Wrapping It All Together-- Just in Time for Christmas

We made it!! Another semester done!! This has been a very interesting class that has given me many ideas to consider when creating lesson plans for my classes. These were concepts that I had in the back of my mind but struggled with how to implement in my classroom. Now I have the tools to refer to when I am stuck on "how" to integrate technology to enhance student learning, add lessons on cybercitizenry, or create lessons that are universally designed. View my first unit of "wrapping it all together" called Preparing for an Interview. I hope to create many more units like it!! But until then, it is time to start wrapping presents!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Santa Luke!!

Universal Design for Learning-- Am I on the Right Track?

As I was looking at the CAST UDL Lesson Builder website's examples of UDL lesson plans, I thought that when I actually create my lesson plans, I am not too far away of creating plans that are designed to meet the needs of all my students. So I decided to take a unit I teach in my Introduction to Business class where we research different economic systems and what makes a country successful to find ways I can help all my students find success in my classroom.. What I found I needed to improve on was offering different avenues for my students to express their ideas. If we were to have a class discussion, I added ways for the students to express their opinions before the discussion. I also tried to make sure there were two ways for students to view information, whether through audio or visual.

To see what I came up with, click here. And please feel free to add any suggestions!! I hope I am starting to get on the right track for creating lesson plans that are designed for all of my students to learn successfully.

One more thing!! Here is an updated photo of Luke, who is almost 2 months old. Time is flying too fast!! This is one of his first professional photos. Already a model!!

Helping to Keep Students' Safe Online or At Least Hoping To!!

The other day I got a text from my school's technology director asking me if I taught any Internet safety in my classes. I told him I had not but was thinking about incorporating it into my middle school exploratory next year. So when my professor gave us an assignment dealing with cybercitizenry, I was thrilled. Here was a way to not only do an assignment but create lesson plans that I will actually use!! Click here to find out how I found the Common Sense Media website and other Internet safety lesson plans to be very useful. And of course, this information will be very useful for my growing boy!! I am sure he will be using technology soon!!

Getting My Classroom Ready for the 21st Century

We have been in the 21st century for 11 years now and I admit I am a little bit behind. However, I am working on trying to get my classroom to the point where the students of the 21st century are getting the skills they need in an environment that will challenge them. Having to evaluate how well my classroom met the different characteristics of effective classrooms in the 21st century, which are Student-Centered Classrooms, Teaching for Understanding, Assessment for Learning, Rigor and Relevance, Teaching for Learner Differences, and Technology Infusion, was a good wake up call for me to see what I am doing to help my students be prepared for the 21st century. It means even more now because of the little skeleton below (can you tell I am a proud momma?). I want to do whatever to make sure my son and all children get the education they need to be prepared for their future.

Overall, I think my classroom is going in the right direction. I try to create lessons that are student-centered, create understanding for the students, and are relevant. Technology is used to help increase student understanding. The areas I need continue to work on is teaching for learner differences and formative assessments. Click here to view my assessment of my classroom.

Taking It Up A Notch

Okay, I admit it. I am not much of a blogger. It has been a little while since I have created a post on my blog. Luckily, we are back to blogging for one of my master's in Instructional Technology classes so I will finally have a new post!!

In class we have been discussing how to select and integrate technology into our classroom. For an assignment, we have been encouraged to evaluate how we use technology and to try to take it to another level using the Technology Integration Matrix. To view my "taking it up a notch" assignment, click here to read some examples of technology used in my business classroom and how I plan to take my technology use to the next level. Feel free to add any comments or suggestions on how I can keep taking my technology use to the next level.

By the way, life has changed a little bit due to the little guy below. Our son, Luke Roberts Marcus, was born on October 11th, 2011 and has been such a blessing in our lives. Life as a parent has put me a little bit behind on this assignment but finally I have found a little bit of time to finish!! Maybe I will create a blog about Luke and it will encourage me to blog a little bit more!!

I Almost Wish School Would Start Soon

Wow, what an amazing week I just had!! At the beginning of the week, I was a little nervous to be the student again. However, as soon as I started to meet my classmates, I realized it was going to not only be a great week but a great two years. Not only will I learn a lot from my classes, but I will and already have learned so much from my classmates. Here is my concern. School is still two months away. Will I lose all the great knowledge I have gained from this great week? I almost wish school started next week so I can take my enthusiasm and determination to make my classroom more student-centric and apply it in my classroom. I am just afraid I will slip back to my old ways. So to remember my ideas and my excitement, I thought I would get some of the ideas written down so I can just refer back to my blog!!

