Personal Learning Reflection

What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

• While searching for a graduate school to call home, I found MSU’s all online format, and was hooked.  That’s what I needed.  In researching MAET I found out about something called TPACK.  Although I looked into it just briefly to be acquainted, I did not fully understand the implications of this model.  I learned so many things from TPACK about integrating technology into the classroom.  I thought I knew how to use technology before; I used computers and mobile devices, but never really scratched the surface of integration in education.  While many people can use technology and resources, integrating them requires personal understanding, pedagogy, and even a little finesse.  I am coming to understand that in order to be successful with technology in the classroom, I had to lay some groundwork with students, and even myself.  I need to know what I am teaching, what great technology or web 2.0 applications will work best, and I also need to know how to use them to be able to share my with students.   

How did integrating the Internet help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

• Using the Internet to find valuable resources has been amazing (and a bit overwhelming)!  I had no idea that so many free resources were available to use.  By using the Internet, I found how easy it is to research topics, ideas and find web 2.0 technologies to use in my classroom.  I also found that by having to create a PLN I could also have contacts with a wealth of knowledge beyond what I might know.  By using all these resources via the Internet I am able to incorporate technology with lessons and use them as a tool to enhance what is being taught.  I can use the technology to allow students to learn responsibility for their digital lives as well as watching out for peers.  By allowing students to use technology, starting at a young age, they are able to foster creativity and build valuable skills for future use. 

   

Which of the assignments that you turned in do you feel really exemplifies good teaching with technology and why?

• Although it took me some time to think and find my words, I really liked the Personal Technology Plan.  By having to think about what I learned, how to use it, and setting goals, I can see what I’ve accomplished and what more I want to learn and attain.  By putting into writing what I feel is important for the future of technology in education, I have a mission for what I want to learn.  Doing research for this assignment lead me to even more wonderful resources.  I had to think about ways I wanted to fix education, and not just complain about what’s broken.  Finding solutions to areas of weakness personally and professionally spurred excitement for getting back into education. 

How have you met your goals established in your Personal Growth Plan?

• I aimed to learn about just a few free web 2.0 resources, and I have come away with an abundance.  While I learned how to use several programs, I found websites listing hundred of resources that I have saved in my social bookmarking site.  (Social bookmarking was new to me as well, but I love it!  I have saved many links during this class for future use.  I’m not sure how I did it before without a safe place to store websites.)  Finding these free resources was something I needed to get a kick-start into integrating technology.  Even if my school does not have the latest hardware, I still have great resources to draw from.

Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

• I plan to continue to take classes towards my MAET degree and would like to graduate within the six-year time limit.  Since I am not currently teaching, I do not want to go “full speed ahead” so as to not limit myself on getting a job before my degree is finished.
• I also plan to take time to learn more about free resources and spend time using these technologies.

    Thank you for a wonderful class! 

Learning Styles Post

In the past, during undergraduate degree, some of my personal learning styles and tendencies.  I revisited some of these by retaking these tests online.  I received the same results.  Yeah for consistency! :)  Revisiting my strengths and weaknesses was good.  Results showed me that I am, indeed, a VERY verbal and social learner (and person, just ask my husband who is very much the opposite!!!).  I need to talk things out, and share experiences with others to learn the best.  Even if I don't need your help to figure it out, I need to process the information aloud and talk about it to figure it out.  I don't always want an answer from you, but just need a sounding board.

In the classroom, I didn't actually do this group learning as much as I should have, in hindsight.  Even though I learned his way, I didn't use this learning style to help my students learn nearly as much.  I know that many students enjoy talking through a problem to solve it (although at first grade level, this is not a well developed trait and talking about lunch or playing tag at recess was much more of a "hot" topic).

I am also a very visual learner.  I have to see it with pictures, graphs, demonstrated and anything I can watch.  If you can show me how to do it, I will succeed.  Written directions? Bah, not if I can watch you do it!!  This is at top of my learning style, just a point under verbal... (long post, anyone?). 

The top three(well four actually... three and four were tied in score):

• verbal
• visual
• social/physical (tied for third)

I find physical learning amusing in the sense that I'm not always moving around when I learn, but I find that if I do something with my hands when I learn I can tie it to something (touch nose to remember point one, touch head to remember point two.. etc) I can remember things.  I am also tactile in the sense that I love texture.  I find myself absentmindedly touching the tv remote's buttons, clicking a pen, rubbing my hands over a textured surface.  (My favorite is to just push remote control buttons).

