Pageflakes

I have recently discovered Pageflakes, and I am really enjoying it. In fact, I like it so much that I have set it as my new homepage. Pageflakes is a website that has different applications that I can tailor to my interests so that when I log on to the internet, links to all of my favorite pages are accessible instantly. For example, on my Pageflakes homepage I have decided to have applications which connect to my gmail, delicious, flickr, facebook, and Google Calendar accounts. I also have applications that show me the weather and movie showtimes for East Lansing. In addition, I have a customized To-Do list, and a calculator. You can also make Pageflakes into your RSS feed so that you have everything in the same location. I have not yet done this because I really like using Bloglines, and transferring over all of my information seemed like quite a daunting task. You can even like pageflakes to your Twitter account if you want to!

One thing that I didn't like about Pageflakes is that you can only link to the applications that it has provided for you. Therefore if there is something that you really enjoy using and you want to put that on your homepage as well, you can't do it unless it's included within choices that Pageflakes gives you. Also, you can only link the mail function to popular email systems. Therefore, I was unable to link it to my MSU mail. Overall though, the positives outweigh the negatives. I love that I can get a lot of information all in one spot as soon as I log onto the internet! I would recommend you check it out, and tell me what you think!

My PLN

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I love my Personal Learning Network because it allows me to easily access information that will be valuable for my profession. One of my favorite tools that I have obtained access to through this course is my RSS feed. I am currently using Bloglines and I couldn't be more satisfied with it. Using this technology allows me to quickly see if anyone that I am following has posted new information. This way I do not waste time searching every blog that I follow to see if new information has been added. One of the features of blogger that I really enjoy is having the ability to put the different blogs that I follow into categorical folders. This way, if I know that I only want to look at blogs related to social studies learning, I can click on that folder and focus on those specific blogs. My RSS feed does not limit me to professional information, but also allows me to follow blogs that fall within my non-academic interests such as sports or deafness.

I have tried to give Twitter a chance, and I do like that everything on twitter is very concise. Therefore I can search through different feeds until I find something that appeals to me. I can then look further into it if there is an article that is tagged within the post. However, I can't get myself into the habit of checking it like I do with my rss feed. I tried to post at least a few times a week during the first half of this course, but I have a hard time because I am longwinded and so I have to constantly think about how I can shorten my message. Over time, I have posted less and less on Twitter and instead posted more on my blog instead because my blog allows me to write as much as I want in one post. Therefore, I don't think that Twitter is something that I will use in the future, after this course.

Overall, I think that developing a Personal Learning Network has really helped me to figure out where to go when I want to find specific types of information. Now, I have a network of colleges, and I feel as though I have sorted through some of the blogs that I didn't like as well, to really find the ones that were the most helpful to me. I can now find information on specific topics more quickly and easily than I have ever been able to in the past.

Grouping Students By Topical Knowledge

My deaf education professor is very excited about grouping students by their topical knowledge. In order to do this, you would need to really know your students well. You would need to ask them questions at the beginning of a unit to establish what kind of notions they already held about the topic that you are teaching. Then you could group students into three groups, the group that knows very little about a particular topic, the group that has a decent amount of knowledge, and the group that knows a lot about the topic. As a teacher you would teach the same topics to all three groups, but each group would learn about the topic in a little bit more depth.

This would also mean that when you were testing the students, each group would be expected to know a different amount about the topic. You can't expect the lower group to know as much by the end of your unit as the highest achieving group, so there would need to be different levels of assessment involved.

There are a few things that I really like about this approach. First of all, it allows teachers to meet all students where they are at. Second, the students will move from group to group based on their topical knowledge. Therefore students will not always stay in the lower achieving group or the highest achieving group all the time. Instead they will bounce around from group to group and learn to work with many different children in your class.

However, there are also a few things that make me hesitant about this approach. It sounds terrific in theory, but I don't know if it would be easy to implement this all the time in the classroom. It would be very time consuming to come up with three different versions of the same lesson for each lesson that you teach. Also, this type of teaching relies heavily on teamwork, and if I was teaching a class of students who didn't work very well together, this approach could be very challenging. Overall though, I do think that the benefits to this type of teaching outweigh the negatives. Therefore, I would definitely utilize this method some, if not most of the time in my own future classroom.

