So I recently went to a math department meeting with several people from around the company and around China. I was able to talk to my colleague in Hangzhou about how he flips his classroom. I thought I would share the resources and ideas.
He goes to another teachers website to get the tutorials and videos. The teacher has videos series for alegbra, geometry, pre-calculus, and calculus AB. He records the videos using a screen recording site so he or the students don't have to depend on the internet. The recording site has a maximum of 15 minutes for free which is much better than screenr.
The site comes with worksheets to be filled out as the student watches the video. This is the homework they have to turn in or be quizzed over. Sometimes the teacher gives a short 5 minute quiz where he has the students write down their answers to some of the questions from the worksheet. This is done to check that they did the worksheet. Then in class students can work on worksheets that go along with the video.
I am looking forward to less time lecturing and more time working with students. This way I can just focus on talking with the students about the content.
My colleague found this resource just by checking around what was on the internet. So I suggest you keep looking for resources and sharing them with others.
If you are interested in flipping the classroom in math then this will give you the resources or structure to follow. If you are interested in flipping the classroom in other curriculum areas this will give you an idea how to structure.
About Me
- DominiqueL
- I love to teach and I love math. Teaching has always been a passion since I was in 5th grade. I gained a love of math later in eighth grade. I have been told that I always have a smile on my face and a song in my heart which is the best description of me.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Cyberbullying
90% of the kids seem to ignore it and not be good digital citizens to stand up to the bully and say something. You must teach and address digital citizenship in the classroom.
I tried finding statistics on how many deaths have been connected to cyber bullying, but could not find any.
I wanted to write this post because as I was reading the news today I saw yet another young student decided to take their life because they were bullied online.
Educators, parents, adults, mentors, and everyone on the internet must teach young people to be good citizens online and be models of that. After reading about the suicide I found another article that showed some online users who were being models and I had faith in the online community. They ignored the harmful comments and tried to rid them of their ignorance. Then the person who posted the photo and harsh comments apologized and said they had learned a lot. It made me smile and wish this ending happened more than suicide.
This xkcd comic called sticks and stones sums it up well. The rollover text says that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words make me think I deserved it." The words you say online make a difference.
Here is another post that relates to cyber bullying. It sums up that killing yourself should never be an option.
Schools need a system in place to address bullying and cyberbullying. An interesting solution I read about is that students can send in anonymous text messages to teachers and administrators. That way a student is not seen tattling in the office just to get further abuse for tattling. Almost all students have phones or mobile devices and are on them all the time. People will just think that they are texting a friend not a teacher. This could be used to report cyberbullying and I think it would be possible to include links or copies of online conversation in the message. This could allow adminstrators real time live reports of bullying as well and stop a fight as soon as possible. It is an interesting solution to the bullying problem that should be explored. To find out more please read this article.
If you want ideas about how to address this issue and what resources you can use please see the following posts.
Digital Citizenship
Digital Citizenship lecture from technology conference
I tried finding statistics on how many deaths have been connected to cyber bullying, but could not find any.
I wanted to write this post because as I was reading the news today I saw yet another young student decided to take their life because they were bullied online.
Educators, parents, adults, mentors, and everyone on the internet must teach young people to be good citizens online and be models of that. After reading about the suicide I found another article that showed some online users who were being models and I had faith in the online community. They ignored the harmful comments and tried to rid them of their ignorance. Then the person who posted the photo and harsh comments apologized and said they had learned a lot. It made me smile and wish this ending happened more than suicide.
This xkcd comic called sticks and stones sums it up well. The rollover text says that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words make me think I deserved it." The words you say online make a difference.
Here is another post that relates to cyber bullying. It sums up that killing yourself should never be an option.
Schools need a system in place to address bullying and cyberbullying. An interesting solution I read about is that students can send in anonymous text messages to teachers and administrators. That way a student is not seen tattling in the office just to get further abuse for tattling. Almost all students have phones or mobile devices and are on them all the time. People will just think that they are texting a friend not a teacher. This could be used to report cyberbullying and I think it would be possible to include links or copies of online conversation in the message. This could allow adminstrators real time live reports of bullying as well and stop a fight as soon as possible. It is an interesting solution to the bullying problem that should be explored. To find out more please read this article.
If you want ideas about how to address this issue and what resources you can use please see the following posts.
Digital Citizenship
Digital Citizenship lecture from technology conference
Online Education
This is another really good ted talk. This one focuses on online education. However I have some qualms about some of the things she talks about.
I totally agree that everyone should have access to education and higher education. She talks about people who don't easily have access in other countries. She also mentions those who can not afford the education. The online platform helps reach people across the globe. She also designed the classes so technology would be doing most of the work and so it would keep teacher work loads done therefore the price would stay low.
The online platform she talks about moves away from the lecture based format which is really important. The example about students not processing information because they are still taking notes really resonated. I was constantly writing. Students need to engage with the material. She points out that the video lecture will periodically pause to ask students a comprehension question. I have started doing that in my own classroom teaching. I teach one concept then have students solve a problem over that concept to check in that they understand. This breaks up the lecture and makes sure everyone understands. I have them solve the problem on their personal whiteboard so I could see their work or mistakes. The online platform can automatically give instant personalized feedback. She talks about how software and technology has advanced to the point where the computer can give feedback on a variety of inputs. However the solution they have come up with for papers and critical thinking is that students peer grade papers or self grade papers.
You get a lot of data through this online platform. You can see how many thousands or even millions of students provided the same wrong answer. Then build in a question or video to break them of that misconception. So it is easy to personalize the education. There is a lot more data you can get from this and we can use it to personalize education as much as we can. If students need to review content they can without holding the class up and if they need an extra challenge they can easily do so. She talks about this platform really pushes the delivery of the content to be as tailored or personalized to the individual as possible. We need to try and achieve this so everyone can succeed and learn.
This type of online course she talks about is the type of online courses students should be taking. These are rich with high level assignments and feedback. Students can interact and talk to each other on platforms. It is also carefully designed by the instructor to guide them through the content which the student can take at a pace that works for them. Too many online courses just give students multiple choice questions and not any meaningful interaction with the content. They make it as easy and basic as possible where the courses they talk about require higher level thinking and meaningful interaction with the content.
However what she does not address in this talk is peoples access to computers and technology. Not everyone has access or money to these devices. Although I guess she is focusing on one problem at a time. Some people may have the technology, but not access to fast internet. Also the problem is that not everyone country has an open internet policy. If those videos used on the platform connect to youtube then people in China can not access them for example. I could see a lot of potential access problems if someone wanted to take this class online from China. I depend on my VPN to get to this site as well as many other blocked sites in China.
So I think we have still things to fix and change. However I really like this model for online education that she talked about and hope other online programs can follow this model. I want online programs to follow this model both at the high school level and college level. Just because it is an online class should not make it easy or simple.
