Personal Learning Reflection

• What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

I learned that teaching is only made better by integrating technology. There is a whole world of opportunities available for integration, and our teachers will only continue to improve as they discover the tools available to them. I have personally found a variety of things that I am excited about using and some that I immediately put into place (Prezi!!!). 

• How did integrating the Internet help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

It helped to make me realize that the Internet has so much more to offer than just insignificant social networking. There are an endless supply of educational and smart places to "socialize" and the tools that we are most familiar with (i.e. Facebook) also offer space where people come to not only find other like-minded individuals, but to collaborate on some exciting stuff.

• Which of the assignments that you turned in do you feel really exemplifies good teaching with technology and why?

I really am proud of the group assignment for SIG 3. It showed that a group of professionals could use all types of technology, collaborate on a topic, and seamlessly publish and present a project without ever even meeting or talking. It helped to show me how much could be accomplished via technology and how much more collaborative opportunities await when we have students that could actually meet and work together!

• How have you met your goals established in your Personal Growth Plan?

I have bettered my understanding of technology integration into curriculum and have set myself onto a path of future discoveries on how to best use the information that I have learned about in this course. I have become a better teacher and that makes for a better education for my students.

• Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

My new goal is to ultimately pursue the Educational Technology Endorsement to add to my Professional Certificate. I feel that this is how to best serve my students and use my knowledge in this ever-changing world of education.

Personal Technology Plan

 My Personal Technology Plan...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Og6JOPAN-Xp5_8h-yFp8IeEsmVaiU0T5lrzXmoVwnik/edit

Learning Styles

First, I took the "Learning Styles Inventory" and was not surprised to find out that I am a Visual learner. I have always found learning much easier when I was able to read, write, take notes, make pictures, draw graphs, etc. during a lesson or lecture. I always appreciated when a professor or teacher gave the outline or copy of the slides that went along with what they were to discuss. I sometimes even found myself recopying notes in different formats (bullet points to an outline or vice versa) to better understand. I have found that even though I enjoy the technological advantage to studying online, I still need to print out copies of the readings and lectures to have a physical copy to highlight on or jot notes in the margin.

After the first quiz, I then took the "Multiple Intelligences Assessment". Although I didn't score particularly high in any of the intelligences (top score was 3.7 out of 5 possible), my top three were: Language (Linguistic), Musical, and Logic/Math. Again, I was not surprised by the Language/Linguistic because I know that I learn better when I can actually "touch" or "feel" the notes or readings. The one that threw me for a loop was the Musical. I do enjoy music and rhythm and work best with some background noise, I am not particularly keen on having any musical "intervention" in my learning. I was never one to remember learning melodies or rhymes. Finally, the Logic/Math was not very surprising either. My undergraduate minor was Mathematics and have always excelled when I could make linear comparisons and find logical outcomes to problems. I do best when I know exactly what is expected and how to get there.

I agree that we as educators cannot always teach every intelligence and cater to every learning style, but we still need to be innovative with our delivery. Even if we see that our students seem to be visual or linguistic learners, may some kinesthetic activities every now and then wouldn't do any harm. It may actually help. I always feel that our profession as educators is more of a role of innovator or even inventor because we need to keep morphing and integrating our own knowledge and teachings into our instruction. If something doesn't seem to resonate with the group the first time through, try it a different way. Lessons can incorporate all types of learning styles at once, and those are usually the most effective. As soon as we acknowledge the difference among learners, the better equip we are to teach them.

Creative Commons Image

I am very new to the copyright issue, I usually just play it safe and not add images or citations that I am not sure of or have no idea where they came from. Creative Commons was very intriguing because it seemed like such a novel and simple concept that one takes for granted when publishing on the internet. What a neat idea to have a place that allows people to legally know that they can share this property and that they should!

I decided to search for an image using the Creative Commons query with specifications set to Flickr. I just assemble a Science unit called "Our Dynamic Earth" and decided that "planet earth" may retrieve some interesting results. I found the following image that seems to fit perfectly for what I needed:

Photo Attribution:

Original image: "Planet Perth"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeu04117/459024737/
by: Murray Barnes

Released under an Attribution 2.0 Generic License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

It obviously first appears as the planet Earth but as you look closer, you see all of the different layers resonating from the surface. This fits perfectly with my unit on layers of the Earth, although it may be a bit "abstract" for my concept.

