Sharing my Thoughts: Week 2

     As I have gotten more and more involved in the topics of Transliteracy, I have been exposed to so many ideas and technology concepts that it has inevitably left me with questions.  Questions such as.....

• What if I don't have the materials or enough of them? I love the ideas that are available for ebooks and on the iPads or computer programs, but the problems arise when I have three iPads to use or only four desktop computers in my classroom.  It takes a lot of planning, preparation, and flexibility to make some of these ideas come to life.
• Can I model these technologies effectively? Some of what I learned came from me playing around and exploring. Also I was the one sitting in front of the computer. How can I demonstrate and explain similar activities to a class full of students? And the question will surely be more troublesome as technology speeds past me when I do not have the technology information that I do now. 
• Is this technology teaching the objective effectively? The ideas seem great and engaging but how can I make sure that I am really teaching what needs to be taught and preparing my students for assessments and evaluations. 

     Even with all of the questions, I feel confident enough to give this technology thing a shot and use it with my students.  I am well aware of many pro and cons with the use of technology in the classroom.  Nada Salem Abisamra shared many positive and negative aspects of technology in her article Integrating Technology in the Classroom.  For example, technology can make learning more engaging and creative for students.  They can feel free to explore and create beyond a paper and pencil.  Additionally, it makes many tasks more efficient. Now students can turn in materials through clicking a button and receive a grade from the teacher all electronically without wasting paper or time! But for all the great things about technology, one of the biggest drawbacks is having to constantly keep up with it.  Just like how once the pencil was a new technology, for those that did not advance their thinking and explore, their students were stuck with pencils as the only technology ever used in their classroom. 

     So now it comes down to the fact that we know technology is going to help our students but how do we know what to use? This week I learned so much about TPACK and its role in teaching.  I had never thought about how all three areas intermix to create a "Sweet Spot".  The best way to choose a technology is to consider how it benefits the content that is being taught and how it can best be used to teach the material.  A lesson is useless if it is not preparing students for the end goal or teaching the content even if it is fun and engaging!  So, now with all of my knowledge and new insight about TPACK, I still want to know how this looks in actions.  Do teachers really think about content, pedagogy, and technology together when lesson planning? I guess the only way to start answering my question is to try it out myself and ask and observe other experienced teachers.  

Cool Tool: Canva

     This week's cool tool was a photo editing tool.  At first when I chose to do a photo tool, I was curious as to how photo editing would play a role in a classroom.  When I got into the program and explored a little, I was pleasantly surprised! Immediately when I signed up, there was a prompt that asked me why I was using Canva- work, personal, or education.  That told me that I would likely find something of use on this website. The website took me to a page that had a tutorial on it.  It showed me how to do the most basic manipulations- search, click, and drag. Then from there it sent me on a mission to create a demo project that allowed me to try out some of the other basic features.  As I scrolled down, there were prompts such as, "click the circle on this page to change the color" and "search for a hat to put on this monkeys head."  It was a nice little tutorial that made me more comfortable creating something on my own.
      There were many design ideas available from the start and I chose to make a poster.  I decided to create a poster about how to find main idea because it is something that I usually write out on a large piece of chart paper and tape up somewhere.  With Canva, I was able to add pictures, a background, more color, and it looks much more neat overall. 

   Canva has many everyday applications such as creating presentations, facebook and blog images, and resumes.  I saw a lot of uses to create pictures and backgrounds to be used on social media pages.  In regards to our needs in education, I found so many uses for Canva.  There are posters as mentioned earlier, flashcards, presentations, infographics, magazine layouts, and flyers.  I imagined making flashcards that feature neat text and impressive photo clues for younger grade levels.  I also see the use of the presentations for collaborative projects.  The tools available seem to be more user friendly to design the slides on Canva than what you would find in a program such as Power Point. 

     With time, I would like to try out some other features and different designs on Canva.  I am also very curious about what the poster will look like when it is printed.  When I chose the poster template, it had the sizing already set up so that hopefully it would not grainy or stretched out when it was in hard copy.

     I felt that Canva is a great tool! It gave a basic tutorial and guided me in the right direction for what I wanted to accomplish.  There is a great deal that you can do with Canva for free, but anything other than the basic layouts and pictures cost about one dollar a piece.  I felt that this the biggest drawback for the program. There were many pictures that I liked, but couldn't use them due to the cost.  That does limit your choices when creating projects.  When it was time to save and download, it was simple and I was prompted with several download options for what fit my needs best.  As a whole, the program is easy to manipulate and very modern.  It is a great tool for classroom use! If you would like to check it out, click the link here .

     

We Can't Rob Our Children of Tomorrow

     During our week 2 readings about TPACK, I found a quote in the article Integrating Technology in the Classroom by Nada Salem Abisamra.

"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, then we rob our children of tomorrow."

     This really resonated with me in a similar way as the "Vision of Students Today" video did last week. It is hard to remember that our world is changing to rapidly that it is a challenge to prepare our students for what they need. Part of this is because in our transforming technological environment, we don't know what our future generations will need.  

