Looking Back, Looking Ahead

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-long-and-winding-road-the-beatles-story-mw0001885333

As the Beatles referenced, it's been a long and winding road. This term has had its share of ups and downs for me. When District 90 announced this class, I jumped at it. I was excited to learn alongside teachers in the district using a curriculum created for D90. 

http://patch.com/illinois/oakpark/district-90-receives-certificate-excellence-financial-reporting

In terms of my expectations, this class was not what I thought it would be. There were many weeks at the beginning of the term when none of the work would connect to kindergarten or how I would disseminate information to parents or make my teaching life easier. That was the down part of the class.

As the class progressed, though, there were tech tools (the class spinner) and applications (Tagul, Web 2.0 tools- especially Blabberize and VoiceThread) that I could use with my kiddos. Along the way, I learned about trends in educational technology, many of which I had never heard of before. And while I wasn't able to use much of the trends-in-ed tech presentation material in my teaching, it did expose me to new ideas and make me a more educated professional. I am one of those nerds who love being in school and learning, so this was a super way to start our in-class sessions. All of these were definite ups of the class.

But probably the biggest "up" was my growth as a consumer and producer of technology. I never professed to being tech savvy, but I am tremendously more confident using and navigating technology than I was beforehand. This is HUGE! I never sought out ways to use technology, but am finding I enjoy being part of the Twitter education community. I find myself perusing Twitter when I have a few minutes on my hands and always leave with a new nugget of information - keeping me informed, with a cool idea for my class or exposing me to something new. I love being part of a professional learning community and live Twitter chats or reading over the discussion if I have to miss the live chat. I never understood these opportunities before and now feel comfortable navigating this space. I'm also toying with using Twitter to communicate things my class is doing with parents, which I used to feel was foolish. 

When my computer or a program is not working correctly, I don't immediately message the district help desk anymore, instead I try to problem solve the situation. While I continue to find technology a bit frustrating at times, I now know that there are often work-arounds to bypass the problem or sometimes you just need to shrug your shoulders and carry on, not understanding why some piece of technology does or does not want to cooperate (like why this blog post has such huge white borders around the images?!), but knowing that some technological 'funkiness' is inexplicable - or not worth the energy it would take to fully comprehend the root of the problem.

In the end, I am glad I took this class. While I may not be implementing a ton of technology with my students yet (which was one of my initial goals), I realize that more is not better (thank you stages of technology integration!) and prefer to expose students to only quality experiences during our precious half days together. When I do find technology that fits with my students' needs, I know that I can navigate my way through figuring out how to use it.  

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Perhaps my district's plan was not to have us learn a ton of technology to implement right now, but for our technological comfort level to expand and our confidence to grow now and for the future. The Beatles sang, "The long and winding road that leads me to your door will never disappear." Technology will be a part of every teacher's repertoire and will not go away, but I now know that when technology is knocking at my door, there is no need to fear answering it.

Digital Tattoos

It's amusing to think that I have a tattoo. I've thought about inking my body. What image would I select-that I enjoyed at the moment and also for my future? Where would I put it on my body?Ultimately, I never ended up with a solid idea that addressed those questions, and so my body remains ink-less. Yet, I know that every move I make online leave an indelible impression. While I am not concerned with my own digital footprint, as I am pretty boring with what I search, share and communicate online (and can't control details that are in the public domain), I am forced to consider the implications of online interactions. As we researched your colleague, Lucy Gray, I knew that we might be able to find personal information like her income and address (which we didn't actually locate) and her picture (which we did), which can be a little scary if someone had nefarious intent. What I wasn't prepared for was having access to her personal information via Facebook. Her page is public, so I had access to her pictures (it appears she has kids - or children in her life she was close to). While I didn't take time to read her posts, that was a little creepy. Plus, it surprised me because her job is as a tech consultant. Perhaps her thinking is that, if someone wanted to find out personal information, it's there to be found, so why bother making it private, but that was a surprise to me, as everything I have heard and read says to use the privacy settings on personal sites.
Since my students are 5 and 6-years-old, their digital imprints are not a concern at the moment, but my 12-year-old, in particular, is involved in social media and needs to make choices that are appropriate and communicate kindness and show responsibility.

