Educational philosophy/Voki

For today's class we wrote our Educational Philosophy if we didn't have it with us, and used a Voki avatar to convey the second aspect of the questions we were asked. We were asked to keep our Educational Philosophy short- 100 words for each question, and focus on why we want to pursue our chosen subject area and how we intend to research after we attain that goal.


Get a Voki now!

We had a lot of options when designing our Voki. First we had to determine the physical appearance, and whether to make it look like ourselves or make something up (there was even a Digimon option!). More importantly, however were the options to add sound. You could upload a message in your own voice by phone or computer microphone, or even just copy and paste text (which is what I did). I'm not entirely sure what we'd use this for in the future, other for fun, or possibly to help students who are visually impaired navigate a class website.

Either way, it emphasizes NETS standard 2, substandard a, which states that teachers should "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity." 

GoogleDoc Forms

In today's class period, we learned all about forms for GoogleDocs and how to create quizzes and surveys that use this technique. For mine I used the same topic as my Dewey Decimal Webquest so that the form could be used as an assessment to see whether students picked up on basic Dewey facts throughout the unit. I embedded my form below, though it can also be found through GoogleDocs.


In practicing this skill we practice NETS standard 2, substandard a, which says that teachers should: "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity."

WebQuest

For our last real project of the semester we finished our webquest. For my webquest I emphasized the Dewey Decimal System and sent the students through Dewey’s life. We used GoogleSitess to put it together. This wasn't my first webquest, but I enjoyed the template they provided.

This could ultimately fall under NETS standard 2, substandard c, which states that teachers should "customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources."

Prezi Practice

During today's class period we discovered the joys of Issuu (a web based pdf viewer- predominately for magazines) and Prezi, which is a pretty cool little gizmo that lets you create presentations that can feature a variety of different aspects of multimedia. We did a practice run with a few elements, as seen below. Nothing too fancy, but I can definitely see using this for future presentations!

This Prezi presentation could meet any number of NETS standards, but particularly hits standard 3, substandard a, which states that teachers should "demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations." The use of Prezi to present something to students would definitely be more interesting to them than something as old school as the Powerpoint.

Practice on Prezi

WebQuest about WebQuests

For this class period, we did a “WebQuest about WebQuests” and ranked them in accordance to which one is the most thorough and which is not as complete of a WebQuest.

I ranked mine in accordance from worst to best.

1. Waves & Sound

2. Saving the Gorillas

3. Foreign Country Presentation

4. World of Shakespeare

5. Anti-Earthquake Designer

The Anti-Earthquake Designer is the most thorough because it has complete instructions and job descriptions, as well as pictures of what will happen, while the Waves and Sounds WebQuest is very vague.

I believe this would fall under NETS standard 5, substandard c, which states that teachers should "evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning." This is true in the case of this activity, because we had to evaluate creations by other professionals in order to establish the caliber of WebQuest that we want to complete.


We followed the activity up by using a visual ranking tool provided by Intel, in order to compare the results of different groups. We broke down into 6 groups and compared and contrasted our answers.

What is Jeopardy for 500, Alex?

In today's class we learned a shortcut to creating Jeopardy games to use in our classrooms. While using powerpoint is well & good, it's also very time consuming. We used JeopardyLabs to practice the creation of Jeopardy games. You don't need to have a paying membership to make a game-- there's a free online version (you'll access yours by password, but the quiz is then public domain). You can go back to edit the version, as long as you remember your password.

Dr. Pierce also sent us a link to a Jeopardy Powerpoint template, created by JMU. This template has the basic set up to start creating powerpoint Jeopardy games. We did have to create our own animations for our answers, but this would definitely save time but still allow for the flexibility of Powerpoint vs. Jeopardy Labs. We practiced using Dirpy to download YouTube videos and mp3s to stick in our Powerpoints.

Today's lesson supported NETS Standard 3, Substandard a, which states that teachers need to "demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations." With that being said, using Powerpoint for Jeopardy would definitely be more convenient (and more durable) than the old school method of creating Jeopardy games with velcro, notecards & a laminating machine. The Powerpoint could also be sent to parents or posted on Edline so that the students could continue to go over the material with which they were having problems.

Powerpoint Animations

Today in class we focused on animations used in powerpoint presentations. We did basic animations such as making text appear at a click, custom animation, making labels to appear by a click, and making labels appear by clicking a "show answers" button. To exhibit some of our skills, we then created a screencast of a few of our animations.





This activity supports NETS standard 3, substandard a, which states that teachers should: "demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations." Knowing the different animations and how to do them would help us to create powerpoints with "old" information using "new" technology.

PowerPoint Presentation

This week's classes were held exclusively on the internet. We were assigned to create a Powerpoint presentation that features one of our content standards within our major. I used the topic of reporting, because it's important to keep students interested when you're giving the instructions, plus it's a topic I intend to use in a lesson plan that I'm doing for my English Methods class. I broke the powerpoint down in the same way that Brenman does in "Thirst".

