Final Project

Here is a link to my curriculum page including all four components.


https://megan-smith.wikispaces.com/

AR# 7 Creating a Rubric.

This week for my Fundementals of Technology for Educators course, I created a rubric to be used for assessment of the digital storytelling project that can be found in my past blog posts.  To create my rubric, I chose to use the Rubistar webpage (http://www.rubistar.4teachers.org/).  I have used this page a few times before to create rubrics for other courses during my bachelor's program in Elementary Education at UCF, and find it to be an incredibly easy to use service.  First of all, it is a very quick and easy process to sign up for an account with this site, and (more importantly!) it is free.  Once you create an account, you can choose to either create a rubric using one of the many different templates they have available (created by other teachers) or you can create your own.  I chose to create my own without using a template, and the process took about five minutes tops.  I think that this webpage is wonderful, and I definately plan on getting a lot of use out of it when I begin teaching.

I think that rubrics are a great way for students to know exactly what is expected from them out of a project.  By showing students specific requirements that must be met to receive a certain grade, students are more likely to be able to address all of the necessary components more completely.  I have always found it to be easier to complete a project when I have a rubric to look at and compare my work to.  Rubrics are also a great way to hold our students more accountable.  For example, if we give each of our students a rubric for a project, they can not use the excuse of "you never told us we had to do that" or "I forgot that we had to do that".  Another great thing about the use of rubrics is that they can be created to suit any grade level of students, from Kindergarden all the way through college!

To see the rubric I created, please click this link: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=ShowRubric&rubric_id=1983050

Digital Story Presentation (AR#6)

This week for my Evaluating Educational Technology and Integration Strategies course, I completed an assignment that goes along with my most recent posts regarding a digital storytelling assignment. Although I am not currently teaching, I designed this activity around the fourth grade social studies curriculum, addressing the Florida settlement benchmarks. For more information on this activity, please feel free to visit my curriculum page: https://megan-smith.wikispaces.com/. 

As I have been planning this activity over the past few weeks, I already had a pretty good idea as to what I would include in my teacher sample.  First, I decided on which topic choice my presentation would be about (topic choices include native Florida Indian tribes or early Florida explorers).  I chose to do my digital story on Hernando De Soto.  Next, I decided which program I would use to create my digital story.  I am pretty comfortable with the use of Powerpoint software, and chose to use this platform to create my story.

The first thing I did was go back to my curriculum page and review the instructions I provided for my students, as well as the pieces that should be included into the presentation.  Since I chose to do my presentation on an explorer, I made sure to include the necessary information:

• Information about their life and their exploration of Florida (where and when were they born? When did they begin their exploration, etc..)
• Their motivation for becoming an explorer (were they searching for gold? Trying to claim land?)
• How they got along with or affected Native Americans (did they bring disease to the tribes? Did they get along with them?)
• Map of your explorer's exploration

as well as the other criteria that goes for all students:

• A timeline of at least 5 important events you found about your tribe or explorer (should be completed seperately using Paint and then embedded into your presentation).
• 5 graphic images (these can be picture taken and uploaded from a digital camera, a picture you find online, etc...)
• List of webpages you used to find information on your tribe or explorer.

During the creation of my digital story, I came across a very frustrating experience with embedding video into the presentation.  I spent over an hour trying to figure out how to save a video found on http://www.youtube.com/ to my computer so that I could include the video in my Powerpoint presentation.  No matter how many times I tried to find instructions on Youtube's help page and by googling instructions on doing so, I was unable to figure out how to save video files to my computer.  I finally just gave up and decided not to include a video in my presentation.  If anybody knows how to save a Youtube video to your computer, I would very much appreciate the help.

Other than this setback, I found the process of compiling information and images into a Powerpoint presentation to be very easy and quick.  I also used the Paint application (as required in this assignment) to create a timeline, and pasted this images to my presentation.  I also found Paint to be very user friendly and easy to use.

I think that with the right amount of teacher modeling and media support, this activity can be a great way to make social studies more engaging for students.  I also think that exposing students to different types of technology at a young age is important for them.  You can view my teacher sample of this activity by visiting my curriculum page or by simply watching the embedded video below.

Hernando de soto digital story

View more presentations from Megan Smith.

