Personal Learning Reflection

As my first online course in Educational Technology at Michigan State University is coming to a close, I am amazed at just how much I have learned. I did not expect to come away with so much excitement and  so many skills, as well as  knowledge of and exposure to fabulous new technology. At the onset of this class, I wrote a personal growth plan in which I hoped to learn more about the Internet and how to learn from it and incorporate that learning into my teaching practices. I feel I have done that and so much more.

Having taught for 15 years now, I feel I have a good handle on the Pedagogical and Content areas of the TPACK philosophy. Through this course I am now able to bring the Technology portion of this TPACK method into my classroom and thus enrich the education of the young children that I teach. I know children, at 5 years of age, are concrete learners and attend and  respond well when creative and engaging teaching strategies are presented. I now know how to use the Internet to find new and exciting ways to teach and reach all my students. I have learned ways to involve my Kindergartners directly with technology in the classroom. I have a wealth of sites bookmarked in my Diigo online resource "cloud". From my assignments and through the SIG presentation, I have learned the steps and technology necessary to use a classroom blog that will also incorporate plug ins, such as slide shows, power point presentations, videos, and podcast. My students will be involved as much as possible, considering they are very young and most have very limited reading and writing skills. I will let them use a digital camera with supervision and allow them to be involved in the posts and decision making process. Having created and maintained this blog and the assignments in this course regarding this blog, I feel I am comfortable enough to put this into practice this coming Fall!

I will continue to use the rss reader page, as it is such an easy way to discover new ideas and communicate with other educators. This assignment allowed me to create a very useful tool and opened a whole new organized world for me. I am able to quickly find interesting articles and informative discussions and make comments when I feel my opinion is valuable and appropriate. I am excited to  learn tips and tricks on how to use the latest tools in technology. I can easily access the "Cloud" and write documents, create presentations and spreadsheets on google docs, and I know that I won't have to email these to open them on another computer. These tools have supported my growth immensely. Doing my Personal Technology Plan on google docs saved me literally! The day I needed to submit this for class, my laptop computer wend dead. I have a new battery on order as I believe it will no longer hold a charge. I was lucky that it was not a document or power point saved to my desktop. There were no tears shed as I simply logged on to the home desktop and submitted the assignment on time. Who would have thought that would happen?

Integrating the Internet has helped my attitude about using technology. I was surprised to find out about how many early childhood elementary educators are using it and to the degree that they use it. While lack of funding for technology upgrades and lack of funding for professional development may hold people back, the reality is that the world is changing and it will continue to evolve with or without me (or anyone else that chooses to to avoid it) on board. Teachers like myself may need to use their own money and resources to stay current. In a competitive and global society it only makes sense to "go the extra mile" and thus to instill this attitude and practice in our students. A quote by Harvard professor Derek Bok comes to mind, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." This popped into my head as a colleague responded to me that she can not afford to take classes. I told her that I could not afford not to. My point is that in order to remain an effective, current and exemplary educator, I feel I need to continue my professional development no matter what the cost. If I were to find myself without my current teaching job, I need to have the skills and knowledge necessary to be a desirable candidate in another setting, in education or otherwise.

Through the discussion posts, video tutorials, assignments in this course, and support of the professor of this class, I feel inspired to continue my journey at MSU. At the onset of this class, I admit, I was overwhelmed and scared and at times thought about retreating. But after reading the introductions from the other teachers and all their different and similar backgrounds to myself, I was encouraged. I felt that I could do this and I now I know I can. The unknown can cause anxiety and apprehension, my students also feel that and I need to equip them with the skills, attitude and confidence to fly on their own. Just as this class is doing for me!! My new goals and plans are to take the sequence of courses to complete the certificate and endorsement in hopefully two years time. I plan to be an advocate for technology use for my colleagues and an advocate for doing more with technology with my young students. I plan to remain dedicated to helping my students be the best that they can be, and in order to do that I need to prepare them for the future. They need to be prepared to be independent learners. This course has made me a more independent learner. I am more able to learn new things, organize them, present them and comprehend them because of this CEP 810 course. I am EMPOWERED! Somewhat of a simple concept in a very complex  and ever changing world.

