So much Tech, so little time

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but sometimes all the technology out there(along with everything we already have on our plates) can get so overwhelming.  I am a technology lover and I often find myself in one place or another finding out about some new website with a new type of technology.  The problem is that I never seem to be able to find the time to really get into it and understand it.  It doesn't help that I'm getting older and that leads to me forgetting some great sites that I've learned about and want to try.  Sure I use Diigo to save these sites, but then I have to remember to go back and look at them.  I think I'm just in a frantic state of mind right now, and considering the upcoming break and the mood of the kids, it is somewhat understandable, but it never seems to end.
Since this is a tech-y thing, I would also like to report that in my rare spare moment I'm trying to learn a little computer programming.  I can't say I'm exactly sure why I'm doing this other than the fact that I've always been interested in it.  I figure I can teach my son a bit when he gets older as he seems to like technology(by that I mean he likes to play video games)  I actually think it would be neat for the students to start learning some programming at a younger age.  I remember moving the turtle around on my Apple IIe eons ago.  I even learned some language called Pascal in high school, but I could see things like programming becoming bigger in schools.  If any high school teachers read this, I'd love to know what programming is being taught in high schools these days.  Well I feel like I'm rambling a bit now so I'll sign off.  Something tells me I've got something else to get done now.

Kids Respond to Tech!

Now I can't say that I've been the best teacher this year.  Not that I've been bad or anything, but I know I could always be better.  I will say that this year has included a great deal of change in my lessons.  The biggest thing is that my lessons have included a lot more tech than usual.  What I have found is that the kids are really responding to the fact that there is so much technology.  My kids are really liking my classes and I'd say that has a lot to do with the technology(along with my wonderful sense of humor) I'll admit that I don't work as hard in developing my Social Studies lessons this year due to the fact that I only teach one class a day and that anything we do will be gone next year as the curriculum is changing.  I even had one unit where I basically divided the class into groups and let them decide how they would learn and present their information.  Considering the time and effort I put into this(very minimal) the results were excellent.  The kids came up with a bunch of different ideas and the final products were very good.  I even have them wanting to do it again(which I will)
I guess what I'm learning is that I need to keep trying these new ideas with new types of technology as the kids really seem to want to try these things as they are more comfortable with the change than I am.

Discovery Ed Tech...Finally

OK, I'll be honest, I haven't been overly impressed with Discovery Ed this year.  It has a lot of good information, but the organization is lacking and you really have to sort through a lot of bad stuff or inappropriate things to find the good things.  Well this week my class did a science sleuths "lab." The way the science sleuths works is that there is a whole interactive science lab.  The students are presented with a problem.  Even with this problem it is not specifically written so the student has to determine the problem.  At this point the student can watch videos(interviews), do testing, or research with articles, dictionaries, or an encyclopedia.  Their goal is to solve the problem and one of the best things is that not all the information will lead them towards the answer.  It's the best real-world type science simulation I've seen.  The kids really have to do some critical thinking, and since I had them work in pairs, they had to do some collaboration.  I believe these are called 21st century skills!  Sure some of the students were a little frustrated at times, and they did find it challenging, but overall I would say that when I polled the kids they really liked this activity.
Now if any science folk out there are interested in using this,(Kendy), there are some problems. The one we did was the frog files, as there are many science sleuths.  The save function doesn't seem to work well so the kids sort of have to start over each day.  I'd recommend having them take notes on a google doc because of this.  I've made one for the frog files that I like and would share if you'd like to use it.  I also don't like the way they conclude the experiment with certain questions.  I included my own conclusion in my google doc.
Its always nice to find something good.  Now I need to do that searching through more of these science sleuths to find some more to use this year.

Making connections

Sometimes I start thinking of technology and all of its possibilities of making connections with students.  The idea of all of these social networks that might be used, but you have to be careful with.  I've heard of some teachers using twitter.  I'm not a personal fan of twitter at all, but I could see how it could be a pretty helpful thing if you could quickly send out something to your classes maybe explaining something or even just posting something cool that you just saw that might relate to your curriculum.  It could be a great way to get information to parents such as "please sign you child's progress report" They could maybe even tweet a response indicating that they did see the progress report.
Then there's the idea of facebook.  I know some schools have their own facebook site, mainly for parents to follow.  This seems like another great idea for a school, but could it also work with a classroom?
I had a student last week suggest that I just get a webcam and have it running during my classes so students that are absent can see the class and still do the work.  Another interesting idea.
but where does it end?  When I have homework, will I have to Post it on my website, tweet it, then post it on facebook?
Then what about texting?  The kids use it all the time.  Why not use that to our advantage?
I don't know, and I'm really not planning on trying any of these out right now.  I don't even know if this is the point of this blog, but there's so much out there but only so much time to use it.  Sometimes it's all rather overwhelming other times it's just pretty overwhelming.

A Techable moment

So, how is technology going this year?  Overall I've been very happy with the amount and types of technology usage I've used this year.  I'd say that the kids have used the computer around 70% of the time which is a big jump from last year.  I've put nearly everything we've done on google apps.  Some of the things I've used include an online test in science using Discovery Educations assessment builder.  In Social studies I just made a test using Google forms. 
I've also been trying out class dojo which has had its ups and downs.  I'm thinking I'll be using it for participation points if nothing else.  There's definitely some fore things I'd like to be using, but finding the time to set them up has been difficult.