Google Calendar

This week, I decided to explore Google Calendar. I often have a very difficult time with organizational skills. I try using a planner every semester, but often I stop writing in it after the first few weeks of school. For my job, I usually have a lot of small projects going on, so I often write down lists of things that I need to do as I think of them on a scrap piece of paper. However, often because this is just on a piece of loose-leaf paper, I do loose it rather easily.

One of the people that I work with loves using Google calendar, and so I have been wanting to look into this to see if it would assist with my organizational skills. When I sat down and began creating this calendar, I discovered a lot of features that I really liked. First, this calendar has a lot of really intuitive features. For example, for events like classes, it gives you the option of selecting that the event will occur on Monday, Wednessday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday. You can also select that the event will happen daily, every other day, weekly, twice a week, etc. That way I don't have to go through and write in Every single time that I have TE 401 manually. My calendar will go through and fill in every class period of TE 401 if I tell it to. I also liked that I could color code my events. Therefore I could pick one color for my work events, one for my school events, and one for extra-curriculars.

One of my favorite features of Google Calendar is that it allows me to create tasks on my calendar. There is also a task list that pops up to the right of my calendar. The tasks have a little box next to them that I can check when I have completed them and Google Calendar will draw a line through the tasks that I have completed. This way I can visually see that I am accomplishing these things.

I think that using this feature of Google could be something that would really help me organizationally, and I might be more apt to use it since I am on my computer a lot for class and work. Also, I wouldn't have to carry around a planner with me at all times. I like that I have the option of accessing my Google Calendar on my phone because I pretty much have my phone on me at all times so it would be easy for me to check my calendar any time that I needed to. I also like that I can have my Google Calendar send me reminders via email or text if I think that I am going to forget to complete a task or go to an event that is on my calendar.

Overall, I think that in my teaching career, this would really help me because I am going to need to be constantly organized in order to have my lessons prepared and ready to go for my students. I will need to remember to grade certain papers and tests so that I can get them back to my students in an efficient time manner. I will also need to remember when parent teacher conferences are and when IEP and professional development meetings will be held. These are all things that Google Calendar could help me with.

I also think that young students may have fun using Google Calendar to learn about how to read and use calenders in their daily lives. I believe that you could really engage students by using this technology to look at phases of the moon. You could also incorporate Google Calendar into math to figure out how many days until the students favorite holiday. Overall, I think that I mostly see using this form of technology for myself as a teacher, but it definitely has applications for my students as well!

Cell Phones in Education

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This week, I decided to explore cell phones in education. Two of the most interesting resources that I found on this topic were:

Mark Prensky's Article: "What can you do with a cell phone?"
AND The Innovative Educator Blog

I have to admit that before I read these articles, I couldn't really see how cell phones could be beneficial within the classroom. However, over the course of this reading, I learned some really interesting things about cell phones. First, I learned that most cell phones that we are using now are more powerful than the computers that we were using ten years ago! Much of education is not making students memorize as much information as they can. When students are out of school they will be not be merely relying on the information that they learned while they were in it. Instead they will need to know where to find the information that they need. Using their cell phones is one way to do this. Students and adults have their cell phone on them almost all the time so it makes sense that they would use this as a tool for answering their questions. If I need to find out what the capitol of Bolivia is, I can use the texting feature on my phone to text GOOGL, and in about 10 seconds I will have my answer.

I was really surprised to find out that in high school, my roommate used cell phones in her physics class. She was learning about sound waves, pitch, and frequency, and her teacher used a recording device to record the different keys to show that they all had a slightly different pitch. Then they graphed the pitch of the keys and talked about why they were different.

At first, I thought that cell phones in education could only be used at the middle or high school level. However, my roommate also pointed out that her mom is a nurse, and she has had children call her during their class for a project where they were practicing using the phone, communicating back and forth using this medium, and asking questions to obtain information. The children had to write their questions before they made the phone call. They also had to practice taking her address so that they could send her a brochure. This is a really neat use of cell phones because everyone has to use the phone frequently throughout their life. Therefore these children are having the opportunity to obtain and practice this life skill.

Some other really cool ideas that I read about for using cell phones in education were using them to poll student's responses,locate definitions, find currency conversions, look up math equations, locate language translations, read news articles and current events, use google maps and the GPS feature on different cell phones, use the digital camera feature for classroom projects and presentations, record a particularly interesting lecture to share with others or listen to again, and to educate students on the appropriate social use of cell phones. I learned a lot from these articles, and I would highly recommend that you check them out too if you are at all interested in this topic!