My Learning Style

In reading about and researching the topic of learning styles, presented in Session 5, I have to say that I am probably a visual and spatial learner with kinetic tendencies. When I think about all my educational experiences and about the learning environments where I felt most successful and comfortable, I think in pictures, in visions, in graphic organizers and in ways that flow in a logical manner. I like things to look good, neat, organized and balanced. I am very creative and my designs are often symmetrical and well thought out to be pleasing to the eye and not over stimulating. I gain the most from watching and doing. I comprehend the most from the lessons in this course, CEP 810, that are presented through a video with graphics or examples. Lessons  presented in text format are the most challenging for me to attend and grasp, as these lessons take the most time for me to comprehend. Listening to Pod casts seem to be better for me than reading the text format. In light of what we have been learning about in regards to learning styles, I realize the importance of using various approaches and methods necessary to teach content and skills. A variety of teaching approaches is a must in order to reach all students.  Creativity must be incorporated as much as possible to keep the attention and interest of the students.

Gingerbread House

Gingerbread House, a photo by moonlightbulb on Flickr.

I am so glad I found this photo on Flickr and it is a CC image too! My students will love to see this! We always do a unit called "Gingerbread Junction" in December. It is a way to celebrate the month without focusing on a religious holiday. My students will build their own gingerbread houses with graham crackers and embellish them with icing and candy. The creations they make will be featured in this blog. It is always exciting to watch them build and taste. We also read several versions of "The Gingerbread Man" and make our own pop-up books. We tie sequencing activities, reading and language arts, social studies, math and character education in this 3 week long thematic unit. It is a favorite!!!
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Link to Lauren's Flickr posts

RSS Reflection

I love my Net Vibes RSS page! I can spend hours reading interesting blogs and commenting on others' blogs as well as writing on my own blog. This is the best thing ever. I can easily check 2 email accounts and know when to check them as they are tagged with the number of emails that need to be read. Links to local weather, facebook, twitter, a link to my school portal page, a calendar, a calculator, a link to local news, national news, and a feed strait to the Food Network site, so while I am on-line, I can easily get ideas and recipes on what to make for dinner. Personally, I can do so many things so quickly. I no longer need to close things and go to my favorites or bookmark tabs to get to the sites that I am always going to. These sites are all coming to me now. Before this class, CEP 810, I did not know how to do all this. I did not know that any of this existed. My life is getting easier and although I am learning so much and reading so much more than before, this RSS page I have created is making my life less complicated.

I chose to use Netvibes to create my RSS page. I found it visually appealing and easy to figure out and work with. My dash board is very cute. The colors in the background change throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. It has a friendly and youthful look to it, which I like probably since I teach Kindergarten. I make minor adjustments to it almost daily, as I find new widgets to add, or I delete ones that I don't find as useful. I have added the 4 required feeds from the RSS lab. Npr.org, the radio page is a favorite of my husbands and has daily posts. TechLearning is a great site, as it has new articles and posts daily and also filters to find grade level ideas and more. Weblogg-ed.com seems very official and professional . The other required feed, ncteblog, has not been updated for a few years from what I can tell. Subscribing to the required feeds was easy and left me browsing the Netvibes familiar widgets and searching for topics of interest to me, professionally and personally.

I chose to add several blogs relating to the technology and the profession of teaching. I have added MACUL space which seems to have posts and updates throughout each day and this site has helped me in several ways. I have been reading tips and tricks, I was guided to other sites such as Facebook Wall de Technology, which in turn has led me to even more great resources and sites.I feel like I am in a wheel when I am on this site and the spokes are the links that I am learning about leading me to all kinds of new places to learn valuable things.

Another I blog that I find very useful is Edutopia. Within the site you can also browse by core concepts and by grade level. So I can read blogs and articles that pertain to the same age group that I teach. Edutopia has a summer professional development blog series and each week new tools and tips are added to the site. I have made a comment on this site. I noticed an entry on the drop down arrow called  the "30 goals blog" and #16 goal is to "change your environment". This caught my attention, as this class and my new blog and RSS reader page are all responsible for changing my environment for the better. I was intrigued so I read this post. The message was about the importance of getting students out of the classroom and taking field trips. Even if it is a walk through the neighborhood to a local business, the blogger discussed her experiences on the enthusiasm and new life that these experiences bring to any student, no matter what the socio-economic group, as she gave examples. I commented on how simple field trips for my students served as wonderful bonding experiences and brought fresh perspectives on even the simple and little things.This site also posted a very useful article on the technical skills elementary students should be able to handle at which grade level. There was a great spreadsheet listing the particular skills and then for each grade level noted if this was an introductory skill, developing skill or a skill that could be applied by the student. I saved this for my SIG to reflect on. Edutopia seem to have new posts very often throughout any given day.

