Cool Tool Review- StoryBookThat- Week 6

StoryBookThat

 

 

 

Week 6 I decided to do my cool tool review make a comic strip that I could read to my preschoolers. This site is so simple and fun to use, even my students could use this site to make their own stories. This cool tool has many different options for the background, characters. You could choose being inside, outside, on a football field, or in the middle of a street. This is a great tool because it really promotes creativity for students to be able to make up their own stories. There are just so many options that makes the site user friendly for anyone and any story.

 

For my younger children I would have them make a picture story and I would write what they tell me on each page of their story. For my older students I would have them tell a story that has happened to them. I would also read half a story to my students and then I would ask them to finish the story for me.

 

It is easy for the students to use because all the students have to do is pick what they want and drag it down to where they want to place it. One challenge I could see coming up would be my students feeling overwhelmed and feeling like they don't know where to start still there are so many different options on the site. I would use this tool in my classroom someday and I think you should as well; here is the link so you can check it out: https://www.storyboardthat.com/



Digital Citizen or Digital Victim- Week 6

 

 

Digital Citizen or Digital Victim

 

 

Civilization has dealt with and strived to enhance communication for thousands of years. Most of that time that communication has been a personal and even sometimes intimate exchange. But now society is faced with a new totally different way of communicating that has everyone scratching their heading, trying to figure out right from wrong on the internet. But since this cyber space is so impersonal and indirect the old rules aren't cutting it anymore.

 

People are able to bash and degrade people on the web so easily, because we are unable to see the effect our words have on people. Now we have children who are growing up in cyber space where they can say and post whatever they like with few consequences. These children are struggling when it comes to actually communicating with someone face to face. Children who are growing up during this digital explosion are unable to identify social cues and social norms like the generations before them could.

 

After shining light on these facts of today, we must do something to inspire change in the young people of today. When I say 'we' I mean parents and teachers of these children. Educating our students on the do's and don'ts of the cyber web is the only way to ensure that our students have the tools to navigate the web successfully.  

 

Digital citizenship to me means having the ability to be a productive member of the cyber world. It means knowing the difference between appropriate and inappropriate post/comments on the web. It is also making connections with people, who without this technology it would be very hard to interact with them. In full, it is having a positive contribution to the internet.

 

Since there aren't really any rules for online interactions it is easy for someone to be hurt or affected by what someone posts online. Personally I have been hurt from people posting online, but not directly. When I was in high school, my friends went somewhere without inviting me. While they were out having fun they posted pictures and comments talking about how great of a time they were having, and I felt very left out. I didn't do or say anything about it. But if I could redo it, I would have told my friends face to face that I was hurt by what they did.

 

"Digital citizenship has become a priority for schools that see technology integration as a major teaching and learning strategy for preparing students to live and work in the 21st century."

-Mike S. Ribble, Gerald D. Bailey, and Tweed W. Ross

 

 

The internet has this negative stigma associated with it because of the dangers that come along with it. Parents are very nervous about letting their children be on the internet because of the fear of child predators. With this fear in some many parent's minds, it paralyzes children's ability to express their creativity online. This fear hurts them more than the prevention helps them.

 

So it is our job as educators to help develop our students create a sense of digital citizenship for themselves. It is also our responsibility to inspire and cultivate creativity not only in the classroom but also in the rest of their lives.

 

 

Tagul Word Cloud Review- Week 5

 

 

 

 

Tagul Word Cloud Review

 

 

For this week's cool tool review I did a word cloud from Tagul.com. This website allows you to cope and paste any words from anywhere on the internet and make them into a word cloud. Word clouds are used to show how much a word is used. The bigger the word the more times it was used in the text.

 

I could use this in the classroom by having one for each story we read so I would be able to point out some new words that the students would hear. I could even help the children make their own. It would be very beneficial for my students to have this tool because it is just another way for my students to be exposed to processing and learning new vocabulary words.

 

This website is very user-friendly. I believe that my students would be able to use the site and they would enjoy it a lot. The site allows you to make the clouds very customizable, so the students would never get bored with this tool. The one thing that might challenge the children is the fact that there is so many different options to pick from, it might become overwhelming for them. The younger the child is the less amount of options they should have. The simpler the better for the little tikes.

 

Check out the website and let me know how you like it:   https://tagul.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



TPACK Survival Kit- Week 5



TPACK Survival Kit

TPACK is something that every teacher must deal with and balance on a every day basis. TPACK stands for Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. All three components need to work together for the students to get all that they need out of a lesson.

But when we do introduce any new  technology or tools into the classroom, we need to remember that all children are different and they will all respond differently to new tools in the classroom. When introducing new tools into the classroom a teacher should ask these basic questions to measure how effective this will be to her and her students.

1. Will this make understanding this lesson easier or more interesting with this tool?
2.  Does this tool have any accommodations for those students who need them such as; reading out loud or large print?
3. Will this tool be more of a frustration than helpful to the students? 