If you want to learn more or want to know what to start thinking about how these types of online education classes will change college I suggest you read this article or this article.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Essential Conditions for Leveraging Technology for Learning
I am going to talk about two essential conditions that teachers need to leverage technology for learning. These two conditions I think are the most important however there are more outlined here.
The first condition that I find most essential for leveraging
technology for learning is ongoing professional learning. I feel like teachers
need to continually improve their teaching and try new things. I felt lost last
year because I did not have enough resources or a community to develop ideas
with. That is why I began to take online courses at Willamette. I needed some
form of professional development so I could continue to improve my teaching and
get new ideas for activities or projects. I gained a lot from those in my
class. I was able to come up with little things to include in lessons and even
a creative assignment to include in a unit. I was not able to do this with
teachers at my school as much since I work at a school with nine teachers. We
do share a lot of techniques and technology that we use to enhance our
teaching, but I wanted more. I have gained a lot from this ed tech leadership class that may not
be evident in how I use or incorporate technology right now, but it has helped
me in other ways. It has gotten me into the habit of blogging about my teaching
and curriculum. After I wrote a blog about how I wanted to structure my classfor next year I was inspired to try out something else too. I had been mulling
around the assignment in the back of my head for a long time, but after I wrotethe blog I realized how I could structure the assignment and include it. This
idea of professional development needs to apply to technology as well.
Teachers need to share what digital tools they are
using to enhance learning with other teachers. Often digital tools can be
shared across disciplines and subjects. I was able to help an English teacher
learn how to enhance her unit on Greek mythology by helping her design a
project that used yodio. I helped teach her how to use the site and what you
could do with it. I then taught her how to create a blog and embed the videos.
We were able to help each other develop professionally because we were given
prep periods or other free time in our schedule that allowed for professional
development. The school administrators and school community supported and
encouraged professional development. Also since Willamette University
encouraged and supported professional development I felt comfortable sharing my
knowledge with other teachers. I think professional development is key for
technology because you have to be able to show how to use the tool or show
examples of applications of that digital tool. So teachers need to see how to
use the tool as well as pedagogy or context of the tool. I think often teachers
do not know all of the capabilities of the digital tools and need to be shown
the different operations it can do. However just knowing is one thing, but
finding the context or how to use that operation to support learning is another
thing. Teachers need to see examples of how to incorporate them in the
classroom or in what context they can incorporate them.
Although I think if your school or administrators
does not give you time or opportunities for professional development. You have
to seek those opportunities out. You should also be willing to lead workshops
or presentations about what you are doing in your classroom so that others will
make opportunities for you to learn from them. I had to seek out professional
development opportunities and make time for it myself. However the school and
company have improved the professional development opportunities, but I think
you can never get enough chances to learn about how to improve your teaching.
A speaker from the Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Waterloo talked to my students this week. I talked with about what the center does and offers. The center offers a completely online Masters in Mathematics for teachers. I looked into and it brings together all of the advanced mathematics that I love and then helps teachers apply that to the classroom. It helps teachers make mathematics more inquiry based and student centered. That is exactly how I see my math classroom and want it to be. I wanted to take all the classes right then and there. I felt like I did not get enough support and ideas in my math methods course on how to teach math. I got a start, but I don't think it was enough. Plus this way I will get to study areas of math I didn't get a chance to and enhance the pedagogy of teaching math. I will eventually get this degree, but I have been taking so many professional development courses recently that I think I need a little bit of a break. However it just shows you that there is so much out there to learn and resources out there to help you develop your teaching skills as much as you can.
The second essential condition is supportive external context. You need the support from the local community, the state, the nation, and other organizations to make professional programs happen. There is not only the money to pay for these programs, but the general existence of the programs and their ability to come work with the teachers. I want to talk about some outside organizations that can help provide professional development.
I went to school in Corvallis, Oregon where Hewlett Packard gave a lot of resources to the schools to help develop scientists and engineers. There is a large factory in Corvallis and most of the town either works for HP or for Oregon State University. The company worked with schools and had workers teach science classes and workshops. They also provided a lot of funding to the high school robotics teams in the town. This support helped teachers and students develop skills with technology and science.
I mentioned the Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Waterloo. Well they provide a lot of online resources that you can use in your classroom and to develop your own skills. They provide a lot of resources to support computer science learning and classes. I really suggest you check out what they have to offer. They can also come visit your school to talk about why students need to learn mathematics and computer science. I loved the talk and hope the students got a lot from it. They also give presentations for teachers as well.
I recently discovered the Intel ed tech program while researching different areas of educational technology. This would also be a great program to get involved in to improve your technology skills and to further develop teaching pedagogy.
There of course is also global communities or resources that are out there too. I plan on using skype to set up a presentation about Willamette University for my students. I have been exchanging a lot of e-mails with the admissions office about how to promote and introduce the school to my students. We were talking about an in-person admissions presentation, but when that fell through I suggested that we set up a skype conference. The admissions office could still give a presentation to my students about the school, but over skype. The office was happy to continue working with me and we have been e-mailing about details for the skype presentation. Skype can be used to contact anyone or anyone organization, therefore you can have as many guest lecturers as you can. You just have to go out and find them.
You should strive to work with companies and organizations at the local level, state level, national level, and around the world to enhance your teaching and your classroom. This means taking classes, attending conferences, scheduling in house workshops, applying for grants, and so much more. You need support to make this happen so go out and find it.
NETS*T-Ed Tech Standards for Teachers
One of the educational technology standards for teachers (NETS"T) states that teachers should promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness. To me this is refering to the fact that future citizens of
this world need to be able to solve problems in a variety of ways. The issues
and problems facing students in the real world are complicated and complex to
solve they will have to find creative solutions. For society to continue to grow
and function we need to continue to be innovative and creative about
technology, resources, and applications of knowledge. I read an interesting article today
about a tech innovator who is using the money he earned from several start up
tech companies to fund a project to help bolster the community and economy of
Las Vegas. He is gathering together people from many different disciplines and
career fields to help find ways to help the local community thrive and become
more interconnected. Many think the project will fail since it is so creative
and innovative, but I feel that we learn from our mistakes and that we should
not be afraid of trying something new. I feel that this world needs more people
willing to think outside the box. I feel one creative or innovative
contribution to the world leads to others. A retired math teacher who works for the Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing at University of Waterloo came to speak to my students this week. At the end of his presentation he told them why math was important to learn and study. He said that math helps you learn how to solve problems and during his talk he emphasized how you can solve problems creatively. He said if you can train your brain to solve problems the best and easiest way then you can solve any problem you will face later in life. I thought it was a good message and hope my students who are not as interested in math got the message. Who really knows what is possible and what problems we will face?
I just recently modeled
this idea in my classroom. I teach AP calculus and need to prepare my students
for the exam in May. I usually finish the content in March. I have a month or
sometimes more to review before the exam. However I wanted to approach the
review in a creative way. I did not simply want to just throw questions at the
students and have them solve them. I mean to make the review more engaging I could
set up some trivia game. I wanted to take the idea further. I ended up deciding
that I would give the students lots of old free response questions from
previous exams. The students would then choose which problem that they wanted
to present and explain to the class. I grade them on not only the content of
the presentation, but their presentation skills. This way they are reviewing
content as well as building important skills they will need later in their
studies or careers. I require the students to talk for ten to fifteen minutes.
