Author: Bridget Ponzetti

Over the course of the semester I had the opportunity to learn about just a few of the various technological resources available to me as a future educator and sites I can turn to for even more tools I can add to my “tech toolkit”. Prior to this class I was worried about utilizing technology so frequently in the classroom as I never particularly saw myself as a “tech person” and was a little fearful of whether I would be able to navigate my way around all this new technology. Although my posts this semester may not be the best I am proud of the amount of work I have produced in the short amount of time we have had together and I am proud to say I am not so fearful of exploring new technology that comes my way and I could also potentially see myself implementing these technology tools into my own classroom in the future.

I think this class is especially important as educational technology is growing rapidly and constantly changing, this class taught me to be comfortable with exploring new technology and learning how it can be helpful to both you as the teacher and your students.  This course provides us with guidance and tools to add to our toolkits as educators and gives us the confidence is beginning the process of implementing technology into our lessons and classroom to benefit and enhance learning for all students. I have learned that technology can be used as a supplementary tool in addition to the other beneficial tools already implemented into your classroom. While this class has been great in teaching us the many great tech tools out there, it has also been great in teaching me how to be flexible and adaptable when technology is not easily accessible to students or when technology is not working. This class has really taught me how to reach out to your peers around you and to others with more expertise about the apps who can help you learn when you are just so frustrated and cannot seem to learn how to make it work. I enjoyed the opportunity you as a professor gave us in being able to choose the way we presented what we had learned both in class while exploring various apps and in our blog posts while discussing and showing off the work we completed with those apps.

For our final class project, I agree with the idea we talked about in class about creating an iBook together that highlights all that we have learned, created, and explored. This iBook could serve as a resource for us as future educators and our co-teachers, students, and parents. In this iBook, each of us as students in the class would take one app or program we have learned about and write a description as well as a demonstration or lesson plan utilizing your program. For example, one person may screencast how to use mymaps in a lesson while someone else may explain how to use toontastic. We have covered enough apps that if everyone can cover one app if we work individually or two apps potentially if we work in pairs.

In this iBook, authors can use the many tools we have learned and integrate them into the iBook – either by directly embedding it into the book or creating a screencast that can be embedded showing us how the app can be used. Once the iBook is done, teachers can use the resource to quickly understand what technology tool to use for a given task, while also receiving a summary of how to best use the technology in the classroom with our students. Students and parents could use this resource to gain a better understanding of how technology is being used in the classroom and can be very helpful for parents feeling connected to what is happening in the classroom.

In class I explored and played around with Toontastic and thought it was a really fun video-making/animation app that students would definitely have fun with. I think this is engaging for students as they get the opportunity to create their stories and then bring them to life with toontastic creating a short visual of their stories which they could then share with their peers. One thing I noticed with this app is that there are so many options to choose from in terms of settings and because you have to record yourself saying the story, you would definitely want to have students create their script before they create their video. Toontastic is also really fun because you can actively move your characters around and can even customize your characters to look more like you or even have your own face.

The thing I notice is that is was very easy to get pulled into your story and bringing it to life that you want to keep building on it or make more stories. This is great because especially for young kids it gives them a purpose or connection between what they are writing and what they can create. I also really enjoy that Toontastic gives you the opportunity to draw your own setting or characters so if you have a student who is super artistic they can create their own instead of using the premade backgrounds or characters. I think that Toontastic could be used in many ways as well, you could have each student make an individual project, you could use it as a partner or group project activity, or you even have the opportunity to create a class story and then make that story come to life in Toontastic.

The only main problem I could see with Toontastic is that there is not an easy way to share it. You must save it to your device first, then share it, and then upload it wherever you want. Granted, this is not that much of a hassle but a little more than some of the other apps we have used in the past but definitely worth it in my opinion!

This embedded video is an example I found on youtube of a student made trailer using imovie based on the topic they are currently studying in that class.  Often students have a lot of fun using Imovie to make a trailer to showcase what they learn and this is a win-win situation because it allows you as the teacher to assess what the students have learned while also giving the students a chance to engage with and share their knowledge in a fun way. Imovie and video can be such a beneficial tool in the classroom allow students an active and creative way to express the knowledge they have learned to the teacher or to create a fun classwide project for the parents. Using video in the classroom also allows students the opportunity to bring in clips from things they experience outside of the classroom and yet relate back to what they are learning, for example if they are learning about the weather students could include actual clips of the weather outside. Another use for video in the classroom is teachers using it to introduce a topic to students or explain important concepts they are learning about in a way that is more likely to capture the students attention.

I think overall video can be a very useful and engaging tool in the classroom. I think that it can also be very fun as the teacher to look at how your students learn differently and what they choose to highlight as important in their videos, and it is also interesting to see how their videos are the same or different even if they are on the same topic.

Dear past self,

It is now August 2033  and 15 years have past since I was in college, enrolled in EdTech Methods at the University of Portland just beginning to learn all the amazing technological tools available at the time to teach my students. My teaching career has been going great but you won’t believe how much education has changed yet stayed the same. Technology is everyone in the classroom and students have the same enthusiasm as they did when I started this journey to learn about new technology. Virtual reality has become the new popular tech item in the classroom for all subjects but especially reading, allowing students to immerse themselves in the story really living and taking in the story. Students really enjoy using virtual reality as it makes the learning more engaging and fun for students. One to one with technology is still very prevalent in the classroom however the technology has become even more advanced. All computers are now touch-screen and detachable from the keyboards so they can be used as tablets or computers. Students use their one to one devices for everything to save paper and to be able to review class as it will be able to be video recorded and automatically uploaded to students devices.

