Summary/Reflection:
This quarter we have spent time in class and at home discussing and participating in professional learning networks. For me personally I didn't get many ideas or learn anything new from the affinity groups that I had joined. The one nice thing about the affinity groups I joined is that they would send me e-mails with new posts that pertained to interests of mine for the classroom. The posts were on topics that I would like to learn more from, but none of the posts were related to my classroom grade level.
I might not have been successful with the affinity groups joined, but the Digg Reader and my twitter account have helped me as a professional to stay up to date on new technology trends in the classroom as well as to get fresh ideas for the classroom. With Digg Reader, I love that it's not just blog posts that I can see since I joined Digg Reader, but I can also see blog posts from before that date. This was great for me because I found a great idea from the blog Teaching in Room 6 that had posted on September 23rd an article called Real World Problem Solving Using the Book Order Form. Unfortunately I won't be able to use the idea this year, but I am ready to start with it next year after I have taught my students how to add and subtract decimals. In this real-world situation students are given scholastic book order forms and are asked to clip-out the books that they would like their parents to buy for them. Students do some research and see how much the same book would cost at the local bookstore. The overall goal is for students to show their parents how much money they would save ordering the books through Scholastic rather than go to the bookstore.
In regards to twitter as a professional learning network, it definitely is! I check my twitter feed about once a week. I check it constantly when I am at a technology conference or know of one that day that I wasn't able to attend and can see what others are tweeting about so that I can check-out some of these new ideas that they are learning. I recently (during October) went to the local San Gabriel Valley CUE Conference and tweeted about what I was learning. It was so neat to see my tweets being retweeted, so I knew that others were learning from what I was able to share from the conference. The nice thing about twitter is that it acts like my affinity groups do and sends me e-mails once a week with tweets that I might not have seen, but that pertain to what my followers and/or those that I am following are interested in this week. The e-mails help me to learn new strategies for my classroom through others' tweets and also tells me that hey I should start following them, I like their ideas.
These tools are definitely a must for teachers who want to keep growing professionally. They are free tools available and we all know that we teachers love the word FREE!!! I'm hoping to set-up a time before winter break to share with my school how to join a Digg Reader and add blogs to their reader. I know a lot of the primary grade levels love to look for new ideas on blogs. The Digg Reader can help them to stay organized and save them time in searching their favorite blogs for fresh ideas.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Monday, November 16, 2015
Journal 6: Self Reflection
Summary/Reflection:
Of the two classes I am taking this quarter (which is also my first quarter in this Master's program), I feel the most confident in this class. I even did a "happy dance" last night when I uploaded my webpage with links to all of the exercises and every single link worked. I was so happy!!! My husband smiled and laughed at how giddy I was, but to have everything working the first time I was all smiles. Woohoo! I feel like I am getting better at learning the different codes for creating pages (including creating a style for the page) and am able to get through my exercises a lot quicker than I did at the beginning of the quarter. It just takes time and practice especially when creating and linking other webpages to one homepage (http://www.cpp.edu/~cjvarner/512/Exercises/Chapter6/jenskitchen/jenskitchen.html). I'm actually looking forward to starting my final website project and hope that it turns out to be like I imagined it to.
The one thing that I am struggling with in this class is creating tables. Even though I have practiced creating tables both in class and at home for the book exercises, I don't yet feel confident in creating them. The last book exercise for the table challenge was an "AHHHHH!!!!!" moment for me. I think it was the most difficult (yes, I know it's a table challenge and it would be harder than the rest) for me because I was still struggling with the basic tables and then to have to do one that was way more complex was a little bit of a "Bah Humbug" for me. It took a long time of playing around with the coding and constant referencing to the textbook, but I managed to get it done (http://www.cpp.edu/~cjvarner/512/Exercises/Chapter8/Exercises%20Chapter%208/tablechallenge.html). I am now pondering the idea in my head of do I still want to create a table with information on my final website project, or do I create an ordered list instead.
Of the two classes I am taking this quarter (which is also my first quarter in this Master's program), I feel the most confident in this class. I even did a "happy dance" last night when I uploaded my webpage with links to all of the exercises and every single link worked. I was so happy!!! My husband smiled and laughed at how giddy I was, but to have everything working the first time I was all smiles. Woohoo! I feel like I am getting better at learning the different codes for creating pages (including creating a style for the page) and am able to get through my exercises a lot quicker than I did at the beginning of the quarter. It just takes time and practice especially when creating and linking other webpages to one homepage (http://www.cpp.edu/~cjvarner/512/Exercises/Chapter6/jenskitchen/jenskitchen.html). I'm actually looking forward to starting my final website project and hope that it turns out to be like I imagined it to.
