Millennial Age

First may I suggest you find your own Millennial Age Here

My Millennial Age was 79! This means to me that I am pretty Millennial but not the most Millennial you can be. The test gave many questions to see how close to Millennial you are in the way you think basically. The Millennial age is an age with "confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat individuals who are open to change. They are more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. They’re less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history." I think my answers to the questions of religion were most likely different then the Millennial Age so thats why my score went down some. I text, use the computer regularly for school (but I dont play video games), I watch probably an hour of tv a day (with my son in the morning), and I am open to diversity. Pretty Millennial if you ask me :) Though my parents are Millennial in the fact that they are very tech savvy and text their views on Military, Religion, and Politics are very conservative which I think are less "Millennial" or different then the majority of today's people (the Millennials). I think that is most likely why I am the way I am today!

Voki

This week we made little virtual characters called Voki's to say our own personal introduction. We could use this in the classroom if we wanted to build a virtual tour of some place we could not physically go as a class. We could use them at meeting to guide people though a power point etc. The list is unlimited! Here is the google doc with the text of my self introduction. 

Self Intro Public Google Doc

Using a Voki to communicate information for you would surely fall under the NETS T standard 3C which states: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats! Voki is a cool variety of digital media! 

Here is my Voki that will read you the text that is in that Google Doc. 

Wordle

Wordle.net is a great tool for visual learning and I think all learners in general. We were asked to look at NETS T standards for both 2000 and 2008 and compare how the two differed and our thoughts on why. Here are my two wordles.

Year 2000:

 

Year 2008:

 

 As you can see by clicking the images the 2 biggest words in 2000 were Technology and Teachers. The two biggest words in 2008 were Learning and Digital. You can see a shift from 2000 to 2008 that learning became the most important part of the standards. Learning technology not just being in a class with technology. We are in a digital age and computers and other digital things are becoming so important. 

I have thought about a number of ways I could use this in my classroom! I could have students pick an important speech by someone in history and do a wordle. I could have them pick their favorite song or a song that went along with what we are learning and have them make a wordle. I could even have them type their own writing into wordle and they can see what words show up the most! Here is a wordle I made for Dr. King's "I have a Dream speech." We are learning about famous Americans right now and the students loved seeing this!

 

I believe that having students create wordles hits the very first NETS T standard: facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity though technology! Using wordle promotes creativity and innovating thinking because they can deduce why certain words showed up. We could even have a contest where I show different wordles and they try and guess what speech or writing it came from!

Webinar Thoughts

This week I watched/listened to a Webinar about education in the age of mobilazion! Here are the question that were to be considered and my thoughts on them! 

How prepared are you to engage in each type of learning (Carpe Diem vs St. Marys)?  

So the Carpe Diem way of teaching was having each student at a computer for half the day and drilling them on the computers. I dont think its very hard not to be prepared for that because you as the teacher to me seems like you are not facilitating the learning (the computers are). The St. Marys way of using technology was that the technology was a tool in hands on learning or "learning by doing." I think this is how I have been prepared at Shenandoah to teach and is what my professors stress! It is so important to integrate lots of hands on learning in the classroom and use smart phones or the mobile technology to enhance the curriculum so more learning can be achieved. 

 

If you not in the class now, what would you suggest teachers in your field adopt based on current knowledge of mobile/wireless devices. 

I would suggest to teachers in my field (elementary school) should adopt the use of mobile devises in the classroom. Students are excited by this technology and based on the webinar mobile is going to become bigger than the internet. How awesome would it be if students had their phones with aps on them which enhanced their learning. Information would be right at their finger tips creating an environment were students can problem solve on their own!

 

What would you recommend in terms of a school wide initiative to improve teaching and learning at this point if you were in a position to do so? 

I think I would recommend that school invest in mobile learning rather then more "computer labs." When you have a computer lab you have to sign out times and can only be in the computer lab for a limited amount of time. Imagine if the technology was right in the classroom and in the hands of all the students where they could gain information and maybe even more information then they could from the computer lab. The statistics and research given in the webinar showed that mobilism is the way our society is moving and thus i think it should be emphasized in the schools. 

 

A mixture of the 2 models (Carpe Diem vs St. Marys) is probably in everyone’s future. How do you see executing your version of the blend in your field?