Here are some of the ideas I have:
1. Using Wikispaces or Wetpaint, focus on concepts by the students collaborating on what they find through research on a wiki.

2. To begin each unit, create a Readings, Writings, Listenings, and Doings (RWLD) (click to see examples from the final projects of our EIT class) to get the students thinking about what they have are about to learn.

3. Using a video conferencing tool such as Skype, talk to professionals in different careers so the students can discuss with him/her about their career.

4. Have the students create a Google account so they can use iGoogle and have them start creating their own Personal Learning Network.

5. During class projects, make sure all students are involved by using Google Docs.
6. Using collaboration tools such as VoiceThread, have business professionals comment on students' business projects to get a real-life perspective on what they did.

7. Get my classroom involved with the Flat Classroom initiative so my "small town" students become more global and aware of what life is like outside of our town as well as state and/or country.

Hopefully these ideas are just the beginning of helping to make my classroom more student-centric. I greatly look forward to what else is in store for this master's course. If anybody else has any thoughts on how to make these ideas better or any other ideas you have, I would greatly appreciate it.


Wiki Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomcochrane/543238906/
Google Docs Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bimp/4083906765/
Flat Classroom Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/julielindsay/2911262213/

I Know I am Not that Old but this "Old Dog" is Not Liking New Tricks

So today we had the opportunity to use iMovie 9 for our Final Project in Emerging Instructional Technologies. Okay, it is no secret that I am a PC person. I did use Apple's growing up in high school but when I arrived at the great University of Northern Iowa as a freshman, the closet computer lab was full of Dell computers. I quickly learned how easy it was to do my assignments on the Dells, which being a business education major was a good thing. So I was greatly delighted that when I got my teaching position, my room was full of PC's!! I quickly learned all the great applications that PC's has to offer for the classroom and went to town on using these in my classroom.

So today when I was working on iMovie, at times I got a little frustrated. The two and a half hours it took me to complete my iMovie, I know would have only taken me an hour on MovieMaker. And then I started to think about my students. Everyday I ask them to do something new whether it be to learn a new subject, a new technology tool, or work with someone that they would never have worked with. Do they get frustrated at me at times? Yes. Do I ask them to have an open mind? Yes. So even though it pains me to say this, I need to have an open mind when using Apples. Thankfully, Chelsey found some great tools on how to use iMovie on her blog post, Mac=Frustrating. At least I am not the only one that feels this way!!

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is Friday!! Looking forward to everyone's final project!!

I Promise I Will Change My Ways--Just Don't Put Me Behind Bars

Yes, I have to admit the copyright discussion we had today really opened my eyes to how my school needs to work on following the copyright laws. I am sure some of it is that we need to be refreshed on some of the laws. However, I hate to admit that another reason is that we look the other way to try to save costs. We need to change this so we become better role models for our students and to make sure they at least understand the consequences of using someone's work illegally.

But, I have always had a hard time understanding laws because of all the grey areas involved. (My accounting mind of debits=credits has a hard time with the "but if".) So I thought I would do a little research to see if there was something that helped simplify the copyright laws. Here are a few resources I found.

Videos:
What is Creative Commons? - the video Dr. Zeitz shared with us that does a nice job explaining what creative commons is.
A Shared Culture - another video about creative commons that explains why it was created.

Articles:
Drawing that Explains Copyright Law - an article where the author writes about explaining copyright laws to a child.
A Teacher's Guide to Fair Use and Copyright - a website that takes the content of copyright laws and puts them in an educational setting (I especially liked The Fair Use Chart).
Copyrights and Copying Wrongs - a series of articles done by EducationWorld.com that gives decent explanations about the guidelines of the copyright laws.

Well these are just a few resources I found on the web. If you have any others, please let me know. I would like to discuss this with our media speciliast to see what her thoughts about copyrighting are and how we can teach to do what is right in our school to our teachers and students. Any information will be beneficial!!! And yes, I found my picture on flickr from the creative commons area!!! =-)

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/askielboe/1533884587/

Google Docs..Where have You Been All My Life??

What an exciting week it has been at Emerging Instructional Technologies!! We have an phenomenal class who has been wonderful to get to know and learn from!! I can't wait to see what the next two years has to bring. Maybe when we are done with class at UNI, we will have to create our own Second Life island to "keep our groove going" (especially for Bill and Sara =-)!!!) I enjoyed learning about Second Life and seeing what you can find there. It is a whole another world where it seems that through your avatar, you can truly have new experiences. (It is kind of ironic that as I type this, my husband seems to be experiencing a "second life" of his own as his avatar "Iowa State Football Team" destroys all the teams that have left the Big 12 on NCAA 2010. Here is a recent article about that situation.) Now how to incorporate this into the classroom? I might have to take some time looking at Sara's suggestions on her blog.