I put this time limit there to make sure students explain every step. However
last year some students got really creative about what they included. Some
students talked about common mistakes or points lost on similar problems, some
solved the problem using several methods, and some even added additional parts
to the question. Some of the more outgoing students got creative about
describing the situation described in the problem or they got creative in how
they included the class. This year I provided many examples to the students
about how to get creative about their presentation. I think since I had some
examples of what previous students did and how they took different approaches
to the presentation that the students began to go beyond those examples. I had
one student ask if they could present the wrong answer to the class at first to
spark a discussion. I worry that students might get more confused, but I am
looking forward to that. Last year when I did this no one used a power point. I
encouraged them to use visuals and said they could use medium they wanted. This
year a student really wanted to make a powerpoint for her presentation. She
wanted to make 3D visuals of the volumes and solids described in her problem. I
talked with her outside of class about what programs to use and how to set up
the 3D models. However she did a lot of work on her own and it turned out
great. I know how hard it is tackling a new program and software. I also know
how hard it is to work get mathematical symbols to display correctly in
programs. I know she put in a lot of hard work into the presentation and I felt
like it really added to the presentation. She still needs to work on
incorporating the visuals into her presentation and work on the timing of when the
slides change. However the fact that she did something that very few had done
was great to see. This student isn't always the strongest on exams or
"more traditional" assignments, so it was fantastic to see her excel
on this assignment.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Ed Tech Leadership Resources
Gradecam: This is a great tool for assessing what your students have learned. It saves you time on grading multiple choice answers and you can do it at your own desk as long as you have internet and a webcam. You don't have to go to the teachers lounge to use the machine. It is also a very flexible tool. You can set it up to allow for multiple versions of the test. I use that a lot since I use a different version of my test for each class. The reason our school started using this is that the machine to grade multiple choice questions only grades tests that have four choices. However on the AP test they always have five choices and we model our tests after the AP test. So that means it is a useless machine. However this site can allow you to choice how many choices to provide. You can also have AB as answer if you would like. What I find really cool is that you can tie questions to state objectives. So you can track how a student is doing on one objective. This ties to the NETS*S standard of research and information fluency. The only thing I wish was that you could tie questions to AP objectives and many AP teachers have written the developers to make this change. However the item analysis you can do with the program is very helpful you can easily see which question or objective you need to reteach with your class. You can pilot this program for your school and save money on the program which ties into being a educational technology leader. However you get three months for free at first and you can get more when you refer teachers. So please follow my gradecam link to help a poor teacher out.
Class dojo: This is an app that you can use on an ipad or ipod. I plan on using it on my ipod during class next year. It can award or subtract points based on classroom behavior. It is a good way of including and defining classroom participation. I have listed a few categories I plan to use next year in this post. I am told that you can go to their site on you ipod and then bookmark it so it appears on your home screen so to allow the user to use it offline. The classrooms don't have wifi that my ipod can connect to and the internet does not always work in the classroom so I have to have this as plan B. I also want to be able to use it on my ipod so the computer has the lessons powerpoint running and I can keep track of participation on my ipod. I can walk around the room monitoring groups and award points as well. A coworker here started using it this year with his classes to encourage our students to always speak English in the classroom so that they can improve their English skills. It has worked great so far. After 6 weeks he looks at the point score online and awards them points based on that. I will play around with the app and make sure I can use it offline after the AP test is over.
Dropbox: Many of you have heard about dropbox and I just can't tell enough people how much I love it. This year it saved my bacon even more. My computer crashed several times this year because it is an old machine that I use at work here in China. However I was not stressed or freaking out. Everything important on my work computer was in dropbox. All the powerpoints, lesson plans, tests, quizzes, teaching resources, and copies of my gradebook were in my dropbox. Then I just reinstalled dropbox on my computer when I got it back from the school's IT department and everything was there. It is always in the cloud and you can't loose it. If you need to work on school stuff both at work and at home dropbox helps. My company has gotten paid accounts for a select few so they can upload resources and then share it with teachers across China. Now with just a click of a button I have a pile of resources which is super helpful as a new teacher. As my company has been doing more and more work using dropbox I have taught several of my coworkers how to use it. I have shown them how to share files with others when the files have been too large for an e-mail as well as how to use it in their day to day lives. Also if you want to put extra security on your dropbox than you can set up two step verification. I have an app on my ipod that sends randomly generated codes to me that I am required to enter when logging in. It adds another layer of protection. To learn how to set this up for your dropbox account read this post. You can do this for your g-mail account as well. You can read more about in my post here. You get 2 GB for free, but dropbox often does different promotion deals where you can earn free space. If you keep your eye out for different events you can gather up more free space. This is why I follow dropbox on twitter so I learn can learn about how to get free space. However if you follow my link I can get more, so please consider trying it out for the reasons I stated above.
Astrill: I personally use this service so that I am able to blog, use facebook, and dropbox here in China. These sites are restricted or blocked here in China. However this service provides access to other servers. If you wanted to access an educational video that was only on a British website that can not be accessed in America this may help with that. It does cost some money however I personally made room in my budget because I could not live without access to all of these wonderful resources. I paid extra for firewall protection so I could feel a little safer as well.
Download helper add on in firefox: I use this addon in firefox to help me download videos of the internet so I can show them in class. I imagine there are similar addons for chrome that do the same job, but this is the one I like and use. It is important that you have a plan B. This way if you download the video ahead of time you don't have to worry about the internet not working, loading problems, or ads. A three bubbled icon should appear in the toolbar at the top of firefox once you have installed it. Then if you are viewing a video online all you have to do is hit the three bubbled icon and it will start to download the video. I make sure I have a portable software to play the video as well which I will discuss down below.
portable apps site: I use this site for to download different apps onto my USB stick. In China the teachers move around the school and the students stay put. It is a bit opposite from the American system. However that means that I often have to install or have certain programs with me that the computer in the classroom does not have. These are the programs that I carry on my USB stick at all times and why. However you may want to go look over the categories of apps that they have to see what you can use. They have a wide variety that I think could be useful.
pdf reader: If the computer you are using for some reason does not have adobe reader or a similar program installed and you want to display a pdf then you are in trouble. I often run into this problem and that is why I started using this program/app so I can know for sure I have the software I need to display the file I want.
portable open office: This app is similar to the previous one. This is an open source program that can open any word, excel, and other document. I often use it when someone sends me a file that is saved in a version of word or excel that I don't have. I use the portable version so I can open any word or excel document I want even if the computer I am using does not have the software.
portable VLC player: This helps you play any video. It works with all video formats. So if you want to play a video in a classroom or at a conference and worry about the computer not being able to play a certain video format then bring this along on a USB stick. I use it all the time because I am not sure of what video software is available on the computers in the classrooms.
