Final Reflection…Am I tech savvy?

I started my technology course by blogging that I “couldn’t wait to expand my learning of technology”. What I did not know was that it would be so much more than that. I expanded learning of technology within the classroom and for myself. I also expanded my knowledge of how learners learn, including myself! Through all this learning I had fun!

Being able to be the learner myself I saw how powerful the explore, create, and share approach was to learning. The exploring part was the easy part. As a learner and reflecting on learners I have in my own classroom reading and studying about a topic is easy. Applying what you learned by creating something is the frustrating part. Through that frustration with support from my instructors is where my learning took place. When I had those huge learning moments I wanted to share it with everyone! The experience I went through is what I want my students to experience. I want to set up my practices so that they can reflect this explore, create, and share model.

As well as the best practices that I learned for my classroom I also learned how to use technology for my personal use. I learned how to create a blog for the first time. I have been and will continue to use a program called Evernote as a way to help with time management. Additionally I learned how to post a YouTube video for the first time!

What I as a teacher will still need to explore is how to pull all of the elements I have learned into my own first grade classroom. How can I apply what I learned and create an environment for students to create? A lot of the resources I learned to use are very suiting for older grades. Being a lower elementary teacher means I have to think about how I can apply my skills to this grade level. I hope to find a community of teachers like myself who want to continue to grow and learn for their students and themselves!

This was one of the most fun graduate classes I have taken and I hope that it is something that students of my own classroom will say.

TPACK.

This week I got to explore TPACK. The TPACK Model represents the integration of Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. The key word there is integration! I learned that these three words can not not be seen as separate but as one like the photo shows.

My favorite quote from exploring Dr. Mishra’s learning conference was “You may know how to use technology it doesn’t mean you can teach it.” As a teacher who wishes regularly that I had technology in my classroom this stood out because just because you know how or even have it doesn’t mean you can teach it. Its our job as teachers to be innovative with the tools we use and how we use them (paper and pencil is a tool by the way).

To help create this experience I was asked to complete an assignment where a friend grabs a plate, bowl, and utensil from the kitchen with no direction. From there they picked a random task out of a hat for me to create. Below I want to share with you my experience creating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using three different utensils.

As you can see the tools I was given made my task easy to complete. I wasn’t ever challenged. I immediately thought about my own classroom and how providing students with tools that make the task easy do not create a total learning experience. For example if you want a student to answer multiple choice questions and give them an iPad to use they can just look up the answers without any thought or application.

Effective teaching takes more then just the technology piece. It requires the all the components of the TPACK model. What this class has done and what I want to create in my own classroom is a community of learners! A community where learners get to explore topics, create a representation of their learning using different forms of technology as well as share their learning within their community.

“Yes I Can Cook!” Thoughts from a non-cook on her final blog post.

  If you have been following my previous blog posts you will have learned that I can not cook or use technology (I promise there are some things I can do). So naturally when my class wanted me to use technology to learn something new, cooking was the first thing on my list. Using only YouTube and Help Forums I discovered that the Internet is a huge resource. My goal was to learn how to cook chicken stir-fry on the grill. After much research and many videos later I altered my goal a little a decided that I would find a wok and learn to cook chicken stir fry in it. My next step was to learn what goes into this “wok”. I discovered Jamie Oliver’s website and decided that it was the best option for me as a learner.

  As a visual learner who had to look up how to boil water I created a list of “do’s” when learning to cook chicken stir-fry in a wok.

1. Do come up with a goal ahead of time. I spent most of my time researching all the different types of stir-fry recipes. I should have just shouted to my significant other “Honey what do you like in your stir-fry?”
2. Do find a website that has multiple resources. Jamie’s Home Cooking skills provided “how-to” videos, skill videos, step-by-step picture directions, recipes, fact sheets, and more. When the recipe asked me to dice garlic I was able to search the website and find a step-by-step picture directions on how to do that.
3. Do prepare all your ingredients ahead of time. You know when you see your mom, grandma and aunts in the chicken on  Christmas Day hours before the food is ready? They are prepping all the ingredients and yes this takes longer than actually cooking.
4. Do open the window while cooking and do not be surprised if neighbors or friends smell it and wander over to see whats “going on” (yes this happened to me).
5. Do have fun and be flexible! Cooking is not easy but it sure taste good when your done (most of the time).

If you were wondering…….yes I made that!

  Being both a student and a teacher I was able to view this learning experience from the perspective of the learner. This new perspective is where I really reflected the most. Being that the Internet is such a large resource I found frustration in not knowing what to look for or how to look for it. This taught me how important this will be when having students use technology in my own classroom. Knowing the most effective way to search the Internet would have saved time and allowed me to put my energy into the task at hand. The same applies for any student at any age!

