Racing to Review - Tech Teach In

'Tis the season for midterms! Students have just come out of a long week of midterms. I saw students have to do review sheet after review sheet. In our own classes, there were even two parts to each review. Students groaned every time they saw these reviews, and were unmotivated to actually complete the reviews, even though it's for their own benefit. The exams took place in the middle of a unit we had already started. After the exams were over, I need to design yet another review activity for the unit we were in the midst of  covering. Needless to say, I didn't want to bore the students with yet another review sheet, so I racked my brains for an interesting activity that will help students review the material, and that they will actually enjoy doing. That's where Socrative comes in!

Socrative has a Space Race feature that allows a teacher to turn an online assessment into a fun, competitive race. I can design an online assessment that includes all the review questions I want the students to answer.  There are several reasons why I think Socrative is a perfect fit for this occasion. The idea of doing an online activity that students can access both from their phones or from school computers makes it logistically easier than other technological routes. In addition, each team of students will have a different colored spaceship, with all the teams' progress being projected at the front of the class. The competitive aspect will hopefully increase students' motivation to actually do the activity. At the same time, the progress is represented only by color, so by giving each group their color quietly, each teams' progress become anonymous. Another feature is that as a teacher, I can program Socrative to give students immediate feedback of whether the question was answered correctly or not, and give them an explanation. This allows teams to pace themselves in the activity, and gives them the option of reading the explanation, which would help them with upcoming questions. This type of activity maintains a safe learning environment, that is differentiated according to students' skill level.

Some limitations include the fact that I will have to adjust my questions to fit the format  that Socrative uses. I can only ask multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions. The students must also be motivated enough to actually read the question instead of just answering randomly, an to read the explanations if they are to be beneficial to them. However, I believe these are small issues compared to the number of potential benefits that Socratve offers. It provides an opportunity for students to review material in a fun, interesting way that encourages self-assessment of their skill level with respect to their peers, while being in a safe learning environment. The teacher can access students' answers to get insight into students' understanding, and identify if there is a specific concept that the class is struggling with, or if a particular group of students is struggling with a concept. All in all, I believe that running a review activity using Space Race on Socrative will be a change of pace for the students that they will appreciate, while still providing the necessary academic benefits.

Mind Shift Blog

The Mind Shift blog is one that "explores the future of learning in all its dimensions". After browsing their blog, it is obvious that the blog posts focuses on using technology on the classroom, reflections of teachers who have used technology, and other important classroom issues. A challenge I have been facing with students is the use of cell phones. The high school I am placed in has a cell phone policy where students are discouraged from using cell phones in the class. They are forbidden from using a phone unless it is by a teacher's approval. So my mentor teacher and I spend a lot of time asking students to put their phones away and paying attention to the class. Students are generally only allowed the students to use their cell phones if they want to look something up, or if they have extra time after finishing a task. However, I haven't seen cell phones being used strategically yet. When devices are needed, students are directed to the computers at the back of the room.

These daily classroom struggles with cell phone usage is why this article caught my attention. The article talks about creating a community of trust where students can make judgements about technology use. I think this is such an important issue because with the way technology is spreading today, I don't see any chance to "banning" cell phones from the classroom. Since we can't get rid of them, we should really try to make the most out of it. This article outlines a really great scenario that would be great to reproduce in more schools. Cell phones are powerful tools, and we should empower students to become technology producers and consumers. The fact of the matter is, as students grow older, they have to learn how to manage cell phone usage anyways. When they go to college, or are have a job, they cannot be on their phones constantly. So why not start providing them with practice early on? Furthermore, the article emphasizes the role of trust in developing this type of community. I believe trust is important for learning in general and not just in shaping digital citizenship. So building trust in the school will benefit students in more than just nurturing digital citizenship. Finally,, we've learned that as teachers, we need to have high academic expectations for our students that they can rise up to. Lowering expectations will send students the implicit message that this is all they are capable of. I think this concept can be extended to having high trust expectations of students. By treating students like they can be trusted, students will rise to the occasion and develop into trustworthy, responsible individuals.