The thing I would say to you if I could go back in time and give you advice is to not be afraid of technology as it can be a very powerful tool that can create a new exciting and engaging way to teach your students. Learn everything you can about technology as it comes up and never be afraid to try new technology or new programs, be open to learning yourself and never assume you know more than your students, if your students know more than you than learn from them and grow from their knowledge. Use the technology to allow your students to create new and exciting ways to present their knowledge to the class.

Sincerely,

Your future self

My padlet shows the beginning stages of one of the things I would use padlet for in my classroom. I would use padlet as a place for students to post articles or videos of events currently happening in the news. In my padlet I show 5 articles found by 5 different students over the past school week. We would continue this throughout the school year, every day a new student would be responsible for finding an article about a current event to add to the padlet and share with the class. We will use these articles every day as a discussion topic about what the current event was, why they chose to share this article or video, and why we as a class think it is important to learn about this. Another cool way I could see padlet being used that is similar to this idea comes from something I see being done in my current classroom. We currently create one-pagers about “changemakers” we see throughout history, we could easily use this idea and make it tech-friendly using padlet. Every day we could add a new article about the changemaker of the day or add the video we watched that day onto the padlet so if students want to return and see all the changemakers we have studied they have an easy place to return too. I think that padlet is a really fun idea that a lot of students would enjoy using and creating a presentation or saving their work to return to later.

The idea behind my Sway was to use it as an interactive brochure type of thing. My example is an interactive brochure of Portland, Oregon and my students would have the task of creating their own brochure for one of the major cities across the US. Students would be required to include a brief introduction to their city, where it is located, some history behind the city, popular attractions of the city, and then whatever fun facts that want to include. I think my students would have fun with this because it gives them the chance to demonstrate their knowledge in whatever way they find interesting to them whether that means including Gifs, or videos, or even potentially a my map to show of the city they are studying. This allows students to put their own personal spin on the classical brochure while still demonstrating to the teacher that they can collect the necessary information to create an informational presentation about their city.

By Madison Hughes and Bridget Ponzetti

Our lesson is based on the article, “How classrooms look around the world-in 15 amazing photographs,” by Valerie Strauss. Our goal for this lesson is for students to be exposed to different classrooms and cultures around the world. The classroom settings range from Russia to Brazil, and the students range from primary school to secondary school. One classroom in Pakistan is very minimalist, and illustrates how through a lack of resources, but a great deal of imagination, the outdoors can become a classroom. In contrast, one classroom in Morocco exhibits their creativity through paintings on the walls. The students will be able to compare and contrast their own personal experience in school with the students in the photographs. Students will become open-minded and globally curious. Students, through reflection, will gain an appreciation for the resources that they have.

Our google slide project would be used as a science project about the rainforest and its animals, specifically a unit based on ecosystems and the food chain. We would begin our lesson by going through the google slides presentation with our students to demonstrate what we are looking for in the presentation, pausing occasionally throughout to participate in a discussion. We would directly hyperlink in our presentation to take our students directly to comment on the video or photo about what they see or think is important to notice. We may also use the Q & A or comment feature in google slides as part of this discussion as well so students can see many different ways to have class interaction within the presentation. Students will be active participants in the presentation constantly commenting their ideas about the chameleon and what they are learning which also allows the teacher to check in assuring that students are both following along and are understanding the knowledge being presented to them. Once we finish the presentation the students will break into groups of 4-5 and become animal researchers picking an animal from the rainforest in Madagascar to learn about and present on. Students will collaborate together to create their own google slides presentation on their animal. The hope would be that this would be an activity incorporating technology into the classroom in a fun and collaborative way that incorporates a lesson students are excited to do.

My screencast was an example of sending a homework assignment home with kids and this video explanation would be sent out to parents along with a link to the video students are expected to watch to complete the activity. This specific activity would include watching a short news segment video and then completing a graphic organizer that differentiates what students heard in the video that they think was fact and what they heard that they thought was an opinion. The goal would be that we would then have a discussion the next day about the difference between fact and opinion, and we would eventually be using this graphic organizer to write an opinion writing piece. I think screencasting to create little videos like this can be a great tool for students to use to keep parents up to date with what their students are learning in class and also what we are expecting them to complete for homework. Using screencasting allows parents a visual connection of exactly what the teacher is looking for and the level of detail they are looking for.  Another reason I think screencasting can be a useful tool is it allows students to go back and review what they are expected to do in this case or you could use it to give them an example to look too if they are unsure of what to do.

Community is key to a school and classroom. My lesson is centered around getting the students to talk about what community means to them and what they think our classroom community should look like. Since we are born, we are in a community with our family, our neighborhood, our culture all form part of the community we grow up in. When we enter school we are expected to form another community, a school and a classroom community. I want to take what my students value about community along with what the school values and create a strong classroom community where students feel excited to be part of the community.

Guided questions:

1.  What do you think is important to consider in creating community?

2. Why do you think it is important to create a classroom/school community?

3. What do you think community in the classroom looks like?

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Family by Kat Grigg

Community by Ron Mader

School parade by Joe Piette