Promethean ActivBoard

Promethean ActivBoard has Huge Impact at Ashford School

This case study is a quick overview of the impact that introducing the Promethean ActivBoard had on an all girls school. One of the teachers said she doesn't know how she ever taught before it, and another said that when she first saw the board she instantly thought of all the ways she could teach with it. One student said that the board was better than the teacher. The overview said that the ActivBoard could be used anyway a normal white board could be used, but also it can be used anyway a computer can be used, which makes incorporating multimedia sources into teaching a cinch. The article also said the board helps dyslexic children learn and helps all children to be more engaged in their learning. The article said a few features the board has includes handwriting recognition and adding notes or special affects to digital resources. The article ended by giving a description of the wireless response system which allows teachers to have instant feedback as to students understanding.

My biggest question about the Promethean ActivBoard is: Is the ActivBoard better or worse then the SmartBoard? How do they differ? How are they similar?

My second question is in regards to the student's statement about the board being better than teachers. Is the ActivBoard and or SmartBoard going to eventually make teaching obsolete? Will teachers do less teaching then the actual board?

School Website

I attended Skyview High in Soldotna, Alaska. Also, my dream job would be teaching at Skyview.

While looking at Skyview's web page I noticed a few things. First of all the web page has taken great strides since I attended Skyview. Before the website merely had the contact information, calender, and a list of faculty members. Now the website has links to specific classes. These class links have the syllabus uploaded on them as well as class grades. Also the website now has links to sports, an alumni website, clubs, etc.. The second thing I noticed about the site is that it still needs a lot of work. Although, it has gotten better over the years it is definitely not keeping up with the technological times we live in. The links are unorganized. Many teachers are not taking full advantage of the site. Many links take you to pages that have nothing on them. Also the site looks boring right off the bat; it is plain and white with a little purple. I do like that the website now has a place for students to log in and see all of their classes, but it still needs a lot more work. I would like to see links across the top that have all the other links organized under, instead of them being in a random list on the side. There should be a calender tab right at the top of the page. All of the teachers should use the website more. The links need to be developed to mean something. There are just so many things missing from this website that I couldn't possibly list them all. The list goes on and on.

Hopefully if or when I teach I Skyview I can help inspire a better website, or if they school will not develop the website more I can at least have a website of my own for my own classes to look at and use.

After the Smart Board Activities in Class

Today I learned a few things about the Smart Board. For one it can slow down the teaching processes when you are not proficient at it. However when all goes well it is a vital tool for learning in the classroom. Learning it is incredibly frustrating though. I found that students who used Smart Board features that were common and easy to use had an easier time presenting their lessons. The students that tried to use new and more difficult features had a hard time presenting their lesson since they got stuck on the technology. I do not know how I feel about the Smart Board anymore. I still think it is very fun to play with the board but I hope that the playing feature and figuring out how to use it doesn't overpower the learning. Hopefully we all become better at using the board and it enhances and not hinders our teaching. There are still many things that I do not understand about the interactive white board. There are many features I do not know how to use, and I still do not know all of the possibilities that it offers. One specific feature I would like to know how to use is having a list of students that I could click on and the board would randomly pick a student for me to call on. I really want this feature since it was difficult getting volunteers today and some students didn't participate at all.

Assignment #2

Forming Paragraphs

This lesson uses a few different Smart Board features however, in the slides I am going to use I will use the pen feature, the convert to text feature, and a drag-and-drop table.

The NETS for teachers this activity incorporates is 2.a: design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. The forming paragraph activity covers this standard since it takes relevant knowledge for writing paragraphs and transfers it to a digital tool (the Smart Board). Using the Smart Board then encourages students to creatively get involve in the learning by bringing them to the board and having them write their own sentences and definitions.

Also it incorporates teacher NETS 3.b: collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. The activity has this NETS since in this lesson the teacher has the students write their own definitions of paragraphs and then has them write their own paragraphs all on the Smart Board in front of the class. Thus, the student is collaborating with the teacher to learn the content together through the use of the digital tool or the Smart Board.

The NETS for students this activity covers is 1.a: apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes. The activity covers this NET since the students take knowledge they already have about paragraphs and apply that knowledge on the Smart Board to develop new ideas about connecting sentences within paragraphs.

The activity also covers NETS for students 2.d: contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems. The activity covers this NET since the students collaborate with the whole class and take turns to write sentences for a paragraph, add to definitions, and answer questions on the drag-and-drop table.

It is hard not to see how beneficial interactive white boards are in the classroom. In this activity I see how such a simple lesson about connection sentences within paragraphs can become a fun creative way for my students to interact in their own learning. I know that my students will be much more engaged in learning if they are apart of it. Any time a teacher takes students out of their seats to put in their own ideas into the learning the students will not get bored. For one thing, boys tend to have a harder time being interested in Language Arts, but if I can get them engaged in the lesson using an interactive white board I will have an easier time getting through to them. I only hope that I become proficient enough at using interactive white boards so that I will not have to spend hours creating activities, and will have an easier time engaging my students into learning about Literature and Writing.

