Course Review

I have now reached the completion of this course, and can reflect on the new skills which I have developed throughout it as a 21^st century teacher and learner. This course has made me rethink new methods for engaging students in the classroom. I have had the opportunity to explore different social media outlets through the course- including Google Plus and Twitter, and various other bookmarking websites, and have found numerous activities and ideas that could be utilized in any classroom to help improve student engagement and understanding. This course also allowed us to relearn and explore more deeply the professional standards and ethics of teachers in Ontario. These standards are immensely important in ensuring that our students’ uttermost safety, respect and quality of learning is considered and upheld when planning our lessons.

This course has also reawakened me to the value of technology, and the vast resources which are available through the internet. At the beginning of this course I hoped to learn more about different resources that I could use as a high school teacher- particularly in the sciences and maths. I have succeeded in this goal, as I have been able to collect a plethora of invaluable information and resources which I will be able to utilize in my teaching career, as I continue to work on integrating blended learning into my daily routines. In particular, I have found some great resources pertaining to high school Physics (which can be a struggle to find, might I add) through Pinterest. I was also able to gain some ideas from various educational bloggers and 21^st century educators. There is such a vast array of resources available to teachers now that I really appreciate taking the time to explore the quality and different contexts for which we could apply some of these in the classroom- from audio/visual technologies which can aid students with special needs, to digital/multimedia presentation software. While I have explored a large number of resources, I cannot still help but feel excited about all of the resources that I have yet to find and explore, as many of these resources could be utilized to enhance student learning- not replace the role of the teacher. While technology today is an invaluable resource, I will continue to be cautious when approaching a new resource, as I feel it is our duty as a teacher to ensure these resources enhance student learning, optimize student outcomes, and protect student safety. 

Google Apps for Education

Google has been offering schools a really interesting deal where they can get Chromebooks for relatively cheap and google will keep them updated with all of their available educational tools and all their security protocols for a little bit now. These did always interest me, but they are just coming out with something that seems to be blowing my mind right now, which is simply called “Classroom.” And best of all, it’s free! Classroom “weaves” together Google Docs (their online collaboration “Office” editors), Google Drive (online storage options), and Gmail (webmail services) to help teachers create and organize their assignments, quizzes, notes, and tests efficiently. Students can receive their work on the interface and hand in all assignments through there, which means less random pieces of paper floating around (English teachers, I’m looking at you!). Teachers can also comment, mark up and grade their assignments all within the interface. Check it out!

5 Audio Teaching Strategies

1) Audiobooks - There is a teacher within my school division who has the books that her class is reading as an audiobook as well for individuals who are unable to read.

2) Livescribe - I had a professor in university who would record his lessons on a livescribe pen, which would record his markings on the paper as well as the audio for students to follow along with the lessons afterwards if they required.

3) Songs - Students in math class were asked to create some sort of "art" for a unit of study. Within this unit, some students took it upon themselves to create a parody of a song which is devoted to their topic. This was not my math class, unfortunately, but it still seemed like a fun activity! The students recorded the audio and presented it to the class.

4) Book Review - Instead of having students write a book report, some teachers in my school have converted to allowing their students to hand in an audio-version of their review.

5) YakiToMe (or other Text-To-Speech tool) - This can be used with non-verbal students to still communicate with others within the class or elsewhere. This can be used for presentations in front of the class for, say, History. The student can create the audio at home, and then perform the actions in front of the class to tell a full story.

You can find a lot more different ideas (and tips) in the following document: Click Here

21st Century Blogs

LINK: http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/

AUTHOR OF BLOG: Michael Gorman

The first blog which I happened to stumble across was entitled “21^st Century Educational Technology and Learning”, by Michael Gorman- a teacher from the United States who has many awards and accolades to his name. He has worked as a consultant for many different companies including, Discovery Education, and has travelled across North America advocating for 21^st century learning and education. Recently he states in his biography that he was named one of Microsoft’s 365 Global Education Heroes. His resume demonstrates his vast commitments to improving education and pursuit of 21^st century learning goals in each classroom.

His blog is very impressive and hosts a large number of resources that could be implemented into any classroom. His most recent post explores 40 different educational websites that teachers can utilize in their classroom, or to keep in their “toolkit” as he refers to it. He offers a direct link to each of these resources and provides a brief synopsis of the resource and its purpose. Such resources can certainly help teachers develop more engaging lessons, as it can often be hard to find quality resources in a limited time span. These resources vary from tools which the students could use in class, to forums and professional learning spaces.

