Digital Portfolio

In order for others to be able to follow my teaching career and my accomplishments, I would like to continue with my blog.  I would like to think that my blog became my first representation of all the technology projects that I have created.  I like how we had to reflect on our blog after each assignment, because it really encourages you how to grow as a teacher. 
Currently I use my teacher site through my school district to post reviews, online assessments, notes, and answer keys.  Next year, my school will be implementing Blackboard.  I think this is going to allowing my students to collaborate along with everything else I was able to do.  I would like to add Blackboard to my digital portfolio and any examples of student work.  I will be continuing to upload new technology projects to my blog and keep up with my reflections. 
I still have many more items to add to my digital portfolio and as time goes on I can not wait to see how much I have learned and grew as a teacher and technology leader.
Please follow my digital portfolio. 

Perfect Score

I used the rubric below to evaluate my voicethread project, which promoted social networking.  I combined rubrics from two different websites that focused on the photostory, images within the story, the narration of the story, and the comments left through voicethread.  The rubric has a maximum of 40 points and a needs improvement column for students who need to resubmit their project.
I created a model that I want my students to follow next year when I use this project.  My plan was to create a project that was the best example I could show my students.  I want them to know how high I set the bar and if they want to achieve the highest score they can model their photostory and voicethread from my example. 
So, I don't want to brag, but I gave myself a perfect score.

I knew I was going to be an educator when...

This project was by far my favorite one of the course.  I think I can definitely use this weekly in my classroom.  I downloaded an app called Splice on my iPhone and pretty much just started playing around.  I first created a short project and taught myself how to add a title page, video, photo, and a transition slide.  With the transition slide you can choose the direction you want a photo or title page to appear, the length of the slide, with 10 seconds being the max.  I could crop my pictures within the app on each slide and edit it with ease.  The hardest thing was trying to make my story flow knowing that I had only 10 seconds for each slide.  Sometimes it felt that 10 seconds was not enough and other times 10 seconds was way too long.  I rehearsed many times and had to go back and edit the times for certain slides and when I needed a little more time, I added a transition slide before and after a photo.

When I was finished, I just hit the video to export and it showed up with the rest of my photos on my phone.  I did have trouble sending the file to actually get it to my computer.  The file was too big to e-mail and I tried to send it to my you tube account through an SMS text, but that wouldn't go through either.  Finally, I had to hard wire my cell phone to my laptop and download it onto my laptop so I could upload it onto my blog.  Other than hard wiring to my laptop, this project was made entirely with my phone and was so easy to do!

P.S.  I enjoyed this project so much that I created another digital story for my husband for fathers day.  I included family pictures and short videos of our son.  He loved it, as did I!  I was very proud of myself!

Cell phones in the Classroom

I interview a high school math teacher in my district about the "Minute To Win It" project she does with her statistics class.  The idea of the project is for students to work in groups of three or four and create an experiment for students, teachers, and administrators to complete in one minute.  Students are given a day to create the experiment, then the teacher approves it or ask the students make changes and resubmit the experiment.  The teacher sends an e-mail to other math classes inviting the classes to come complete the student's experiments in order for the students to collect enough data.  I participated this year with my class and below are a few of the many experiments that I had to complete in one minute.

•  I was given head phones and I had to listen to a students cell phone play different clips of songs.  I needed to name as many artists that sung each song in one minute.
• I had to name as many presidents as I could in one minute.
• I had to eat as many marshmallows as I could in one minute.
• I had to watch a students cell phone show different famous people and name as many as I could in one minute.
• I had to do as many push ups as I could in one minute.
• I had to hold a students cell phone and do as many jump ropes as I could in one minute.

The teacher reported that "many students used their cell phones to actually create a play list of songs and a slide show of famous people.  Other students used an app that measures a persons heart rate and jumps per minute.  While a few groups used their phone as a countdown clock and they recorded the information by hand."  She was much more in favor of them utilizing their phone for something more than a countdown clock. 

She stated that "the class records each persons data for two days and needs at least 100 people to complete their experiment."  After two days, "they have to use their data to create statistical graphs and analyze the data for trends." 

I asked more questions and below are her responses.

• What happens if someone from the group is absent one or both days when the experiment is completed?  I normally let the group decide on the consequences.  Typically, since this is an AP Stat class most of them are here and attendance is not an issue.
• What happens if they do not get 100 people to complete their experiment?  They are docked points.  Giving the groups two class days to collect data is normally enough time.
• The groups that used their cell phones to collect data, what happened if the phones app or slide show didn't work in the one minute?  I told them to redo that persons data and not calculate the data if a malfunction occurred with their phone.
• Was administration ok with allowing the students use their cell phones in class?  Since we are now allowing students to BYOD it was not an issue.

Overall, it was a great opportunity to see first hand how successful she is with doing this project with her class.  It was also great to see how creative students can be when they collaborate.

Nerve-Racking Live Broadcast

On Friday, June 8^th, I made my first live official broadcast that can be viewed on Ustream.  I discussed using mobile devices in the classroom. 

It was nerve-racking, exciting, and worrisome all at the same time.  I’ve been teaching for 7 years and you might have thought it was my first day in the classroom all over again.  Being in front of a camera and seeing myself was not an easy task.  I practiced numerous times, but I still stumbled over my words.  I think creating a few more live broadcasts will make me more confident in front of the camera.

As far as the process of broadcasting, I choose Ustream, because it as easy to navigate through.  As soon as I signed in I was able to create my channel, create an event, figure out how to record, activate my microphone, and create polls,   I began a few practice runs with audio and the camera on me the entire time and then I viewed some of my classmates broadcasts.  With the help of classmate, Chad, I was able to learn how to use Ustream Producer to also create a couple slides in active studio to view along with me speaking.  I contacted Chad through e-mail and he explained that I needed to download Ustream Producer and make sure that the desktop presenter was activated while using the program.  He even created a live broadcast as a tutorial for me, which I really appreciated. 

