Professional Development in Technology Integration

For a technology integrator, I followed Vicki Davis, a social studies teacher who has found new and unique ways to incorporate technology into her classroom. She has written more than one book and runs a blog to help other teachers with teaching tips and technology tips. She writes her blog entries to help inform teachers and share ideas thought up by her and other teachers, she uses her blog to connect ideas with the classroom and help you with technology integration.

In her 7 Key Ingredients in the successful 21st Century Classroom, she discusses how to bring technology into your class in ways that you might not have thought up before. In this blog post, she links to the website Trello, which she describes as an organization website where students can vote for things and allows for more classroom interaction. One thing I really liked that she said in this post is how she's used Tumblr, Twitter and Pintrest to teach lessons, and that's something that I want to do in my classroom. She talks about how, because so many schools are moving towards being a STEM  school, that even history and english classes are going to have to start incorporating technology into their classrooms.

She also has plenty of non technology posts, one called Stay Positive, which gives you tips on how to cancel negativity in your classroom and create a more positive environment. Such as being upfront about the idea and listen to the problems that are being had and try and move towards a more positive solution, or just "renew" your mind and try and look at the situation in a new light to see a different side or just look at the situation with a fresh set of eyes. She has a lot of blog posts like these, with tips on how to stay motivated (she recommends music, being productive in the morning and end the school year well) and time management tips, like creating a calendar.

When it comes to actually using new technology in the classroom, Vicki Davis tries to find unique ways to use technology that kids might already be familiar with in her classroom. The biggest example being Pintrest, she has more than one blog post about why and how we should use Pintrest in the classroom, including Tips on How to use Pintrest (follow different boards, how to make private and group boards and organizing your pins), Pintrest for Beginners, which teaches you on how to make a Pintrest account and even has some further links to her own boards so you can get  feel for how to use Pintrest, including her education boards, which can be informational for anyone trying to use Pinrest in the classroom. She also has a blog post that is all about Pintrest in classroom, which talks about cool and unique ways to incorporate Pintrest into your classroom, like following education boards, having students make Pintrest boards for an assignment or using a Pintrest board to collect student work to be viewed by a larger community.

After looking through her blog, Vicki Davis has a lot of ideas on how to use unique technology in the classroom, and I definitely will be looking back on her Pintrest posts when I want a new and unique assignment that involves technology and motivates students to be creative, which seems to be what she strives for.

Individual Response to Team Discussion and Assessment

1. What are two things you would do differently if your team had the opportunity to give your presentation again?

2. What did you learn about yourself as a teacher through this process (from planning to implementation through self assessment)?

That, no matter how prepared you are, and how much you plan out exactly what you're going to down the minute, that anything can happen and you have to prepare yourself for anything to happen. The discussions during our presentation took a lot longer than we had originally planned, leaving us with needing to shorten other things to fit it into the time slot. So, you can plan everything you need to do and prepare every document and presentation and still not be 100% ready, because really anything can take longer or shorter, or go completely differently than you planned. 

3. What are three (or more) teaching concepts that you learned through this that you hope to use in your future teaching?

This was my first real time using team teaching, and that's something that I really want to use in my future classroom. I love the idea or working with other teachers and combining subjects so that kids can have an enriching lesson about more than one subject. I also learned about managing classroom discussions. I've never had to manage a classroom discussion before, and I want to have a really deep discussion classroom so, being able to facilitate one was really useful to what I want to do in my classroom in the future. Collaborative preparation was also something that I think was really useful and really fun to do to, everyone in my group had their own ideas and brought something new to the table and those discussions were part of my favorite process of this whole presentation. 

Inspiration

The first example that I found was a timeline of women's suffrage in America, the timeline has pictures of important people, maps, logos and drawings that are significant to suffrage, along with all the important dates that go along with it. While, I probably wouldn't use this exact timeline, or one with the same subject, I definitely could see myself using something like Inspiration to make a timeline. If I was incorporating it into my unit, I could use it for the lesson that I have about the events leading up to the Holocaust, and have students use Inspiration to make their timelines, although, if I were to use this in my classroom, I would probably add another technology element, like a Prezi or a PowePoint to the timeline, or students could use the presentation element of Inspiration. Adding the timeline and the presentation together, I would say that this would probably fall under the modification level, as it goes beyond just a regular presentation or timeline and combines the two to make a more interactive project.