The photo that I chose to upload is one of my personal favorites. My son got a hold of some Wikis or Bendaroos and wrote his name on the dining room wall. I really just like the simplicity and color and how it looks just like it would if he had written it in crayon. It was just so "him". :)

Photo Attribution:
Original Photo: "Conner in Wikis"
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessicae/6428622495/in/photostream/
by Jessica Laurain


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

RSS Page Reflection

 So far, I have been enjoying using the Google Reader. I have found the actual sharing of the page difficult, but I like that I have clean content at my fingertips. I don't have to wade through celebrity gossip and politics (unless I want to of course!) to get to some essential education posts.

Over my course of visiting, I have found that the NPR feeder posts CONSTANTLY! I really think that I will be deleting this feed soon. It has really made finding the "good stuff" difficult. I have been able to find some very interesting lesson plans and have especially enjoyed the "Lesson Plan SOS" Feed. They recently posted about an expository writing assignment using paper pumpkin crafting and instruction writing. I really think my students will enjoy this lesson and I left a comment expressing my interest in the lesson and my thanks to them for posting such great examples.

I have learned that an RSS Feed can offer a clean alternative to a "home page" and can offer an excellent opportunity to sort through "stuff" and keep a good hold on what content you really want to see on a daily basis. I also think that this would be an interesting tool for students to use especially if used during a research project and being able to have a clean feed on educational materials. I have already been thinking about how I can use this in my classroom to set up a neat and clean space to have only educational materials feed through on my desk computer. The last thing the district wants is for me to waste any time on unnecessary surfing and this could save me tons of time when used in unison with delicious.

PC Maintenance and Security Lab

For this Lab, it was the first time that I had visited Atomic Learning to view available tutorials. After this Lab, I will definitely be visiting this site many many more time! There was a wealth of information and wonderful snippets of information that were very useful and concise. I am interested to explore the available topics soon and learn some more! But first, my responses to the Lab assignment. I had to view three tutorials under the PC Maintenance and Security section. I choose one about Spyware, one about Firewalls, and one about ActiveX controls. I chose these because these were items that I was least familiar with and wanting to know more about.

First Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Downloading and Setting up SpywareBlaster"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

It was a simple and effective tool to help protect your browser and therefore your system.

     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

It didn't require a lot of tweaking. It had a "Protect All"-type option that allowed you to accept all of the recommended settings for both Internet Explorer and Mozilla.

Second Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Explaining what Firewalls Do and Don't Do"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

Hardware firewalls do not block virus installations.


     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

Software firewalls give many different warnings as to if a program is trying to connect to the Internet and if a hacker is trying to break through your firewall.

Third Tutorial:

1. Which tutorial did you choose?

"Learning about ActiveX Controls"

     2. What was one thing you learned that you will definitely be sharing with others?

Crackers use them to exploit security holes in Web browsers.

     3. Was there any information that surprised you?

They were created by Microsoft as a convenience tool for Internet Explorer but have proven to be a concern right from their introduction because of crackers/hackers being able to easily compromise them.

GTD

"Getting Things Done" has always been a huge problem for me. I am great at thinking about starting things, gathering things to start, having endless ideas about things to start, eventually starting things but never finishing, and so on and so on. When I first read the Lab about GTD, I was a bit skeptical. I think that I am always vaguely following this process in my head but that I just get lost in the middle and need a new workflow plan to finish the first. But as I browsed the David Allen site after his free download, I was beginning to get a bit excited. It is such a simple concept, but brilliant. I believe that by actually committing to writing or typing it out was the key to my actually beginning to follow a workflow plan.

The following are my responses to the questions following my experience with the GTD process:

1. How did you organize your process?

Although I am pretty comfortable on a computer, I don't necessary trust what I type and whether I am conveying what I intend to through typing. I am a very visual learner, so I chose to use paper and pencil. This allowed me to see my words and manipulate them where needed.

2. What was it like for you going through the process the first time?

Like I stated above, I had always assumed that I had mentally gone through this process with my work. As I was writing down what I needed to accomplish in the next few weeks, I realized that there was no way I had thought through the amount of time and planning needed to accomplish all of the tasks. I was very overwhelmed at what was on the paper, but as I continued through the process, I realized how things could be broken up efficiently and accomplished effectively through proper prioritizing.

3. Do you think this process will help you? Why or why not?

I think this process will be very beneficial to me as long as I stick with it. It was all very intriguing and I got a little involved with thinking about all the different ways I could collect and organize for my next plan. As long as I keep it simple, I think it will help.

4. Do you think you will continue this process? If not, what will your process be?

I think I will try to continue with this process. I really think it will help me weed out all of the extra garbage I throw into my life and will really let me set realistic and obtainable goals.

Social Networks: Fitting In...