With all these questions in mind, it will help teachers make sure they have the best intentions of the students in mind always. Aside from that there are still positive and negative outcomes of introducing new tools. One positive thing that can come out of new technology is the children gaining the abailty to be adaptable to new situations and their ability to figure new things out quickly. One negative outcome that can arise from new tools is how children can become discouraged from not understanding.

Since TPACK is such a complex concept I still do have a few questions. One question is what can I do if I am focusing on two out of the three but my students are enjoying and understanding the material, do I have to change my style? Another question might be, is any of the three more important than the other?

For the first question, I think I would have to try to introduce new things from the knowledge I left out and see how the children react to it. If they react okay to it then I should slowly introduce more, but if they react poorly, then I should back off a little bit.

For the second question, I think that all three of the knowledge areas are equally as important, because without one the other two will weaken. All three are like a balancing act, they all have to be equal to function properly.

Open for Everyone- Week 4

 

 

 

Spirit of Openness

 

 

In our classrooms today, our children face different influences from many different media around them. Our Student's parents and grandparents were mainly influenced by books and television, but kids today have much more to filter though. For us as educators, we need to know how to help our students make the must out of the connections they make both in their everyday lives and the ones they make on the internet. Teaching our students to be apart of a participatory cultural rather than a consumer society is a key to their future. 

 

 

I would assist my students to find their own identity and independence in digital world in many different ways. I would have them make an online portfolio of all the work they do in my class so they are able to look at their work at the end of the year and feel as though they contributed to the cyber world. I would also have a tweeter account where my students could go on and talk back and forth, where they can bounce ideas off each other, and where they can share ideas of others that they find interesting.   

 

 

Open access is a beautiful thought to education. It means being able to share rich literature with our students even if we, as teachers, don't have the means to buy physical books. At some point during my teaching career I can see textbook becoming obsolete. Open access means that all someone needs to access a large amount of information is an internet connection and a computer or tablet. When you step back and think about how amazing that truly is we realize how much we take the internet for granted.  

 

 

With video chatting becoming more and more advanced it is easy to think this trend will only continue to explode in the coming years. There will be many more classes held online so boarders and oceans cant even stop the network from happening. People from China can collaborate with people in Akron, OH to find a cure for cancer and beyond.

 

 

As technology increases  our responsibilities to do great and innovated things with that technology also increases. New technology also makes things possible that seemed impossible and affordable that seemed unreachable for anyone. The internet is making learning possible for everyone everywhere. 

Sharing is Caring - Week 3 PLN

 

 

Sharing is Caring

 

 

 

We teach our students from preschool that sharing is caring, so why is it so hard for us, as teachers to do the same? Some might have issues sharing their work because of all the time and effort they put into a particular lesson or unit. That investment of time and energy should be all the more reason to share that amazing work. With the Information Age in full swing there is no excuse for us to not come together and share ideas and be inspired by fellow teachers.

 

 

"Without sharing there is no network."

-Siliva Tolisano



Teachers should share their ideas in any way they feel most comfortable. If a teacher really likes Tumblr then that is what she should use. If another teacher likes to blog then she should blog about her lessons and ideas. There is not just one way to share, as long as you are sharing that is all that really matters.

 

 

When deciding what to share and what not to share, it really depends on what you want to share. As a teacher, you could pick your best work of the each month and share that, or you could share every lesson you do. It really depends on how often and what you want to post. When it is about posting things that have to do about education there is never too much sharing. Sharing "everything" may seem overwhelming at first but there is value in doing so. It helps you because it provides you with a portfolio of sorts that you can refer back to next year when you go over that same material. Sharing "everything" also helps people get ideas and be inspired by your work.

 

 

"to share and refine our learning along the way as a contribution to the greater good for students within our schools and beyond."

-Jennie Synder

 

 

 

People don't always think about talking about different ideas face to face or on a video channel is still sharing just in a different way. You could set up a monthly Skype meeting with a teacher who teaches in Brazil, to talk about the different cultural ways of teaching. Any way you do it and whether you know the people you are sharing with or not it is still making those network connects that matter.

 

 

We must remember that with public sharing we will get both good and bad feedback from others online. Even if this criticism is unwanted we still need to know that it will happen. I welcome criticism whether it might be positive or negative. I enjoy hearing people's feedback because I can only grow with what the responses I get. So for me I find it very important to surround my PLN with people who I know will challenge and improve my work. A teacher doesn't know if she or he should fix something if they don't take the time to let others review it.

 

 

I realize that there is the pressure while posting on social media of having every word and sentence make perfect sense. But I think that people need to remember that we are human and we make mistakes. These people also need to remember the edit button was made for a reason. So if there is a big mistake in you post then you can easily correct that error.

 

 

One thing that is hard for our society to be okay with is being transparent in our everyday life and on social media. Filters and Photoshop make it impossible to know if what we are looking at is true or not. There is something liberating about being transparent though. Being able to post a something that contains your true self with nothing extra and then getting positive comments is the greatest feeling, because you know you don't have to put this fake front up to be accepted. So as teachers it is our job to teach our students that being our true selves, and in turn being transparent, is the most positive thing that we can do as a society.