Another example that I found was a video on how to make diagrams. Diagrams start with one idea near the top and just keep connecting ideas as you go down the diagram. Keeping in my unit, I could see myself using the diagram feature of Inspiration to make diagrams of the division of power among the Nazis, or the concentration camps,  or if I wanted to step outside of my unit, I could use the diagrams to show the royal family of Britain or another country. I could definitely see myself using this aspect of Inspiration in my classroom to have my students make diagrams. I would put the diagrams at more of a Augmentation level as opposed of a higher level, unless you were to have students use the presentation or outline features as well.

Show and Tell

I really liked what Wes Fryer had to say in this chapter about how show and tell doesn't end after kindergarten and first grade. I personally think it's importation for students to have an opportunity to share their learning and their interests, not only with the teacher, but also with their classmates. While homework might be the easiest and most efficient way to have students "show and tell" their learning, I think it's extremely important to encourage them to have other ways to explore their interests. Student progress is the most important thing, in my opinion, and somethings homework might not be the best way to explore that for every student.

I think technology is a great way to have students display their learning and their progress, without the pressure that homework might add. I definitely know that when I have my own classroom, I'm going to encourage all my students to use blogs to talk about their experience in the classroom. Giving students an outlet to talk about their own learning and go deeper into their progress as a learner is something that I find extremely important as a future educator, so whether it be using Blogger or Tumblr, or another free blogging website, I want to make blogs a regular activity in my classroom.

Online portfolios are another thing that Wes Fryer talked about that I really enjoyed. Through my experience with practicum, I've found that having an online resource like Wikispaces to store all the things that I've done over the course of the semester is extremely useful, especially if I want to go back and reread something, or have someone else look at something that I've done. Having a place where all student work can be displayed, will not only make things easier for me as a teacher, but will make the students feel accomplished once all their work is in one place and they can see all the hard work that they've done.

Digital Text

While, through the experience of practicum, a lot of information covered in this chapter of Wes Fryer I already knew, I learned a lot through what he had to say, especially on the discussion of blog vs. wiki. We as practicum students have had a chance to work with both blog and wiki, I know that personally, I never had a chance to work with them before practicum, in the classroom. My favorite part of what Wes Fryer was saying, is that blogs are more like newspaper, they compile a bunch of information into simple, easy to read posts, that the original poster can edit, and is timestamped and shown in chronological order, while a wiki is more like an encyclopedia, with multiple pages and changes to the pages are archived. One of the suggestions that Wes Fryer makes that I really agree with is minimal clicking, students are going to get confused if they are required to click a bunch of different links and have to find multiple different pages, so making all their information easy and accessible will make the blog and wiki experience in the classroom run a lot smoother.

The first link that I explored was Tumblr, which is a free blogging site that allows for plenty of customization and freedom to post whatever you please. While this site is easy to navigate and all it's features are free, there is room for distraction if using it in the classroom and hardly anything is blocked or regularly looked at for inappropriate content. There are pros to it though, as tagging is an available feature and the customization feature might be desirable feature to more visual learners who want to be able to control how the resource they're using looks like. Tumblr is supposed to function as more of a personal blogging site, but with the correct monitoring and instruction could easily be fit into the classroom.

The second link I explored was EduBlogs, which is also a free blogging site, that unlike Tumblr is geared completely towards educators and students. When you first get to the home page, it asks you whether you are a student or a teacher, so this website could easily be integrated into the classroom. Like Tumblr, this site offers many different options and allows for outreach to many other different bloggers, but all those fellow bloggers would be fellow teacher or other students from different schools. One of my favorite things about EduBlogs, is that right on the front page if gives you plenty of suggestions on how to use the site and make it valuable in your classroom, with options for student blogging, integration of video, or class discussion, and the fact that it's completely geared towards schools, makes it ideal for a classroom setting.