Not only do his posts provide resources, but he also offers teachers suggestions on how to utilize said technology in the classroom. I particularly enjoyed his post where he offers suggestions on how to utilize word clouds (such as the images created from “Wordle”) in various classroom settings and subjects. In this post, entitled “170 Ways To Use Word Clouds In Every Classroom” from May 11, 2014, Mr. Gorman provides a list of unique ways each subject teacher could incorporate word clouds into their daily practice. By providing a specific list of methods for each subject, teachers are able to learn practical strategies for applying these technologies in their subject/classroom. I often find that as a math teacher, I am presented with new technologies, such as Wordle, but sometimes struggle to integrate it into my subject area. By offering these specific suggestions, it could help teachers from all disciplines understand its relevance, from science to the applied arts and beyond.

Overall, Mr. Gorman’s blog provides great ideas and resources, as long as you can look past his advertising at the beginning of each post.

LINK: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

AUTHOR: RICHARD BYRNE

            The second blog which I have discovered is called “Free Technology for Teachers”, created by Richard Byrne- a former teacher in the United States. This blog has received numerous awards, including the 2012 Edublogs Award for Best Ed Tech Blog. His blog is read by an audience 58 000 daily subscribers, which attests to the quality of his resources and posts. He is also a Google Certified Teacher, which I had not heard of before this so I decide to conduct my own side research- see the link attached to learn more about this unique Google opportunity (http://www.google.com/edu/programs/google-teacher-academy/).

            Mr. Byrne has developed a very diverse blog whereby he posts about current and developing technologies as well as educational applications of these technologies. At the top of his blog, Mr. Byrne also provides direct links to different resources and blogs (such as iPad Apps for Schools, and Google Tutorials). In one of his posts, entitled “Made From History is a Must-bookmark for History Teachers and Students”, Mr. Byrne provides a brief synopsis of this history website, while also providing key screenshots to demonstrate some of the features of the website. This allows the reader to gain a better understanding of the technology before utilizing it themselves, should they choose to investigate it further. Mr. Byrne also provides an additional commentary and review on the educational applications of the website; however I wish he also included specific suggestions as to how this resource could be implemented in the classroom. I do appreciate Mr. Byrne’s honest reviews of the technology that he posts, as it helps me as a teacher make a professional decision about using this resource in the classroom.

            I really enjoyed how this blog ventured into different resources and educational tools- from educational interactive websites, to neat videos, to info-graphics that Mr.Byrne has found that could help to enhance the learning in any classroom. To improve his blog, I wish Mr. Byrne would have specific links or folders for “Math” resources, or “Science” resources, rather than having to search at the top of the blog, or to look through his vast array of posts for different ideas to enhance my classroom.

LINK: http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.ca/

AUTHOR: David Andrade

            The final blog which I found is entitled “Educational Technology Guy”, by David Andrade. Mr. Andrade is a Chief Information Officer for an urban public school in the United States and former teacher. The blog explores educational technology, educational theory, educational pedagogy as well as 21^st century skills and education. This blog was nominated for the 2012 Best Ed Tech Blog.

            In this blog, Mr. Andrade posts a good variety of teacher resources and tools that could be utilized in the classroom. The blog which is updated a handful of times throughout the month, offers educational connections between real world contexts and technology. For instance, on April 22, 2014, which was Earth Day, Mr. Andrade included a post entitled “Today is Earth Day-  here are some resources for teachers”, which would allow teachers to make classroom connections to current events. In this post, Mr. Andrade included numerous direct links to resources and websites which offer resources on Earth Day topics. While these links are helpful, Mr. Andrade did not evaluate the quality of the resources, and only offered a generic list of ideas that could be used to learn about Earth Day- many of which did not specifically relate to technology or 21^st century learning/skills.

            While Mr. Andrade posts about new technologies that are being developed, I sometimes struggle to see the connection between some of his posts and how I could use the resource in the classroom to help improve student learning. Perhaps a greater explanation in his posts could aid in my understanding.

            Overall, Mr. Andrade’s blog offers some neat ideas for utilizing more technology in the classroom, however I wish he would include more explanations about the resources, rather than just the direct links to the products.

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has been of great help for me even in University level classes. However, in the recent years, it has been drastically updated to support Educators and their underlings. An educator can sign up for the site and have their students sign below them. This allows the educator to monitor the success of their students, and also assign them work to complete. The site includes detailed video instructions starting from Early Math (Grades 1,2 and 3) and finishes with Differentiated Calculus. However, the site doesn't stop at Math (although it is their biggest library of resources). They also have the Sciences, Economics, Arts and Humanities, Computer Programming, and even US Test Prep material, most with guided video lessons AND course work.


Check out some of the new stuff they have below!

Knovio

Besides the 5 resources mentioned last time, there are a few other ways to have your presentations available to anyone around the world.  The one that I’ve decided to discuss below seems to be the most beneficial to me (besides the other 5 mentioned previously) that I could use in my classroom, and hopefully you all can as well.