A wonderful feed I have added is the PBS Teachers blog site. This RSS appeared to be changing on a weekly schedule,  and also allows you to search blogs and information by subject and grade level. Some recent posts gave me great ideas that I will definitely use, such as using gratitude prompts to blog with children. I also found some great links to sites my students can use at our touch screen computers in my classroom. I found an interactive online sticker book and this is a link I booked mark on my diigo to use later in my classroom. After trying it out, I know my students will have fun with this. I also found  great teaching resources in the Facebook Wall de Technology,  such as a cool way to create 3-d digital pop-up books, and another site that lets you write and draw, and  a professional development page with some golden rules for me on how to use technology.

I am also following and enjoying  the CoolCatTeacher.blogspot. I commented on her article on how "Fast Food Thinking Harms Life". I shared how her post inspired me and supports how many of  us feel about living in a fast, furious, "me-first" and sometimes very rude society. Her post tied in a video clip of an incredible  light show technology and when it started out very slowing, audience members could be heard making rude comments. Once the show progressed the audience was in awe.  It was very thought provoking. Her blog is posted to very often and is followed by many thus bringing many interesting comments. I highly suggest following her blog.

I read quite a few blogs and read some very thought provoking discussions over the past week, but the most memorable message that I came away with was simple. Somewhere I read that without professional development technology is worthless. I have to say that I now understand this statement completely. This message gives me the motivation to continue to stay connected with the organizations, the people and the places that I am finding  through this RSS feed. Without the knowledge of what is out there and without the skills of how to use the technology  of the web, the Internet (besides using it for communication with parents and faculty)  in my classroom is almost useless for my young students. Knowing what I know now, it would be a shame not to introduce the children I teach to the world that they will have to learn and survive in. If I did not know about the new and updated ways of communicating and connecting with the people who are at the forefront and so willing to share their wisdom with me, through networking, I would continue to have my students play the software games that are installed on the computer and call that "using technology". But now I am easily able to research new and exciting ways to incorporate technology  in more advanced ways and share my own ideas with others around the world thanks to my RSS reader page. How exciting! I will use my Netvibes page to help me continue to grow and develop as an educator and also to bring in opportunities for my students to learn  and progress. It is my responsibility to equip them with the attitudes, skills and knowledge to become good technical citizens and lifelong learners.

Computer Security

There is so much to learn when you think about all the things that one need to keep his or her PC safe. Viruses, spyware, malware, adware and the dangers seem endless. I recently learned how I need to check my PC to confirm that the installed protection is actually turned on and updated. I did not know this as my lap top is secure when I am at school and on the school network. My home computer has Norton protection and I run the updates as suggested and renew each year. An assignment in my CEP 810 was to attend an online tutorial on Atomic Learning about this subject. I chose to learn about computer clean-up and about organizing my files. My computer has been running very slow and this was due to the amount of programs and software that were installed. I learned that having things that you don't really use or having several editions of software, or even duplicates of programs can slow down your computer tremendously! I really needed to hear this tutorial and learn what to do to solve this problem. My computer is faster already.

I also viewed the tutorial on Organizing. I did not know how much easier it would be to look for things and retrieve them. I have added new folders and I have stored documents in a more predictable location. My desk top and screen saver looks so much better and I have made my life less cluttered and chaotic. I was able to delete things not needed or copy old documents and photos onto a flash drive.

I had no idea how many different items one needs to protect against hackers and viruses. I learned about spy ware blaster and downloaded the free program that was talked about on the tutorial. I checked into the free Avast anti-virus protection and will look further into this program. Above all this I still need to check on the firewall protection of my hardware and my software. I had no idea there were so many modes of protection needed. Keeping my computer safe is a full time job, but needs to be done.

Another highly important thing I found out is regarding account passwords. The need has never been greater to keep these private. With so many people experiencing identity theft and account invasion, passwords need to be strong, secure and they need to be variable, meaning don't use the same one for all your accounts. This information prompted me to change my passwords on some of my important accounts to increase safety and privacy.

Getting Things Done - Workflow Process

My inbox is a bit old fashioned, a white view binder and a yellow legal pad. I process what is in my inbox, my mind of things that need doing, and make myself a "hit list". I have tabs in my binder with important forms, schedules and calendar, and things given to me at team or faculty meetings. I am very fortunate to teach in a 2 teacher team setting and thus we support each other with all the various things that we need to do. Of course, the students are our first priority. We have been working together for 7 years and have a really good system. We delegate to each other what we need to be doing separately and together. We prioritize the things that need to be done first, later and last. We use our web portal calendar and daily bulletin that is emailed to us, to keep us on schedule and for any updates or changes. Our lesson plans are weekly and we discuss as time goes on, what we may need to carry over to the following week as needed.