The final link that I explored was Class Blogmeister, which differs from both Tumblr and EduBlogs. This website is a compilation of different resources put out by other teachers. There is a plethora of different links and resources that are available on Class Blogmeister that it would be quite easy to find resources to use in the classroom. The biggest downside to this website is that it seems geared mostly towards teachers, and might be hard to be interactive with your students on, which would be something that as a teacher, I would be interested in doing.

Final Fires Reflection

I really enjoyed reading Fires in the Bathroom, not only did I think it was a useful tool to my learning about classroom management, but I thought it was really interesting to read. As someone who's only ever gotten the words from fellow classmates who grew up in similar environments, getting to hear about students from a completely different part of the country was a nice change, and one that I really loved reading. Getting to read personal, first hand experiences from students is something that I think you get very little of from other resources, so being able to read them and understand what kids are really going through both in and out of the classroom is something that I think is very valuable to Fires as an overall resource. I don't think I would have loved this book as much as I did had it not been for the multiple first hand accounts and students that were interviewed throughout the book.

Personally, though, I don't think this book really changed my opinion or my views on classroom management. It made me think about how not all classrooms are going to be managed the same way, but nothing really in this book made me stop in my tracks and completely change how I saw a certain aspect of classroom management. My time in the field has been the most valuable classroom management learning experience for me. While, personally, this book brought nothing life changing into my perspective of classroom management, I still think it's a valuable resource and am very glad that I got to read it.

Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

In the final chapter of Fires talks about how to take all this learning and motivation of students and bring it outside the classroom, so it has a meaningful place in the real world. Students want to make those connections to the world outside, because it will make the entire learning experience mean more to them and help them actually retain the information and take something out of it. This chapter also talks about things that teachers can do to encourage further learning.

One thing that stood out to me is that so many students want their teachers to continue teaching them even after the class is over. I know that there are so many teachers who I would want to continue teaching me, even when the school year is over, so hearing all this different kids talk about having amazing learning experiences was really nice to read.

Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

This chapter of Fires focuses on what to do when something goes wrong in your classroom, or students become discouraged and you don't know how to motivate them anymore. A lot of the student insight in this chapter came from students who had been through discouragement or had teachers who were discouraged, and their advice was about how to help students overcome it, or how to overcome it yourself. It not only talked about students who were discouraged, but also talked about how to handle, when you as a teacher, become discouraged.

I really enjoyed how this chapter talked about the teacher side of things going wrong and teacher's being discouraged, because I think it happens a lot more than we, as students, would realize. I also really liked how most of the advice in this chapter came from students who had overcome that discouragement, had overcome skipping classes and dropping out of school, to show that those students still might be motivated.

Chapter 8: Teaching Teenagers Who Are Still Learning English

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom is the most specific of the different chapters in Fires so far. This chapter focuses mainly on what to do when you have multiple different languages being spoken in a classroom, or have students who are still developing their English skills. Many of the kids who have been giving their advice throughout this book come from different countries, and all live in the Bay Area of California, which is a very diverse area of California.

One of my favorite things that they talked about in this chapter was how to bring student's multiple different cultural backgrounds into the classroom. Connecting lessons to something students can relate to is something we've been learning a lot about in Dr. Grace's class, and being a history concentration, I definitely would want to bring many different cultures into a classroom. Making sure to use those cultural differences, so students can get something out of it, instead of ignoring them, is going to make not only those students more successful, but all students more successful.

Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom, focused primarily on how to teach material to students in the way that's going to be most beneficial to them. The students in this chapter give many different examples of ways that they like learning new material and their favorite ways that teachers present information. There's also student insight into the best kinds of questions to ask students, in order to get them thinking and make them more "active learners."

My favorite part of this chapter was reading about the best kinds of questions to ask students. That's something that I have found myself struggling with the most, so being able to hear a few different students talk about questions that really made them think was really helpful for me to hear.  I know from experience some of my best teachers were the ones who asked us the hardest questions, because they really made you think and become more "active learners."

Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

In chapter six of Fires the hot button topic was motivation, what gets kids motivated, what keeps them motivated and what teachers can do to keep them motivated. As this chapter states, boredom is something so common in classrooms, and talks about what, you as a teacher, can do to try and keep students interested and doing their homework. Also discussed in this chapter, is how to correctly give homework, so instead of finding it arbitrary, students will be encouraged to do it and be excited it.

Being passionate about your content is something that I think is so important as a teacher, and is something that some of the different students in this talk about. I know, that in high school, I was always more motivated to succeed in the classes where I knew that the teacher cared about the subject and cared about us all succeeding. Another part of this chapter that I really found interesting was that students don't feel more motivated by hearing that school is important, because that's something that you always hear teachers tell students who don't want to do their work, so hearing more than one student saying that hearing that doesn't motivate them was really interesting.

Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

In this chapter of Fires, it talks mostly about how to be fair to each student, and treat each student as an individual, while also teaching to the entire class and make sure the entire class is succeeding. This chapter also talks about small group work, and how small group work thrives on diversity, having kids who are at different levels of learning, can be some of the most successful groups. Also discussed in this chapter is how as a teacher, you work with having many different levels of students in a classroom, and teach to all of them, without dumbing down, or raising the difficulty of any of the content.

My personal favorite part of this chapter, was the first quote a the very beginning, "One job of a teacher is to be fair to all. Don't expect the work of one student from another." One of my biggest pet peeves is when teachers expect all students to be at the same level, just because they are all in the same class, some kids learn differently than others, and that's an important thing to foster in a classroom. Finding out how each student works individually and holding each kid to the standard that they have expressed, is something that I think will allow a classroom to really succeed.

Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom was all about how to support students and encourage them to succeed, without putting stress and high expectations on them. Most of the students that were included in this chapter talked about one particular teacher that really encouraged them to succeed and gave the necessary push and tools in order to have the success that they previously hadn't been able to reach. This chapter also talked about what the teacher can do in the classroom in order to promote success for all the students.

My favorite part of this chapter was the part at the end about grades, praise and incentive. It really reminded of what we had talked about previously, with motivation. I think it's super important to give students grades and feedback that encourages them to do more, not have them shut down if they aren't happy with the feedback and grades that they are getting. And while, it's important for students to find motivation within themselves, finding a way to praise students that will only encourage them to work harder is something I think is super important.

Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom was all about how to maintain a well behaved classroom, that allows for student success. In this chapter, the students talked about what kinds of things they've experienced that led to a good learning environment, and other things that led to bad behavior in the classroom by students. It also touched upon what to do when a student misbehaves and what the appropriate reaction would be, whether it be punishment by detention, calling parents, or going to administration.

One of the things that really stood out to me in this chapter, was that all students should be treated equally and fairly and that all sides of a story should be heard before taking any kind of action. Making sure that all students have their voices heard is something that I think is so important, and something that happens so rarely. So many times, I've seen teachers only listen to the "good" student, and not hear the whole story, which only sways the teacher decision and makes the other student feel isolated. Treating all students equally and with respect from the beginning, while also remaining in authority and being fair with authority, is the best way to gain your student respect.

Images

This chapter of Wes Fryer's book talked mainly about image sharing and how to correctly locate pictures to use in presentations and other classroom oriented activities. One of the things that Fryer really highlighted was the importance of using public domain images, or creative commons images, so students have permission to use all the images they would like to use. He encourages the use of special websites and search engines that cater to creative commons images, so students don't have to worry as much about getting copyright permission.

Another thing Fryer talks a lot in this chapter, is good websites of image sharing. He talks about different websites that can be used to upload and share photos on. Image sharing is such a new thing, but might be required for students to do now in the classroom, so he gives quite a few examples of different websites that can be used for not only image sharing, but also image editing, if photoshop is something that is unavailable to students.

One of my favorite things that Fryer stressed in this chapter is the importance of images in PowerPoints and other visual presentations. While text is important in classroom presentations, images and graphics can break up the text and make it more appealing for the people who are viewing it.

Resources

Flickr: Creative Commons, I really loved this resource. I have such a problem finding images sometimes, so having a resource with so many different images all that are free to use. I really want to use something like this in my classroom and make it available to my students, because I know a lot of the time, students might be kind of lazy and not be bothered to look for images they are allowed to use, so something like this would be a really good resource for students. 

