Semester+5+Portfolio+2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

In the morning, we had a meeting with Julia. Among other things, the main point of discussion for me was regarding our field study to the final semester. Through this discussion, Melissa suggested a possible option for my problem with changed timetable. Now that I have a Skill Building block with my grade 8 students, she suggested I set up a Wiki that has a compilation of online tools to help students practice skills they struggle with. In Skill Building, if a student is done their homework, he/she can go to a computer and practice, for example, math skills. Ryan has offered to teach a group of us about the value of using Twitter. I am currently wearing my "Nobody cares about your status updates" tshirt. I obviously need to be convinced to be converted. I was thinking about using Twitter for my Senior Boys Basketball team to Tweet them with reminders about practice/game times, bringing paperwork, communicating with players. Ryan also reminded about the valuable gettingtrickywithwikis.wikispaces.com for customizing my Wiki sites. Brian has offered to teach us more about using Photoshop. Discussed ideas for the Issue Paper around the subject of Gender and Technology.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010 Jaimie Ashton, Education Consultant, Smartboard Technologies JAshton@smarttech.com

Twitter: j_ashton Delicious: j_ashton Diigo: j_ashton

Even though we have had numerous encounters with Smartboard, and I continue to be concerned about the time it takes to set up the Smartboard, I again was introduced to some new resources and ideas for using the Smartboard. My favourite part of the presentation was the use of the Smart Response Controllers. I think it is a great, albeit expensive, way to get students completely engaged, learning, and allowing the teachers to do assessment for/of learning. I also really liked the idea of teaching balancing chemical equations for Science 9. While I don't teach it anymore, I remember the difficulties in teaching students the concept even if I know how to do it. To make it visual makes it way easier to balance the number of atoms on each side of the equation. I have already emailed Science teachers to make them aware of this resource. Jaimie also introduced other resources outside of Smartboard. Hopefully, my confidence in the possibilities of Smartboard will continue to grow.

Jaimie Ashton continued with a presentation about design of Smartboard/PPT lessons. Topics that were discussed: Consult:
 * Be Consistent: ie. highlighting words (use bold/avoid italics)
 * Font Type: Comic Sans (think about what the 'a' looks like), avoid Serifs/use Sans Serif
 * Font Colour Contrast: black/white, yellow/blue
 * Font Size: Minimum size 24, recommended size 36.
 * Copyright Infringement: Her suggestion was to have students write a letter to a website domain host to ask permission to use a graphic for educational purposes in a project. If a student does this once in a year, they understand how to avoid copyright infringement.
 * Images should have a purpose.
 * White Spaces
 * Include instructions/directions on pages if you decide to share presentations with other teachers.
 * Smart Exchange
 * Smart Training
 * Smart YouTube
 * Smartboard lessons at http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=190

Voicethread.com media type="custom" key="6741963" I see voicethread as a valuable tool for inferencing an image. In Science 8, one of the skills that we learn is the difference between observation and inference. In Social Studies, we spend a lot of time analysing primary documents like historical photos. I could also use voicethread as a means to discussing current events. I want to experiment more with the doodling function of voicethread.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 Issue Paper Voicethread by Marcia, Simran, Simon, Matt, and Mike [] Gender and Technology

Thursday, August 19, 2010 Apple presentation by John Maschak I was totally lost during this presentation. I'm not a Mac user so I struggle right from the start. On top of that, he was going way too fast and kept going off on a tangent. Hence, me being lost. He was entertaining, but I need more time to play with the tools he is showing.

He introduced [] as a URL shortener. He also introduced Dropbook as a way to upload files to the internet and be able to access them on any computer. I think I can also share files with my students by emailing them a URL to download from.

In the afternoon, I led a workshop on 'How to Embed Youtube Videos into PPT.' I first demonstrated how to embed into a PPT if you know you will have reliable internet access when you present the PPT. Then, I showed two ways to embed a video with the knowledge that internet access is not reliable in your classroom. My demonstration were for Powerpoint 2003 which we have on our school computers and I have on my laptop computer. Lisa was prepared to show how to embed in Powerpoint 2007 or later. We were not able to show Mac users how to embed as I am unfamiliar with Macs. I also demonstrated how to use Zamzar. We all collaborated to test other Youtube conversion websites.

Marlowe shared [] and we tested it and it worked quit well. Sarah shared this video that I converted using [] : media type="youtube" key="_xMz2SnSWS4?fs=1" height="385" width="640"

Through the presentation, I mentioned something about Science videos on my computer that I had converted from Youtube. Kristy, also a Science teacher, approached me after the workshopp and asked to see what I had in My Videos. I was able to share resources and help a fellow colleague and discuss how we teach Science just as Kristy has help out everyone in the class throughout this program.

Friday, August 20, 2010 Front Row by Ed Baillie Sound system that I have seen used in the classroom for hearing impaired students in our classes.

What a student might hear in class... "Michaelangelo painted the sixteenth chapel." I thought this was funny.

51.1% of grad 6 students hear 95% of what the teacher say. Why? Monday, August 23, 2010 =Web 2.0 Tools= Marlowe introduce Museum Box as a tool that could be used for Social Studies as well as other subjects. I can see myself using it to teach Native Groups in Canada where each side of the Museum Box showcases artifacts that demonstrate evidence of the way of life of a Native person in a certain cultural group. I also think it could be a valuable tool for presenting the Geographic Regions of Canada. Marcia found and shared Tagul, basically an improved Wordle, that allows you to tag (or link) words in your word clouds. media type="custom" key="6758513" media type="custom" key="6758593"
 * poor classroom acoustics
 * inexperienced listeners
 * difficult content - first time exposure, ESL, learning disabilities

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 Photosynth.net Used for stitching photos together.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010 [] Online presentation format that is similar to Keynote.

Creaza for creating mind maps, movies, cartoons, and audio

Edheads

Field Study Question How will I notice changes in student engagement for acquiring basic skills in academic courses using computer applications? How will I notice a change in the skill acquisition of students using online programs (resources)?