cooktimer: I use this all the time in my classroom. I put it up on the projector screen up front where the students can see it. This lets the students know how much time they have to finish an exam or activity. It makes the teacher and the students keep on track. It has some preset timer settings that you can use or you can put in a custom time. It simply counts down to zero and makes a loud buzzer noise once finished.
clamwin portable: This is a useful tool to keep viruses from being spread from computer to computer. I like to use dropbox as much as I can so that way I don't have to get a USB stick infected. Many of the computers I use here in China are riddled with viruses. I have a USB stick that I only use here at work that is cheap and I don't care about. Then I have a nice one that I only put into my own laptop which I constantly scan for viruses. However I often run this app over the computers in the classrooms as I teach. Then after each day I scan my USB stick for any viruses I picked up. It is quite helpful if you really have no choice, but to use a USB stick.
screenr: If I can't use download helper in firefox to download a video then I just record my screen as I play the video. I have run into this problem before. I also have used it when I didn't want to clutter a presentation with a bunch of links to resources I wanted to talk about. Instead I talked about how to use the resources over an image of my screen showing the resource and the link to it at the top of the video. The only down side to this site is that you can only record 5 minutes. However if you are using the video in the classroom you want to keep them short. If it is only a short segement of your presentation then it works. If you have longer parts you want to present then you just have to carefully plan and script your presentation. I like this service because if you don't want to talk to long and can easily segment your presentation then it is great. However 5 minutes is kind of short. I just heard about the screen recording service a colleague of mine uses which is screencast-o-matic. It is the same idea where you record your voice over a recording of whatever is on your screen. However this service gives you 15 minutes for free. The yearly subscription fee is pretty low at 15$ and that gets you a two hour limit. The paid account gets you other tools like editing and zoom effects. Although I know my students are going to stop paying attention at 15 minutes so that length is perfect and don't really need access to a two hour limit. So depending on how long you want to make the video you have a couple of options.
Google reader: This is the tool to I use to make information come to me. I keep up to date on new technologies this way and important news events. I follow some people on blogger and their posts come to me instead of me going to them. However saddly Google announced they were retring google reader. They said in their announcement that they knew it had many followers that would miss it, but they wanted to focus on developing a smaller amount of tools. So I need to find another RSS platform to read the blogs and other online content. I could never understand how to use RSS feeds, but google reader made it easy. All I had to do was hit a button to subscribe in either google reader or on the website. Then I would get notifications about new posts in google reader. However Google will let me download my information so that way I can easily transfer it to a new system and that way I don't need to remember who I followed. Here is a great article for some other options. I ended up trying Netvibes. While I was searching around for some help about how to customize my netvibes dashboard I ran across this great list of blogs. Now I just have to get a handle on using netvibes to follow those blogs if I want to. It is easy to add blogs and feeds to my netvibes because I added all of my feeds from google reader to netvibes. I can easily add any other blogs from that list or others I come across. However my account I set up came with some preloaded feeds and I don't know how to get rid of them. I want to keep some of them, but I don't want to be bombarded with too much. I want to have the essentials in my feeds. I read every post in my feed during down time at work or when I need a quick break, so I want it somewhat brief. The best solution I have found is not to use one of their popular dashboards but make my own. I put my world as the topic. It still loaded feeds into my dashboard, but it didn't load that many in. I just discovered that the best way to get rid of their preloaded feeds is to delete their preloaded tabs. It will delete all of the widgets or subscriptions that go into that tab, but since all the feeds are preloaded in this tab then you shouldn't worry. I just added my feeds from google reader and it looks like my old google reader. I am still figuring out how to scroll through stories and scroll through my feeds. You can make your netvibes public so other people can look at it and use it as a launching point. This is how one librarian is using it. Another talks about using it as a launch page or home page in this article. I think you could use it as a online portfolio in a sense to bring together your resources, blogs, and other online products. I read you can import delicious links which is way cool. I need to figure out how to do that. However I want this one for personal use and don't want to share what I am reading for entertainment. I might work on making a Netvibes portfolio that includes my blogs and other resources, but the blogs are a good starting point. I just recently figured how to add links to my blog so that my one blog links to my other two blogs. Now people can easily learn about my interests in educational technology and my teaching. Then if they want to read about hobbies or events in my life they can click the link to my personal blog. I really wanted the blogs separate but then I also needed a way to link them together. So I added links to my other blogs onto each blog. I have tried using it all week so I can get used to it before google reader permanetly goes away. Netvibes worked well for awhile, but then I started having problems with stories loading. I am not sure if it is the fact I am in China or if it is a problem with the service. I will have to try using the site when my VPN is running to see if that helps. However google reader worked well with and without my VPN.
LaTeX/WinEdt: I use this to type up all of my exams and activities. I have heard that the equation editor in word is very cumbersome and hard to use. I have never tried since I learned to use this software. You need to know the code or commands for certain symbols, but most of them are straight forward. Their is a guide at the top to help you though. If you really don't know how to do something there are a lot of good help sites out there. This software is used to type up most math textbooks and academic papers. I learned how to use it when I got my degree in math and since I got used to using after four years I haven't wanted to teach myself how to use other software. If I taught in the states I think I would have students learn how to use this program after the AP test. They would have to type up some mathematical projects for me using the program. It would get them ready for college and be prepared to enter the academic math world. The software is free for thirty days and you can extend that. If you get sick of the program asking you to buy a license then you can purchase one for a pretty low rate. I will direct you to my old math professors site on directions about how to install since he has some good resources for getting started and he taught me how to use the program. I have had to occasionally re-install the program and when ever I do I go to his site because it has good clear directions on what to do which can be found on the top of the site. The site also includes some sample documents as example. Here is a good resource for trouble shooting and looking up how to do certain things. I have read through on occasion and always learn some new command to make my handouts ever more organized. When a colleague of mine was having trouble copying and pasting equations into a document he asked me what program I used. I showed him LaTeX, but that wasn't what he was looking for. LaTeX helps you type up an entire document. He just wanted one equation done in mathematical type. So after suggesting LaTeX he went and found an online site that ran LaTeX online. That way it produces just one equation in mathematical type that you can include in any document. You still need to know LaTeX commands and codes, but you can use the above wikibook link to look up anything you need to know.
Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) at the University of Waterloo: This center was started by a few high school math teachers and then grew to become a much larger organization. They are based at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, ON, Canada. The center grew with the help from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. They site provides a lot of online resources. They have problem of the week which teachers can subscribe to and use to enhance their curriculum. They have lots of resources to support and run a computer science curriculum. They have old copies of past math competitions that can be used to enhance your curriculum. There is a bunch more that I have yet to explore. I am personally excited by the online Masters in Mathematics for Teachers. I think it will help bridge the gap between my advanced mathematics degree and the classroom. They offer courses about how to make calculus and geometry more student centered and inquiry based which sounds amazing. I want to eventually get the degree, but want to take some time off from classes so I can focus on my teaching.