Tumblr, I've been using Tumblr for quite a few years now, but after talking about it in class the other day and reading this chapter, I never really thought it could be a resource for students in the classroom, but I really want to try and find a way to incorporate it into a lesson. Not only does it have great image sharing capabilities, but it also has so many resources on it, through it's search functions, that it could be really useful to students! 

Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom was all about how teachers can gain respect from students, and how to create trusting relationships between students and teachers. In this chapter, students discussed what teachers can do to earn that respect and how teachers can form good relationships with their students. Some of the major things teachers can do, is treat all students fairly and give all students a chance to succeed.

The part of this chapter that stood out to me the most was actually something one of the students said, something one of their teachers did that made them lose respect and that was saying grades out loud to make students feel bad. My history teacher when I was a sophomore in high school would read the grades out loud after quizzes to the entire class, this was only if you wanted to know the grade right after taking the quiz, but you only had the option of having it read out loud or waiting to get the quiz back. It always felt really unfair to have your grade read to the whole class, especially because the teacher would always adopt an almost mocking tone of voice when reading the grades if they were lower grades.

Chapter 1: Knowing Students Well

This chapter of Fires in the Bathroom used student responses and opinions to talk about how well students and teachers should get to know each other. It used many examples for ways that teachers could get to know their students, without overstepping any boundaries. Examples such as, questionnaires asking how students learn, knowing student's schedules, connecting work to student interests and knowing student's neighborhoods.

The part of this chapter that really jumped out at me, was how important it was to know where students live and that aspect of their lives outside of the classroom. I had never thought that knowing student neighborhoods would be important to their learning, but after reading this chapter, it really opened by eyes. I definitely think that when I'm a teacher, I'm going to make the effort to know where students live and understand how that might affect their learning and understand the resources that they have or don't have.

Video Thoughts

This video focused primarily on video and the place that it has in the classroom. There was a lot of good information in this chapter relating to how to properly use video in the classroom and I learned quite a few things that I didn't know before!

1. I learned that you could narrate a slideshow using a smartphone. I didn't even know that there was slideshow making apps for your smartphone, but I thought it was so cool to learn that, not only are their slideshow making apps, some apps have the ability to record voice. 
2. I had always been unsure of how to make screencasts of my screen while also including video. More than once I've tried to take screencasts of my computer screen and had no audio, so knowing that there are ways out there to get the audio into screen casts was a really great thing to learn! 
3. TeacherTube. I had heard of StudentTube before, as some of the teachers at my school had used it before, because YouTube was banned. I had no idea that there was also one for Teachers as well, so that was a pretty cool thing to hear about, definitely something that I'll use sometime in the future. 
4. All the different video sharing and making websites and applications. I knew that there were plenty of different video sharing websites out there, but I had always just stuck to YouTube, so getting to hear about them was definitely a learning experience. 

Two of my projects for Dr. Grace's class are going to be about the kids making their own movies. I think, with the final project (which is going to be a 5-10 minutes documentary type video), students will have the opportunity to share their videos on the web, if they feel comfortable. I also want to make sure that the students explore some of these video sharing websites, so I hope to have parts throughout the lessons where students are searching for videos. I think, because I'm doing video for two of my projects, students will be able to be more comfortable the second time around with how to properly make a video that they can be proud of! 

Wes Fryer: Chapter 3

Audio

This chapter focused primarily on how teachers can incorporate audio recording into their lesson plans. Fryer gives a few points as to why audio recordings might be more impactful, and easier to use, than video. Such as, less equipment, more anonymity so students can be more comfortable about posting their audio recordings online, audio recording files take up less space and are usually far smaller than video files and more devices have audio recording capabilities. Fryer also talks about how teachers can use audio recordings and how they can be implemented in classrooms from grades K-12.  One of the things I learned was the idea of an digital portfolio, which would require students to make audio recordings, or even podcasts, about their learning that can be shared with a teacher. An idea, that I have never heard of before that I found to be a really interesting idea. I also loved the idea of having students record their essays as another way for teachers to grade and critique them. This I thought was really great and I learned a lot from, because this can play into the VAK model, teachers who are more auditory learners can have another way to have their students work. This chapter also highlighted many different audio recording technologies and websites that I had never heard of before. 

