Reflection on Ed Tech Standards

The OETS, NETS, and the New Oregon Diploma all speak to the need to educate students. Primarily it speaks to the importance of technological literacy but of course technology is only a tool to facilitate the learning process. It is not an end in itself.
The mental skills that need to be developed from the Oregon Diploma:

• Read and comprehend text
• Write clearly and accurately
• Listen actively and speak clearly
• Apply mathematics in a variety of settings
• Think critically and analytically
• Demonstrate civic and community engagement
• Demonstrate global literacy
• Demonstrate personal management and teamwork skills

The above skills need to be developed whether technology is employed or not. However:

• Use technology to learn, live, and work
• Use creativity and innovation to generate ideas, products, or processes using technology
• Use technology to participate in the broader community
• Recognizing legal and responsible behavior in the use of technology
• Using technology as a tool....

This part applies specifically to our responsibility as teachers to learn, use, and teach technology to our students. Because of the prevalence and tremendously positive power of technology we can't side step this responsibility, just because we aren't comfortable with it or don't know how to use it. We have to learn.

That being said, there is another important matter that isn't usually brought up when it comes to using technology in the classroom:

• We can't use technology as a "babysitter" in the classroom.
• We can't use it if it isn't the highest and best use of our classroom time.
• We can't expect it to do our job for us.
• We can't use it as an excuse if our students aren't doing well on assessments or aren't learning

Finally, in my opinion technology is neutral, it's how we use it and teach it that makes all the difference.

My Web 2.0 Multi-Media Presentation: Screenr

For our Willamette MAT Aspire 2012 class our assignment was to create a multi-media presentation using a Web 2.0 tool. We wanted one that would be useful for our students as well.  I selected Screenr because it is one way to capture data, video, and audio from other sites and embed it a blog or a web site. This is a simple but effective way to that and it's free!

My Favorite Web2.0 Tools

Web2.0 refers to web applicaions that feature interactivity, user developed design, and collaberation, such as those used in a varity of Google applications. Also, blogs, wikis, Facebook,Utube, and other social sites.

For personal productivity I chose Dropbox.

Dropbox allows synchronization of files from various devices without having to e-mail yourself or use a thumb drive to transfer the data. It does all this on the web as a coud based cross platform tool

This would bring convenience and a timesaving method of  keeping your stuff together--between home computer, work computer, laptop, i-phone, etc.

For Screen Recording I chose Voice Thread

Voice Thread allows you to share group conversations and mulimedia presentations anywhere in the world. It's a cloud based tool. It's multimedia capapbilities include slide shows, video, voice, and still images, You can doodle (draw on videos and images), use muliple identites (without signing in and out, ideal for classes), you can edit comments through moderation. Files can be embedded and published to web pages and also, exported to MP3 players and DVDs.

This tool is ideally suited to the classroom/educational environment. It encourages collaberation with students and between students and other people in other places. This tool was demonatrated effectively by Tim Lauer and the school he used to teach in at the OTEN conference during his keynote presentation.

The following is a copy of my final data sheet, statistics, and a chart to assist in the analyzing of the required task.



Reflections on Test Data"
Most of the students followed a similar curve in their tests with the exception of Katherine Hepburn. Katherine bombed on test 6 and then made remarkable recovery on the remaining tests.

Reflections on the assignment:

I had an interesting experience with my assignment. I had no problems manipulating the data in Excel and Google Spreadsheets. I encountered major problems when I tried to move my data and graph to my Blog site.
I spent several hours unsuccessfully trying to move my data and finally cried "uncle!" and e-mailed Barry.
Barry and I worked over the phone and using a slick program Teamviewer that made it possible for him to work on my computer.
I had done my work in willamettemat instead of my own gmail site. Consequently, I had no ownership or editing rights. Also, because I was using Explorer for a browser I had multiple windows open and had to keep signing in and out of gmail to work in both places. By switching to Google Chrome and a feature "incognito window" that allowed us to work in multiple sites with out having to log in and out constantly.
I learned a lot from this experience, more than I would have if I had gotten "lucky" and gotten it right the first time. I know this experience will help me when I am working with students that are having technology problems. "Hats off" to Barry for all your help!

Google Presentation

I felt like the least talented in this group. Every one seemed to be faster and better at this so I felt a little left out-- no reflection on the group. It seems in group activities it's easy to be left in the dust. Something for me to remember when I'm planning group activities for students.

Some more ideas for classroom blogs from the internet!

Educational Uses Of Blogs and Tags

View more presentations from sqoolmaster.

My reflections on blogging!

· Blogging is a great way to share information
· With students
· With parents
· It’s easy
· It’s quick
· It’s a growing experience

My 2010 OTEN Conference Reflections

Hey it's all new to me!

Sunday 19, 2010

Here, it is after 8:00 p.m. and I'm trying to figure out how to use this.
I could see how this could be a useful tool. But I'm way to new at it to realize its potential.
When I get it figured out I'll feel more confident about it.

Before this class drop-kicked me into exploring all of this potential I was blissfully ignorant of the possibilities. Now I am determined to explore the various things we are being exposed to.

Man, I've got to find a better picture of myself to post on this site.