PatrickJMT: I follow this guy on youtube and he has amazing videos. He teaches a lot of contact. He mostly has videos on upper level math topics, but he has a series of videos for pre-algebra. He has a link to his other resources for teachers on this page as well. I just discovered the links to his other pages and I was excited. I suggest downloading the videos using download helper add on that I talked about earlier in the post so that way you don't have to depend on the internet. I think you could also use these videos to flip the classroom and make students watch them before you teach the content. I will be using some of these videos to help students review before the AP test, but I use one video in class to demonstrate how to graph the derivative function based on the graph of the function. It is a great video since it means I don't have to practice drawing my graphs.
Ed703: Ed Tech Leadership Hour Log
Class dojo: This is an app that you can use on an ipad or ipod. I plan on using it on my ipod during class next year. It can award or subtract points based on classroom behavior. It is a good way of including and defining classroom participation. I have listed a few categories I plan to use next year in this post. I am told that you can go to their site on you ipod and then bookmark it so it appears on your home screen so to allow the user to use it offline. The classrooms don't have wifi that my ipod can connect to and the internet does not always work in the classroom so I have to have this as plan B. I also want to be able to use it on my ipod so the computer has the lessons powerpoint running and I can keep track of participation on my ipod. I can walk around the room monitoring groups and award points as well. A coworker here started using it this year with his classes to encourage our students to always speak English in the classroom so that they can improve their English skills. It has worked great so far. After 6 weeks he looks at the point score online and awards them points based on that. I will play around with the app and make sure I can use it offline after the AP test is over.
Dropbox: Many of you have heard about dropbox and I just can't tell enough people how much I love it. This year it saved my bacon even more. My computer crashed several times this year because it is an old machine that I use at work here in China. However I was not stressed or freaking out. Everything important on my work computer was in dropbox. All the powerpoints, lesson plans, tests, quizzes, teaching resources, and copies of my gradebook were in my dropbox. Then I just reinstalled dropbox on my computer when I got it back from the school's IT department and everything was there. It is always in the cloud and you can't loose it. If you need to work on school stuff both at work and at home dropbox helps. My company has gotten paid accounts for a select few so they can upload resources and then share it with teachers across China. Now with just a click of a button I have a pile of resources which is super helpful as a new teacher. As my company has been doing more and more work using dropbox I have taught several of my coworkers how to use it. I have shown them how to share files with others when the files have been too large for an e-mail as well as how to use it in their day to day lives. Also if you want to put extra security on your dropbox than you can set up two step verification. I have an app on my ipod that sends randomly generated codes to me that I am required to enter when logging in. It adds another layer of protection. To learn how to set this up for your dropbox account read this post. You can do this for your g-mail account as well. You can read more about in my post here. You get 2 GB for free, but dropbox often does different promotion deals where you can earn free space. If you keep your eye out for different events you can gather up more free space. This is why I follow dropbox on twitter so I learn can learn about how to get free space. However if you follow my link I can get more, so please consider trying it out for the reasons I stated above.
Astrill: I personally use this service so that I am able to blog, use facebook, and dropbox here in China. These sites are restricted or blocked here in China. However this service provides access to other servers. If you wanted to access an educational video that was only on a British website that can not be accessed in America this may help with that. It does cost some money however I personally made room in my budget because I could not live without access to all of these wonderful resources. I paid extra for firewall protection so I could feel a little safer as well.
Download helper add on in firefox: I use this addon in firefox to help me download videos of the internet so I can show them in class. I imagine there are similar addons for chrome that do the same job, but this is the one I like and use. It is important that you have a plan B. This way if you download the video ahead of time you don't have to worry about the internet not working, loading problems, or ads. A three bubbled icon should appear in the toolbar at the top of firefox once you have installed it. Then if you are viewing a video online all you have to do is hit the three bubbled icon and it will start to download the video. I make sure I have a portable software to play the video as well which I will discuss down below.
portable apps site: I use this site for to download different apps onto my USB stick. In China the teachers move around the school and the students stay put. It is a bit opposite from the American system. However that means that I often have to install or have certain programs with me that the computer in the classroom does not have. These are the programs that I carry on my USB stick at all times and why. However you may want to go look over the categories of apps that they have to see what you can use. They have a wide variety that I think could be useful.
pdf reader: If the computer you are using for some reason does not have adobe reader or a similar program installed and you want to display a pdf then you are in trouble. I often run into this problem and that is why I started using this program/app so I can know for sure I have the software I need to display the file I want.
portable open office: This app is similar to the previous one. This is an open source program that can open any word, excel, and other document. I often use it when someone sends me a file that is saved in a version of word or excel that I don't have. I use the portable version so I can open any word or excel document I want even if the computer I am using does not have the software.
portable VLC player: This helps you play any video. It works with all video formats. So if you want to play a video in a classroom or at a conference and worry about the computer not being able to play a certain video format then bring this along on a USB stick. I use it all the time because I am not sure of what video software is available on the computers in the classrooms.
cooktimer: I use this all the time in my classroom. I put it up on the projector screen up front where the students can see it. This lets the students know how much time they have to finish an exam or activity. It makes the teacher and the students keep on track. It has some preset timer settings that you can use or you can put in a custom time. It simply counts down to zero and makes a loud buzzer noise once finished.
clamwin portable: This is a useful tool to keep viruses from being spread from computer to computer. I like to use dropbox as much as I can so that way I don't have to get a USB stick infected. Many of the computers I use here in China are riddled with viruses. I have a USB stick that I only use here at work that is cheap and I don't care about. Then I have a nice one that I only put into my own laptop which I constantly scan for viruses. However I often run this app over the computers in the classrooms as I teach. Then after each day I scan my USB stick for any viruses I picked up. It is quite helpful if you really have no choice, but to use a USB stick.
screenr: If I can't use download helper in firefox to download a video then I just record my screen as I play the video. I have run into this problem before. I also have used it when I didn't want to clutter a presentation with a bunch of links to resources I wanted to talk about. Instead I talked about how to use the resources over an image of my screen showing the resource and the link to it at the top of the video. The only down side to this site is that you can only record 5 minutes. However if you are using the video in the classroom you want to keep them short. If it is only a short segement of your presentation then it works. If you have longer parts you want to present then you just have to carefully plan and script your presentation. I like this service because if you don't want to talk to long and can easily segment your presentation then it is great. However 5 minutes is kind of short. I just heard about the screen recording service a colleague of mine uses which is screencast-o-matic. It is the same idea where you record your voice over a recording of whatever is on your screen. However this service gives you 15 minutes for free. The yearly subscription fee is pretty low at 15$ and that gets you a two hour limit. The paid account gets you other tools like editing and zoom effects. Although I know my students are going to stop paying attention at 15 minutes so that length is perfect and don't really need access to a two hour limit. So depending on how long you want to make the video you have a couple of options.