     So, how do we teach for today without robbing our students of tomorrow? From our readings, I find that the best way to do so is that we have to continue learning ourselves.  We need to experiment with new technologies and online tools.  We have to seek out the newest ideas and put them into practice.  It is such a big wide world and the internet makes it small enough that we can communicate with other educators and learn from our peers.  

     I understand being comfortable with what we know, but if we went into education to help students and shape the world in the future, then we have a responsibility to teach our students what they need for tomorrow rather than teaching as we did yesterday.

Cool Tool: Creaza

     My cool tool this week was a comic strip created using the website Creaza.  The comic that I created in embedded below for you enjoyment!  Besides comic strips, students and teachers can use Creaza for presentations (both video and audio) and mind maps.  There is a preselected "Activity Bank" that teachers can choose from or there are many ways for students to utilize their creativity,  When I made my comic strip, I started with an Activity Bank prompt that was called "future" and then I set up my background, characters, and props before adding the dialogue.  



I could see this tool  being used for students to create collaborative responses as well as any other presentations for projects.  I also like that it can be used as an interactive graphic organizers.  Students can place ideas into the video and manipulate them in many ways!
     While creating my own piece of work I found there were some aspects that were difficult.  For example, I felt that the content loaded very slowly even when I tried the website on a different computer.  This made the features and graphics difficult to manipulate.  Also, I needed an account to log in.  While it was free, it does add an extra step when setting this project up for students. 
     Some aspects that I really felt were impressive about Creaza are that there are so many prompts and possible activities to utilize.  They were all very simple especially in the fact that there were not an overwhelming amount of features for students to choose from.  There is a lot of creativity available but without an intimidating amount of choices.
Overall, I could definitely see myself using this tool in my classroom and I am sure that the students would find it enjoyable! If you would like to try it out, click here !

A Vision of Students Today

    This video was one of the most sobering videos I have watched as a teacher.  I can relate to this on several levels as I am a student as well as a teacher.  I understand what it is like to be a student in a large classroom full of students are vary levels of interest and academic level.  I understand being overwhelmed by the vast amounts of technology and changing advances of our time. And then you add work, family, homework, and try to have social life on top of that! 
     This video was very interesting to be because it shows how much there is to being a student in today's world.  It is hard to balance it all. There was one part of the video where someone held up a sign that mentioned having to be good at multitasking... that is the story of my life! I am doing my homework as I eat lunch in my room on my lunch break at work. 
     The other reaction that came over me after watching this is how fast the world is moving.  There are so many changes and as a teacher, it scares me because I can't tell you just how to prepare students for the future and I can't say what the roles of teachers will be in the future.  I believe in embracing technology and all of the technological advances but what if I can't keep up or the world of teaching passes me by and we as teachers become irrelevant? 
    All we can do now is learn what is out there and do what is best for our kids. 

Meet Miss Carobine

     Hello everyone! My name is Maria and I am a teacher... a teacher of all sorts of things! I graduated from Ashland Universtiy with a degree in early childhood education.  While I was at Ashland, I taught fitness classes to my peers as well as faculty members.  I spent two years after I graduated teaching preschool at a Head Start Preschool in Mansfield.  I left that position so that I could move back to the Northeast Ohio area to be closer with my family and begin working towards my reading endorsement at The University of Akron.  This year I started working as a Title I reading teacher in Streetsboro City Schools.  I am working with students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade that struggle with reading. 
     When I am not teaching, I enjoy music and going to concerts.  I would be lost without my satellite radio! I also spend a lot of time exercising. I run when I have to but I would rather spend time lifting, hiking, and working out in fun ways.  I enjoy going out and trying new things.  I will taste any food at least once! Luckily, I really enjoy being a teacher and do not mind going to work and also taking work home with me sometimes...

     As far as social media, I would consider myself sometimes a bit addicted to my phone as most people are these days.  I enjoy my facebook, twitter, and instagram updates as well as the pinterest inspirations.  The list grows from there as I also use snapchat, linked in, and groupme.  While reading the article, "A Teenager's View on Social Media" on Backchannel, I agree found myself agreeing with the author's take on each mode of social media explained.  Facebook is the all encompassing piece of social media that includes pictures, updates and messages to friends.  The main focus of my facebook page is that it keeps me connected to more people than other forms of social media.  My instagram is the best place for my pictures and then those pictures also are shared on my facbook via the instagram app.  My twitter page is mostly little blurbs and links that are about a focused sort of topics such as sports and music.  The different thing about twitter and pinterest is that those posts are meant to be seen by a larger audience that may not even be personal friends or acquaintances.  
    Now it is easy to see that I am no stranger to social media and as someone that uses it a great deal, I am all for the use of social media whenever appropriate.  Is the classroom an area that would be "appropriate" for social media? I say yes.  I feel that there are many ways to integrate social media in today's classroom that can make communication much more efficient and sharing projects, assignments, and comments easier as well.  Teachers can communicate with parents via teacher or classroom facebook pages and stay updated with twitter updates.  Students can share projects and papers with other classmates through a group page.  Social media is an aspect of our society that is not likely to slow down and become extinct any time soon.  If the use of social media can help students that are tired with class spark some interest, then I feel that it should be embraced.  We will never be able to slow down these trends so I say if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!