performing is creating our own google site that has information about ourselves, announcements, homework, calendar, file cabinet and resources for students and parents to access. Another assignment we are preforming is gathering information for our digital story later in the semester.


So What?
This means to me as a teacher is to learn different ways to organize my life for example, using the calendar on google docs you can access it anywhere. Also the endless possibilities that google docs offers with me as a student with creating a document you will never lose it and it is a free tool. This will work great with my colleagues we will be able to share and collaborate together. We are doing this because to inform us that there are new, easy and free tools out there to help anyone if you are a teacher, student, etc. This can apply to me in all areas you do not have pay to use microsoft and can save money.This works great not only for my personal life, but school and even work. My colleagues will love this tool and all that it offers. You can do anything from sharing documents to creating online surveys and quizzes.

Now What?
They can work on assignments and projects from anywhere from their home, school or library. Also I am able to go in and see what they have been working on and am able to edit their work. My schema for Google docs has increased. Before I did not know anything about Google docs. There have been many doors that have opened up. I hope that this will change me as a teacher to let students know that there are several ways to work on things for school. I think a fun assignment that I could have my students do is to have them work on a country assigment and create like a handout they could collaboarte by finding certain information about the country such as religion, transportation, food and so much more. We are the future! It is up to us as teachers today to focus on changing the future of technology. The new technology out there is amazing and can be used in many different subject areas. I hope that when I am a teacher that I am always be willing to learn new technology tools and to be educated in all technology out there. Also I hope to encourage my colleagues if they are hesitant about trying out the new tech tools.