Final Reflection

Working through the activities has been beneficial to me in a few key ways.  The first way is that I was able to dig a little deeper into the Web 2.0 tools and add a level of skill.  I was familiar with many of the tools but this class allowed me to work at a more "intermediate" level which was great.  I did experience some frustrations with what I perceived to be redundant work, especially with the google suite activities.  

The web 2.0 tools will be used to a great extent in my classroom this year.  I am equipped to take my chromebook activities to the next level with the knowledge I have gained during this summer's activities, despite facing some challenges.  It is a challenge for me to think about moving my students from paper pencil activities to almost fully paperless.  It takes a mindset shift for an old dog like me to learn some of this new tricks.  The other challenge is making sure that the use of the tech is effective not just using tech for tech's sake.  

The flip side of the challenges mentioned are the rewards that can be earned.  The biggest reward that I can see is student's being engaged in the class.  This level of engagement is increased by the creative uses of tech as a teaching tool.  Students will be entering an extremely technological world when they graduate and anything that I can do to help prepare them for that world is their best interests.

I like the interactive blog format, especially in terms of the potential for PLC interactions.  This format was great for the class because I like to work at my own pace and this was great for that.  

Activity 10-End Game

Activity 9-Digital Citizenship

Scenario 1
Miss Starbuck decided to have her reading students use Blogger to create blog posts.  The students were really excited about the idea.  Many started to log in from home to create posts and comment on each other's work, but their posts quickly got out of hand.  One student figured out how to post photos and included dangerous details like names and locations.  Other students posted mean comments about classmates.   An angry parent complained to the principal, who was unaware that Miss Starbuck was using Blogger in the first place.  

There are many issues with this situation.  First of all Blogger has an age requirement of 13, if the students were not 13 this should have stopped this train before it even left the station.  Second issue is that Ms. Starbuck obviously did not set controls for the comments being posted on the blog.  I have have used KidBlog in the past which allowed me to moderate the comments that the students were making on each others posts, Ms. Starbuck did not do this or have this safety measure in place.  She also did not notify her principal or her parents which is a huge issue.  The principal needs to be aware of what is happening in the classroom so that he/she can support a teacher if issues arise.  Parents need to be kept in the loop as well to prevent angry calls to the principal.

I have used KidBlog in the past and set the comments to be moderated by me.  Some of the students tried to use it as a social forum but once they realized that I would not publish comments like that they gave up trying.

Mounds View Resources helps to implement technology because of the rules that are in place.  Follow the rules and you will be good to go.

One procedure that I would implement in my class and PLC regarding Blogging is that the principal would need to be informed first of the plan.  A blog site that allows teacher controls would be used and lastly parents would sign permission slips.



Scenario 3
Mr. McFly has decided to get with the twenty-first century and have his economics students create videos for their final project.  He has each student create a YouTube channel to post their projects, without notifying his principal or his students' parents.  He also didn't teach students how to change privacy settings, so kids start getting inappropriate comments from unknown users.

There are many issues with this situation.  First of all youtube could be a dangerous land to travel to if you are not informed and Mr. McFly clearly was not.  Secondly, he should have notified the principal, if given approval he then should have gotten permission from parents.  Thirdly, the students should have received instruction on how to create youtube channels that are private and don't allow comments.  Youtube can be very useful but you have to make sure that you have implemented all the proper safety procedures so that students don't get into situations that could land you in hot water with parents and the principal.

Mounds View Resources helps to implement technology because of the rules that are in place.  Follow the rules and you will be good to go.

One procedure that I would implement in my class and PLC regarding Youtube is  that the principal would need to be informed first of the plan.  I would also only use the Youtube as a teacher tool....I don't think that I would allow students to create their own youtube accounts under my watch.

Activity #8-Google Forms and Flubaroo

Here is the form with branches :)




I know from previous trails into the land of google forms that the results you receive are amazing.  They come aggregated and graphed for you with handy little pie charts for each question should you choose that view.  This tool is fantastic for reteaching right then and there because you can project the results to the students.....no names are shown and discuss why some people answered the way they did, what the actual answer is and how people arrived at the correct answer.  This almost allows the discussion to become the reteaching :)

The other option is to differentiate based on the results generated by Flubaroo.  In my case Adam S and I would divide the kids based on criteria from the results.  Students who need work in one area would stay and participate in appropriate activities in one room and students who needed work in another area would move to the other classroom for appropriate activities.

Activity 7-Assessment Polling/Data Gathering part 1

I love Kahoot and use it often in my class.  I use them for unit introductions and reviewing at the end of the unit before a test.  Here is an example:

Chapter 13 Review Kahoot

I also love Socrative quizzes for formative assessments.  You can download student scores into spreadsheets and email the results to yourself or just download them.  The results are shown in real time so you can reteach right then and there :)

To view this socrative quiz you will have to go to socrative.com and create an account and then you can select the option of importing a quiz.  Put the number below in the box and BAM, you now have access to my awesome quiz.

SOC #: 15739912

Activity 6-Google Classroom

To be fair and honest....I used google classroom all last school year and I love it.  Classroom is a great way to organize assignments and tasks for students.  It also allowed me to dramatically reduce the amount of paper I used in class.  This upcoming school year I hope to be paperless....or darn near paperless.  Really, classroom is awesome.

The class code I used for this assignment is: 83jzvg

Classroom works great for almost any assignment, especially if you have a classroom set of chromebooks. Directions for everything can be put there, copies of documents students may need, grouping and directions for group projects and videos can all be housed here.  Students can submit work to you via google classroom and you can return it via classroom (it date/time stamps all work so no more arguing about if it was turned in on time or not).  At the end of the year you can even archive your assignments from the school year and save them for next year!  I strongly suggest using the numbering system that Ryan talked about in the directions.  It really helped me keep track of incoming and outgoing work.

The Doctopus and Goobric were not completed at this time because I didn't have any students assigned to import to the roster....that would be a pain in the neck to do by hand for 6 classes.  I am wondering why it doesn't just let you pull a roster from classroom, unless I am missing something?

Activity 5- Apps, Add-On's and Extensions

Apps-I have played with lots of different apps for the Chromebooks.  Today I tried out TimeMaps which is a interactive world history timeline.  It is pretty cool to click through and check out all the information.  My stress for apps is getting them installed on the student chromebooks.  Don't we have to go through a huge rigmarole to get apps put on the student computers?

Add-On's-I tried out a couple of chart making add-on's.  Lucidchart and Gliffy.  Honestly, they were a pain in the booty to try and figure out :(  I gave up.  Then I tried docASSIST which is a rubric maker or has pre-made rubrics.  This looks somewhat viable for my use.  The one add on that I use consistently is Flubaroo.  This add-on allows me to grade student responses on a google form instantly.  It works great with multiple choice type quizzes you develop using google forms.  It doesn't work as well for short responses.  Google forms plus flubaroo is very similar to socrative.....great for formative assessments :)

Extensions-I tried to do a gradebook splitter extension...it was super unfriendly to use.  It is called the Alice Keeler gradebook splitter.  I think what it was supposed to do is give me the ability to have a split screen showing the student work on one side and the gradebook on the other side of the screen so one doesn't have to click back and forth.  Instead what I got was Alice's teacher teach bloggish thing.  The good news is that it has lots of good info in the blog.  The bad news is that was not at all what I was expecting.  Maybe some of my fellow campers had better luck finding an extension that is awesome.