My blend is more towards the St. Marys side of learning by doing and I though I know some teachers dont think there is enough time for hands on learning I think that if I integrate subjects and create projects that hit more then one SOL in more than one subject that I will be able to support my students by doing hands on learning. (much better than having them sit and be drilled at a computer I think!)

T Test

This week we used the same data about 4th grade math to conduct a T Test to see if there was a significant difference between male and female test scores. After doing the T Test on excel I found that there was no significant difference between the two (accepting the null hypothesis). I knew this because the p values were greater than .05.

 

 I do not have my own class yet but seeing how you compare male in females in a T Test I think it using a T Test to compare reading and spelling scores would be really helpful. I think using T Test to see if there is a significant difference between reading and spelling scores could help you understand if you need to spend more time on reading and spelling (and less on another subject) because the reading and spelling shouldn't be significantly different. To test this the IV: would be the amount of time you spend on reading for say a 9 week grading period (then you would change the amount the next 9 week grading period). The DV: would be how you teach the subject. You want this to remain the same. (you just want the amount of time to be different). The research question would be: Would their be a significant difference between reading and spelling if you spent less time teaching reading/spelling then the other subjects? H0: There is a significant difference between the scores on a reading test and the scores on the spelling test. H1: There is no significant difference in the scores. 

ISTE-NEST-T Standard 3D says: Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning. Analyzing data and evaluating it by using a T Test is very fitting of this standard! 

Excel

Honestly can say this one was tough for me...I have a Mac so I really had to figure out how to make the comparisons and everything but I finally figured it out! 

I live in Virginia and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we are state 45 out of the 53 (DoDEA, National Public, and DC make up the 3 others). That means for 4th grade math Virginia is only worse then 8 states (Mass being the top state). We are above 45 states! Though our neighbor DC is the worse "state." You can see in my scatter plot where VA falls:

As you can see Virgina (highlighted in Red) is above average when it comes to these 2011 scores. This tells me that we are doing something right! We are doing things well! In order too keep these standings I think as a state we need to analyze what is working and see what the states above us our doing to get even higher scores! If we begin to fall we need to make sure that we catch the problem quickly! 

Analyzing and creating descriptive statistics from raw data is extremely important. INST NEST T standard 3D states- Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning. 

Creating excel sheets and analyzing data will help us as teachers know where students are currently, how far they have come, and what we need to work on to get them to go even further. Evaluating and Assessment is so important to make sure we can take our students as far as we possibly can as teachers!

Website!!

So I actually made a website! I know this site will be so useful when I actually become a teacher. You can keep it updated with so many things for parents and students. I feel like it is a good way to keep parents in the loop about what is going on in your classroom which is so important! On my site I have the homepage which can link you to my introduction, curriculum, newsletter, homework calendar, and resources pages. Also on the side bar are links to my resume and a sample rubric. 

Here is Ms. Pecks Classroom!!!

I think making a website for your classroom hits many of the ISTE NST T Standards. 

3B states that we will communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students and parents using a variety of digital formats. I think creating a website where both students and parents can gather information about the happenings of the classroom communicates relevant information though media! Also, 3D says that we will facilitate the effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information to support learning. I think my website does just that! It helps students locate information they need about a project or homework easily. It helps them analyze what is due when though the calendar. It helps parents evaluate my effectiveness as a teacher and use all the information on the site to further their learning!

Rubric Maker

Wish I always had this website!! This was so cool! So, for one of my other graduate classes we had to come up with our own rubric for an assignment. The assignment is to create a curricular resource file which will house tons of multimedia files, worksheets, websites, pictures etc etc all for a certain unit! Then we can make our resource files public for the class to use in the future for actual teaching! My unit I am doing is for the SOL 1.2 (American Leaders) and that is why my quiz I made was on American Leaders and my resource file will be all things I (and other teachers) could use during that unit! Anyways...so we had to come up with a rubric for the resource file and my professor was going to pick one from the ones she got! So perfect timing I was able to use Rubistar and come up with what I think we should be graded on! Here is my rubric! Certainly going to use this website again in the future!