Blogs for Educators: In Teachers We Trust

On Edutopia Rebbecca Alber poster a blog "In Teachers We Trust: Can Kids Count on You?" where she describes different ways to earn and keep student's trust. She starts by saying that students don't learn from you if they do not trust you. A few of the ways she says to earn trust is to be true to who you are as a teacher, don't take the things students do and say personally, be honest with the students and apologize when you make a wrong, if you say you are going to do something do it, be fair with your students, don't confusing being liked with being trusted, and continue to learn your content and teaching skills.

I choose this particular blog because I always though it was vitally important for teachers to have the trust of their students. I always hated when teachers in high school would make a mistake and refuse to admit it even though it was so clear to the students, or when they would not follow through on a promise, or they would highly favor certain students. When I think about it, the teachers I disliked the most were the ones who did these things and never gained my trust regardless of how nice or competent they were.

I personally want to have the trust of my students. I plan on doing all the things Alber says to do to gain student's trust. There was one thing she said that I think needs a little more emphasis. While she spoke about being competent she mentioned shortly that teachers should stay sharp with the content they teach whether that be read a book or experiment on the computer. I think, however, that staying fresh should include staying up to date on technologies that students are using and fluent in. It is important to use technologies in the classroom to help teach and keep students interested, but part of gaining student's trust, is to show that you can use these technologies just as well as they can. Although it is not technically what you are trying to teach them, it still shows a level of care for the students and competency if you do not need student's help to use technologies in the classroom.

Generation IM

The article from Scholastic.com first described the importance of adapting teaching to today's electronic generation. It stated that student's need to have interactive lessons to keep them interested. Also, it suggested that although it is difficult for teachers to learn and use new technologies that their are resources to make it easier.

The first part of this article told me nothing I hadn't heard before however the last part of the article had detailed creative examples of incorporating technology in the classroom. One of the examples that I will probably incorporate is to have students create their own blogs. They gave many different ways students would benefit from blogging but the one that caught my English Teaching attention was to journal. I have always wanted to have my students do a daily journal in a notebook. Some days I would allow them to write what they wanted and other days I would give them a prompt to respond to. However, now I am thinking that instead of spending five to ten minutes of class time everyday to have the students write in a physical notebook I can give them a journal prompt at the end of each class that they are to add to their blog for homework. This will be beneficial for many ways: it will allow students to write in a way that they already feel comfortable, it will make it easier on me to read and compare their work, and it will allow students to have discussions with each other on the same issues without having to take a lot of class time.

Reflection #1-6

#1 In a Education class the Professor did not know how to switch from VHS to DVD on a VHS/DVD player. I was amazed that someone who works in the Education field didn't even know how to do this very basic technological function. I hope that I will never have to ask a student how to do a basic technological function in my classroom. I hope that I will at least know as much if not more than they do with any technology in the classroom.

#2 In a class today I was asked to get on the computer and use Google to search for some disorders we might encounter as educators. The Professor was making the point that if we are presented with a student with an unfamiliar disorder we should Google it or use Wikipedia to get quick information on how to handle the situation. I thought this was note worthy for a few reasons. Firstly, the Professor asked me to demonstrate this since he cannot use Google very quickly or efficiently. Secondly, I thought it was important to know that although the information on Wikipedia or Google might not be the most trust worthy it is extremely useful if you need to know basic information about something quickly. At the moment I feel like I am fairly efficient at using search engines quickly to find basic information. I hope that I will become more efficient so that I will not be able to just find information quickly but that I will be able to find the best information quickly.

#3 One of my teachers took notes during class using Discovery. I thought this was such a simple good idea. The Professor wrote what was being discussed by students and herself right into Discovery so not only could we visibly see what we should also be taking notes on but then it was instantly posted to the web so we could look at it later if we wanted. I love how simple this is and how much it benefited the students and saved the Professor a lot of time so she didn't have to post all the information later. Any teacher could do the same thing using a class blog. He/She can instantly record the discussion on a post as it is happening so they do not have to do it later and the students will be able to see it later for reference. Yet another reason why I think I will use a class blog when I am teaching.

#4 I used the Smart Board in a presentation for another education class. I figure if I have to do presentations/teach I might as well use the opportunity to continue to become efficient teaching with the Smart Board. I created slides on the Smart Board, used the shade tool, and used the pens to write on the presentation. I did notice that using the Smart Board made it difficult to keep good eye contact with my audience. I kept having to turn completely to the board to look at where to touch or to write. My instructor noted this on my presentation. She said watch turning back on class so much. She also suggested having a student volunteer to come up to the board to write for me so I could keep looking at audience. Tomorrow I have another presentation in that class, and I am using the Smart Board again. This time I am going to focus on keeping myself turned to the audience. I know that until I become efficient at using the board I will probably have to turn to look at the screen more than I want to, but I will continue to use it as much as possible for presentations in order to get better at using it while teaching.