I found that in the classroom I would use these learning styles.  I was very visual in class.  I would teach writing with 5 different marker colors.  I would solve math problems with my magnetic frogs.  I would show a youtube video to the class.

I would also have the kids stand up and do motions with me to songs or little rhymes to remember a topic.  (when I taught Shurley English we had to learn about the five parts of a complete sentence). I would do the following little chant with motions:
1. had to have a subject noun (point to self)
2. had to have a verb (action-run in place)
3. had to make sense (point to brain/head)
4. had to have a capitol letter (stretch arms way up in the air)
5. had to have an end mark/punctuation (point finger in the air and make a dot with a pffft sound... think Victor Borge reading a book)

I would definitely use these top learning styles of mine in the classroom.  I guess I never thought about it that I learned the best this way, it was always just the way I taught.  It makes sense.

The last on my list is solitary and mathematical/logical.  I guess I just don't make sense by myself... :)  just kidding.  Although I do not like math problems or thinking about ways to solve a problem using a mathematical equation.  Again, i would talk it to death and figure it out.  My hubby tells me all the time that there was a better way to solve my problem than the one I talked to myself to figure out.

With all these different learning styles (and even multiple intelligences) there are many ways to go about teaching in the classroom.  As teachers, we need to look outside the box at times, or beyond what is comfortable to help students understand.  With this being said, not every style can be taught/learned all the time.  We need to focus on different styles for different times.  Even trying different styles throughout the day to catch or refocus attention of students.  If there are times that something can be taught while playing music, or letting students talk out math problems together, then we can accomplish several styles at one time.  Ultimately, we need to incorporate many different ideas at short intervals to help all students.

P.S. In college I took the Myer-Briggs Personality Test.  It showed that I was an ENFP.  Apparently a very rare personality! :)  My mom always said I was "one in a million."

Creative Commons Post

Hello!  I found this great image with a creative commons image search.

 Photo Attribution:

Original Image: "Festivus hot chocolatus"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waytoocrowded/4216223143/
By: Paul Farning


Released Under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

I love this picture because I could use this in my classroom when I talked about Christmas traditions.  When I taught first grade, our class would take a two week "trip" around the world to learn about 10 country's traditions.  We would start the Friday before with a look at our own American traditions as well as each students' family traditions.  This picture is wonderful because in my family we have hot chocolate and I love to add a candy cane for peppermint taste.  This image could show the class one of my family traditions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My Own Picture

Here is my own picture that I licensed with Creative Commons (it's a card I made for my mom's birthday)

The inside says "Happy birthday cupcake".

Photo Attribution: me :)
Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/70933301@N06/6415242119/


Cupcake Card by Jenny Hancock is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

RSS Feeds #4-Final Reflection

Here is my final learning/reflection on my RSS feeds.  At first I thought this assignment might be a bit overwhelming, having to check feeds several times.  But I was pleasantly surprised!  Since everything was neat and organized in one place, it made it so easy!!

Here is my final RSS screen dump picture.  This picture is from 11-11-11 (Happy Veteran's Day-and thank you all who served-I have a friend who just returned earlier this week from his second tour.  His family is throwing him a Welcome Home Party tonight).  Alas, I digress...