Knovio:

            An online tool that can help turn your powerpoint or jpg presentations into video lessons.  It will allow the user to create a video guided lesson with their own audio as well as your presentation.  This could be used by a teacher who is either creating a flipped classroom experience (creating the lessons for the students to go through at their own pace) or even for a teacher who is sick or unable to be in class and still wants to present the material.  As a student, this would allow them to experience the same learning experience from the same teacher htey may have become accustomed to.  This may help students with anxiety issues and having issues with large changes, as well.

5 Online Presentation Tools Pros and Cons + Videos

Prezi

• Pros:

o   People are able to collaborate and edit each others’ work in real time

o   Can edit your prezi from anywhere you have an internet connection

o   It’s free

o   Instead of creating the traditional “slides” like in Powerpoint, you have a limitless “board” where you can transition between and zoom in and out of any point

o   Easy controls for all ages to use

o   Has a lot of templates

•          Cons:

o   Cannot print handouts for your presentations

o   Unable to edit without an internet connection (unless you pay for a “pro” account)

o   Can have a high learning curve (time consuming to master this)

o   Can cause motion sickness

o   Cannot create any text you want into a hyperlink (you can add the entire URL, but no “Click Here” options)

Google Slides

•           Pros:

o   Able to collaborate and edit one presentation at the same time

o   Has a built in chat system which allows you to communicate with others within the presentation

o   You can see which slides others are working on at the time

o   Constantly updated to have the latest and greatest on it

o   Similar to Powerpoint, so easy for Office users to transition

•           Cons:

o   Collaborating in presentations can be more difficult than collaborating in a text document

o   Does not automatically upgrade older presentations

o   Is not “revolutionary” (boring old presentations)

PowToon

•           Pros:

o   Creates animated videos instead of presentations

o   Can add images, music, movement, and voice over by doing a simple drag and drop

o   Can be accessed from anywhere you have an internet connection

o   Doesn’t require the user to draw/create their own images, and instead can focus on creating their story

o   Seems very easy to use and animate

•           Cons:

o   Does not work on all platforms

o   Does not contains as many vibrant templates

o   Free account is limited to 5 minute videos and your choice of images is more limited

o   Must be online to use

Zoho Show

•           Pros:

o   Easy to do simple editing

o   Allows real time collaboration

o   Can export to .pptx, as well as others

•           Cons:

o   Very small amount of online storage

o   Must be online to use

o   Limited in the tools available to you

Emaze

•           Pros

o   Very interesting and engaging templates

o   Straight forward controls with most items being familiar to powerpoint users

o   Able to add hyperlinks to any object you’d like

o   Can insert videos, images and shapes

•           Cons:

o   Limited template options

o   No special transitions between slides

o   Cannot collaborate in real time

o   Can’t change scrolling speed within presentation

Image Manipulation for the Classroom

Infogr.am (www.infogr.am)

• A free online tool to create infographics

o   Infographics are able to quickly convey knowledge and engage its viewers

o   They are fun to read and provide valuable information

o   Ex: http://infogr.am/its-just-skin-deep?src=web

• This could be used in social studies to show students understanding of a current event in a fun and engaging way

YourOldPic (http://www.youroldpic.com/)

•           A free online tool that can make your current pictures look old
•           This could be used in a History Project where the students have to make History Trading Cards about a historical person

Mangahigh - Math has games, too!

Manga High is a game based Math resource which spans until around Grade 11 (at least in Saskatchewan).  It has tons of different games and activities available for students to do and can be assigned to them by their instructor.  It does have a limited free trial version of their material, and apparently the full license is less than Mathletics, another game based Math site.  I know a few teachers who are going to be using this program starting next school year, so I'll keep you updated on how it pans out!  For now, check out the video below!

Hour of Code - What can you do in an hour?

Hour of Code is an interesting way to have people in general get excited about computer programming, and shows it in a very easy to understand manner.  The actual "hour" is very simplistic for all ages, and may only last someone 20 minutes.  At the end, however, you get a certificate saying you have completed your hour.

Check out the video below for more details!

Remind - Easy way to message students and parents all at once.

Remind - Formerly known as Remind101, this is an online messaging center devoted for teacher use. It allows teachers to send out mass text messages or email to both students and parents within a class without having to give out or collect students actual numbers or personal email. This is a tool that can be used as an additional reminder to students and parents about upcoming tests, assignments, or anything you want! You’re able to set up messages to be sent at a later date, such as the day before a test as a reminder, so you can program WHEN you send the messages at a time that’s convenient for you.  And best of all, it's free!  Check it out below!

The Introductory Post

Hello all,

My name is TJ Moss.  I am creating this blog to post all the creative technology resources I can find as a new teacher.  Although I'm not the best with keeping my information posted promptly, I will do my best to put any information that I find useful up here!

If you want to know a little more about me, check out my "About.me" page which is embedded on the sidebar.  Hopefully I can help people out as much as possible!