Then, I did a few more test runs.  I added a screen shot, so I was able to click back and forth between my live video feed and my viewers viewing my active studio presentation.  I ran into a few bumps when some of my audio was not recording with the camera, but it would when I clicked on active studio.  I learned that I needed to select a certain microphone each time I changed between the two settings.  I also had a few problems using my laptop with the screen resolution.  For some reason, my presentation would turn blurring sometimes and a pop up would say that my computer is performing with a low resolution.  I am still working on how to fix that problem, because it only happened half the time.  I also had difficulty with the feed turning to a blank screen when I was recording.  That only happened twice and of course it had to happen during my live presentation instead of a practice run.  The funny thing is that I am not aware of it happening until I watch the recorded broadcast, because the screen did not change while I was recording.  I do not have the answer to that question yet either.

I promoted my broadcast through e-mailing my classmates, posting on my blog, and I also invited my department to watch.  However, being that it was the last day of school, I understood that many of them had odds and ends to finish.  I do know a few of my colleagues in the classroom next to me were watching and as soon as I signed off my live broadcast, I ran over and said “thank god that is over, I stunk.”

I am still trying to work out a few kinks in live broadcasting, one especially are my nerves.  I hope to get past the feeling that “I stink.”  Hopefully I will feel more comfortable broadcasting live when I use this next school year when I use it to record live broadcasts of reviews before tests. 

Broadcasting 101

Please join me on Friday 6/8/2012 @ 1:00 p.m. for a live broadcast discussing the use of mobile devices in the classroom.

Are we moving in the right direction?

Classroom 2.0 Live presented a live webinar hosted by Kim Caise, Lorna Costantini, and Peggy George with special guest speaker Travis Allen.  Travis Allen, a 21 year old college student, is both the CEO and president of his company iSchool Initiative.  His presentation focused on three main topics; how iSchool Initiative was started, why mobile learning is important, and things to change the world. 

While Travis described his technology timeline, I couldn’t help but compare myself to him.  His first computer was at the age of 12, whereas my first computer was at age 16.  His first encounter with social networking was at the age of 16, whereas my first encounter with social networking was at the age of 25.  His first smart phone was at the age of 17, whereas my first smart phone was at the age of 28.  I couldn’t believe how close we started, and how quickly our age differences grew apart.  From 4 years, to 9 years, then to a difference of 11 years, the gap got larger. 

I thought back to his presentation and the main concept of find, filter and apply and couldn’t believe that a 21 year old could actually teach me about best practices in education.  His ideas of mobile learning, using an iPad, collaborating with his classmates were inspiring.  I thought, no wonder why this guy is a CEO of his own company, he embraces technology to be more organized, spends less time on assignments because the internet is available to him 24/7 and he is expanding his educational experiences through the use of applications and Web 2.0 tools.  He’s a genius!

What really through me for a curve was his experience in Tanzania.  He talked about how he visited the country, presented his iSchool Initiative to the school and the students were so excited and on board.  I couldn’t believe that a country with no running water had better access with their cell phones than I could.  Most of the students have the internet at their fingertips and can access any bit of information at any time they want, but do not have the opportunity to bathe every day.   I couldn’t help but think that no wonder other countries are testing better and surpassing the United States, our education system needs to get with the times and make changes for our students to lead the way.  Allen said “work hard, fail a lot, but learn more.”  I completely agree.  I am going to suggest to my administrator that Travis Allen pitch his iSchool Initiative to my school district.  It would be nice to be ahead for once instead of trying to close the gap.

To view Travis Allen's webinar visit Classroom Live 2.0.

Mathematics & Social Networking

Mathematics and social networking for students is sometimes a difficult task.  For example, most student need to see work along with an explanation to fully understand how to solve a problem, especially in Pre-Calculus.  At this high level of mathematics, it is hard to communicate equations, graphs, and concepts we use the graphing calculator for.  Voice Thread makes these problems so much easier, while allowing students to collaborate.
 At the end of the year I create a review project for my class to complete in groups.  Each group is normally responsible for creating a Photostory review of one unit that they are assigned along with a 6 question quiz.  The groups present their Photostory before the final exam and hands out their quiz for their classmates to complete.  I post their answer key, but we run out of time for collaboration.
I decided to change the assignment to allow students to collaborate by integrating the social networking tool of Voice Thread.  Voice Thread is a wonderful site that gives users free accounts and the ability to set privacy settings, create class groups, and set comment moderation's.  I thought this was perfect for meeting all of the CIPA laws.  The best option is the ability for students to speak about the problem and show work by either drawing or texting a comment.  The teacher approves all comments and has the ability to detect anything he or she deems inappropriate.
Most of the other social networking sites out there are not as easy to use.  I learned how to upload content, which unfortunately does not support Photostory, so I had to change my Photostory example into a Powerpoint.  The site allowed me to upload word documents, but any equation I created using Equation Editor I had to recreate using superscripts or the underline tool to create a fraction.  It was a little more time consuming, but not too difficult.
Not only did I learn what the best material was to upload, but I learned how to set privacy settings, customize a class group, embed the video thread or link the video thread.  I also learned how to comment using either the web cam, microphone, texting, or doodling.  I did use my cell phone to upload a few comments, but after a few cell phone trials you have to pay for that service.  Everything else is free.  I did restrict my students from not using the web cam option, because my district prohibits any pictures of students.
To view the review activity along with a rubric, see below.  Feel free to use and make changes to fit your own classroom.