Now to why I have been waiting for Google Docs all my life. Well maybe just the last 6 years of my teaching career. I like to do a lot of group work in my class. However, I do not like it when we do group work when one student works on the computer and the other members sit around and watch. Why don't I like this? Well, for one, there are students sitting there not doing anything. The other is that the person on the computer is probably doing his/her idea and then the collaborative work is gone. With Google Docs, everyone can have an input and be working on the same document AT THE SAME TIME!! Everyone can record their ideas and then the group can collaborate on what looks good and what needs to be changed. I can't wait to incorporate this into my classroom next year!!!

Photo: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2801/4083906765_2e0d36aebe.jpg

How Far Can My Mind Be Stretched?

Wow what a great day in Emerging Instructional Technologies. Even though I felt my mind being stretched in many different directions, it was a good stretch. Between twittering on Twitter, creating a PLN on iGoogle, creating a social bookmarking website on diigo, and best of all, skyping with FlatClassroom teacher, Vicki Davis, I drove home my mind a little exhausted.

Once I got home, I enjoyed a nice meal of maple smoked ribs with my husband, did some ironing, and baked cookies for the potlock tomorrow. =-) Then I sat down to look at the RWLD for tomorrow. I started out creating my punk rocker avatar, Stacy Biscuit, on SecondLife. Then I started to explore as well as watch the videos Prof. Zeitz posted for us to watch. My avatar would walk along as I tried to keep her on the path in the Welcome Community. I do believe she may already have a few concussions from our first flying lessons when I would drop her accidently from the sky. (Hit the page down button. You have more control of the descent.) Yeah, I would have to admit that this brain was just about stretched to its capacities of all the possibilities available to us and our students. But as I try to remember before I start to exercise, you first have to stretch before you go the distance.

Photo: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/34/110008305_e2c03cd21d.jpg

Are TV's Becoming Obsolete for the Classroom?

I was at our school board meeting the other night. One of the agenda items they discussed was getting TV bids for the classrooms in our new elementary. One of the board members inquired about presenters but it seemed that the decision had been made to get televisions for all the classrooms instead of presenters. Maybe it was a cost issue or maybe it was a decision by the teachers. But it made me wonder: are we getting behind the times with buying televisions? Will most teachers be asking for a presenter in a couple of years? It made me also think about the last time I used a television. When I started teaching 6 years ago, I hooked up a document camera to a television to show documents. My second year I got a presenter that was hooked up to my computer, document camera, and VCR/DVD. It was so much easier to flip between all the different tools and it gave me more opportunities in my classroom.

So I was wondering how many of you still use a television in your classroom? If you do use a television, how many would prefer to use a presenter?

Photo: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/files/images/no-television.jpg

Thoughts from the Lawn Mower

Anybody do their best thinking as they are mowing their lawn? It is just you, the lawn,the lawnmower, and hopefully a big blue sky like today. No distractions!! Sometimes, I think if I kept going, I could almost solve most of the world's problems. But today as I sat on my lawnmower for my 2 hour think session, my thoughts kept going back to Chapters 4 and 5 that I just read in our Disrupting Class book. These chapters helped me to see what a student-centric classroom would look like and how it will be accomplished.

The student-centric classroom does sound interesting and as Gabe comments about his blog, a little like entering "The Twilight Zone". However, it concerns me a little bit. As a business teacher, I take great pride in attempting to teach the students how to be financially savvy. We always have great discussions, especially in the economic times that we are encountering today. In the student-centric classroom, where the book says on page 101:

"teachers will always remain in schools, increasingly functioning as one-on-one tutors rather than teaching monolithically and computer-based and student-centric learning will enable a teacher to oversee the work of more students"

I can take a deep breath to know I will still have a job and I do think technology can be a great asset to our classroom. However, if students are working on their own as they work according to their needs with a certain type of software, will we lose the group discussions where students get a chance to express their opinion in front of others as well as help others in the class understand the information better? Call me a little old fashioned, but I do think students still need to have the opportunity to learn to talk and express their ideas in front of an audience and not just texting them on a phone or typing on a computer. With all the great things a student-centric classroom has to offer, are we taking away teaching them a very important skill- becoming comfortable speaking in front of a live audience? Will having more students in my classes limit the relationships that I develop with my students in my classroom as CathyO discussions in her post "So They Want to Disrupt My Classroom?"?