During down time or on school breaks and weekends, we get things ready that need a lot of attention and take a lot of time. For instance, during the summer we make our future students' birthday gifts, end-of year theme painted t-shirts and create and collate the booklets that will become their memory books, or scrap books. Using the computer for weekly newsletters, I am able to cut and paste to save time, and also see what worked out well in years past or what did not as a heads up to try something new. I don't try to reinvent the wheel everyday, but I do like to improve and embellish on the activities that I love so much. As always the last step of DO is the project that must be my priority or needs to be tended to in the moment, such as teaching something valuable in a spontaneous teachable moment. I hang my "hit list" on the back-splash of my kitchen counter top in my classroom and go to it when my students are in a special class and I have prep-time. Any thing that can be done at home or on the weekend, I often take home. I have done well with the system that I have in place, but I am open to try something new that deals with technology, and I like the reminders that I am getting from my google calendar. I will try to utilize this feature in class this upcoming school year.

My Portal Web Page

Check out this link to a snapshot of the portal page I keep updated for the parents of my students. They log in to see what has been going on, what is coming up, and to find things they need.

Click on the title above to view.

New at Twitter

Today I enrolled at Twitter. Yesterday was spent enrolling at Diigo and Delicious. I imagine it will take time to actually put these tools into action, but I am glad to know about them. I was able to check out the MACUL blog and interact. The Facebook page for Elementary Educators led me to a very cute YouTube account with videos and songs that I will be able to use in my classroom come fall. I tweeted about it and shared it there too. So much to learn and so little time. I don't think I could have done this class, at the rate of speed it is going, during the school year.

Posting Photos from My Classroom

Today I have been searching through my photo file on my home computer. I have learned to upload them to my Google account and made a file that I can use to find them easily for use in my blog or on other projects. The process of uploading was quick and easy, however it took me an hour to search through several years of files to find just the right pictures. My photos are mixed in with family photos and labeled by date on my computer. I will hopefully do a better job in the future by labeling them in folders with event titles.This was the cake at our Cinderella Fella Ball. It was delicious!

Jessi is AWESOME

Figuring this out w/ some help from an MSU alum :)

SPARTY ON

This Is Not Easy!

I have been working on embedding the calendar from my gmail for hours and I am not getting it done!

Traditional Web Pages vs Blogs

I will try to compare the difference between a traditional web page and a blog on the basis of what I know and have learned this week. When I think of visiting a traditional web page, I think of the pages that I often frequent. These would be the Weather Bug site that I check each day to see what the conditions are going to be for the day and the week to come. Also, the shopping sites that I like to visit, like Kohl's and Walmart to see what the latest sales are. I also like to check the food network for recipes. These sites, I assume, have professionals writing the content and researching the information that is posted on them.Now, I understand that blogging pages are set up by individuals or possibly groups of people with common interests or view points for the sake of being helpful, informative or even entertaining. I have visited blogs about medical issues or common conditions and for advice, for example "home remedies for lice", as many families in my school were facing this problem. I also recall visiting a blog regarding "deer accidents", after hitting a deer myself while driving at night on the freeway, I simply needed to get the support and understanding from others that have been through the same thing as me. My son and I were very lucky that we were not injured in the incident. I also visited several traditional web pages that stated research on the findings of deer accidents and how best to react when faced with this situation. This was a document from the State Police and gave some well researched information and advice, but did not tell the heart felt accounts of the bloggers. I understand that blogs are much more interactive and that the information on the blogs may be the opinions or experiences of individuals and  may have statements that are untrue and truly matter of opinion. I imagine that I will learn a lot more about blogs and their uses, as this semester moves along and I become more familiar with the comparisons.

Getting My Feet Wet

After only 3 days of this wonderful Michigan State University on-line class in technology, I am learning so much! I did not know I would be moving this fast in regards to actually being on-line and creating cool things. I am currently on summer break from my job as a Junior Kindergarten teacher. I teach young five year olds and I  have little experience and  knowledge of blogging. I was very interested to find out about Windows Live and Google Docs, as well as ZoHo. I did not know that these things existed. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that. I hope as I become more comfortable with all the exciting new things I am learning about that I will not feel as overwhelmed. My students are too young to  interact directly with me by blogging as most are just beginning to read and write. However, I will utilize the technology that  I am learning about in this class in other avenues. Such as connecting with other educators and in bringing new ideas to my classroom.  I  feel this experience and knowledge will help me become a better teacher and help me to extend my interests in other fields and areas as well.