Student Presentation Tools Fall 2015

I really liked this webinar and found that while I am a Power Point user Google Slides was pretty easy to use.  We used it for our presentation for this class and found it very user friendly.. Where as Prezi was a little more difficult to use.  I also enjoyed creating avitatrs with my students.

Use of Technology for Learning Dimension Webinar

Before this webinar I had never really thought about grading my students learning on a laptop or  having them "grade" or "gage" their learning while working on a laptop.  If students become more aware of their laptops and the skills they need to use them they will become more proficient with the use of them.

Google Forms and Sheets

While this  webinar was informative I found it time consuming.  At this point in my "learning" curve of 21st Century learning this will be the piece of information that I have to dive into with more detail when I have time to really create a survey, assessment or informational piece.

Assessment in the 21st Century Classroom

This webinar was really helped my assess my assessments.  I really liked the comic strip that had the different animals and said ok now as our assessment you are all going to climb that tree.  That really helped my evaluate my assessments. I have such a diverse class, with Tier II and Tier III kiddos.  How they learn and process is very different for a Tier I student. While l alsways thought I was assessing differently but in reality they were getting the same assessments.

Google Search

This was by far my favorite webinar! As an avid Google user, I don't like it when my daughters are told not to use Google.  I have shared many of tips and ins and outs of this webinar with them. Even having my HS daughter watch the webinar. The world of Google is much more than what people think.

LiveBinders

This webinar was very informative. I had heard about LiveBinders from other people but had never used it. I was overwhelmed  in a good way with this webinar.  I have shared it with my team. We have used information from it for some Science units as well as Social Studies.

Artifact #3 Self-Regulation Dimension Webinar

After watching the Real-World Problem-Solving and Innovation Dimension Webinar I had the students construct an area model of a house. They were to use the dimensions I gave them to construct two different rooms equaling an AREA of  88 sq. units.  Students were then asked to construct a room with the product of 88 using different numbers.  Students were Self Regulating while working on this task. They were asked to break down a task and make it into a different problem. Students were monitoring their work through out this process.

Artifact #2 and Webinar of Knowledge Construction

As our AREA unit continued we created AREA and Perimeter name tags.  The students created their context using Knowledge Construction. They were constructing knowledge of AREA and transferring into a linguistic piece. This webinar help to guide my reading and writing with in lessons.  That they should be intertwined. Applying knowledge from one content area into the other is what makes for an interdisciplinary activity.

Reflection artifact 1 and Collaboration Dimension Webinar

Reflection and Artifact 1
As I reflect on this class and my Webinars, I realize that while I had my students collaborate before I have taken that collaboration to another level. Their communication and level of understanding what their partner is asking has increased, They make decisions together and use each other or their group or partner more as a team now. This is just one picture of my students working in a partnership being quite collaborative.

Reflection on Learning Team

My Learning team consisted of Tracey Tresely  who teaches at Palmer ES r and Chris Coleman who teaches at Anderson ES. Since we were all working on AREA at the same we decided to do our project on AREA.  Tracy and Chris's schools math programs are currently Engaged New York while my school is doing Georgia Math. Since I had an AREA lesson with me we decided to have our project be on that lesson. It is called OOPS, I'm Decomposing, the content standards that it is aligned to is 3.MD.7 -Relate AREA to the operation of multiplication and addition using the distributive property.

As a team we decided to focus our learning content on Collaboration and Knowledge of Construction. During  the implementation of this I saw my students making decisions together, using newly acquired academic language (area, multiplication, array), as well as planning their outcomes.
The lesson started off with students getting a cm paper, they had to create an area of 11x8, they were then asked to make the AREA a different way using different numbers to create the total of 88. This is where the Knowledge of Construction came into play, students were required to construct a new problem with in the problem they already had.   I was really impressed with their knowledge, determination and collaboration on how to accomplish this task. Of course there were the groups that struggled with the math but they were definitely collaborating.

I enjoyed collaborating with Tracey and Chris, It made the evaluation process easier as we could look at each others students work with a different perspective.

My Journey Continues

As I reflect on the last 9 weeks I find that as a learner I am a visual learner.  While I enjoyed the webinars I found that listening and watching on a computer or laptop was not an effective way for me to learn.  I like sitting in class taking notes and watching the persons who is teaching . I like the feel of pen to paper while note taking, highlighting information and being able to talk through concepts helps me process information better.  I am that collaborative learner that needs a face-face setting in order to process information.
As far as insights on my students learning during the implementation of 21st century learning I feel that as an entire class we became more competent with the different levels.  The ones  that I really focused on were Collaboration, Use of Technology and Knowledge Construction.  The Collaboration pillar was probably the easiest to achieve because I already use it daily. However, I found that when I pushed my students to higher level of collaboration and made them all more accountable their work became more interdependent.  They really enjoyed seeing and hearing the growths from each other.  Even my "strugglers" found their voices. After watching the webinar on Technology I realized that while I used technology in my classroom is was limited.  My students are currently working on a Google Slides Extreme Weather presentation.
As I stated before I am a visual learner, while watching the webinars was informative I like being in a classroom, with that being said, I have gained a much more appreciation for YouTube and Google and all the learning that they give you at your fingertips.  I have realized that I need to "up" my technology game as it pertains to the 21st Century Learning Competencies

Collaboration

As I reflect on my classroom and my teaching what I thought was good classroom collaboration was just so-so student collaboration.  Just having students "talk to their" partner is not what effective collaboration is.  Is is pushing your students to a level of shared responsibility, having reasons to collaborate, and goal oriented.  I found that most of my students communication while question oriented they weren't goal oriented.  As a teacher I need to help them find their purpose in collaborating.  This is a goal that I am going to make for my classroom.