Just to cover all the feeds I will go through each one... hang on!
TechLearning:  I have learned some useful tidbits from this site, but they seem to update once every week or so, not as often as other sites.  I tried one article that looked interesting, PaperToolsPros, but the link took me to "nowheresville".  There was a link, but no article associated with this.  Shame, it could have been interesting.
NPR:  I'll admit, when I hopped on RSS today, and there were 228 new feeds for NPR, I panicked!  I am not going to catch up on that many feeds. :)  But I did check into a few.  Sad news, the Western Black Rhino has been declared extinct.
On a more somber note to Veteran's day there was an article that caught my attention, "Treating Soldiers With Severe Combat Wounds."  This caught my interest because of the soldier friend that just returned home.  He is trained in nursing care, as well as care-flight experience. Because of his rare knowledge, he was assigned to be a "flying hospital" so to speak.  He would ride in the helicopters to pick up wounded soldiers and then give medical treatment while flying back to the army hospital.  I remember him saying this was just about the worst job to have, you see the absolute worst that can happen.  He second assignment was to work with different army hospitals (the latter part of his duty) to shut them down.  He worked to shut down hospitals and help send soldiers and other medical teams back home.  Thankfully my friend is not home safely as well.  This article reminded me of such sacrifice.
Weblogg-ed:  Unfortunately, no learning here.  This hadn't been updated in 4+ months.
ISTE Connects:  There was one article in particular that was interesting, "Mechatronics Engineers a Future for Students".  This was quite interesting, as I'd not heard this term before.  Basically, in encompasses multiple engineering aspects into one: mechanical, electrical, computers, but can also include molecular (nanochemistry and biology), optical, and control engineering.  Wow!  This reminded me a bit of robotics club in schools. 
EduTech Today:  Sadly no updates in 5+ months.
First Grade Fanatic!:  I had really enjoyed this site because I taught first grade.  It's always fun to fine "gems" from other teachers who "speak your language".  First grade was my love language.  She has so many great resources that I didn't just stop digging with my feeds.  I went browsing through archives, so many great treasures.  I found all kinds of classroom ideas, themed and ideas by subject.  I'll have to keep this site for future use when I jump back into the classroom.  Keep the good times rolling! (I may even "test" a few ideas on my little guy.)--This lady also follows the First Grade Parade blog and use her scarecrow idea, fun to see blogs I follow, follow each other!  Good picks!
First Grade Parade:What cute and great writing activities.  This could go great with writing across the curriculum and social studies.  Have the kids write about being a pilgrim... too bad my little guy can't read and write!  We would do this at home.  Save this in my bags of tricks for school.
 EdtechSandyK:  She only posts every few weeks, but she had just updated with an article about Twitter Education accounts.  She had asked people to send in their favorite Twitter Ed links.  She putting together a "if you could only follow 5" article.  No new ideas yet, but I will have to check back to see what people respond.
EducationWorld:  Two articles that were new, on on space and one on politics.  Both would have been above the grade level I taught, but there were some good ideas that could be adapted.
Edutopia: There was an article video that was interesting, "Teaching math to middle school boys".  While I don't teach middle school, it's always interesting to see how boys learn.  So different from girls.  (Plus I have a little boy).  The school was also located in Louisville, KY.  Mu husband and I just moved from here, where we lived 5 years.  So that was fun to see a school from our "old home".  While it didn't share as many ideas, it did show how this teacher adapted to teaching boys and found ways to engage, interact and motivate them.
Teachers Using Technology:  No new feeds in month. :( 
Free Technology for Teachers: There was an article on Google+ that was interesting.  I've just joined and don't know much about it yet, but he was explaining how he could create separate groups with Google+ Pages and make a pages separate from his personal page.

I've learned quite a bit already from these feeds.  There are quite a few ideas that I'll have to save for future classroom use.  I hope to be able to use some of the free technology resources as well one day.
I'm hoping that students could benefit from using a few of these technologies to write and try new lesson plans and create their own writings.

Thanks for sticking with this post!  A+ for perseverance...

RSS Feed #3

Hello!  Here is my November 5th, edition of my RSS Feed reviews.  I'd been checking them, and making notes in my hand dandy tech notebook.  I found it easier to take notes here and there and then blog about it later when I had more time to write.
November 5th edition:
Fantastic First Grade:  This post today had great ideas for using Common Core Standards. (This term was new to me).  She had some great ways to use a math chart: equal or not equal.  She then had some basic math equations that were equal (4+1=5) or not equal (2+3=9).  Students had to 1)decide about the equal and think through the problem 20 they had to draw the equation in pictures on their chart.  I also posted a comment on this blog letting the author know that I loved this idea.  Simple, but very effective.
I can see myself using this idea in the future.  It would be quite easy to reproduce, but have effective outcomes.  Love it!
EducationWorld: there was an article about "What is a Wiki?"  I found this helpful from the area of explaining great uses for a wiki.  There were several tables that explained different scenarios in which a wiki could be used, and the purpose.  However, the most basic form of the question, "What is a wiki?" (my emphasis added) was not addressed.  It did not explain the basics of what a wiki is.   I thought that would have been very useful information. :)
Teachers Using Technology:  This had a great explanation of assistive technology products that could be used in a classroom.  While none of the ideas were free (quite the opposite), it was still a place to start to learn about technology.  It introduced a few technologies available: 1)picture communication boards 2)computers HPiPaq PocketPC (communicator with Easy Talk software) and 3)software (such as SpeechPro).  This was helpful information to me as I did not really know much about this area of classroom needs.
First Grade Parade:  Today she had a little non-teaching idea post.  But I totally see why she wrote it... it's about using her iPhone in the classroom.  She would take pictures using her iPhone and upload them to her blog and post classroom happenings.  I found this amusing because I would use my phone at school for the same thing.  I would take some pictures of students and email them to parents at times, they loved it.  Kept them knowing and seeing what was happening.  :)