As I was looking for a picture of a lawnmower, I came across some lawnmower games. Maybe I will have the students play a quick lawnmower game to get them to really put on their thinking caps. =-)

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/278649

http://www.squiglysplayhouse.com/Games/Flash/PuzzleStrategy/Lawnmower/index.php

Oh the Possibilities..are a Bit Overwhelming but Exciting!!

The tools are here to help our classrooms be more "disrupted" with technology!! Many of them are free and available to everyone (if they have an email address =-) )!! There is even a great book (Web 2.0)that lists many Web 2.0 tools and gives great examples of how teachers have been using these tools to help students be ready for the 21st Century skills. So what does it take to become one of these cutting edge teachers? How can I help "the students apply these tools toward more serious endeavors instead of for enjoyment" (as Web 2.0 states on pg. 50)?

One thought that probably crosses many of our minds as we think about doing something new is "When will I have the time to play with/incorporate/learn about the new technology?". This is when the Web 2.0 tools that we have been reading about may help the teacher as much as the student. I like the remark Marty made in her blog Marty Remarks under the heading "The Pace of Change: Are we institutionally prepared?" that "it is exciting to be a part of an industry that is continually looking for ways to improve." So lets keep helping each other improve by posting good ideas that may be helpful to someone else and maybe save them some time as they are trying to improve their classroom. As Bill brings up in his blog BlamSpot under the heading "Make It, Ma-Top of the World", teachers have always had time as our enemy but the more experience we have with something, the easier it is to make sense of what we are doing. So share your expertise with not only the teaching world but the world. That is what we want our students to be doing as well, right?

So now the question is once I have learned a new technology, how can I get it to be "disruptive" in my classroom and not "crammed"? (Can you tell I love that analogy?") Being a business teacher, I liked the examples given in the book Disrupting Class where they discuss businesses that have come in and taken over an industry with a "disrupting product". How do they do this? As it states in the book on pg. 85:

Success with disruptive innovations always originates at the simplest end of the market, typically competing against nonconsumption.

So what is something that has not been consumed yet in education? How can we turn our Web 2.0 tools into something the students have not used/seen before? Here is an example of a new way to go over rules in the classroom creating a video and TeacherTube.



I hope what I put together here makes sense. Just a few thoughts that have crossed my mind several times as I get more into reading our textbooks, blogs, and wikis.

By the way, can anyone recommend a good way to search for blogs? I am trying to find one that might be for business teachers. I tried searching blogs in Google but did not get much luck. I wondered if there was another way.

Good Night Blogosphere!!!

Photo Found:http://www.teachertube.com/members/viewPhoto.php?photo_id=2837&title=Web_2_0
Video Found: http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=247

Cramming vs. Disrupting- Where is Your Technology At?

Crammed (Where is the computer?) vs. Disrupting

I had to admit it but as I was catching up on some of our classroom reading this weekend, I really started to think about whether technology is cramming or disrupting my classroom. Is technology just one more thing I try to cram into my classroom or is it something that comes in and disrupts what is happening? As I was reading, several pictures popped into my mind. For cramming, I pictured the technology pushed back in the background among books, papers, filing cabinets, etc. and only taken out when the teacher feels it is an appropriate time to use it. For disrupting, I pictured the technology out in the open with the students and they are working together to get the task accomplished. Unfortunately, I feel my classrooms still fits into the first picture. What is the next step I need to take to get technology to be more "disrupting" in my classroom? How do I get students to make technology more disrupting in their lives other than just playing games, watching YouTube videos, and uploading photos to Facebook?

As I started to feel like I was doing not many things right, my thought drifted back to Chapter 2 in our Distrupting Class book. Being a little bit of a history buff, I enjoyed this chapter as it went through how our schools have changed to meet our society's needs. One phrase that sticks out on page 51 is "schools actually have been improving". As the history shows, it takes time for change to occur. I believe that most teachers and administrators want to improve and do what is best for our students. We just have to make sure we are continually trying to improve and to not get set in our ways!! We need to be willing to let technology to come in and let our classrooms be more student-centric. I found an article that gives a good example of a student-centric classroom but also sums up what we have been reading in our Disrupting Class book on Edutopia (it was written by the authors of the book and also where I found the pictures above). The article is called Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education is the Future. Student-Centric classrooms is the new job that society is asking from our schools. We now need to make sure that we are striving to meet our society's needs!!

School's Out for Summer (Everyone Join In...or Maybe Not Yet)

Yes, it is true. I am officially done with school (well other than organizing my room)!! We were finished with students on Wednesday and today was our check out day!!! It is nice to have a three day weekend and know I don't have to come back to work on Tuesday. Those that get too, keep hanging in there; it is almost the end!!