Reporting 101

View more presentations from jstanley7.

I found the three supplementary readings very helpful, though Splane was perhaps the most straightforward. I particularly used Splane's tips, but the article I found most interesting was by Elisabeth Bumiller . It was fascinating to see the military perspective on Powerpoints and how they use them (with emphasis on how they no longer want to use them). Something that particularly caught my eye was when Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said “PowerPoint makes us stupid”. That's definitely something to think about when planning a lesson plan, because you have to wonder just how much we spoonfeed students. The last website was merely an example of a good presentation, but it was awesome to see in action someone who actually used some of the rules from the other site (maybe not that site in particular, but something along those lines).




This project could represent many of the NETS Standards, but I think it primarily represents Standard 3, Substandard c, which states that teachers should "communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats." This standard is true to the project because as teachers we have to keep students engaged and not lose their attention with boring powerpoints.

Batchgeo

For today's (virtual) synchronous class, we completed the activity of creating a Batchgeo table in two steps. The first step for the activity was to complete a googledoc by filling in columns with information such as our addresses, phone numbers and other personal information. The second step, creating a map via Batchgeo, was done by pasting the information from the spreadsheet into their formatting option. This then allows you to create a map with the information given.





This activity demonstrates NETS Standard 3, substandard a, which says that teachers should demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations. Since one of my specializations is school library media, one way to use this website in the classroom would be to choose a book that has been banned in many places and use Batchgeo to see on the map if there is a certain area (for example, the midwest), that bans the book more than other geographic areas.

Web Publishing

For this activity, we used GoogleDocs to either publish a resume previously created in Microsoft or to create a resume for future use. In my case, I edited slightly a resume that I utilized over the summer to apply for the Freshman Counselor Program at FSU.

I was honestly surprised about how much of my formatting made it through the conversion. Still not really sure how it happened, though perhaps it has to do with the fact that it was a word document instead of a spreadsheet.

This activity is representative of NETS standard 3, substandard a, which states that teachers: demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations. Basically we're taking the age old process of creating resumes and putting a new twist on it-- students would be able to access their resumes any time they needed them.

Google Calendar

I'd done some work with Google calendar in the past as part of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship, a campus organization, but had never before embedded a calendar for public consumption.







This calendar activity reflects NETS standard 3, substandard c, which says that teachers should: communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats. In this case, the calendar provides an unique opportunity for the teacher and parents to view the classroom calendar.

JEA Conference

The Journalism Education Association will be having a convention November 11-14 in Kansas City, Missouri. The keynote addresses will be made by some of the nation’s top newsmakers and reporters. The theme of the conference is K-Converge, and it costs $105 up until October 21, when the price rises by $10.

This activity supports standard 5, substandard a, which states that teachers should: participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning; as well as substandard c, which says that teachers need to: evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.

Both of these can be reflected by attending the conference because it is the teacher's responsibility to continually seek out technology that would be beneficial to the education of their students. Conferences hosted by education associations similar to that of the teachers specializations will give the teachers a more focused opportunity to learn about technological advances in their fields.

Excel Spreadsheet 2

For this Excel Spreadsheet, we received a copy of data that showed students grades on two homework assignments, two projects, and two tests. We learned that the homework and projects were worth a combined total of 50% of the students letter grade, while the other 50% were made up from the test scores. We calculated the averages for each category and each student, as well as the min, the max, and the range. Once we finished this, we were able to convert the averages into letter grades by using the "IF" function. Afterwards we were able to format them into more aesthetically pleasing spreadsheets.

The finished grading chart, as seen in GoogleDocs

This project was good practice for when we as teachers have to keep an electronic grade book. Some schools don't have the luxury of online grading systems that do the formatting for them.

After we completed the assignment, our projects were uploaded to GoogleDocs. This assignment used NETS standard 5, substandard d, which states that teachers: "contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of the teaching profession and of their school and community."

APA Paper

After we finished our Excel spreadsheet, we wrote an APA paper based on our information from the spreadsheet. Through this procedure, we learned about APA formatting for sources, as well as how to create charts in the proper scientific format (see below).

Scientific chart

The charts we had transferred from our Excel spreadsheets, however (in this case two pie charts and two bar graphs), were unable to be viewed when uploaded to GoogleDocs. Our formatting on the scientific chart was lost as well. This project was done in practice for research papers we will have to do in our Education classes in the future, as for when we are in the field and need to write scientific papers.

Excel Spreadsheet-- Performance Based Assessment

For the performance based assessment, we were given a set of data with which to work. We had to use the data to calculate averages, create a chart in scientific style, and conduct a Ttest. Before this week I had never heard of a Ttest, so that was interesting. We had to create a document that displayed this result, and publish it via GoogleDocs.