Curriculum Page - AR#5

Over the past few weeks, I have been learning a lot about the integration of digital storytelling into a classroom curriculum in one of my classes at UCF. This week, I was able to create my own curriculum page using a Wiki publisher (You can check it out here: https://megan-smith.wikispaces.com/ ). I chose to make my curriculum page based on the lesson I briefly described here in my blog about using digital storytelling in a social studies unit about early Florida exploration and settlement.

I have to say that at first, I didn't think that I would be able to figure out how to use a Wiki. Up until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know what a wiki was. I have become used to blogging and using social networking sites such as Facebook, but I have never before had to use a Wiki platform. I actually thought that Wiki meant Wikipedia until taking this course and realzing that there is more to it than just that one site! (Don't I feel out of the loop?)

As I sat down to begin creating my curriculum page, at first I found it difficult to create a whole curriculum page (complete with graphics, different fonts and links to different sections of the page) from scratch. I am used to working with templates, and by logging onto my Wiki and seeing a large empty space was a bit discouraging. However, by viewing examples of other curriculum pages and through the help of a WebQuest template example (http://webquest.sdsu.edu/templates/lesson-template1.htm), I was able to get started pretty easily. In fact, as I begin to work on my page, I found that the Wiki platform is actually pretty simple and a lot easier to use than I had initially though it would be. I found myself totally engrossed in creating this page, and hours later I am actually quite pleased with the final product.

I think that curriculum pages are a great way for both students and their parents to find in depth information on projects and activities that are coming up, and can be a useful tool in communication between teacher and student/parents. I also found that by providing students with links to teacher-approved, safe and relevant serach engines and web pages, we can make sure that our students are where they are supposed to be while using the Internet. I definately plan on including curriculum pages onto my personal homepage when I begin teaching.

Including Digital Storytelling Into Curriculum RR-5

When I begin teaching, I am hoping to work in the fourth grade. I have done most of my teaching experiences and internships in the third and fourth grade, and found that I absolutely love this age group. As part of my curriculum in fourth grade social studies, I would like to include a digital storytelling project addressing the exploration and settlement of Florida unit. I would use this project to address the 10 Sunshine State Standards for this unit of study, as well as standards in writing and technology.

For this project, I would assign students into small groups of about 4-5 per group. Students would pick an explorer (Hernando De Soto, Ponce De Leon, etc.) and create a digital story about their life and their exploration (including motivation, interactions with Native Americans and impact on Florida). Students could also choose to do their project on one of the major Native American tribes during this time and create a digital story about their tribes, migration, ways of life and effect the explorers had upon them.

To prepare my students for this activity, I would first show them a few examples of digital stories on similar content and discuss them as a whole class. We would discuss the different components of a digital story, including video, graphics, audio and text. Hooking my laptop computer up to the projector, I would go through the process of partially completeing a sample digital story with my students to give them an idea of what they will be doing. I would also provide a rubric and step by step directions on how to compose the digital story on my homepage or wiki page for students to access at any time. On my page I would include a few examples of digital stories for students to view at home with their parents.


During this activity, students will be using different type of web resources to gather information for their story. Students would use the Internet and different search engines to do research on their chosen topic, and then use programs such as Microsoft Word to jot down information they want to include in their story. Students should be using this information to create timelines based on their explorer or Native American tribe's life and events.


In order to empower my students to produce a good digital story, I would allow them to use other tools such as a microphone and / or digital video camera, where they would record themselves reading information from their research, and digital cameras or scanning software where they can include images they have produced, or images of their timeline and research. I would try to get the media specialist to work with me on this project and guide students in using this type of equipment.

Digital Storytelling AR#4

This past week, I have learned a lot of new information about using digital storytelling software in the classroom.  As a student in UCF's college of Education, I have spent a lot of time working with teachers in local classrooms.  One class I worked in was a third grade class at Longleaf Elementary.  During my time spent working with this teacher, one of the projects I spent a lot of time on with the students was helping them to create a digital storybook of their class.  Each student had one 30 second slide in which they uploaded an image of themselves (taken with a digital camera during media activity time), and then read into the microphone information about themselves (which they had worked on and revised during writing time in the classroom).  The students then selected a piece of background music to accompany their slide.  At the end of the year, the class got to watch the story, and each student received a copy of the disk to keep.  From what I experienced, this activity had a very positive impact on the students, and each of them looked forward to the time where they got to work on their digital storytelling.  Through this activity, the students worked on their writing skills, verbal and reading skills, as well as gaining experience in the use of digital video cameras and digital cameras, microphones and putting everything together on the software program.  Most of all, the students had FUN and got to explore their creativity.