I did have a great technology finding today for business teachers. It is one that has made me very excited so I just wanted to share it to all those out there reading my blog. I get the opportunity to get new accounting books this year and found out that they are now putting our working papers online!!! I am sure that this has been around for awhile but I never paid attention since I didn't need new books yet. This makes me very excited for several reasons:

1) It is nice to see the textbook company seeing the importance of technology and realizing that teachers are trying to incorporate more technology in their classrooms.
2) The students still have to do the work but now instead of writing it on paper, they get to enter it in the computer.
3) Once the students input their information, the computer grades them right away and they get to see right away what they did right!!

I am really looking forward to this and am thinking of ways that I can use the wikis, blogs, etc. that we have used in this class to have discussions about accounting concepts we learn in class. Oh the possibilities we have with technology!!

For the other business teachers out there, here is the website if you are interested in the online working papers: www.aplia.com/workingpapers. The book I am looking at is through South-Western Cengage Learning: First Year Multicolumn Journal. Is anyone else currently using this or know of someone who is??

Enjoy your holiday weekend!!
Stacy Marcus

photo: http://www.cengage.com/cengage/imageservlet?productISBN=9780538447058

VoiceThread: Getting the Community Involved

First of all, I would like to apologize for rambling on with my comments on VoiceThread. You get on there, start commenting, and it gets hard to stop. I hope I didn't jump back and forth between comments too much. I notice that I get a little nervous seeing myself talk on the computer. =-)

I can see VoiceThread being a great way to not only collaborate in the classroom but also between classrooms, in the school and outside of the school. After watching the video and reading the chapters in the book, I have really started to think about how much I am really getting my students prepared for their future. Are they getting the 21st Century Skills (21st Century skills website) that they need in my classroom? Am I helping them use technological resources in the best way to prepare them for their future?

One recurring theme that keeps grabbing my attention is how we need to incorporate our communities more into the classroom. VoiceThread could be a great way to get others outside of the school involved. The students create a VoiceThread and then could get real experts to give them advice on what they created. For example, in my advertising class, my students could create an ad, post it on VoiceThread, and then we could see if we could get an advertiser to critique it. Oh the possibilities!!!

The only concern I have is will our schools be able to keep up with the technology that our students need to be successful. We have four computer labs for our K-12 building that are being used about every class period. With budget cuts, it seems like one of the first things they look at is if they really need to update the technology. Also, how do we provide for the students who may not have the technology needed at home?

Well, I better get back to the series finale of Lost!!! Anyone else Lost fans?? I am kind of sad to see it be done but kind of happy as well. Now I won't have to dwell on my questions I have each week.

PS- Is anyone else having trouble loading pictures on your blog? I can't seem to get them uploaded.

Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/9112109@N08/3728405634

Adobe Connect: Fun but a Little Frustrating

Last Monday night, I had the opportunity to come face-to-face with many of the participants of my Emerging Instructional Technologies class using Adobe Connect. Other than using the webcam feature with Instant Messenger to talk to my 1 1/2 year old niece, I have never used face-to-face communication before. I liked being able to put a name with a face but to be able to have that face-to-face communication while we talked. It would be neat to use this in my business classroom to get my students to talk to business professionals who would be willing. I would say at times I got a little frustrated because of the delay and you couldn't "chime in" whenever you wanted. The group would move on to another question before you may have had the chance to give your thoughts. For this reason, I liked it better with a bigger group to just type. Then you can follow along and put in your two cents easier.

As mentioned above, I would like to start using face-to-face communication in my classes. However, I have talked to my tech instructor about this and he is concerned that it would pull too much bandwidth from our server and it would slow everybody else down. Our teachers do a nice job of using technology in their classroom so our computer labs are often full. Has anyone used Skype, Adobe Connect, etc. in their classrooms? If so, how has it affected your server and is it choppy at all?

A Little Behind But Ready to Roll

I think I am ready. I have blogged a few times before on a personal website but now it is time to get serious. For only being an avid facebooker, my master's class, Emerging Instructional Technologies, is definitely getting me to explore other options more!! So far so good. Already I am getting into the habit of reading the blogs of not only my classmates but of others and I am getting interested. Is this the reading of the future?? Right now at our school, we are doing Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) and take 30 minutes a day to free read. (Here is an article from Education World about SSR: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr038.shtml.) The students and teachers get a book and then we read. We do short book talks at the end. Instead of books, could I let the students read a blog they are interested in? Would reading a blog for 30 minutes improve their reading just as much as reading a book? Would this especially be beneficial for those students who don't like to read books but like to spend a lot of time on the computer??