Positive Features of Blogger

There is one feature in particular that I LOVE about blogger. I can't tell you how many times I have been thankful that it automatically saves my work every few minutes as I type it. A few minutes ago, I accidentally clicked out of a post that I was working on. For me, it is one of the most frustrating things I can think of to be almost done with a project on the computer, when you lose the information that you are working on and have to start all over again. Unfortunately this is something that happens to me more often than it should. However, with blogger, I can just go into my recent history and find the exact document that I was working on and keep typing.

Neat Science Experiments!

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This is a neat blog that I found that describes some cool science experiments that you can do with elementary school students. They are all hands on activities that I think that students would really enjoy such as creating a volcano. I believe that these experiments would fit really well into the GLCES for each grade. It also describes why science fair experiments are beneficial to students. Check it out if you have the time!

Retracting Recess Privlidges

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One management technique that I have observed many teachers using in their classrooms is taking away time from recess when students are misbehaving. Often the teacher will not say anything to the students. She will simply walk over to the board and erase a minute from the recess tally in the corner of the board. This usually gets the student's attention and they all quickly become silent. Although this tactic achieves the desired results short term, I don't think that it is a very effective management technique. Children need their recess time to burn off some of their energy so that they can refocus themselves and concentrate again in the afternoon. If children are misbehaving, they probably need their recess time even more because they are being forced to focus all day long and they simply need a mental break. Also, by cutting down on recess time, we are punishing all the students when it may not be every child in the room who was misbehaving. What do you think? Have you ever experienced this in your field placement? Is it ever an effective strategy?

PLEASE READ: Deaf Education Program at MSU

This week, I decided to write about an education topic that has been personally upsetting to me. As some of you may know, due to budget cuts, they have decided to eliminate the deaf ed major at MSU. However, we are one of only two programs in the entire state of Michigan to educate teachers of the deaf. The other program, at Eastern Michigan, only focuses on teaching children in an Auditory Oral setting. However, there are many other deaf children who are educated in Total Communication, SimCom, and mainstreamed settings, etc. In state teachers will not have the option to teach in a Bilingual/Bicultural setting, and out of state teachers will be highly unlikely to move into our state, which has one of the lowest economies an highest unemployment rates in the entire United States. Where will the teachers of these children be educated? All children deserve qualified teachers.

These are the children that are already behind when the reach elementary school. Without qualified teachers, they are going to be victims of the system, continuously falling behind because of their teacher's lack of education about how to teach them. I worry that if we have a lack of teachers in these types of settings, eventually anyone will be able to get their deaf education certification, simply by taking a test. This would be a shame for the children who are counting on educated teachers to assist them and to recognize and address their needs. No Child Left Behind maintains that we need to have Highly Qualified Teachers!

In addition, MSU has just revamped their deaf education program in order to better prepare teachers for the type of setting that they would like to work in. As a teacher you can follow one of three tracks, Bilingual/Bicultural track, itinerant/consulting teacher, and Auditory/Oral. We are in the first year of this new program, and it seems like a shame that we will have to get rid of it before it even kicks into full swing.

There has been an extremely large outpouring of support from colleagues around the nation on this topic. Everyone is trying to figure out what they can do to make a difference. So far, I know that there is a petition that can be found on the "Keep Deaf-Ed Major at MSU" facebook group. There is also a letter writing campaign going on to the dean, Dr. Carole Ames (cames@msu.edu). Thanks for taking the time to read this. As you can see, it is an issue that I am extremely passionate about. Anything that you can do would be appreciated, even if its just joining the facebook group or signing the petition. We have to do everything that we can to try to make it so that this program is not canceled.

Everyone is a Star: Digital Storytelling

This is a lesson that I would present to the children at the beginning of the year. It would present an excellent opportunity for me to get to know my students and for my new students to get to know me. I would have the students complete a digital story that falls under the category "Everyone is a star." I would explain to the students that everyone is a star because they are all unique. Everyone has special talents and abilities, and I want the students to each have a chance to showcase their talents for their classmates and for me. Therefore I will give the children some time to create a digital story that tells me why they are a star. The more that I know about my students individually, the more that I can cater my lessons to their interests in order to captivate my student's attention and encourage them to see the material that I am teaching as relevant to their lives. I want my students to want to learn.