For my three websites, I decided to look at three different audio recording websites that Fryer talks about in the chapter. I ended up selected, AudioBoo, Vocaroo and Narrable. The most straight forward of these three websites was Vocaroo, where the homepage has a record button and you just press record and start talking, which I thought would be really good for younger students, so they don't get distracted by other things on the webpage. Both AudioBoo and Narrable had sound recording capabilities but also allowed you to listen to other recordings that are on the site. I loved that aspect of both of these websites. I think overall I preferred Narrable the most because it was geared towards students, and had mostly student and education based recordings, where as AudioBoo had a larger range of topics. 

Maine Memory Network

On the Maine Memory Network, I first explored my hometown of Boothbay/Boothbay Harbor and found nearly 150 pictures dating all the way back to the late 1800s. Along with these pictures, there was also 6 "exhibits" that included something about Boothbay in them, including an exhibit about tourists in the 1900s and a schooner boat, called Bowdoin, in the 1900s. I was extremely interested by everything I found about the town that I grew up in, a town that I was unaware had the history that I was able to find on this website. After looking up Boothbay, I looked up the Aroostook War, which took place from 1838-1839 and was able to find pictures of soldiers that were involved in the war, documents from before and after the war and locations from the war. Having no previous information about this war, learning more about it through these pictures was really interesting.

Being a social studies teacher, I would love to do a unit completely about Maine history and would use the Maine Memory Network as a guide to the unit. It would be really interesting to having each student find a picture and have to write about what they think was happening in the picture, or something similar. The Maine Memory Network would be a wonderful database for the unit or just has an extra resource for students throughout the year. As a social studies teacher there would be a bunch of different ways that I would love to use the Maine Memory Network, and I can definitely see myself using it as a tool in the future.

Wes Fryer: Chapter 4

In this chapter from Wes Fryer's book Playing With Media, he discusses the issues with copyright and it's place in the classroom. He starts off by talking about the different kinds of media that have a place with Copyright and Fair Use. These different medias are Homegrown, meaning you are the original owner, Public Domain, these are pieces of media that are published by someone but are free to be used by everyone, Creative Commons, which are available to use, as long as they are being used legally and finally Fair Use, which is when you can use copyrighted material under guidelines and certain criteria. This is why many things are available to be used by teachers, but not by students. Fryer also talks about how it's important for students to correctly site images and information they find, in order to be legal under Copyright and Fair Use.

As a teacher, I plan to make sure that my students understand the general ideas of Copyright and Fair Use. I also will make sure I inform them of the expectations when using information that is protected under Copyright and Fair Use. It would also be interesting to try and use real world experiences to inform students of the importance of correctly using Copyright and Fair Use guidelines. I would find it extremely important for students to completely understand how to correctly use other people's ideas and images without breaking any rules and acknowledging that those ideas and images belong to someone else.

Copyright and Fair Use

For my research on Copyright and Fair Use, I read some information and took a quiz (which can be found here) on what is allowed and not allowed in the classroom under the Copyright and Fair Use law. I was extremely surprised by some of the things I discovered when taking the quiz and discovered that I don't know as much as Copyright and Fair Use as I thought that I did. There were some questions that I had a much stronger reaction to than I originally thought I would.

5. "A geography teacher..." This one surprised me because I would have thought, because there was no selling of the CD ROM and it was only going to be used by students in the classroom that it would be allowed. But I guess, it more has to do with the fact that the school doesn't own all the copies that are being made, as they aren't the original copies.

7. "A elementary school..." I thought this one was strange, as it was saying that the website and school were allowed to post things without copyright permission, as long as people from outside the school weren't looking at the website. Even thought the website would be password protected, I was still surprised.

10. "A teacher gets clip art..." This one more shocked me because of what was said in number seven. I guess because this one wouldn't be password protected, I was still surprised that this wouldn't be allowed and what happened in number seven would be.

