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