I have just finished exploring some interesting tools in the social networking world. Up to this point in my life, "social networking" has mostly consisted of creating an online scrapbook of my accomplishments in my personal life, not so much my professional life. My involvement with social networking is worlds away from any Personal Learning Network concept (I don't even talk "shop" with my teaching colleagues online, we only dish on personal stuff). I would play games with "friends" (some which I have never or plan on never meeting off of the Internet), posting pics of my recent vacation, and bragging about how my son told a hilarious joke or lost his first tooth. I wrestle daily with the issue of social sites being nothing but a distraction from my completion of normal tasks in real life.
My first task in exploring social networking as a meaningful part of real life was to look at the concept of efficient workflow. I read through a series of charts and questions about sorting priorities and even downloaded David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) Tool for Mastering Workflow. I took the quick quiz to identify my perspective and control over my workflow. Needless to say, I failed. I failed miserably. I am in what he classifies as Quadrant 1, way down in the corner of the matrix at "Responder/Victim".  I am not completely shocked by the results. I have always had excellent intentions when beginning any project, large or small. I am great at brainstorming, almost too good at it. I find myself coming up with so many wonderful ideas that I then bog myself down with the prospect of being able to accomplish them all at once. This ultimately leads to my failure in completing the task or never finishing it at all. I am not sure if I view myself as a "Victim" though, I know that I am in control of how this all goes down, I don't blame anyone else for my lack of progress. This is something that I am interested in finding out more about from David Allen. I will be working more on my workflow plan and am really interested in seeing how this filtering can improve my focus on prioritizing and helping complete tasks more efficiently.

My next task was to see Ning in action. I used the suggested channel of joining the MSUEduTech Group on MACUL Space. It was really neat to view a "productive" social networking site. I wasn't bombarded with distractions. I wasn't viewing cute videos of cats playing pianos or anything else colorful or flashy to catch my eye and keep me from working. Everything feeding through this site was dedicated to building a PLN and it was very interesting. I will be revisiting this format so more and exploring further from the MSUEdTech group. I am also curious how I could use this to establish a group of colleagues from school for sharing. Recently, during grade level curriculum meetings, the fifth grade teachers had expressed a want for a place online where we could meet and confer outside of our school's direct supervision to discuss and share our experiences with a newly adopted Literacy program involving Guided Reading and Daily 5. I am known within the group as being comfortable with computers and technology and was informally dubbed the one to check things out for everyone. We have our next meeting on Tuesday afternoon and I may have something really great to share with them on this.

My next task was to check out LinkedIn. I liked how there were widgets with Twitter feeds and Facebook mentions streaming. I was a little nervous putting in my professional information because it felt more like I was lurking for a job rather than sharing my credentials for building a community. I plan to come back to this and give it a bit more of a chance later on. I can see how those starting off in the their respective field could use this as a great jumping point for their career, but I am not sure how I could use this professionally or with students or colleagues at the moment.

 My final task was to visit the MAET Program page on Facebook and "Like" it. This was by far the easiest and most comfortable to complete, but again, most distracting. I like how Facebook can be an easy place to network but I believe that it has become increasing more diffucult to filter who you wish to interact with at a particular moment. I think that this site would be extrememly detrimental in my possible workflow plan because of my inability to separate the professional with the personal. I am not sure that I would want this site as my primary PLN tool nor would I attempt to start colleagues or students here because of the overlap with professional and personal.

Blogs vs. Traditional Web Pages

Until recently, many people were unaware of what exactly a "blog" was or even what it may contain. Our former experience with the Web consisted of typing in a set URL and seeing (most likely) a company's Web Page with specific content and tabs to navigate. I believe that the mainstreaming of social networking sites is how more people became aware of personal sites or what we now consider blogs. Although blogs and web pages can both be found in web searches or queries and offer specific content, they both have apparent similarities and differences.

Blogs and web pages both offer content, customized features, navigation, and search functions. They both can offer public search and also private or "subscription only" access if needed.  Both can also be "hosted" by a larger content system, yet offer a customized URL for the creator. They can also both have colorful graphics and easy navigation tools built in. The differences really only become apparent in the small details. A blog is usually only maintained by one person or possibly a small group of people, whereas a web page can be used by an individuals, companies, special interest groups, or corporations. A web page is usually designed to look as if it is continually displaying static content with navigation throughout by a search bar, tabs, links, graphic buttons, or key words. In contrast, a blog is usually laid out in a series of "posts" which are arranged usually by newest or most recent date and navigated to from the side bar by date, month, or year. Most blogs are cleaner or simpler in appearance because the owner is focused more on content than appearance.

In conclusion, there are a few small differences and many similarities between blogs and web pages. As more content continues to become available on the Web and more people become aware of their options for sharing content, I believe it will be become harder to spot any differences between blogs and web pages.