13. "A history class...." I'm not surprised that this one would be allowed, but I found it a little strange, that another school would be able to use something put online by a different school. Like I said, it didn't shock me, but I thought it was a little strange that it would be allowed.

16. "A local electronics store...." I was just downright confused and shocked by this one. I guess I didn't really understand what this one was saying, how teachers can use not owned material and make it legal for their students to use it. This one just confused me.

19. "A high school video class..." I wasn't necessarily shocked that much by this one, but I've definitely had first hand experience in videos like this one and now know the Copyright and Fair Use laws surrounding it.

This was a very interesting read and I'll definitely remember all of this once I become a teacher. I found it particularly interesting the amount of things that teachers are allowed to do, and things that allowed for teachers under Copyright and Fair Use, that aren't allowed for students. I think, as a teacher it's important to know the Copyright and Fair Use laws, so you make smart decisions in your classroom and don't get in trouble with the law.

Meaningful Engaged Learning and Learning Styles

The articles "What Engages Underachieving Middle School Students in Learning?" by Mike Muir and "Are Learning Styles Invalid?" by Richard Felder both address integration of learning styles into the classroom. Muir used real world examples of students who were considered "underachieving", but were actually very bright, who had different ranges of learning styles. Muir discovered through his learning about these different students, that most of them worked best with an engaging classroom that allows them to grow and ask questions and not be afraid to make mistakes. I fully agreed with Muir's statement, "Finding out what motivates our underachieving students will help inform and equip teachers in the struggle to lead all students to academic achievement." Because I believe that, while, we can't always create every single lesson to fit the needs of every single student, it's important to know how each of our students learn, so when we need to help them, we know what kind of learning styles work best.

In the article, "Are Learning Styles Invalid?" Felder looks at the controversy that surrounds the idea of a learning styles model in the classroom. Felder discusses how many studies have concluded that “there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.” Felder goes on to discuss, how, in fact, many students have benefited from the use of a learning styles model in the classroom. The learning styles model has allowed teachers create effective classrooms, students to understand their learning process and help teachers and students acknowledge the differences in learners in the classroom.  I agree with a great majority of what Felder has to say in his article, and agree whole heartedly with his overall message, that while many people might not believe in the learning styles model, as long as it's being used effectively in the classroom, teachers and students can benefit from it.

I took my own learning styles inventory and found out that I am generally and mostly a visual learner. With my second highest being kinesthetic, followed by auditory. I definitely agree with this conclusion, as, through exploring what each meant, I found myself lining up with the visual learning. The website that I used, said that visual learners need to write everything down so they don't forget it, emphasize key points when taking notes and use other visuals when collecting or sharing information. The website I used also talked about how you can integrate each learning style into the classroom, with some ideas for the visual learning style being, using visual aids, leaving plenty of blank space on worksheets for notes and highlighting major points for note taking.  All of these ideas are very simple and very effective, which is ideal for the classroom.

Citations;
Felder, Richard. "Are Learning Styles Invalid?"
Muir, Mike. "What Engages Underachieving Middle School Students in Learning?"
Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learning Styles (VAK)

Wes Fryer: Chapter 1

I found the first chapter of Wes Fryer’s book, Playing with Media, gives a very interesting look at the use of media in the classroom. One of my favorite points, that I found really interesting, was the part about cell phones and how they can be used in the classroom. I never really thought about how cell phones can be useful devices in the classroom. One of the points that I agree with, is the point that Fryer made about teachers using technology doesn’t necessary mean that they’re good teachers. I had teachers in high school that used many different kinds of technology and incorporated it into many different lessons that it wasn’t as effective as it could have been. Another major point that I agreed with was the last point that Fryer makes in the chapter is that as educators we must, “seek to empower students to become fully literate, and this requires us to all become medida CREATORS rather than mere consumers.” I liked a lot of the points that Fryer made in this chapter about how as teachers we must successfully use technology in the classroom and use it ourselves to become successful teachers and users of technology.