Google reader: This is the tool to I use to make information come to me. I keep up to date on new technologies this way and important news events. I follow some people on blogger and their posts come to me instead of me going to them. However saddly Google announced they were retring google reader. They said in their announcement that they knew it had many followers that would miss it, but they wanted to focus on developing a smaller amount of tools. So I need to find another RSS platform to read the blogs and other online content. I could never understand how to use RSS feeds, but google reader made it easy. All I had to do was hit a button to subscribe in either google reader or on the website. Then I would get notifications about new posts in google reader. However Google will let me download my information so that way I can easily transfer it to a new system and that way I don't need to remember who I followed. Here is a great article for some other options. I ended up trying Netvibes. While I was searching around for some help about how to customize my netvibes dashboard I ran across this great list of blogs. Now I just have to get a handle on using netvibes to follow those blogs if I want to. It is easy to add blogs and feeds to my netvibes because I added all of my feeds from google reader to netvibes. I can easily add any other blogs from that list or others I come across. However my account I set up came with some preloaded feeds and I don't know how to get rid of them. I want to keep some of them, but I don't want to be bombarded with too much. I want to have the essentials in my feeds. I read every post in my feed during down time at work or when I need a quick break, so I want it somewhat brief. The best solution I have found is not to use one of their popular dashboards but make my own. I put my world as the topic. It still loaded feeds into my dashboard, but it didn't load that many in. I just discovered that the best way to get rid of their preloaded feeds is to delete their preloaded tabs. It will delete all of the widgets or subscriptions that go into that tab, but since all the feeds are preloaded in this tab then you shouldn't worry. I just added my feeds from google reader and it looks like my old google reader. I am still figuring out how to scroll through stories and scroll through my feeds. You can make your netvibes public so other people can look at it and use it as a launching point. This is how one librarian is using it. Another talks about using it as a launch page or home page in this article. I think you could use it as a online portfolio in a sense to bring together your resources, blogs, and other online products. I read you can import delicious links which is way cool. I need to figure out how to do that. However I want this one for personal use and don't want to share what I am reading for entertainment. I might work on making a Netvibes portfolio that includes my blogs and other resources, but the blogs are a good starting point. I just recently figured how to add links to my blog so that my one blog links to my other two blogs. Now people can easily learn about my interests in educational technology and my teaching. Then if they want to read about hobbies or events in my life they can click the link to my personal blog. I really wanted the blogs separate but then I also needed a way to link them together. So I added links to my other blogs onto each blog. I have tried using it all week so I can get used to it before google reader permanetly goes away. Netvibes worked well for awhile, but then I started having problems with stories loading. I am not sure if it is the fact I am in China or if it is a problem with the service. I will have to try using the site when my VPN is running to see if that helps. However google reader worked well with and without my VPN.
LaTeX/WinEdt: I use this to type up all of my exams and activities. I have heard that the equation editor in word is very cumbersome and hard to use. I have never tried since I learned to use this software. You need to know the code or commands for certain symbols, but most of them are straight forward. Their is a guide at the top to help you though. If you really don't know how to do something there are a lot of good help sites out there. This software is used to type up most math textbooks and academic papers. I learned how to use it when I got my degree in math and since I got used to using after four years I haven't wanted to teach myself how to use other software. If I taught in the states I think I would have students learn how to use this program after the AP test. They would have to type up some mathematical projects for me using the program. It would get them ready for college and be prepared to enter the academic math world. The software is free for thirty days and you can extend that. If you get sick of the program asking you to buy a license then you can purchase one for a pretty low rate. I will direct you to my old math professors site on directions about how to install since he has some good resources for getting started and he taught me how to use the program. I have had to occasionally re-install the program and when ever I do I go to his site because it has good clear directions on what to do which can be found on the top of the site. The site also includes some sample documents as example. Here is a good resource for trouble shooting and looking up how to do certain things. I have read through on occasion and always learn some new command to make my handouts ever more organized. When a colleague of mine was having trouble copying and pasting equations into a document he asked me what program I used. I showed him LaTeX, but that wasn't what he was looking for. LaTeX helps you type up an entire document. He just wanted one equation done in mathematical type. So after suggesting LaTeX he went and found an online site that ran LaTeX online. That way it produces just one equation in mathematical type that you can include in any document. You still need to know LaTeX commands and codes, but you can use the above wikibook link to look up anything you need to know.
Center for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) at the University of Waterloo: This center was started by a few high school math teachers and then grew to become a much larger organization. They are based at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, ON, Canada. The center grew with the help from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. They site provides a lot of online resources. They have problem of the week which teachers can subscribe to and use to enhance their curriculum. They have lots of resources to support and run a computer science curriculum. They have old copies of past math competitions that can be used to enhance your curriculum. There is a bunch more that I have yet to explore. I am personally excited by the online Masters in Mathematics for Teachers. I think it will help bridge the gap between my advanced mathematics degree and the classroom. They offer courses about how to make calculus and geometry more student centered and inquiry based which sounds amazing. I want to eventually get the degree, but want to take some time off from classes so I can focus on my teaching.
PatrickJMT: I follow this guy on youtube and he has amazing videos. He teaches a lot of contact. He mostly has videos on upper level math topics, but he has a series of videos for pre-algebra. He has a link to his other resources for teachers on this page as well. I just discovered the links to his other pages and I was excited. I suggest downloading the videos using download helper add on that I talked about earlier in the post so that way you don't have to depend on the internet. I think you could also use these videos to flip the classroom and make students watch them before you teach the content. I will be using some of these videos to help students review before the AP test, but I use one video in class to demonstrate how to graph the derivative function based on the graph of the function. It is a great video since it means I don't have to practice drawing my graphs.
Ed703: Ed Tech Leadership Hour Log
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Tech Learning Curve
I had never used prezi before the other day. I had seen a prezi and a teacher at my school here in China gave a presentation about how to use it with the rest of the staff. However I had not played around with it.
At first it took a while to find a template I wanted to use. There was a lot of options of templates that were really cool. I however had think about what information I was presenting and how it related to the template. I choose a template that did not necessarily directly connect. However as I thought about where I wanted to put the information I realized that the template did connect in a way. For example I really wanted to put safety by the skull because those two things connect and evoke the same emotions. Then I got to the real important and applicable part which I think is the real treasure (since the classroom is so important I made it the treasure on the treasure map). I spent a long time trying to figure out how I was going to present the resources and my ideas about the lesson plan I had in mind. I tried including links, but did not know how to embed them. I stepped away from the project for a long time so I could get a fresh perspective. I looked into what objects I could insert and I saw you could insert videos. Then I knew that I could use screenr to record a video that would display the resources I wanted to present while I talked about how I would use the resource in the classroom.
After all that it was quick and easy to use. I got a hang of it really fast. However I am perfecionist and organizer that wants my presentation just so. It took me a long time to get everything like I wanted it. I was not sure how to include links and didn't want to just have some icky link sitting in the presentation. However I saw you could include videos into the presentation and that ended up working fantastic.
Although then I spent a long time making the videos. I had to get them just right. So I recorded the videos a few times until I had it right.