Curricular Resource File Rubric
 INST NETS T standard 2A says we will design relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning. I think by making an online rubric that is visible to not only the students but also parents or even other teachers that this is incorporating digital resources to promote student learning and especially student responsibility. If they can see what they are graded on then they will know exactly what we expect of them! 2B says we will evelop technology-enriched learning environments that enable all students to pursue their individual curiosities and become active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning, and assessing their own progress. By making a rubric online they can take responsibility for their own learning by assessing what it takes to receive what grade they want.

Quiz Grader!

 So I made a quiz for a Unit I am going to have to teach soon about the Leaders of America. Here is the QUIZ! I had a few people I know take it and was able to watch the YouTube video and figure out how to make it grade its self! Pretty awesome and saves a TON of time! My quiz takers were pretty smart and all got 100s but I got to practice using the formulas and the using the sum function to add up their scores! 

Here is the SPREADSHEET if you would like to see the scores!! Happy Quiz Making everyone!

INST NETS T standard 2C states that we will customize and personalize learning activities
to address students’ diverse learning styles, working strategies, and abilities using digital tools
and resources. Creating an online quiz will do just that! It allows students to gain abilities using the internet and some students do better with online work. Meaning, that their learning style is one that a computerized quiz is helpful! 2D says that we will provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments. Having an online quiz is a varied summative assessment and can be used for many different subjects and units.

Google Forms

Here is a survey I came up with that I could use for my classroom! I would probably give this link out in their first take home folder so I could have the results before back to school night so I would know what to highlight and talk about with the parents! 

Parent Information Sheet 
 Results Spreadsheet

I think making an online parent information sheet would fall under INST NETS T standard 3B- we will Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. Filling out a parent information sheet about how a parent can support their child's class and learning is extremely important. Getting accurate information digitally to be used though out the school year is important for all teachers to help their year run smoothly.   

Prezi

Here is the Prezi Presentation that I made! I compiled the classroom rules I would like to have in my future classroom and made a presentation I could show my students! 

Ms. Peck's Classroom Rules

I personally think Prezi has WAY more to offer in terms of a "cool" presentation then say Power Point.  I think my elementary school students would think the zooming is the coolest thing and I think they would be more likely to pay attention to what I am presenting. The only downfall I see having better images like the example I am about to talk about. This is not really a downfall its just me getting better with making cool images and graphics. Here is the example I was talking about...As I was learning how to use Prezi I saw some amazing presentations that I hope to one day live up to! Here is one of the ones I thought was so well done that explained what elements a good presentation should have!! 

Free Falling

I believe that my Prezi Presentation about my classroom rules addresses many of the ISTE NEST T standards. I think it addresses:

3C-Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students using a variety of media formats.

I think that the youtube video I embedded into my presentation addresses standard 3D which is modeling (modeling respect) by using current digital tools. 

Lastly I think the presentation addresses standard 5B which says that the teacher will exhibit leadership by demonstrating technology in the classroom. I think that showing my rules in the form of a Prezi shows my leadership skills while using technology.

PechaKucha

For my PechaKucha Presentation I took the Power Point I made about the rain forest and made a YouTube video about how I (or any other teacher) could use the power point in their classroom! I used imovie because I am a Mac user. I converted the sides into JPEG files and imported them into imovie. At first I tried to upload it directly to YouTube but there was an error so I simply exported it to my desk top and uploaded it by going to YouTube directly. I was able to voice record in imovie and set the slides to show for exactly 20 second. I decided to have some slides pan to add some visual elements so it wasn't so boring. Here is my movie about how to use this Power Point!! 

Video

Power Point

 Here is the digital link to my dropbox where you can view my power point

I would certainly use this power point with my students to teach them about the rainforest and about conservation. But, this power point could be used for adults too! I downloaded the drop box and it is now on my desktop! All you have to do is drop something in your share folder and anyone can see it!