After watching the YouTube video Digital Storytelling in Plain English, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6CeGLPuOY,  I found myself learning even more about this great piece of technology.  For an assignment in one of my courses, I found myself using PowerPoint software to create my own digital storytelling.  I have had a lot of experience with powerpoint and other desktop office software, so I found myself pretty comfortable in creating this presentation.  The version I used has a very easy to use wizard, which guides you through most of the set up process.  I had fun choosing a relevant background layout (a keyboard) which was in the database of the software, and deciding how I was going to present my information.  As I was creating this presentation, I found myself thinking of ways this program could be used by students, for example as a way to organize content for students in their lessons.  Powerpoint provides easy to read headings, subheadings and bullet points which could be a great way for students to create graphic organizers, timelines, stories and other presentations. 

Digital storytelling reflection

View more presentations from Megan Smith.

Online Identity AR#3

As a future educator, I think that it is very important to be accessable and maintain a good relationship with your students and their parents.  These days, it seems that many people prefer to communicate using the Internet (especially through email) rather than face to face or on the phone.  I personally find that I prefer to use email communication rather than talking on the phone.  For this reason, I think that creating an online web page is a great way to better connect with parents and students, and to allow them more access to you both during and outside of regular school hours. 

I recently created my first "About Me" page linked to my blog.  Although I have had a Facebook page for quite a while now where I am able to communicate and share information with my friends, family, classmates and coworkers, this has been my first experience in creating a professional online identity. I think that it is important to let parents and students get to know me not only as Ms. Smith the teacher, but also as Megan Smith the person.  I feel that sharing some insight to who I am as a person can help form a closer connection between myself and my students and their parents.  I love getting to know the students I teach, and I know that I have always enjoyed learning about my own teachers' personal lives.  I still remember my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bartelson, who shared his love of gymnastics with us, and even did a few backflips one day.

Currently, I am a full time grad student working part time at the front desk of a local hotel. However, I hope to begin teaching full time soon, and when I do, I plan on creating a web page for my students and their parents to go where I will provide them with useful links to sites like Ask for kids (http://askkids.com/) as well as upcoming assignments and projects, contact information should they have any questions, as well as some personal information where they can enjoy getting to know their teacher. 

Using Microsoft Excel (AR2)

I have always thought of myself to be pretty comfortable in using desktop technologies such as Microsoft Office.  When I first began my college career back in the fall of 2004, I actually decided to get a 2 year degree in office administration, completing courses focusing on the use of these tools.  After working in a loan office for a few months after graduation, I decided to go back to school and focus on my real passion: education.  I currently work at the front desk of a hotel (and work as a full time grad student at UCF), and am constantly using tools such as microsoft word and excel, both for work and school, creating simple spreadsheets for things such as employee schedules, time sheets, guest information, etc as well as for typing up and formatting assignments for my courses.

Recently for one of my college courses, I had to experiment with completing different tasks on a microsoft excel spreadsheet reflecting a typical teacher gradebook.  I found excel to be a lot harder than I remembered! It has been so long since I have actually had to create formulas and transfer data between worksheets.  I had an especially hard time figuring out how to make a set of data dynamically appear between worksheets.  However frustrating these programs can sometimes be, though, I think that these office tools are wonderful for use in the classroom.  I like to keep myself very organized, and I like the layout that excel offers in keeping student grades and information organized, and how you can set the sheets up to automatically calculuate student grades.  I think that it is important for teachers to keep up to date with these technologies and their use to make student records management as easy as possible.

This assignment was definately a wakeup call for me.  Having completed an office systems program in college four years ago, I suppose I thought that I didn't need to refresh myself in the newer versions of Microsoft Office products or complete any more training.  However, after the hours of frustration spent trying to figure out how to complete simple tasks in the spreadsheet activity, I definately plan on taking some tutorial lessons for this product.

RR#3 It is unethical to allow threats to students and schools.

In my personal opinion, I believe that it is more unethical to allow threats to students and schools than to deny students and teachers to some instructionally relevant web-based tools and content.  In my personal experiences in schools through interning and volunteering, although there are definately many sites that are blocked from students and teachers to access, I have found that there are still plenty of accessable sites that can be used.  Students are allowed access to search engines such as Yahoo! and Google where they can do research, they are able to access many educational sites to enrich learning through videos and games such as BrainPop! (http://www.brainpop.com/) and GameQuarium (http://www.gamequarium.com/) and relevant sites on just about any educational topic from sites such as Discovery Channel / Discover Kids.  I feel that through the use of these available sites, students will be able to complete just about any educational activity, and allowing them to access sites such as social networking and blogging sites can be completed at home with adult supervision as homework or an at home component of an in school individual or group project.