I would present the digital story below for the students so that they have an idea of what I am expecting from them before they begin this project. This would also give the students a chance to get to know me, and what I like to do a little bit better. This would also be a chance to have children in the lower elementary grades practice their writing skills in a more enticing way than the traditional pen and paper format. I think that children will be more eager to complete this assignment if they get to use some of their creativity to produce a digital end product. Students could either use their own pictures, or find pictures on the web to use for this project.

I used slide to create this digital story. I loved this technology because it was so easy to use. There are explicit buttons for uploading pictures from different sources. After I chose the pictures, I just went down the line, through the steps of adding transitions, backgrounds, music, titles, and words. After I chose the music, Slide automatically added the copyright information to the digital story. The only thing that I didn't like about this technology was that I couldn't figure out how to create a blank slide. I wanted to have the title read, "Everyone is a star." I originally intended to follow this with a blank slide that said, "I am a star because..." I would then go through all of the pictures and captions that described me, and end with another blank slide that said, "What makes you a star?" However, since I couldn't figure out how to add blank slides instead of ones with pictures, I had to revamp my plan a little bit.

Also, in this slideshow, I used my own pictures. However, I wanted to ask those of you who are reading this: if I had used pictures that I pulled off of Creative Commons, where would you suggest that I put the copyright information? Do I put that right in the PowerPoint with the digital story information, or do I add it as an appendix on my blog, but not in the PowerPoint? What are your thoughts?

Wi-Fi

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I was told a really interesting thing by one of my colleges today. She said that she found out that if you are using public wi-fi, whether it is in a cafe or at home without a protected password, it is very easy for anyone (with the knowledge and skills to do this) to hack into your computer and view the same thing that you are viewing. This means that if you put passwords into online banking statements, email, etc., it becomes easy enough for another person to find out these passwords and save them. After hearing this, I will make a commitment to being much more careful with the types of things that I do using public wi-fi.

PowerPoint Presentation

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This weekend, I went to a conference where the keynote speakers presented using a PowerPoint. During this presentation, I truly realized the application of the Beyond Bullet Points reading. Nearly everything that the presenters said was also scripted on the PowerPoint, which was very visually overwhelming for me as an audience member. Also, sometimes there was so much information on the screen that the text needed to be very small. I was in the second row of the auditorium and I often had a hard time reading the screen. In addition, the background of the PowerPoint was black, and the presenters highlighted text by changing it from white to violet or dark blue. This meant that there wasn't a lot of contrast between the highlighted text and the background color, making it very difficult to read.

However, one thing that that I did really like that these presenters included was video clips from popular movies which were relevant to the presenter's topic. These caught my attention and refocused it on the topic at hand. Now I have a much better understanding of why it is important to structure PowerPoints in a way that is condusive the the learner and not just convenient to the presenter!

Benefits of Skype for Deaf Children

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My deaf education professor is always telling us that for children, the problem with deafness is not a lack of hearing, but rather an abundance of isolation. Especially for kids who sign, their time in school may be the only opportunity that they have to talk to other people in their own native language. Most parents of deaf children do not know sign language, and the other children and adults on their block would not be familiar with it either. Even in school, if a child is mainstreamed, the only person that he may be able to directly talk to could be the interpreter in the classroom. This isn't giving the child a lot of time to interact with children that are his own age.

One way that this can be combated is through the use of Skype or ivisit. These features could allow the child to work on their homework or simply chat with another deaf child who may not be close enough to physically see the child in my class each day. Imagine that this child now has someone to interact with, instead of having very little communication during his time outside of school.

It isn't an ideal situation, but using this technology to foster communication would be making progress in the right direction for that child. The only thing that I worry about when using Skype in this type of capacity is that if you have two children talking to eachother at home, where the teacher cannot easily monitor the conversation, you might get into instances of one child bullying another.In this instance, the teacher may never find out about this. Do any of you think that this would be an issue? If so, how do you think that we could combat it?

Within the context of the classroom, it would also be really neat if I was working on a weather unit, and we could Skype in with a deaf classroom in Florida for five minutes a day. I could have one of the children ask them what their weather was like. We could then make a graph of the weather in Florida versus the weather in Michigan over a certain period of time. This would teach the children social skills and show them that learning transcends subjects. This could be both a math and science lesson. In addition, you could add in geography. For example, I could teach the students map skills by showing them where Florida was, and where in Florida these children lived. We could also calculate how far this classroom was from our own through the use of maps.