  While having so many resources was frustrating at times, having a choice was also powerful in my learning. The ability to use a website that was most helpful to the type of learner that I was allowed me to have a higher level of comprehension. Choice within guidance is something that I now see as a must in my own classroom. It gives students the ability to discover, create, and adapt for themselves.

  Overall I was frustrated most of the time these past few weeks. However, seeing my end result and now knowing the skills I have acquired and can use for other recipes left me feeling kind of proud of myself. Isn’t that what we want for our students, children, and friends?

  I definitely have a new view of the Internet and its use as a resource in my own home and the classroom. Maybe I’ll even become a world famous cook or better yet maybe one of my future students. If you are interested in learning how I grew in my cooking abilities or even if you want to see how to make chicken stir-fry then watch my video below!

This Teachers Take on Using Technology in Spelling!

This week I spent most of my nights frustrated trying to figure out how to use many of the resources from the article Top 100 Tools for Learning 2014. I was thinking if I can not figure out how to use these tools then how can I expect my first graders to use them? I decided to approach integrating technology into my classroom in a different light. Renee Hobbs author of Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom discusses five core behaviors to analyze when using technology to aid in instruction. These five behaviors that influenced my lesson planning were access, analyze, create, reflect, and act.

I choose to create a five day sequence of spelling lessons under the Words Their Way program. It was my goal to give students access to resources that would give them questions, allow them to create, collaborate, reflect, and be held accountable for completing and contributing to class projects.

I often teach in many subjects that students need to “stop and think” while they are learning to help them better comprehend text. While I was playing around with some new resources I came across EdPuzzle. This website allowed me to help students practice this strategy. The website allows you to pull youtube videos, edit them, add audio, and quizzes to the videos to make them your own! Day one of the spelling lesson has students learning about the first three “h” brothers. I then found a great video on youtube and used EdPuzzle to add three quizzes throughout the video. The quizzes I set up were more of a chance for students to have access to be challenged to stop and think about what they were learning.

I also wanted a place where students could go, at school or online and create work together. Padlet is the perfect resource for collaboration! Here whenever students make a discovery of one of their words in a book they can share it with the class. I also found GoogleDocs to be a great resource where students can be held accountable for completing a graphic organizer with their group. Using Google Docs for groups makes them act on the task they are being asked to complete.

If you are a teacher using the Words Their Way spelling program then you know how you are always looking for new ways to get students to apply the rules, sorts, and patterns learned about words. These three technology resources were just a couple great ideas you might want to use in your classroom. There are still many more that can be done and if you have any I would love to hear about them in the comment section! If you are interested in my five day lesson plan for Words Their Way click here.

The Absolute Non Cookers Guide to Chicken Stir Fry Update: Week 2

As I continued my research this week so many questions started to arise. I thought all chicken stir fry’s were the same. They are not. As I researched I had to make decisions on which recipe I was interested in cooking. Did I want a healthy recipe that is under 400 calories? Did I want the rice recipe or noodles? Did I like all the ingredients that the recipe included? Do I have the right grill tools? These are not the only questions I asked myself, but you get the picture. When I started I thought it would be easy to choose a recipe. I didn’t think there would be so many to choose from! Finally I found this awesome website called Seriouseats that gave me options while also providing step-by-step directions and a comment section where I got some great tips from others who have tried it.

  Then I came across two problems; rain and the wok. All the rain this week not only ruined my students picnic, field day and outdoor recesses, but also my ability to practice using a grilling. This means that I need to learn how to cook inside when the grill isn’t available. The Food Lab website provided the option of cooking inside but it requires a wok or cast iron pan, neither which I have. If you have a wok then this website is perfect for you! For me it was back to the internet to see what I could find.

  Next, I googled “can you make chicken stir fry without a wok?” which brought me to Jamie’s Home Cooking Skills. Not only does it give you recipes but also it provides you different skills you may need in the kitchen. Perfect for someone who has not cooked before. Jamie’s website provided a pdf of Stir Frying tips.

  Here I was reassured that using a pan would be okay. This PDF also provided me with information of things I needed to do and things to make sure I won’t do. By now my head was spinning. For someone who doesn’t cook this was a lot of information. I needed a starting point. Rice. My mother once told me I wasn’t boiling the right amount of water. So learning how to prepare my stir-fry was a good first step.

Before:

Website Directions

Bag Directions

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After:

 

For those of you who might be thinking boil rice, really just remember this is a blog teaching the absolute non-cooker to make something that has multiple steps! I don’t know if people know this but there are also different ways to cook rice. Jamie’s recipe says to boil the water first before adding the rice and the rice bag says to add it all into the pan before bring to a boil. I went with the cooking directions on the back of the bag and the rice turned out yummy! I included a quick video of the process of cooking rice.