SAMR Model

1. TPCK is the the model used to specify the knowledge that teachers should have before going into the teacher field. Technology, Pedagogy (the method of teaching) and Content are the three areas that Puentedura identifies as the knowledge (the K part of the acronym TPCK) that teachers should have. It’s also the combination of all the different skill sets that are required of teachers.
2. The SAMR model is the classification of technology that is used to classify how much of an effect technology would have on student learned. Each letter of the SAMR model stands for a different kind of technology that might help enhance student success or replace technology already in place to increase student learning.

• S - substitution. The technology is a direct substitution of previous technology.
• A - augmentation. Technology is a direct substitution with some modifications and improvements.
• M - modification. Technology offers a vast improvement of technology that directly relates to student success.
• R - redefinition. Technology offers tasks and improvements that were previously completely unavailable and is key in student success and learning.

5 Examples of SAMR Model.

1. English Class - using an iBook copy of Hamlet and a poetry book, this would be under augmentation level. Using an iBook copy on an iPad instead of just a regular book copy allows students to highlight (as in high school the books belonged to the school not the student, so writing in them wasn’t allowed), bookmark important statements and pages, look up phrases or see alternative words that students need a further understanding of, have the technology read back to students for further understanding and changing the font size to fit the students need.
2. Science Class - using a dissection app alongside a regular dissection. This would fall under the redefinition level. Using a dissection app offers a completely different look at dissection that a real world dissection does. With the app, students can look things up within the app, redo things that that they messed up on (which you obviously cannot do with a regular dissection) and gives them the option to zoom in on things and see different angles within the animal, which are very hard with a real world dissection.
3. History Class - in a history class I had, we used an app that allowed the entire class to take a quiz at the same time and see the class results in real time and receive questions at the same time. This falls under the augmentation level. Doing quizzes at the same time and getting results in real time, doesn’t necessary make things easier, but allows you to get a quick result and see how your grade falls among the rest of the class, while remaining completely anonymous.
4. Dictionary Computer App - having a dictionary on the computer falls under the augmentation level. A dictionary app on a computer, while coming with a dictionary, it also comes with a thesaurus and the Apple computer dictionary app, also comes with a feature that allows you to look up a word on wikipedia, straight from the dictionary app instead of using a internet browser.
5. Quizlet - using this flashcard website instead of using actual flashcards and using it to study. Quizlet can be seen on the modification level. Quizlet not only has a function that allows you to make flash cards online, which saves time from making them in person. Quizlet also offers teachers to upload different study things online that students can use, like study guides, and students can submit answers online, directly replacing paper study guides.

Citation:

"TPCK and SAMR: Models for Enhancing Technology Integration"

by Ruben Puentedura

Apps for a Personal Passion

For my passion apps, I chose to download apps that were relating to jigsaw puzzles.  I downloaded five different apps that were jigsaw puzzle apps, that I felt passionate about. 

The five apps that I downloaded were: 

• Jigsaw Puzzles - I rated this app a 3.5/5. There were only a few variety of puzzles and only a few options for number of pieces that you were able to use. The app looked nice and moved well when you were doing a puzzle, but there were a small amount of options, in general. 
• Jigty Puzzless - I also rated this app a 3.5/5. Like the last one, there weren't as many options for number of pieces and puzzle images, but the app looked nice and the mechanics of the app were really nice. But, their just weren't a large variety of options.  
• Jigsaw - I rated this app a 4/5. There were more options for images, but there were only three different options for number of pieces, so that made the app a little less fun. Like the other apps, the app working well and had a nice interface, just lacked options. 
• 1000 Jigsaw Puzzles - I rated this app a 4.5/5. This app had the most option for number of pieces and images, and even allowed you to make a puzzle out of your own images. This made this app by far my favorite of the five. 
• Magic Puzzles - This app also got rated 3.5/5. Like the other ones, this app lacked options. 

For each app, I rated them on quality of the interface, the amount of options for for number of pieces you can use when doing a puzzle and the amount of options for actual puzzle images. While many of these apps have thousand of images available, they require in app purchases to get them on your device, even though all these apps are free. 

Overall, my favorite app was 1000 Jigsaw Puzzles, because it had plenty of options and even had the option to turn your own picture into a puzzle. None of these other apps are awful, 1000 Jigsaw Puzzles was the only one that I really, really loved.