Course Reflection

Over the period of this course I learned about some great tools for teaching.  In fact, in many ways, it feels like I'm starting teaching over again, but at a higher risk. Learning to teach involves making mistakes, and from what I've learned throughout this course, many of the mistakes that involve students and technology can have high-impact consequences.  For this reason, I'm going to integrate tech use into my ELA classroom slowly. I see strength in the PLC. PLC members can work together to determine if a tech tool poses a privacy danger or needs to be presented to the principal and/or parents, among other things. Before Chromebooks (B.CB.?), it took me years to work out kinks in lessons, and typically I was on my own. I may be getting a little old school saying this, but I hesitate to go all of the way back to the drawing board.  I see the huge potential in technology, but I also fear a knee-jerk reaction to the access we have, and the potential whiplash of trying everything at once. As of now, I have a functional classroom that produces results. I will slowly incorporate tech use into my classroom if it can help me give students more timely and useful feedback, provide more variety in the ways I get information to students, or provide useful, educational, and effective tools for students to communicate what they have learned to me and to others.

What do I find useful? Well, some things I already use but will intensify After Chromebooks (A.CB.). For one, I will up the ante on Google Suite. I think the potential to timely feedback on students writing and critical thinking is powerful here, though I need to strengthen my understanding on how to organize the work without needing to excessively click (click, click, click). Some of the add-ons will be very helpful for this as well, such as Kaizena. I really see no excuse for students not to write well in the coming year. As for a trial run, I think I will give Goggle Classroom a shot in Reader's Workshop. I see the potential to improve engagement and prevent some distractions in this class. Plus, handwriting can be some of these kids' only downfall; typing can be a great boost to them. As far as whole-class presentation and relearning, I think some of the screencasting tools can be useful, not to mention Peardeck, but that's as far as I'm willing to venture this year (I already use Prezi and Slides for almost everything). And for assessment, I want to dabble with Google Forms; I had no idea it contained so much potential for relearning and fast assessments. I really hope to find this intuitive and effective.

Activity 9: Digital Citizenship

Scenario 3: Mr. McFly had a couple of clear oversights in this scenario. First off, he is working with minors and should have allowed ample time to notify the principal and the students' parents about what technology the students would use in class. Second, one of the first things he should have done is to teach the students how to change privacy settings so that unknown users could not publish or view student work. I understand that often time teachers "work on the fly" but with the complications that come with technology use and how quickly work can get out into the world, more foresight needs to be practiced in order for parents, administrators, and students to prepare for the activity they will be participating in.

The threat in this type of situation is very real, and I could see myself falling into this type of trap, being new to use this type of technology in my classroom. Fortunately for me, others have made the mistake and I can learn from them, but for some I'm guessing they learned through the school of hard-knocks. I feel that the best way to avoid making a similar mistake is to use the Mounds Views Acceptable Use Policy and seek help when you're unsure. Plus, just because we have the tech. available doesn't mean we need to use it for everything. When it comes to work with other peoples' kids, precautions and safety need to come before initial use.

Scenario 2: Mr. Kirk has bravely headed in a new directions, but clearly did not think through possible issues that would arise from the kids. As is true with Mr. McFly, it seems that Mr. Kirk is learning the hard way. He seems to have hoped for the best and ran into the worst of students behavior, in the form of bullying. Ethically, Mr. Kirk should have had the discussion about online bullying being just as serious as offline bullying, and he should have covered the consequences...and possibly ran through some scenarios.  Mounds View Acceptable Use Policy clearly covers many of these issues and appears to be the go-to document when venturing into new territory with technology. Mr. Kirk should have established some clear consequences for off-task and threatening behavior with the students so that he did not need to completely sacrifice technology learning with his students.

Overall, implementing technology use in the classroom has it's challenges. I'm happy that Mounds View Schools has clearly defined what kids can and cannot use in the classroom. This way I don't need to learn some of the difficult lessons that people have learned in the past. Unfortunately, I think there will always be challenging situations that will arise, and at least more people will be dabbling with tech. in the classroom so that there's a larger support group to fall back on. As far as I can tell, taking ample precautions is a must when trying something different.

Activity 10: Collaborative Middle School Useful Tech. Tools Blog

Activity 8: Google Forms Assessments

This is my first self-made Google Form. I've used them in the past, but J.J. liked making them, so I always just let him. It seems like a million possibilities exist for using Forms as an assessment tool, which I'm excited to try throughout the year as I get used to having Chromebooks.  I especially like the options to shuffle questions and answers as I think this will be a useful tool for retests; it will save a lot of time and make retesting feasible.

Here's my practice branching form:


Final Thoughts: With time, I see Google Forms being incredibly helpful in assessing students and providing feedback. With the direction we are going at Chippewa, I think this could be used as a relearning tool that provides links and practice for each objective and lets kids work at their own pace.  The forms are fairly intuitive, but it will take time to make tests this way and create learning opportunities. I see this as something a resource teacher would need to spend time creating for groups.

Activity 7: Assessments

I use Socrative as a classroom review tool for roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Here's a copy of one of my quizzes (I don't know how to embed a live quiz from Socrative):

Socrative is a good tool for very concrete information and factual assessment. It also allows for the teacher to ask an open-ended question to which the students reply, which can then be saved to email and printed out. I've used to this to assess knowledge of paragraph and complete sentences. I will continue to use Socrative throughout the year; kids like it.

PollEverywhere seems like a fun tool to get quick responses for things and start discussions. I might use it for Do Now!s at the beginning of the period. I usually had kids write Do Now!s in a notebook, but what fun is that?

My Poll: What was your favorite part about summer?

Activity 6: Google Classroom

Beyond reporting PLC information, this is my first experience with Google Classroom. I can see myself using Google Classroom in small intervention classes in order to get use to the format and grading procedures, but I can't imagine jumping right into working with 140 students from five classes and having success; thank the gods we are not being forced to. However, with a small class, I like how everything is compartmentalized and easy to track. However, the nature of an intervention class is to have students move around quite a bit, so would it be difficult to add and subtract students, however they might be transferring. I do, however, like that I can hold them accountable online and that I need to keep these kids engaged however I can. So... I see the possibility and have had a little fun with the word however--however you feel about that.

 

Activity 5: Apps, Extensions, and Add-Ons

I've been using the Note Board Extension for about a year now. I use it to take notes and make lists for whatever I need to do. I like that it's available on all of my devices that I'm logged into. I also use this to keep track of my school passwords and other sites that are not necessary to keep completely secure.

As for the rest of the apps, extensions, and add-ons, there's a ton of potential, but I can also see spending too much time trying to incorporate "fads" that may not be worth trying to learn. These things give me anxiety. What if I spend an entire school year teaching students how to download, use, and share information using these tools only to realize that it was a mere distraction? What if what I change to is not as beneficial as what I do now?

Robert Frost wrote: "...why abandon a belief/ Merely because it ceases to be true./ Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt/ It will turn true again, for so it goes." 

I know many of these are powerful tools, but for my own sanity, and, hopefully, the benefit of my students, I'm going to focus mostly on how students get information, how students create information, and helpful ways that I can provide feedback. Anything else I will leave by the wayside until proof demonstrates effectiveness.