#5 The New York Times did an article today called New Jersey Middle School, Charting Their Course to College and Beyond in which they discussed how 16 middle schools are incorporating personalized education plans that are similar to special needs student's IEPs. These education plans contain electronic portfolios for each sixth grade student that contains learning styles, interests, skills, carrer goals, and extracurricular activities. The students take an online quiz called matchmaker to determine possible careers, and the students fill out online learning plans once a month at school and can also log in at home as often as they want. These plans are intended to follow the students from sixth grade through graduation to help students decide and prepare for their careers and majors in college. This is very interesting. It is a great idea to personalize students learning to better suit them but it is great that they are using technology to do this. Here is another way technology is being used to enhance learning and in this case it is being used to keep track of students lives in order to adapt learning around their interests and goals. I think they could even lure more students into being excited about these online profiles if they made them accessible to the other students in the school turning it into a school wide myspace or facebook. If I ever become an administrator I would seriously try to incorporate student profiles into my school. For one thing it gives students a safe and school monitored way to communicate with classmates and teachers but it also allows the schools to better understand their student's needs and adapt learning accordingly.

#6 In a class, I just had, my Professor was teaching us how to write a Villanell which is a complicated poetry form. To demonstrate the pattern she had a Villanell projected on the screen so we could read the poem, at the same time she had a reading of the poem by the author playing through the computer, and she had the form labeled on the side of the poem on the screen. I thought this was a great use of technology to enhance teaching. Personally it helped greatly to see the poem with the form while I heard it read. It was also nice to hear it read by the author because then you get a complete idea of what the poem should sound like since he wrote it. It was such a simple thing to play this reading while showing a slide with the poem and form yet it struck me because it was a great way to incorporate technology in a way that enhances learning. I have already begun incorporating this sort of multimedia teaching into presentations in my classes but I want to make sure that I keep doing so when I become a teacher. When I teach poetry some day I am sure my students will better understand form and meaning if I can teach them by showing them the poem, using pictures, playing a reading of the poem, etc.

Assignment #1

Cutting Keystrokes, Improving Communications: Response Technologies for Writing Instruction: By Scott Warnock is about how technologies can be used by teachers to grade and respond to student's written assignments. Warnock starts by discussing the frustration that accompanies learning new technologies but then says that in the long run it will save writing teachers many hours in grading papers. Then he focused on a few different resources available for computer based grading. Warnock explained how students can submit papers electronically then the teacher can grade them via Word with margin comments, Astrix, tracking, etc. He also gave many different Internet resources that allow teachers to add voice comments to papers and even video comments.

When I first started to read this article I did not know how this affected how I taught English/Language Arts. However, I quickly changed my mind. In the class Advanced Expository Writing at Northwest University I would submit ruff drafts of my papers electronically with a short message to Professor Young detailing my issues or concerns for that paper. She would then read and comment on that paper via tracking on Word and send it back to me. I also happened to develop my skills as a writer more in that class than in any other I have taken. Of course I have never thought about the connection before, but perhaps it was due to the use of technology that helped me. Warnock's article made me also realize that with today's electronic generation using e-mail to submit and grade writing assignments might be a more affective way of communicating than the classic paper/hand written comments method. Plus student's would then have an easier time of saving teacher comments to look at a later date.

In my classroom I probably will not require all students to submit papers electronically as some students wont like this method or will not have a computer. However, I will encourage students to do so since it will be easier on me to grade and will be more natural and more affective for them to learn from.

NETS for Teachers: #1 Facilitate and Inspire Learning and Creativity

This standard is most important to me, because I feel that it is the very basic requirement of teaching. If you as a teacher do not inspire learning and creativity (especially as an English teacher) you are failing 100% as a teacher. Students generally do not have any desire to learn that is why it is vital for the teacher to work to inspire learning as well as facilitate learning. If the student does not want to learn what you as a teacher are tyring to teach then they wont. They might be able to cram the information for the test but they will not really learn or remember it, but if you inspire them to want to learn then they will try to remember the content.

This semester I will

• learn technologies that will teach content in creative ways that are more inspiring to the 21st century generation
• use technologies in creative ways that I can encourage students to be creative with
• become efficient in using new technologies so that I can inspire learning by them instead of losing students interest by spending time trying to figure out how a piece of technology works.

NETS for Students: #4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making

This skill is a vital skill not just in school but to function as an adult. It is usually a huge rite of passage for adolescents to learn how to critically think about an issue and make decisions for themselves without the aid of parents. I believe that if students can effectively learn to do this as adolescents they will make less bad decisions that affect the rest of their lives.

Two assignments that I could give to students to help them meet this goal:

• I can tell students to find a poem read that poem and interpret that poem by doing research on it and applying their past knowledge to it. Then they will use technology creatively to present the poem, their interpretation, and how it could apply to the student's lives.
• I can give students daily journal prompts that would help them develop their skills as a writer but give them prompts that would force them to think critically about issues: such as gay marriage or how would they respond if they saw a fellow student using technology inappropriately in the classroom.