Now that the rice is cooked I have to leave it in the fridge for two hours. So during that time I’m off to the store to pick up all the ingredients (probably double the amount just in case). If you’re interested in seeing my journey as I move to the next step in my stir fry check back next week for an additional blog. Until then enjoy your rice!

Life’s Many To Do Lists. What do you do with your To Do’s?

After listening to David Allen the author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity speak I learned that I needed to take some additional steps to complete my “To Do” list more effectively. The first step was to choose a tool to explore that could help me take everything out of my head and put it in a place that I could access it at least once a week. The tool I chose to use was Evernote. Next, I listed everything I needed to accomplish and began to see if each one was actionable. When I played around with the tool the first thing I discovered was a feature that allows you to put check boxes next to each item so you can check it off when your done. I love this feature since I am someone who likes to visually see the things I have accomplished (makes me feel better about myself). The more I explored the tool I found many other things it helps you do! Accessibility is huge for me so the fact that I could open my list on any device was great! I added it to my computer, iPad, and iPhone. You can also take pictures to add to your list or even share websites or resources you find online and it was very easy. The only downfall is I was unable to figure out how to set different deadlines for different tasks. The tool always you to set a date for your note and will even notify you by email or notification when you like. It also offers to link itself to your calendar such as Google Calendars. My problem is I have different dates for different items in my week and would like to set up those dates without creating a separate note for each one. I am hoping to continue to explore this further and accomplish a whole lot more, like learning to cook other things too. Overall, I would give this tool a go. Every tool is right for the right person and it could be right for you! If your interested here are some of the videos I watched to help me learn how to use some of the features.

RSS. Have you heard of it?

Being the opposite of what you would call a technically savy person, I had never heard of an RSS. I do however check my twitter everyday and find my mind going all over the place looking at over +100 tweets on so many different things. Some days I go on the internet to read about personal interest like fitness and fashion. Other days I am searching for new ideas for my classroom. RSS is really allowing me to organize my thoughts for whatever mood I am in that day.

Feedly is the RSS I went with and I am having fun exploring it! If you are looking for a place where you can get updates in one place! I am no expert at any of this yet but this non techy girl is learning a thing or two.

PLN: My Professional Learning Network

As teachers we are always looking for the next best thing. Some of us go to trainings, turn to teachers in our building or simply google search it. I personally find my self researching by doing multiple things at the same time! Using a great classroom resource called Popplet (below) I  was able to share a brainstorming map of the places I go to gain knowledge in teaching and life.

If you are interested check out Popplet as a resource to use in your own classroom. As a first grade teacher I got the idea to use this website as a brainstorming map of writing ideas or skills for Writer’s Workshop. It would be interactive for the students and in the end you could print it off and provide a copy for every student.

I look forward to adding CEP 810 classmates to my PLN as well as the many ideas each wonderful teacher has to share!

CEP 810: Networked Learning Project Post #1

This semester I am being asked to think of something I want to learn to do and only using youtube and help forums to learn it. I thought long and hard about this and came up short. So I asked my significant other who has known me for five years what I have wanted to learn to do? His response “You’ve always wanted to learn to cook”, meaning he has always wanted to learn to cook. So at his request and as well as my own I am barking on the adventure of learning to cook chicken stir fry on the grill. I choose the grill because I have no idea how to even turn it on and I would love to learn but just turning on a grill seemed to easy for this project (maybe).

To begin my search I naturally google “how to cook chicken stir fry on the grill”. The amount of video options were huge so my next step was searching around a little to find which one fit my learning style the most. As I searched I came across a video titled “How To Use a Gas Grill (Part of our How to Grill Like a Girl Series)” this titled drew me in! You can watch the video here! Her first steps are to put your cutest apron on and some lipstick. I can definitely do that! After watching the video I felt so much more confident about learning to cook chicken stir fry on the grill, well until I have to actually turn on the grill. Let’s all hope for no fires or burnt eyebrows but a tasty meal as seen below.

My goal is to watch multiple videos and identify the patterns in each so I can become an expert at cooking it and not just someone who reads the recipe. After accomplishing my objective I hope to also be able to apply the skills I learn to cooking other things since I cook NOTHING except nachos.

What is learning? To me or to you?

This week in CEP 810, I was asked to write an essay on my reflections from the text How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. As I read this text I reflected a lot on my own teaching, classroom, and current learning. I decided to approach the essay by sharing with others my reflection as I read the three chapters. I thought about what I was already doing in my classroom such as focusing more on usable knowledge, looking at pre-existing knowledge, and active learning. I then realized that not only do teachers need to work on pushing their students from novices to experts but teachers do as well. In this course i need to be a more effective learner and teacher in technology.

Click here if you would like to learn more about how I connected the ideas from the text to my own practices.