Guest Speakers: Carrie & Rachel

We were fortunate enough to have Carrie and Rachel as guest speakers in our class. It was an unconventional session because it was virtual. I thought it was interesting because not only did they tell us about their experience in Michigan Virtual Schools (MVS), but also gave us insight on the tools and strategies they use to teach virtually.
Before this session, I was not even aware of virtual academies. I now see that it is a real possibility for students, especially for students who are naturally self-motivated. It is a necessary option for students who may have unusual situations. The guest speakers touched on a lot of issues that affect students that attend a virtual academy such as MVS. In particular the speakers mentioned that, for students to succeed they must be naturally motivated to do well because they have to stay on track with the lessons. This needs motivation because the lessons are all recorded, and it's easy to say that they will watch them later. But as someone who has tried to take classes online, I have first-hand experience in saying that I will watch the lesson later, only to find myself very behind on the material. In addition, because the students are at home, their families might take advantage of their availability and expect them to do errands, or take care of other family members while they are at home. However, students will need their family's support to succeed.
Rachel and Carrie were able to show us some example of strategies they use when teaching. Namely, they showed some of the ins and outs of Black Board. This tool to host webinars have a multitude of useful features. I especially like the private break out rooms and the polling features. Students can be assigned into break out rooms to have a private discussion to "think-pair-share", or to allow groups of students to work together at the same time. A teacher can also put a student in a private room to speak to them privately if needed. The polling feature allows a teacher to do a quick real time check-in or to vote options. Furthermore, as a moderator the teacher has many features for class management and to facilitate class logistics. Some of these features include having a timer, be able to bring people out of break rooms, and restrict audio and video, Students are able to raise their hand to ask questions, choose emoticons to convey opinions, and submit answers through polls.
Right now, I don't know what my job will be like in the future. So I don't know what technology resources I will have access to, or what circumstances will arise. I don't know if I will ever need to host a webinar, but if I do I feel much more prepared. Knowing how to host a webinar is definitely something I am glad to have in my tool box in case I ever need it.

NSTA Blog

Lately I've been hearing a lot about the National Science Teachers Association, and the great resources they offer to teachers. So I visited their blog, and I have to agree. I had a hard time choosing which blog piece to write about. Finally I decided to write about this blogpost because it really resonated with me. It addresses an issue that many of us are facing right now, myself included. I've notices that while teaching. A teacher asked for advice on what to do when there are only a few of the students answering all the time. I feel that this is problematic because as a teacher, if only a few are answering, I don't know if all the students get the material but some are just shy, or if some students just don't understand the concepts. I've been thinking a lot about this, and had some ideas on how I might address this in the classroom. Some of the things I thought of were actually listed in the post itself, which was a nice surprise! I had an additional suggestion for the teacher,which I posted in the comment section. I added that I usually try to show that I value students' contributions. So I might say "that's a great point, did you guys hear what so-and-so said?" This shows students that contributions are valuable, and that we can all learn from each other.
One of the things that I especially liked about the NSTA blog is it includes a space  by teachers, and for teachers. A teacher posted her issue, and teachers responded. In addition, I visited the blog later on, and found a second part of the same article. The original teacher who posted the question had a chance share her experience with the suggestion, and the reflection on the results. The writer of the blog also provided some extra information and resources for the teacher and everyone else. In addition, the NSTA blog is really a great resource for teachers, it categorized blogs into topics that are important to teachers such as the Next Generation Science Standards, advice for teachers, and even digital tools for teachers. Overall, I think the NSTA and their blog are both great resources that I will keep an eye on as I delve deeper into my career. I see it as a place that will provide me with resources, collaborators, and help me stay updated with current educational research and public policy - all of which I will need to be a successful educator.

EDUC504 Guest Speaker: Tom Ward

Tom Ward was a great speaker that I found engaging. I think I could immediately relate to him because he was of similar age, is a math teacher (I'm getting certified in both chemistry and math), and he is a MAC graduate! This set up the tone for the rest of the presentation.

Tom presented a lot of creative ideas of how to use technology. All the tools he mentioned like blogs, twitter, vine, videos etc were all familiar to me. However the innovation was in the way he used them. I have never really considered having my students create a video. I didn't think there was much room for that type of creativity in a chemistry class. But now I see that video can be a change in the monotony of usual assignments. For example, instead of having students present a project, they can create a video. Another idea is students collecting videos of their experiments as part of gathering data. Many students probably already use twitter, so tweeting questions to their teacher might also be easier than sending in an email, especially if it just a quick question.

I usually just do a search on google when I need something, or I'm looking for an interesting classroom activity. But knowing that there are certain education bloggers out there who have activities of good quality, and are update their blogs consistently encourage me to follow blogs rather than doing sporadic searches. A tool that I do think I'll start using is an RSS reader like the one Tom mentioned is useful in keeping the blogs organized and keep me updated. I think this is an essential strategy for a starting teacher because I don't want to invent the wheel. By following blogs, I can start accumulating a bank of activities that I can use as needed. Seeing Tom using this, and speaking about the community of teachers who want to share their activities is really what is pushing me to do this.