He is on Instagram, which was the go-to social media last year when he received his phone upon starting middle school. My husband, mainly, would read his 'feed' and help him steer clear of anyone posting questionable content (off-color jokes, inappropriate pictures/memes) and to consider his responses to "friends'" posts. Friends are in quotes because he was inundated with requests from people he had barely met, or in some instances, a friend or sibling of a friend, wanted to be connected to him. Initially his excitement stemmed from upping his number of contacts, but in time, and with my husband's and my guidance, he has settled down on that front.
I am happy that I get to peek inside his life via Instagrams' lens. It opens up conversation with him and exposes me to his friend's thinking as well. Both great things. This has allowed a number of valuable teachable moments with our middle schooler.
As social media popularity shifts, he now wants to sign-up for Snapchat, which I oppose. I don't understand it that well, outside of the idea that posts/pictures have a brief shelf life and then "disappear." Many of his classmates have made the shift, so he feels left behind and out-of-the-loop, but I am sticking my ground.

Helping my children navigate their online presence will keep me, and, I hope, all parents, on our toes to help our children make wise choices and always put their best foot forward into the digital world.

Tech-Tac-Toe #3 - Screencast

I was excited to learn how to make a screencast as a former tech person in our district encouraged me to create them to help kindergarteners be less reliant on teacher instructions. She used them incredibly effectively to show students how to make something once via the screencast and then they were set free. If they had a question, they were to re-watch the screencast for the answer. It gave them a lot of independence and saved her headaches of having to repeat and hear her name called innumerable times!
I dipped my toe in and found the process to be relatively easy. I used Screencast-o-Matic as my software.

One of the hardest parts was getting my computer to have the correct downloads (Java). The good news was that Screencast-o-matic helped ease the process with links that guided me to download what I needed.
I used Blabberize as the tech tool I wanted my students to learn.

Here is my finished product which talked the students through the process of making a Blabber.



Once you are in Screencast-o-matic, you click "Start Recording" to get started. A 'screen' will appear with a black and white border that you can drag and size appropriately for your screen by using the handlebars in each corner. You will see a large record box and toolbar at the bottom of your screen. It is automatically set to record your work on the screen, but can be set to record webcam or both screen and webcam. Next, select the size. From different videos I watched, it seems 720p was the best bet for recording and downloading/embedding.
Also in the toolbar you will need to select the type of narration you want. I chose the built-in microphone to record my voice, which is how I think I would typically screen casting. You can select the volume to 'auto adjust' for foolproof recording, if that option comes up.
Once all of these have been set, you are ready to record. The red button in the toolbar gets you started. After clicking it, there will be a three second countdown and then the timer will start. You have up to 15 minutes per free screencast. If you need longer, you can record separate screencasts to break the directions into parts or purchase the upgraded version.
As you record, you can click through the options on the screen of whatever you are teaching. A yellow circle will appear wherever you move your mouse to help focus the students' attention. You can pause your recoding, and restart when you are ready again, but must start over if you make a mistake, as you cannot edit as you record. Once you have finished the recording, click 'done.'
After clicking done, you will be offered choices for what you want to do with your recording. Initially I chose 'publish to YouTube'. Then I had trouble retrieving/accessing it and it was gone.
I re-recorded my screencast and selected 'publish to video file' which saved it to the desktop. From there I was able to upload it to YouTube without a problem (after watching more YouTube videos on uploading!).
I can see using this when I want to teach my students a new technology or to access a new item on my website/blog, once those are more fully functional. It could also be helpful for parents if they were setting up an account for home use or to help them help their child access something we did in class.