It took a while to upload the videos online and into the prezi. So as things were uploading I used my other computer that I own, which is a google chrome book, to write my blog post to accompany the prezi. I was able to write the post then e-mail it directly to my blog.
Once uploading was finished I played around with how the path worked and where I wanted to go in the prezi. This took some time only because I did not know how to zoom out and drag things at first. However I got a hang of it pretty quickly.
Then I made sure that I could share the link to this prezi easily with people. It took me a while to find where the privacy settings were, but using the support page on the prezi website I found how to make the video public.
Then I went through my blog post and linked to all the websites I talked about and the resources I talked about. I also added a link to the prezi now that I had made it public.
Planning out presentation and research 2 hours: sketching out how to use prezi, where to put information, how to summarize information, how to include information in prezi, exploring ISTE wiki and resources offered
Prezi creation and accompanying blog 5 hours: making screenr videos describing lesson plans, uploading screenr videos to web and prezi presentation, editing path of prezi, making sure prezi was public and accessible to all, writing blog post to accompany prezi, including links in blog to resources used in prezi and other useful resources
Ed703: Ed Tech Leadership Hour Log
At first it took a while to find a template I wanted to use. There was a lot of options of templates that were really cool. I however had think about what information I was presenting and how it related to the template. I choose a template that did not necessarily directly connect. However as I thought about where I wanted to put the information I realized that the template did connect in a way. For example I really wanted to put safety by the skull because those two things connect and evoke the same emotions. Then I got to the real important and applicable part which I think is the real treasure (since the classroom is so important I made it the treasure on the treasure map). I spent a long time trying to figure out how I was going to present the resources and my ideas about the lesson plan I had in mind. I tried including links, but did not know how to embed them. I stepped away from the project for a long time so I could get a fresh perspective. I looked into what objects I could insert and I saw you could insert videos. Then I knew that I could use screenr to record a video that would display the resources I wanted to present while I talked about how I would use the resource in the classroom.
After all that it was quick and easy to use. I got a hang of it really fast. However I am perfecionist and organizer that wants my presentation just so. It took me a long time to get everything like I wanted it. I was not sure how to include links and didn't want to just have some icky link sitting in the presentation. However I saw you could include videos into the presentation and that ended up working fantastic.
Although then I spent a long time making the videos. I had to get them just right. So I recorded the videos a few times until I had it right.
It took a while to upload the videos online and into the prezi. So as things were uploading I used my other computer that I own, which is a google chrome book, to write my blog post to accompany the prezi. I was able to write the post then e-mail it directly to my blog.
Once uploading was finished I played around with how the path worked and where I wanted to go in the prezi. This took some time only because I did not know how to zoom out and drag things at first. However I got a hang of it pretty quickly.
Then I made sure that I could share the link to this prezi easily with people. It took me a while to find where the privacy settings were, but using the support page on the prezi website I found how to make the video public.
Then I went through my blog post and linked to all the websites I talked about and the resources I talked about. I also added a link to the prezi now that I had made it public.
Planning out presentation and research 2 hours: sketching out how to use prezi, where to put information, how to summarize information, how to include information in prezi, exploring ISTE wiki and resources offered
Prezi creation and accompanying blog 5 hours: making screenr videos describing lesson plans, uploading screenr videos to web and prezi presentation, editing path of prezi, making sure prezi was public and accessible to all, writing blog post to accompany prezi, including links in blog to resources used in prezi and other useful resources
Ed703: Ed Tech Leadership Hour Log
Digital Citizenship
I will include the link to the prezi viewing site as well if you would like to view it outside the blog post.
Digital Citizenship is an NETS*S standard that I will explore in depth in this post.
This is a very pressing and important topic to address with students because students need to know how to be citizens in the digital world. They need to learn their words and actions online have real world consequences. There has been too many cases of students committing suicide because they have been bullied online.
However digital citizenship does not cover just issues like saftey and cyberbullying. When I first started learning about educational technology I always thought about digital citzenship as saftey measures and watching what you say online. However the ISTE website outlined a few other elements to the standard. It took me a while to wrap my brain around how these ideas fit under digital citizenship. Slowly as a thought about what it meant to be a citizen in a country or anywhere else it began to make sense. If you are a citizen of a country then you must have a good attitude about being a citizen, part of being a citizen is teaching those around what that means, and you must continue to learn about what it means to be a citizen since the world is always changing. I want to analyze these a little closer.
First let me talk about having a good attitude. I think that if you are a citizen of a country, town, school, or any other community that you are there because part of you wants to be there. If you don't have a good attitude about being a citizen of that community then you would be in a different one. Students need to enjoy being a part of the digital community and approach learning about technology with a good attitude. It reminds of when my dad gave me an HP graphing calculator. At the time he was working for HP and he was very adament on only having HP products in the house. So for the longest time I never used a mac because when you live in a town where most people in the town are employed by HP then you run across a lot of HP computers. I didn't realize how popular mac computers were until I went to college where tons of students had them including my roomate. There were of course labs with just mac computers in them as well. I adjusted to using them, but it took sometime. I digress let us get back to talking about my HP calculator. My math teacher taught the class using a TI calculator and I had no idea how to use the HP one. I tried learning how to multiply matrices on the calculator and just couldn't figure out how to store so I could refer to it in the home screen. I gave up using it after a while and borrowed a TI from my teacher. I think I went into learning about that calculator with a bad attitude because I didn't get a choice in my calculator and I was using to make my dad happy not because I was interested. I eventually bought a TI calculator, but did not really tell my dad that I did until much later. I have since learned to do a lot on a TI-89 calculator as I have been teaching my Calculus students to use it. I am continually shocked at what the TI89 calculator can do. So are my students because after teaching them how to graph slope fields on their calculator one of my students said that "the calculator is omnipitent". I think another piece about having a good attitude is also being able to deal with technology and not get frustrated. Often things don't work like we want them to or we just can't figure out how to do something. As I was making my presentation to summarize these thoughts I struggled with having a good attitude because the internet was being slow and the prezi was not responding like I wanted. I first debated doing a google presentation because that is easy to use and I have done it before. I didn't really want to try something new because I new I would get frustrated at not knowing how to get the presentation just like I want it. However I decided it would be fun to try something different for once. It is that attitude that are students need. I did struggle at getting the presentation just right, but then I stepped away from the project for a while and found a solution that accomplished presenting the information I wanted. It was then that I thought of including screenr videos into the presentation since that quickly showed you the resources I wanted to share with you. I will include the links to those resources at the end of the post. So are students need to have a good attitude about working with technology and take some time to really think through their options. This is a really hard concept to teach and instill in our students. I have about this idea of teaching attitude for a while because part of the reason I wanted to teach math was so that I could teach students to have a good attitude. Many times when I told people I was a math major they often responded with something about how they hate math and are bad at it. I am determined to use pedagogy and activities in my math class that makes it so less students say that they hate math. I want them to see how fun math can be. They may never see math as fun as I think it is, but that is ok. If they have a good attitude for learning math it help them learn better, want to learn, and help them in later math classess they most likely will have to take. This idea also applies to learning about digital cintizenship and technology. If they have a good attitude for learning about digital citizenship and technology then it will help them learn better, want to learn about new digital issues and new digital skills, and help them later in life as they will most likely be forced to use some form of technology in their daily life.