One thing that is noticeable is that not everything can be uploaded to GoogleDocs. Charts with pictures and Ttests CANNOT be uploaded directly to GoogleDocs-- in that case, they lose their pictures.

This activity promotes NETS standard 3, substandard d, which states that teachers will: "model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning."

What I've learned

In the past 6 weeks of Instructional Technology, we've utilized a variety of technological programs that will (hopefully) make our lives easier as teachers. I had used blogger in the past, so that wasn't new, but lets look at what we've done:

Personality Profile Quiz
Spipping Tool
Jing Image Capture
Mrs. Picassohead
Jing Screencast
You Tube Embedding
Physical Storage vs. Virtual Storage
Photostory

For simplicity's sake, I bolded the ones with which I had no previous experience. The only tools I really hadn't used before were the tools

Photostory

This blog post uses standard 3, substandard a of the NETS standards, which says teachers will: “communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.”

To create this post, we used google search to find a powerpoint, then used the program Photostory to animate it.

The original powerpoint was for a 4H group.

Physical Storage vs Virtual Storage

For my project today, I used Adobe Photoshop to create images of virtual and physical storage. Physical storage is transportable even without access to internet, but virtual storage has more longevity and you do not have to worry about it being destroyed. It is able to be accessed all over the world.

This activity primarily reinforces NETS standard 2, substandard a, which says that teachers need to "design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity." In our fields we will need to rely on some of these storage tools to provide access to some forms of information to students.

YouTube post- Librarians do Gaga

For my YouTube link, I used a video called "Librarians do Gaga", a promotional project for a school's library Masters program. It's an interesting mix of library science and pop culture. Having students create a song parody to support an academic unit could be consider NETS standard 3, substandard b, which states that teachers should "collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation"

Jing Screencast

For today's class, we used Jing to create a video of how to do something on our computer. For my project, I used Adobe InDesign to show students how to create a compound path. This is used in yearbook layouts and placing photos in InDesign is much more simple for yearbook students than the traditional manner of using croppers and grease pencils.






This activity emphasizes NETS standard 3, section a, which says teachers "demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations."

Mrs. Picassohead

For this activity, we created self portaits using the website Picassohead. For mine I used shades of my favorite color, magenta. I didn't really encounter any technical difficulties with the activity, and thought it was an interesting concept. This could be used for not only a discussion on Picasso, but also on self-perception. This could be an example of NETS standard 1, substandard a, which states that we should encourage creative thinking.

Jing Image

For my Jing Image, I chose to use a screen capture of the front page of a newspaper. I found the image on flickr using a Google Image search. Since one of my teaching specializations is Journalism, this would help to teach the students the parts of a newspaper. It would be interesting for the students to label a local newspaper in this manner, or even use a "jing-ed" image as the answer key. The screencast feature allows the image to be pushed directly to the internet, as well. This activity demonstrates NETS standard 3, subsection c, which says that teachers "communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats."

Sniping pictures with the Snipping Tool

For my experiment with the snipping tool, I decided to go ahead and do a capture of my personality test results. I had never used the snipping tool before, but do think that using it will prove to be a lot more precise than the print screen to Photoshop process I had been using in the past.

The snipping tool illustrates NETS Standard 3, substandard d, which says "model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning." Basically stated, the snipping tool is a new(er) form of technology that we can use in the classroom, and as teachers we should try to maintain up-to-date about different techniques that can benefit students and teachers alike (not to mention save time). 

Personality Profile Results

Once I had taken the personality profile, I was completely surprised to find that the assessment insisted that I was the "artisan" personality type. It goes as a reminder that the way the outside world views us and the way we view ourselves can be two completely different things. Apart from enjoying the arts, I don't see myself in the description of artisans. Anyway, I think I'll be able to use my creative skills to make more interesting assignments as a teacher.


This activity relates to NETS Standard 2, substandard c, which states "customize and personalize learning activities to address students' diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools and resources." Personality profiles allow us to get a feel for strengths and weaknesses, not only for us, but possibly for our students. We can't just throw information at students-- it's important to adapt so as to better help them.

Personality Profile Predictions

When I looked through the personality descriptions at the website Dr. Pierce provided, I think my personality based on those types ranks in the following order:

1)      Guardian

2)      Idealist

3)      Rational

4)      Artisan

I think I’m most like the guardian because I try very hard to be helpful, hardworking and dependable in the groups in which I participate. The part that stood out the most was the section that said. “Guardians can have a lot of fun with their friends, but they are quite serious about their duties and responsibilities. Guardians take pride in being dependable and trustworthy; if there's a job to be done, they can be counted on to put their shoulder to the wheel.” 

Joining the blogging community

Hi, my name is Jessica Stanley, and I'm a secondary ed (journalism and library) major at FSU.

I've been in charge of blogs in the past, but this is my first post for the fall 2010 edition of Instructional Technology. Throughout the class we'll post different projects on our blogs as a way of sharing ideas and saving trees.