Author: Makamae Nottage

1)What did you learn about the intersection of technology and instruction? What was your progress on becoming a “tech-savvy” teacher?

Before this class, I had rarely thought about the importance of integrating technology into instruction, and I did not realize how easy it is to integrate technology into a classroom. I learned that using technology in the classroom is a great way to encourage collaboration between students, and allows students to show their creativity. Programs like padlet and google slides encourage students to share their ideas with each other and build on ideas. Programs like adobe spark post, microsoft sway, google sites, thing link, ed puzzle, etc. encourage students to create projects in new and creative ways. The great part about these apps is that they are all user friendly, so students are able to learn how to use them on their own, or I am able to teach them about the apps in unique ways as well, including screen casting! This class helped me progress with becoming a tech savvy teacher, as I did not know many apps that I could integrate into the classroom. I have always known how to use technology, but I struggled with applying it to a classroom setting, and this class taught me that I am able to integrate technology in unique ways into my classroom!

2)This class was driven by mini-projects instead of test and papers. How did you respond? What does that tell you about student motivation?

I loved the format for this class! Instead of being lectured at in class and doing busy work outside of class or writing papers, I was able to apply the information we learned in my own creative way by choosing the topic for my mini-projects and creating the projects in my own way. Using class time to create mini-projects also required me to learn how to use the application and create something valuable that I would post on the website for my classmates to see. I also loved seeing my classmates mini-projects on the website, as I could learn more about their interests and their personalities. The format for this class taught me that students are more motivated to learn when they are able to apply their learning to their own lives and be creative! Students are not motivated to take tests or papers, but when they are able to design their meme, video, etc. they are motivated to complete the project, and are excited to share it with peers.

Link to create your own protip https://spark.adobe.com/

1. target audience- College Students
2. subject of lesson – Safe drinking and standard drinks.
3. instructional goal- The learner will comprehend what the three different types of standard drinks are. The learner will also creating a protip graphic for safe drinking.
4. technology being used- Edpuzzle, Adobe spark post, Padlet, Imovie
5. how technology supports instructional goal- Technology supports or instructional goals because it allows for the students to be able to learn about safe drinking through interactive activities and makes learning more student centered.

The purpose of our lesson is to educate students on what a standard drink is so that they know how to drink alcohol safely. If this lesson was used in classroom then it could be taught to high school seniors in their homerooms or college students in freshmen workshops. By the end of the lesson the students will have an idea about the three different kinds of standard drinks and the amount of alcohol in each drink.

Lesson execution:

1. Watch Edpuzzle video
2. Show protip example
3. Student work time to make their own protip on adobe spark post
4. Students upload post to padelt
5. Students make one comment on another protip

I tested out VideoAnt, and then switched over to creating an EdPuzzle because I liked the formatting for the website better. On EdPuzzle, I find it really cool that the online video library is so vast, and that it is possible to find videos that already have quizzes, and audio notes on it. On top of that, the user is able to edit the video and add questions to it.

I created an EdPuzzle video about eating, with the purpose of educating students about how every living thing needs food, not just humans! I aimed the video at a kindergarten or grade 1 level. Because the students are so young, I would show the video to the class on the projector, and go through the questions together. I would read the questions out loud, and have students raise their hands and share ideas. The video could be incorporated at the beginning of a lesson/unit to give students an introduction into our new topic on food and eating healthy.

For this project, Sherry and I used screen casting to make a video about the lifecycle of a butterfly. I would integrate this video into my lesson as a quick video to show students what happens to a butterfly as it grows up. Students could watch this before we learn about butterflies, or after they learn about butterflies as a quick refresher or study tool.

After experimenting with both apps, I learned that I prefer Thinglink over google tour creator. I used Thinglink to learn more about the state fish of Hawaii: Humuhumunukunukuapua’a. I love talking about this fish, so I thought it would be interesting to teach more people about it. In the future, I would use Thinglink to do a diagram of an animal, location, etc. Thinglink is an interactive way to learn about a specific topic, especially by being able to hyperlink videos.

My adobe spark presentation:

My Microsoft sway presentation:

After using both programs, it is really difficult for me to choose one as being better than the other. They are very similar, and are both user friendly to an extent. The user must have general background knowledge on technology programs in order to use the apps to their full potential, otherwise, they will waste a lot of time trying to figure out how to use the programs. Personally, I think that sway is more user friendly, as I got the hang of it pretty quickly compared to spark.

Yet, in a classroom, I can see how spark is more beneficial to students learning and creative ability. Students today are pretty tech savvy, and spark allows students and teachers to be more creative through its different photo display options, and captions that go with the photos. The glideshow option on spark is a pretty unique way to display photos, and makes the presentation look very nice and organized.

Overall, I have a difficult time choosing between the two programs, and I think they are both teacher and student friendly.

I made a sway about my home, Kāneʻohe. I really enjoy using sway, but it definitely takes time to get used to. I am still learning how to manoeuvre the website, but I have gotten better at using it. I hope you enjoy learning a little more about where I am from!

I used Adobe Spark to make a video about the seasons. I attempted to use it simply and add in photos to describe each season and then use my voice to narrate information about the seasons. This app is simple to use to make a basic video, but I am sure there are many more features than the ones I used in this video. It would be cool if you could add clips from youtube into the video, but I don’t think there is a way to. The app is very user friendly, and students would be able to create projects on it.

Bubbl.us is a ‘free’ app to use for mind mapping. I say ‘free’ because the user is only allowed to make three mind maps with a registered account. After the third mind map, the user will have to pay for an account. The app is easy to navigate and makes a basic mind map. The mind map I created is about emotions, and I was hoping to add in photos of emotions and then have a second bubble attached to each picture that gives a bit of info about the emotion. Unfortunately, I was not able to do so because I have to pay to add photos to the mind map. A good aspect of the app is that the user is able to change the colors of each bubble as well as the background, which gives the user the capability to at least be a little creative. The user is also able to download the map as a jpg or pdf. Bubbl.us could be helpful in classrooms when students need to create a diagram about a certain topic, but overall, the app does not have very many capabilities.

I really enjoyed creating a google sites, and it was cool to embed files from different sources and have practice doing so. I will definitely use google sites in the future.

I created this map to teach people about historical landmarks of Hawaii and the events that took place at this landmarks. I thought this would be a good idea because as a teacher, I would want my students to know about where I am and the important history surrounding my home. This project taught me that creating a mymap is not as difficult as it looks, and in the future I will create MyMaps for places I want to visit! Mymaps is a great organizational and travel tool.

post by Madi Ohashi and Makamae Nottage

We created this lesson for 3rd graders as a pre test about the states and their locations. In this lesson, the students are asked to recognize the location of the specified states on a blank map. Students would only be tested on a few states to assess their knowledge. Then, the teacher would lead an activity about the states and eventually go over all 50 states. This quiz could be altered for every grade level by switching from states to capitals, cities, or landmarks. The post we created is for a starting point of understanding states, and over time students will begin to learn more about the states and be able to take other similar pretests about other aspects of the states.