Next I want to talk about how leadership relates to digtal citizenship. I think that we as citizens in our community teach others what it means to be a part of that community. We tell others the rules about being in that community and often advocate for people in the community to do certain things. I know that since I am a teacher I am a leader in my community. I am being a role model for students and trying to teach the students how to be citizens. Something I have realized after living in China is that I am a citizen of America and I am a citizen of Oregon, but I am also a global citizen. What I do and say here in china makes impressions on people from around the world. I am trying to teach my students so that they too can become global citizens. I try to model global citizenship through my words and actions for the students. This idea of leadership also extends to digital citizenship. Our have to adovcate for people to carefully consider issues dealing with digital citizenship. Students also need to be able to teach others digital skills so that their community benefits from everyones digital contributions. Students also need to be empowered to speak up about students being bullied online. Our students need to be able to improve their community and help to make change. They could help shape how technology is used and potententially not used.
Last I want to talk about being a lifelong learner. I think the last two aspects fold into life long learning. You need to have a good attitude about learning to continue to do so. Also if you are commited to being a life long learner then you will be a better leader. It took me a while to think about how this tied into citizenship, but I think that citizens need to be commited to continuing their education about their community and improving their community. This applies to the digital community and digital skills as well. Students need to continue to learn technology. As technology becomes more and more apart of our daily life they will have to continue to learn how to use and how to be a good digital citizen. They will also eventually go into the job force where they will be asked and encouraged to use new technology. I recently went to Laos with a friend to visit their family who were living and working there. I was talking to my friends family about the Lao people and their culture. They mentioned to me that the foreign company they work for is pushing the Lao staff to use this online database at work. The Lao people refuse to use it because they don't know how and either don't know how to learn to use or won't learn to use it. Whatever the reasons it just shows that people need to be prepared to contine to learn about technology and not be afraid to use it. However the Laos situation is a little different since most of the population does not have lots of access to the internet and technology. Many places are not equiped with high level technology. I flew to a couple of cities in Laos and when I went to the airport in Laos to buy my plane tickets I was shocked at how low tech the airport was. This was the airport in the captiol city Vientianne. I bought the plane tickets the day of and the teller used one of the oldeset computers I had seen. Then when I went to go check in for my flight the security officer had a printed list of passengers, but of course my name was not on it since I had just bought my tickets like twenty minutes ago. He took a pen and wrote my name down on the passenger list. My friend had her name mispelled on her boarding pass because the teller made a typo when she was entering in the information on that really old computer. However no one stopped her despite the fact the name did not match the one on her passport. Also since it is a communist country they control the education greatly and don't not advocate for crticial thinking skills and technology. So this foreign company was not working on being leaders in digital citizenship since they did not provide training sessions on how to use the technology and they were not showing their workers how to be lifelong learners. Our students may face the same problem when they go into the workforce and are asked to use online tools and other programs. So we as educators need to instill that sense of lifelong learning in our students.
Now for the last piece of digital citizenship which is safety. I had always thought of issues surronding safety, privacy, and ethics when I thought of digital citizenship. I think that is what comes to mind first when people think about digital citizenship not the other aspects I have already focused on. Students need to know how to proctect their identity, information, and ideas when working online. This is where cyberbulling also comes in. Students need to know how important it is to make the digital world a safe one for others. They also need to know about how the digital world often is not a safe place because of hackers, scams, and people pretending to be something they are not. ANother issue related to saftey is knowing how much to share about yourself online. There was a recent incident here in China where a young girl would constantly post her location on the Chinese version of twitter (since twitter is blocked in China). She also posted lots of photos of herself. This made it really easy for online users to find her in the real world. She ended up getting murdered and people suspected that the killer used the information she posted to track her down. Her murder was a horrible consequence for sharing so much personal information online. Students need to understand that they should watch what information they share with the public.
You should know though that the online community was very sad about her passing and many followers began an online memorial. Followers, fans, and others who heard about the story went to her profile and posted an image of a candle. Therefore the digital commuity can be very caring, supportive, and really come together. We need to continue to make the digital world a safe place and make people understand how to be a digital citizen.
So after thinking through all of these concepts I made this prezi presentation to sum up these thoughts. It takes you through an overview of what digital citizenship is and my thoughts about it. Then at the end of the journey, the real treasue, is presenting this in the classroom. I include two videos summarizing and outling two different ways to approach the topic of digital citizenship in the classroom. The lessons are geared towards high school students. I did not address how I would include this topic in my math classroom, but that is because I am not sure how I would do it. I have talked about how I teach about some of the principles of digital citizenship in my class, so hopefully students can transplant those principles and apply them to technology. I think that the standard on problem solving and critical thinking outlined by ISTE applies a lot in math. I often have to teach students how to solve technology problems when working with their calculator. I however can be a leader for digital citizenship and the digital community by teaching other teachers. I have already done this in during my time student teaching. I helped an English teacher at my school learn how to use Yodio and then compile the videos into a blog. If you think about the TPACK model she provided the content and the context while I provided the technology knowledge. We collaborated, discussed, and reflected on the pedagogy. She had to be absent one day during the project so I came into her class with the sub and helped the students with the Yodio program. I then came into the class when the videos were presented. I have also helped teachers here in China by showing them how to use the program I use to edit math equations.
I wanted to include links to the resources in the prezi presentation, but could not figure out how to do that. However I did see that I could upload a video into the presentation and thought about just visually showing them. So here are the resources I talked about.
The site that I got the above resources is free, easy to use, and you can download all of these. They have activities, rescources, and lesson plans for everything. They have these resources for many different age groups. I just looked at the resources for high school, but there is a lot more out there.
If you want to know more about digital citizenship you can read my other post which has many more links to resources and a video summarizing what I learned about digital citizenship at a technology conference.
If you want to know more about digital citizenship you can read my other post which has many more links to resources and a video summarizing what I learned about digital citizenship at a technology conference.
Here are some other good resources I found while researching this topic:
wiki page made through digital collaboration by many different schools around the world
Here are links to some of the digital tools I talked about in the presentation:
Yodio
Glogster
Screenr
Also I thought that I would mention that I used Vocaroo to record my voice overs for the prezi online then downloaded them to my computer. Once I downloaded them I clicked on the frame I wanted to include it and clicked on insert. Then chose to insert voice over.
Here are links to some of the digital tools I talked about in the presentation:
Yodio
Glogster
Screenr
Also I thought that I would mention that I used Vocaroo to record my voice overs for the prezi online then downloaded them to my computer. Once I downloaded them I clicked on the frame I wanted to include it and clicked on insert. Then chose to insert voice over.
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