The one thing that I am struggling with in this class is creating tables. Even though I have practiced creating tables both in class and at home for the book exercises, I don't yet feel confident in creating them. The last book exercise for the table challenge was an "AHHHHH!!!!!" moment for me. I think it was the most difficult (yes, I know it's a table challenge and it would be harder than the rest) for me because I was still struggling with the basic tables and then to have to do one that was way more complex was a little bit of a "Bah Humbug" for me. It took a long time of playing around with the coding and constant referencing to the textbook, but I managed to get it done (http://www.cpp.edu/~cjvarner/512/Exercises/Chapter8/Exercises%20Chapter%208/tablechallenge.html). I am now pondering the idea in my head of do I still want to create a table with information on my final website project, or do I create an ordered list instead.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Journal 5: Twitter in the Classroom
Summary/Reflection:
I created a twitter account about a year ago when I attended the CUE Conference in Palm Springs. We were encouraged to tweet about the sessions we were attending with a quick highlight of what we were able to take back to our classroom and/or school site for others to be able to use. I started to follow some of the different speakers that I met at the conference that I really enjoyed learning from, in hope that they would tweet about new ideas and discoveries they have made. I don't tweet much on twitter myself unless I am at a conference or district event and find something interesting that I feel should be shared with my followers. However, just because I'm not tweeting 24/7 doesn't mean that I'm not checking my Twitter app on my phone periodically throughout the week to see if anyone I follow has tweeted about some great idea that I can bring into my classroom. Twitter for me is only being used as a professional development resource and not for personal use.
After looking at the resources posted for this class about twitter and now having done some extra research online, I think that it would be fun to create a classroom twitter account for students to take turns posting about what our classroom is learning. Since my students are under the age to be able to agree to the Terms and Conditions of the website, we could only create a classroom account where I would be the person to create the account. I would have to check each student's tweet before they would be allowed to post it onto our classroom account to make sure that it is appropriate for our classroom's use. The idea of having a classroom twitter account sounds like a fun learning experience for my classroom, but might also be time consuming on my end to read each student's tweet before they can submit it live. I'll definitely have to ponder about this idea and do some more research to see if it would be beneficial for my students.
Q1. How can Twitter be beneficial to teachers in the classroom setting?
A1. By having a classroom Twitter account where students will each have the opportunity to write classroom tweets (my students aren't old enough to have their own accounts), teachers can check for students' understanding of concepts being taught and books/stories that are being read in class. Students can write a tweet from a character's point of view, letting the teacher know the student's understanding of what was just read. Students can also tweet their favorite learning piece from the school day and if the teacher has shared the class' twitter information with parents, parents can see what their child learned at school that day.
Q2. How does Twitter help students to learn?
A2. Students can learn a lot on Twitter if teachers take the time to find reliable people and/or resources to follow. For example in fifth grade, students spend some time learning about the Solar System in science. NASA has a twitter account that teachers and students can follow to get access to real time information, pictures, and videos from NASA. There are also a lot of children's book authors with Twitter accounts that would love the opportunity to speak and/or write to your students on Twitter.
I created a twitter account about a year ago when I attended the CUE Conference in Palm Springs. We were encouraged to tweet about the sessions we were attending with a quick highlight of what we were able to take back to our classroom and/or school site for others to be able to use. I started to follow some of the different speakers that I met at the conference that I really enjoyed learning from, in hope that they would tweet about new ideas and discoveries they have made. I don't tweet much on twitter myself unless I am at a conference or district event and find something interesting that I feel should be shared with my followers. However, just because I'm not tweeting 24/7 doesn't mean that I'm not checking my Twitter app on my phone periodically throughout the week to see if anyone I follow has tweeted about some great idea that I can bring into my classroom. Twitter for me is only being used as a professional development resource and not for personal use.
After looking at the resources posted for this class about twitter and now having done some extra research online, I think that it would be fun to create a classroom twitter account for students to take turns posting about what our classroom is learning. Since my students are under the age to be able to agree to the Terms and Conditions of the website, we could only create a classroom account where I would be the person to create the account. I would have to check each student's tweet before they would be allowed to post it onto our classroom account to make sure that it is appropriate for our classroom's use. The idea of having a classroom twitter account sounds like a fun learning experience for my classroom, but might also be time consuming on my end to read each student's tweet before they can submit it live. I'll definitely have to ponder about this idea and do some more research to see if it would be beneficial for my students.
Q1. How can Twitter be beneficial to teachers in the classroom setting?
A1. By having a classroom Twitter account where students will each have the opportunity to write classroom tweets (my students aren't old enough to have their own accounts), teachers can check for students' understanding of concepts being taught and books/stories that are being read in class. Students can write a tweet from a character's point of view, letting the teacher know the student's understanding of what was just read. Students can also tweet their favorite learning piece from the school day and if the teacher has shared the class' twitter information with parents, parents can see what their child learned at school that day.
Q2. How does Twitter help students to learn?
A2. Students can learn a lot on Twitter if teachers take the time to find reliable people and/or resources to follow. For example in fifth grade, students spend some time learning about the Solar System in science. NASA has a twitter account that teachers and students can follow to get access to real time information, pictures, and videos from NASA. There are also a lot of children's book authors with Twitter accounts that would love the opportunity to speak and/or write to your students on Twitter.
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