I do believe that blocking sites such as facebook and myspace as well as other social networking sites that hold no educational value is perfectly reasonable.  Also, although students can find some very useful information through the use of blogs, we must realize that blogs are not really monitored, and by allowing students access to blog pages, students may come across false and/or irrelevant statements, vulgar language or images.  As teachers it is impossible for us to stand over ever students shoulder at one time and moniter their use of these sites. 

Another important issue is computer safety.  Although we install antivirus software on our computers, students may accidentally disable the protection and open the computer up to these risks.  By allowing students to access sites that are not secure we are possibly putting our computers, as well as student information on these computers at risk to viruses or hackers. As mentioned in our text, Teachers Discovering Computers, "Schools and school districts have a legal and moral responsibility to protect sensitive information, whether it is in printed form or stored electronically on school computers".  By allowing students to access certain sites that may not be approved by personal, we may be putting this stored information in jeopardy of being stolen by hackers such as student login information, grades or saved work.

However, Mary Beth Hertz makes a very good point in her suggestion: "My suggestion is to contact whoever is in charge of filtering and give them concrete examples of how these tools are being used in the classroom" (Hertz, M.B.) As teachers, I do think that if we do find the need to use any of these specific blocked sites in our classroom, as long as we have a clear and concrete reason why these sites would be educationally useful and relevant in the classroom, we should be able to prove our case to administration to have the site temporarily unblocked for use.



Hertz, M.B. August 31, 2009. What sites/apps does your school block? Retrieved from
     http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/649749:Topic:140090#_blank

Shelly, G.B, Gunter, G.A., & Gunter, R.E. (2010). Teachers discovering computers: Integrating
     technology and digital media in the classroom, Sixth edition. Boston, MA: Course Technology

Connectivism and Networking (RR#2)

As we learned by reading chapter 2 in our textbook Integrating Digital Technology and Media in the Classroom, "administrators, teachers, and students can access the unlimited educational resources available on the Internet and communicate with other educators and students all over the world instantly" (Gunter, 69).  There are so many useful things we can do with the Internet in our classrooms.  As a teacher, I enjoy integrating technology into my classroom using tools such as BrainPop! videos, online educational games like the ones found at http://gamequarium.com/, and allowing my students to use the Internet to do research for projects.  We also learn how communication tools such as e-mail can be very useful in companies.  The hotel I work for is very big into online communications, and is constantly using email and even the social networking site http://www.facebook.com/ to keep guests informed on new promotions and events going on in the area.

I also found the video The Networked Student (Drexler) to be very interesting.  It is interesting to see the change in education as technology continues to grow and evolve.  Before watching this video, I never really knew that iTunes had educational podcasts where you can search lectures on specific subjects for educational research.  I also had not really been to familiar with the concept of Google Scholar, and after watching this video, decided to check it out found its features to be quite useful. It is amazing to think about where we will be ten years from now as teachers and the tools we will be able to incorporate into our teaching.  To think that instructors can teach an entire college level course without even using a textbook (as seen in this video) is an exciting idea.

Another interesting communication tool that I had really never thought to use before taking EME 5050 is blogging.  After being introduced to the concept of blogging, I feel that this communication tool can be very useful as both an educator and a student.  As explained in the video Blogs in Plain English (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI&ob=av3e), blogs are a useful tool to share useful information with people around the world.  As an educator, this can be a useful way to subscribe to a page that shares teaching tips, lesson plans, and other useful information.  Blogs can also be a great way for students to connect with classmates, peers and students from all around the world to discuss a variety of educational topics.  Through doing so, students can also get a lot of practice in their writing skills.

Drexler, W. (n.d.). The Networked Student. YouTube.     
                           
Gunter, Glenda. (2010) Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom. (6^th Ed.)
     Boston MA.  Course Technology.