Tech-Tac-Toe #2 - Blabberize

Blabberize is a super fun and easy tool to use. I laughed my way through playing with it to get the hang of how it works. First you need to find a picture, then save it to your desktop as a jpeg. Next, you import it into Blabberize. When you get to a part where you have to move points to correlate with the mouth in the picture, it is important to set the large blue dot/point on the bottom of the mouth to help it open and close appropriately.
Once the points are set, you can record your voice, import a sound clip or record from your phone. I recorded my voice, as that is how I envision using it with my students.As you record, you will see the mouth moving. It is important to speak loudly and annunciate clearly, so the mouth opens and closes wide enough to look like the figure in the picture is talking. You can preview the recording and edit it if necessary. When you are happy with the way the recording looks, save it. Click on the "Share it" button to link or send your Blabberize.
This tool will definitely capture students' attention and be a fun way for me to communicate with them. It also seems easy enough for 5 and 6-year-olds to be able to do independently, once they know the steps they need to create their own, though I envision placing the points around the mouth could be tricky.
In kindergarten we do an end-of-the-year research unit where the students select an oviparous animal and write a 'chapter' book with the facts they find. They could find and select a picture of their animal and record a Blabberize to share the most interesting fact they learned. I will need to do more playing to figure out where the kids could save/put their finished Blabberized projects to easily access, as it seems the option would be to embed them in a blog or website.
We could invite our second grade buddies or parents in to see the finished research books and watch/listen to the Blabberize to find out what the kindergartner found most interesting. Kids could even teach their parents how to make a Blabberize while they were visiting our class.

 

Tech-Tac-Toe #1 - Voice Thread

I must admit I have a feeling of extreme accomplishment because I was able to figure out Voice Thread completely on my own - fumbling along and taking more time than many people, since I now realize it is extremely easy to create. Here is a sample voice thread I made about my family:




I selected this tool because I can see using it with my students. They write 'books': teaching and narrative so far, but I keep them as a record of their writing lives throughout the year. Already they have shown a ton of growth since we started writing on the first day of school! Since these are kept at school, the parents get to hear about their writing, but only view it during conferences and when it comes home at the end of the year.
At the end of each writing unit we have a publishing party. When we finished our teaching books, my students shared them with their second grade buddies. The second graders gave my kindergartners compliments and tips for future writing. It is always good to realize you are writing for an audience and receiving feedback is helpful. I had wanted to expand the audience for these publishing parties, but know that working parents can't take off work to come to our classroom every few weeks. Voice thread can be one way to address this situation.
I could take pictures of each page of the students books. Upload them to my computer, either as individual pictures or in Keynote, and them bring them into Voice Thread. I can call over each individual student to read the pages of their book. Once everyone was recorded, I could send out the link with my newsletter with instructions for parents so they could comment on the work. They, in turn, could share the link with relatives who could also comment - either through writing a note or recording their voice.
I envision having a parent volunteer help kids with the recordings, but am not sure when/how the students would view any comments left afterward. Perhaps the parents could show their child their portion of the Voice Thread so they could view/hear any comments left.
I send home binder books where every child in class has created a page. It's fun for parents to see all of the children's work as they progress through the year. This could be another vehicle for sharing student work and allowing parents to see and learn about their child's classmates through their writing.

Digital Storytelling

Anytime I am asked to write about a topic, it is a somewhat painful process. I enjoy writing, but can labor over what it is I want to convey. When I taught 4th, 5th and 6th grades, I always tried to be sympathetic to kids who shared my indecisiveness. 

The digital storytelling experience was much the same. I deliberated over a few topics and selected one, my husband's fight to overcome cancer. I collected many pictures from my home computer and put them into a file. As I collected, the topic became very personal - too much so for our class audience (though it may be created as a holiday gift...). So my idea morphed into focusing on the benefits of the American Cancer Society. As that idea simmered in my brain, it changed, yet again, into the general idea of the benefits of volunteering. Perusing my pictures for volunteering, I came across many pictures of my husband and kids on our travels. Both of my boys are excellent travelers who enjoy seeing new places, trying new food and experiencing different cultures and lifestyles. My very close grade school friend and her sons are very different from mine in regards to travel and exposure to other cultures. Both families traveled to the Dominican Republic a few years ago and my friend was happy to stay on the all-inclusive resort, eat at the American-style restaurant while my boys, who were only eight and four at the time, and I ventured off the beaten path and explored the island on our own. 

That made me wonder where my spirit of adventure came from, as it was not part of my upbringing. Though my maternal grandmother had a spirit for adventure, but on more of a low key level, and people say I take after her.