PC Maintenace and Security

I have been looking over tutorials at Atomic Learning (what a great site I never new about!) and have learned some interesting things.
Tutorial #1- Installing RoboForm

• I learned several things from this.  First I'd never heard of Roboform to help save passwords and usernames for different websites.  I've set up so many accounts recently, this may be a good option for me to remember passwords.  I will definitely have to share this website with m family.  I know they hate remembering passwords as well!
• I found it surprising that you could password protect your passwords.  You could save a "master password" that needed to be typed in before you used this site.  This would be great to turn on if someone was going to borrow my computer, or if I'd be taking to to a public place.

Tutorial #2-Managing your Web passwords with RoboForm

• This was a very helpful follow-up video to the previous where I learned about this idea.  It gave me tips and information on using this password tool.  I will have to share many of the features about this site with family (again).  I will have to tell them that it can save, generate and fill out passwords for you.  It also had a nice feature of auto-fill for addresses, information, and phone numbers.  You as the user would type this once into it's save feature, and then anytime you needed to fill out a form (say amazon, or commerce website) you could use this auto-fill button.  Nice!
• I was surprised that it could generate a secure password for you.  There was a button that you click on and it would generate a very secure password for you.  You could choose how many characters and it would show you a password with letters, capitals and numbers that you could use that would be quite secure.

Tutorial #3-Spybot Search and Destroy

• I have used this program in the past, and it's been a great tool to get rid of unwanted programs on your computer from websites.  I will have to share with friends/family to download this to our new computers.  It has great features to delete programs that are downloaded unknowingly on your computer from websites and other downloads you may no have known about.
• I was surprised to know about a feature called Tea Timer that I never knew to use.  It adds an extra layer of intrusion protection on your computer.  I'll have to use this in the future.

GTD Post

Good evening fellow GTD'ers.  During this past week of using the GTD done system, I have found that I have passed through several emotions: confusion at setting up a personal system and making it work with how I want to accomplish tasks, frustration at not 1) accomplishing my entire list for the day 2)completely figuring out my system of GTD.

It tooks me several days and tries to figure out my organizational list.  I was good at putting things in the "inbox" but not as good at finding a "home" for the list of items.  Was this a project, or was just a big to do task that would take some time?  (Like finishing my Christmas Cards I handmake every year... I have most of them accomplished, and now need to address envelopes.  Making cards of more of a multi-step project.)

I also had to take several days to find a system that worked for me.  I tried pencil/paper because I'm a "list girl" at heart, always have been.  I find myself making a list of things I did accomplish in a day and then crossing them off to feel something got done that day.  (Things can be sidetracked by a two year old, but I wouldn't change my day!)

I found that I went though two iPhone apps (I always have my phone).  I tried a Google checklist app, but didn't like the setup.  I then tried a Home&Work app.  This is working better for me.  I can type what category I want my "to do" item to go into as I'm dumping.  This works best for me.  I have to know where it will go as I'm writing it.  Things need a home before I start.

I will admit... I'm a bit OC (obsesive compulsive, and sadly I can see this in my poor, sweet little boy).  Now, don't think Sheldon Cooper of Big Bang Theorgy obsessive... *knock, knock, knock, Penny*... *knock, knock, knock, Penny*... *knock, knock, knock, Penny*  I'm not that bad, but things have a place and there are a certain way to fold (and NOT fold)  the towels. :)

I think overall this process has helped me think about the steps of organizing what I need to do.  I think that I will continue to use my iPhone (I heart that thing!) to help organize just because that it one thing I always have around (unless it grows two year old legs at times).  I had used the "reminders" app, and really liked it.  But this new Home & Work app really helps me separate into categories, and mark it as partially completed to finish at another time as well.  Very helpful. 

Overall, after a first few frustrating days of finding what worked for me, it has been a good experience.