Flipping 2.0

OK, I should have done this earlier, but I need to say how my second effort at flipping went.  Overall it was pretty good.  I made this video on Interactions in Ecology.  I did have to go get a new webcam as my laptop seems to be getting pretty old and the recordings wouldn't stay in sync with the audio.  The new camera made things much better and clearer.  Again I used prezi. 
Overall I'd say that the kids that did the assignment really liked it.  I've even received some praise from some parents that I chatted with at outdoor ed.  The main problem I'm still having is with the fact that so many kids didn't do the work.  Sure this is a problem with just about any assignment and it's always frustrating, but this is often the same kids that would most benefit by the whole idea of flipping.  I'm not saying that I'm giving up or anything, but this is definitely a problem that I'm struggling with.  I'm planning on starting to work on another video pretty soon.  Hopefully I'll figure out something to get more people to participate.  Any ideas? 

My first Flip

Today was Day 1 of the Flipping process...well sort of day 2.  I made my first video using prezi and camtasia studio.  This was the only program I could find that could both record the screen while recording a video on my web cam(that isn't made for a mac)  I really like the program although I only have the trial version for 30 days.  Anyone have a spare $300?  Well I was happy with the video.  I posted it on my website using youtube and screencast.  I did screencast so the kids(that didn't do their homework) could watch it at school.  I also made some DVD's so the kids that didn't have a computer could also watch it.  I didn't know what to expect as far as how many people would do the video, but I'd say around 75% watched the video and took good notes.  I set up the video so there were 5 vocabulary notes which made for some easy note taking while some students definitely went beyond the basics. 
I had to do a lot of explaining today so the students would understand the process which was basically that the people that didn't do the homework  would lose responsibility/self direction points and would be watching the video before working on the activity.  The activity was basically a sorting activity with questions to be answered on a worksheet.  It worked with the concepts they learned in the lesson(levels of ecology). 
Overall I think the process went rather well.  I learned some things I'd change about my assignment, but I'll always find things to improve with any lesson.  The kids did well and my first impression is that they did do some learning from the video.  Many of the kids said they watched it many times.  I'm assuming that's because I'm so darn interesting! 
The next video I'll be working on will probably be one about energy in the ecosystem although I'm thinking next year I'll work on one about habitat vs. niche and abiotic vs. biotic. 

A flipping good idea...hopefully

OK, I think one of my focuses for the year will be the beginning stages of flipping my classroom.  I've done some research and it seems like an interesting idea.  I don't think it will work in all situations but I do think it will be effective for many topics.  So far I've started with my first video that will be about some basic ecology.  I'm going to try different types of media to keep things interesting.  I'll be starting with a prezi that I'll narrate and probably be saving in youtube.edu.  One thing I'm wondering right now is what activities I'll be using in the class to show their understanding.  And in many of the videos I've seen there is a small frame with the teacher's face doing the lecture but I don't know what program they use for that.  Guess it's time to e-mail Dana.

August 9th Training

Going into this training day I was a little sad.  This really felt like the end of the summer for me.  I was already starting to get into "teacher mode" but this was quite a reminder.  I really liked the beginning of the day.  It is so nice to be able to have some solid time to work on some of the things we're using in this cohort group, and there were so many people that were available to help us with any difficulties we were having .  The afternoon filled my head with information and possibilities.  In fact, it leads me to the thought of how are we expected to keep up with all of this?  I've always felt that I'm somewhat on the cutting edge of technology, and I do what I can to keep up with things, but there always seems to be so much out there that I've never heard about.  I feel like we could meet weekly and just share new things with each other and we still wouldn't keep up.  I realize that we don't have to know everything out there, but I start thinking that as soon as I learn about one program, something newer and better comes out.  I guess I need to be happy with where I'm at and what I do know.  It's always like opening a present at Christmas when I learn about another new thing that I can use.

Summertime soon.

Another inspired morning...I really like the small group learning format.  Blogger has a lot of functions that I was unaware of.  I’m still not sure how I’ll be using it, but I do hope to incorporate blogs this year.  This is the same deal with google maps.  I’ll definitely find a place in my one Social Studies class for it.  Right now I’m thinking of setting up something with Goddard on it and lines showing how far it is do different areas we study throughout the year.(About 7000+ miles to Mesopotamia!)  The information on Google research was totally new to me.  How cool.  Google is just improving daily which makes me think it was a good move for us to be going to google docs.  It does a great job getting us more into the 21st century learning.  I love how it integrates so many different things.  I don’t really do a lot of research in my classes at this time, but I can see it being used in some way or another.  As for easy bib, I’ve used it myself for my master’s classes so nothing new there.  I just love learning new things(especially with technology!)

Now for the afternoon.  Getting a little sleepy...mere hours away from the beginning of summer.  Learned another new/awesome thing...Google Forms! I’m already working on a parent survey to get information like e-mails and phone numbers in a single place.  I plan on using it a lot during the year for quizzes and tests.  Time for a busy summer.

Day 1...Inspired?

Well, I really didn't know exactly what to expect from this Inspired Learning Cohort.  And now...well I have a better idea, but I'm still a little unsure.  I'm really hoping this will be something that will work well with the fact that in Science we're working with a new curriculum.  Obviously, technology will be a part of that curriculum, and hopefully this will help me put together the 3 ideas of content, pedagogy, and 21st century learning.  Right now, it's hard to think much about the technology as I'm rather unsure of what I'll be teaching next year.  I'd really like this work to be applicable to what I'm doing and it seems like that's a goal of the instructors as well.  So, I'm at a point that I'm hoping for big things, but am still a little unsure and overwhelmed a bit.  1 day until summer actually starts!(but who's counting)