Once I really thought about it, I realized that my lust for travel originated from my fourth grade social studies teacher and her teaching. After I had selected the topic, the writing of the script was pretty easy. Searching the web was also fairly easy. Timing pictures and cutting clips, as well as adding titles, music and narration took some trial and error and watching video tutorials, but the project was coming together. 

I started production at 6:30 am Saturday morning and by 2:00, the video was more and less complete. There were a few edits that I needed to make on Sunday, but when I tried to open it, only one picture appeared, and no music or narration. I played around and did all of the tech tricks I knew: quitting the application, shutting down and restarting. I brought my computer to a more tech savvy friend who was able to reopen an older version, prior to my adding music and narration. I was thrilled!

Then I brought my computer home to continue working, and it had reverted to only showing the one picture and not playing. I put in help desk requests to my school's tech department and heard back that it was an iMovie formatting issue, which was what your response indicated, and a tech person would help me Monday morning.

Sure enough, there were multiple iMovie versions on my computer and I was using the oldest version as it was the one that was in my dock, so the one I automatically used. The downside is that I will need to re-learn the program, as there are many more bells and whistles on the new version and its layout is different. I wish I had devoted this time on the newest version, but I wasn't savvy enough to think about different versions. 

Afterward, I was informed that in the future I should not use the district's tech department help desk for my own class problems. As this was the first time I had requested help for the class, this flabbergasted me. The district offered and financially supplemented this course and it was to learn things to use as a teacher in my classroom. Frustrating. Not sure how I will get any future issues addressed should they come up. 

Thankfully, I am happy with what I learned. The process was pretty cool and I enjoyed unearthing a bit of myself through the vehicle of digital storytelling. iMovie is not a tool I will use with my students, but I make slideshows for my students and parents and can now jazz them up a bit and I hope to devote time to compile my own family memories via this tool.

Twitter Chatter

Twitter chatting was stressful, 

http://www.cliparthut.com/emoji-kissy-face-clipart.html

fun and rewarding. Initially, it was nerve-wracking to just get into the chat, as I wasn’t sure if I was “in”. Once that was confirmed, I started reading the tweets and felt a bit like someone at a party where all the people were friends but I didn’t know a soul. People were personally commenting to one another, clearly showing they knew of/were connected with others on the chat. This went on for almost 5 minutes, which is long considering the chat was only scheduled for 30 minutes. I came to realize they were just greeting everyone and waiting to get more people on the chat before starting. 

It definitely felt like a community once the questions started coming. People were rapidly responding to the questions and to one another’s answers. It was fun to see people’s ideas on the topic move and change direction based on responses received. The topic was large motor activities and how much time is devoted to incorporating them into the school day. I came away with a few simple tips that would be easy to incorporate and could really help kids release some energy, which, in turn, should help them focus and be better able to process and learn. One idea was to have kids move to their seats or line up in some other way besides walking - hop, tiptoe, pretend to jump rope,...Simple, fun and effective large motor movements. 
One quote that stuck out to me was, "Moderate to high intensity movement feeds the brain with oxygen, waiter and glucose. That's brain food!" I love that I now have a great reason to dance along with my students to Go Noodle videos and to shake it as we listen to our Social Emotional Learning program's songs - we're not just wiggling or using time unproductively - we're feeding our brains! Here is an image someone shared on during the Twitter chat that reinforces the sentiment.

As the chat progressed, side bars started to pop up on my feed saying saying that someone ‘favorited’ my comment or responded to my question/comment. It gave the entire experience a feeling of intimacy with strangers. Weird, but it worked. 

I’m not sure how big chats generally are, but this one seemed small - maybe 12 participants, the moderator and the two experts who were posing the questions. It didn’t take long for me to “know” the person who was commenting (administrator, pre-k, private school,...) based on their bios, which helped me understand where they were coming from in their responses and also gave me a feeling that, if I were in a chat with them again, I could get in on the more ‘intimate’ conversation at the beginning of the chat, which I had felt excluded from less than 30 minutes before.

All-in-all, it was a fun experience that I hope to do again. I love working collaboratively and there isn’t always time to do that fully during the school day. This gives me an alternative way to collaborate, share and process information. I look forward to future Twitter chats!