In summary, Tom gave a great talk, and was very friendly, approachable and practical. He gave us a lot of realistic advice, especially from the perspective of a new teacher. For example, he told how in his first year teaching he was barely able to keep up, and definitely couldn't incorporate too many activities. However, as he got more experience he is now able to incorporate an interesting activity at least once a week. It is reassuring to know that it is normal if I don't manage to do too many activities in my first year. I think starting to compile interesting activities starting now will make me well equipped for when I am ready to do classroom activities.

Padlet

I had the wonderful opportunity to watch some of my colleagues give a presentation on Padlet. The execution of the presentation was great. It was informative, engaging, and gave me the opportunity to try the tool and see what I can do.

Padlet is a relatively simple tool, which they illustrated beautifully in their use of a quick video to show the basics. After that they gave us all a chance to quickly dive in and get creative. I felt engaged and got excited in customizing my Padlet wall with chemistry related pictures and videos. What seemed to be a wall for sticky notes quickly transformed into so much more. I think the group did a great job in showing the range of uses of Padlet when they each created their own Padlet site, and shared it with us. I think that was the most powerful part of the presentation because they showed a variety of different ways a teacher can use it in different content areas.

In my chemistry classroom, I can imagine having a Padlet instead of a traditional website for my class. I could have a Padlet with information about myself, with a note linking to a new wall for each of the classes I teach. Withing each class "wall" I might have a note for homework, one for video resources, one for bell work. In an effort to streamline all the classroom technology resources into one place, bell work could be collected using another tool like Socrative, but other things like posting resources and homework is not something that Socrative would be useful for. A possible way to combine these too is to have a wall for assessment and bell work that link to Socrative.

As of now, I'm not 100% sure how well it would work in a classroom, however I am definitely willing to try and use it instead of a traditional teacher website since I think it's more interesting and versatile. It is also something that students would modify parts of and add to, which is empowering and hopefully would encourage them actually referring to the website and using it.

Tech in My Placement

While I knew that technology is an important resource to teachers, in the chaos of being a new student intern trying to get adjusted to a new environment, technology was one of the last things on my mind, The survey really pushed me to focus my observations and find out about what resources really are available to us. The school I am placed in is interesting because it is technically a school but shares a building, a main office and principal with another school. So it's an interesting place to work in, especially with regards to allocation of resources.

At the advent of my placement, one of the first complaints I heard the staff struggle with was technology. At the general staff meeting, I heard concerns that computers were not distributed effectively; some rooms had too many, and others had none. In addition, the technology issues were handled by the district as a whole, and our school was not provided with a technology office for the school. So any technology change requests, or even issues with login information had to be sent to the district via a "help ticket". It was very inefficient, and created a lot of unnecessary frustration and delays. In addition, the printers were not working, which means teachers cannot print out their assignments to make copies. Teachers who don't have access to a printer at home were struggling, and I witnessed some collaboration between teachers to help each other out. I am actually not even sure the issue is resolved till now.

The school does have several copy machines available, and although they keep jamming, they generally get the job done. It's a great resource, and there are a couple in our school, and another 3 upstairs in the main office. Other great resources are the computers in the classroom. In my classroom, the teacher has a computer at the front of the room, in addition to about 10 computers in the lab space in the back of the room. The students have the option of using the computer just for research, or using it during a lab experiment.The teacher also has access to a projector of great quality, as well as a sound system. The sound system is basic and includes a microphone the teacher can wear comfortably as a necklace, and speakers. This allows the teacher to be heard clearly by everyone in the room. There is a district wide technology officer, that I did not have the pleasure of meeting, but heard about from my mentor teacher. He is apparently very friendly, and knowledgeable and was able to set up my teacher's computer, and upgrade her mouse since the old one was had a chord that was too short, and even resolve issues in the students' computers.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the resources available to the students. I feel this much technology is a good start for someone like me who is just a starting teacher. I am not sure how much technology I would be able to incorporate at this stage of my career. I acknowledge that there are some issues with technology resources in the school, and I believe that will probably be true of most schools. So I think the trick is so learn how to be resourceful with what you do have, while also working with the system to acquire the other resources that are needed.