Google Earth

After installing Google Earth on my hard-drive I first looked up my own address. We are constantly changing our property because we have horses and their paddocks needed to be moved around to help save grass etc. So...it was cool to look at Google Earth (last pictures taken in 2010) and see how it looked exactly at that time. Here is that picture:

Then I imported my KML Google Map file into Google Earth. When I clicked KML is automatically imported it into Google Earth. Awesome. Here is that image:

Google Earth is way cool. There are thousands of possibilities for the classroom using Google Earth. I was looking at the Second Grade SOL objectives and on their students need to learn about capitals of states and main physical features of the United States. What better way to show your class an actual picture of the features and be able to play around with the views etc to learn about features or where capitals are and why they are placed there. Here is a great link to lots of lesson plans that incorporate those concepts:

Lesson Plans Using Google Earth

21st Century Mapping

Ahh! How cool is Batchgeo! This website takes your excel spread sheet and turns it into a map that can give you so many clues about the data you have! Just looking at all the data cant show you what this map does! Here is the map:

View Where We Live in EDU 585 in a full screen map

As you can see the Map shows you much better visual presentation of the data that we collected! This program would be an awesome tool in the classroom! For example I could use this by having groups of students collect data on where famous historical figures lived! Putting all these points on a map would show them where the people of the past (say Thomas Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln etc etc) were concentrated and why they lived in the places they did. Was it because water was close by? What did the geography look like around there? They could also use it to pinpoint Civil War battles...the list could go on and on. I think what is important to note is that actually having the visual representation of where places are on the map will give students a better opportunity to learn. They are understanding how far apart things are, where certain states are in compared to other states, how far things are a part from each other etc. These are all things you and I do not really think about but to an elementary school student seeing how far some of the Civil War guys actually marched would be amazing to them. 

Tools like this will change education (for the better I think). You are still learning about the important people or events in the past you just get to supplement it with awesome visual tools. So many students are visual learners and all students can benefit from actually seeing something on a map or in a presentation. This truly will make the classroom more interesting and fun for students because they will get to help in the process of making the map! 

 

The Best Places to Eat in Knoxville Tennessee

Here is a link to the Google Document I created for the Google Maps Project! 

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1k8dbSd-aesBGKSb9ZjX6z-upbs9H4buYodwIqmQ-eFQ

Jing Screencast

So I know it might sound crazy in this day in age but before this class I had never created a Google Document (don't laugh at me). Although it is simple I think it is important for me to have a video showing how to create a Google Document so students can use it to collaborate and I can simply play them this video. It would be perfect for student to sign up for topics for papers to insure that no two students are going to present on the same topic! It would also be extremely helpful to email out to parents so that they can use Google Docs to sign up for food for class parties etc. All I have to do is send them this video and they will know how to create a document!

Here is the link to my video:

http://screencast.com/t/dqvices9wSu

Jing Graphic

For my Jing Graphic I chose to incorporate something I would teach about in my classroom. In first grade science we learn about the 3 parts of an Ant. The Head, Thorax, and Abdomen. To help my students visualize the parts of the ant on an actual image of an ant I was able to capture a picture of an ant using Jing and then actually box out and type on the image. This tool will be great for so many other things in the classroom. Here is the image I made:

Here is the screencasted image:

http://screencast.com/t/IdMhbvJyAoX

Here is another image I made practicing with the arrows feature on Jing:

Diigo

So I installed the Diigolet on my browser (Firefox)! What was really cool is that I could just drag the icon up onto my bookmarks toolbar (on my Mac) and it was installed! It is right there on my toolbar making it easy to use and at my disposal so I think I am more likely to use it! 

(right corner)

I did some more research on what Browser Add-Ons Firfox offers and there are literally thousands...I had NO idea. For instance in the above picture it would have been cool if I could highlight with a box where the diigolet on my screen shot is. I went to Firefox's Add-Ons site and in fact there is an add on for that! Its called "Awesome Screenshot". I downloaded it here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/awesome-screenshot-capture-/

This is how I used it:

I found it extremely useful that I had an idea to make my point (highlighting where the Diigolet icon is on my toolbar) more clear and there was an easy Add-On for that!

Here is a link to my public Diigo page and I will also post it in my links list gadget on the right toolbar on my blog. 

http://www.diigo.com/user/jpeck12

Since today is the first day of putting up links on your Diigo page I will explain why I picked the ones I did. 

1) In my Teaching Language Arts Class today my professor was talking about the Teacher Union Strike that is currently going on in Chicago. I had heard about this going on but honestly hadnt had time to read up on it so that is why a news article about the strike was my first bookmark. It was fun to play around with the highlighting tool and the note pad.