The Internet: A great tool for educators! (Week 2 AR)

The Internet is such a useful tool for educators.  Growing up in the age of technology, I have had plenty of experience as a student and using the Internet to do research using search engines such as Google or Yahoo. I check my email account daily, pay my bills online and have a Facebook account. As a teaching intern, I have used different Internet teaching tools such as BrainPop! in the classroom as a teaching aid.  However, until now I have never sat down and taken a closer look at all the various resources the Internet has to offer educators.

One site I really found to be great for use in the classroom is called Ask for Kids (http://www.askkids.com). This is a very kid-friendly, fun site where students can ask questions in a search box (I typed in 'when was the civil war' as a test question), and they will be directed to a page with links on the subject as well as a separate box where they can change/refine their search question or click on related topics (such as Robert E Lee or Battle of Bull Run). There is also a Games section including a game I found to be very educational called Trivia Archer, where students earn points by answering trivia questions in different areas such as geography, history and astronomy.  Learning should be made fun and I think that this site could be a very helpful tool in doing so.

Another great site I found is called Education World (http://www.education-world.com), a site full of resources for teachers.  Through this site, teachers can find lesson plans on a wide variety of topics and grade levels, get help writing newsletters, search for and purchase supplies for the classroom, download worksheets and even search for education jobs.  I added this site as a bookmark on my computer, and feel that I will get a lot of use out of it in the future.

States and districts also offer plenty of online resources to teachers, and two of the sites I focused on were the Florida Department of Education (http://www.fldoe.org) and my district's site: Brevard Public Schools (http://www.brevard.k12.fl.us/).  These sites both have easy to follow layouts, and provide information for teachers, parents, students and the community.  As a future teacher, I focused mainly on the teacher portion of these pages. I found the district site to be a bit more user-friendly than the FLDOE main page, however both were full of useful information, links and resources.  One section I found to be particularly useful was the Training & Professional Development section, which gives educators a list of different pages to improve their learning, find and register for inservices, and subscribe to educational journals in areas such as integrating technology in the classroom.  Through these sites you can also access school calendars, lunch schedules and policies.

Another technology that I never really thought would be useful to me is Twitter.  When I first heard about Twitter, I honestly thought that it was a silly site for people to update their friends about what they were doing (such as "I am eating ice cream" or "I just passed a big test!") much like updating a Facebook status.  However, I have realized that sites like this can also have true educational value, by subscribing to groups or pages that share useful links and resources with one another.

As a future teacher, and throughout the rest of my time here in the Elementary Education program at UCF, I plan on taking advantage of the Internet and these useful sites both in and out of the classroom.

Are we doing what is best for our students, or what is more convenient for us?

     Are we teachers doing what is best for our students, or what is more convenient for us? As a teacher or future educator, this question definately makes you stop and think.  I do believe that for the most part, teachers do try and create lessons that will benefit the students as best we can, and to keep things interesting for them.  However, as the Did You Know video pointed out, there is constantly new technology being created, and the way students learn is constantly changing.  It can be very hard and even intimidating to try and keep up with and integrate all this new technology into our lesson plans. Perhaps as teachers we try to stick to what is convenient for us and not trying out things that we have not become familiar with in our classrooms yet.
     As chapter one in our text explains: "In any society, educators have the ability to make an enormous positive contribution.  Making such a contribution is a challenge, and teachers must willingly embrace new teaching and learning opportunities".  There are so many new technologies available to us as teachers, that it would truly be impossible to integrate them all into our classroom on a daily basis, however I believe that it would be in our students' best interest to at least try using one or two of these methods in our teachings. Having been working alongside many teachers in Brevard County during my internships, I did notice that almost all of them have made an effort to include educational technologies such as Brain Pop! learning videos, computer review games and handheld response units used as a whole class to assess students' understanding of particular concepts.  However, teachers are already put under so much stress by standards and standardized tests (particularly for reading and writing), principals and parents that trying out new technologies in the classroom is usually not a number one priority, even if these technologies would give students better learning opportunities.
     In reading chapter one, I found it interesting to learn that "in education, the Wii console could be useful in helping students develop psychomotor skills and as a tool to energize students' cognitive domain of learning through interactivity".  To be honest, I never would have thought to use video game consoles as a learning tool in my classroom, even though it may be in my students' best interest.  With all of the standards we must meet on a daily basis, and so little time to get everything accomplished to help our students perform well on high-stakes tests, perhaps we are sticking to what is more convenient for us to get the job done efficiently and in a timely matter when we should be trying out new learning tools.

Testing...

Trying to get a hang of this whole blog thing.