Annotated Link: 

http://diigo.com/0sw9v 

2) The second one I added was about the emotions of students and giving them detention for being angry. This was a short article but interesting to me for my classroom management class I am in. 

3) Another Classroom Management Article

I think that the ISTE NETS T Standards that apply to this assignment most would be 5. a which states that teachers model lifelong learning and participate in global learning communities which I think Diigo is. Also 3. d states that teachers will facilitate effect use of use innovative tools. Diigo would be amazing to use in any classroom where students are trying to find online resource articles or information. They can share, highlight and make notes right there on the page and safe it for future papers they will write on the topic etc.

Picasso

Here is the site I used to create my Picasso Portrait!

http://www.picassohead.com/create.html

I made my picture with two faces. One is me and the other is my son. I wanted to have him in my protrait :) I titled it Mother you can see it here:

http://www.picassohead.com/?id=e24bb73

I did not have much trouble with the site. It was simple to use but just getting creative and deciding what to put was the hardest part! So many options!

If I could change anything about the site it would be to have a two way direction for the "rotate" button. If you wanted to rotate a body part and then went to far in the rotation you had to go all the way around again. I found I did this A LOT...probably operator error. 

This website would be fun to teach my elementary school children about Pablo Picasso! Being able to have my students use a website like this and make their own Pablo Picasso Portraits will help them not forget his style and who he was as a historical character! Since the website is so easy it would be kid friendly and a great resource tool!

Resume Refurbish

First, let me start out by saying that when we had to do the first assignment where we had to put up our resume that my resume needed a huge over hall. I was pretty overwhelmed with it so I contacted Shenandoah's Career Services because I had heard that they can help you with your resume even though email. I emailed them and got a quick response and I emailed back and forth with Jennifer Spataro-Wilson who is the Director of Career Services. She helped me so much with my resume...narrowing things, what to put on there, what to highlight, what to spice up etc. It was so helpful! She even made my document look like an actual resume with perfect spacing and everything lined up beautifully! I highly recommend it!

http://www.su.edu/student_life/BE35B017E4F749E5AD09F9916DCEC90D.asp?CFID=8486151&CFTOKEN=11199951

Here is the score I got before I edited it:

Their suggestion was to remove the objective part of my resume...understandable so here is the score I got after that:

They just could'nt give me that full A huh??

Snipping!

Using the Snipping Tool was my next assignment and I learned how to do it on my mac! Thanks to Wikipedia for the help :)

Click to view image larger 
I think this tool would be a great tool in my classroom especially when I am teaching my students how to do something on the computer. I can take screen shots of each step and put them in a packet to help them complete a task. For example, if I was teaching them how to use Google Maps I would tell them how to get to the site and I would tell them to type: Fairfax, VA in the search tab. I could actually show them how to do it by showing them a snip like this off my computer:

Click to view image larger 
I could them let them find their house or a historic landmark I want them to learn about! Elementary students need a lot of direction and visual aid so I think being able to give them exactly what their computers should be looking like at each step will be an amazing tool!

Google Docs!

Here is my first Google Doc experience! I uploaded my resume to Google Docs! Took me a while but I am glad I know how to use it! It will be great for classroom parties when everyone can just sign up on one Google Doc! Also, students could use them in partner/group projects so they are editing the same document! Pretty cool! 

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1wqCImpMvBBYok7wd2Y-s-AvdKWP-KoJZHEBMLexk2rM

When it comes to being qualified in Virginia in terms of technology I think knowing how to use Google Docs will fall under this category!
D. Instructional personnel shall be able to use electronic technologies to access and exchange information.
Google Docs is an awesome way to not only access but exchange information between teachers, students, and even parents!
When it comes to the National Standards (ISTE-NETS) for Teachers I thinking being able to create and share Google Docs would be a great way to show that you are capable of "Collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools  and resources to support student success and innovation." (3.b)

First Post!

Hi guys! Just set up my Blog for this class! I have a family blog that I keep with just simple things like pictures and videos because my son is young and his Dad is in the Army so he likes to see pictures and videos all the time! Here is the link if you want to check it out: http://homeiswhereverimwithyou13.blogspot.com/

-Julia