Reflection

My view on using multimedia has changed quite a bit throughout my 8 weeks in edu 642. It all started when we simply learned what multimedia actually is.  I always had this idea that multimedia had to do with only technology but really its multiple way of interacting with things.

I really liked learning about using multimedia for an assessment too.   I have little to know projects that involve the students using multimedia to exemplify mastery learning. I feel like building these projects is something that I am not very good at and could improve upon. I would love to have more classroom participation when it comes to completing group projects and incorporating more multimedia may be a good way to do that. That is one of my goals for 2016, to have more multimedia projects.

One of my least favorite things to learn about in the class was the copyright, although I did like using padlet, I hate learning about copyright. I know copyright is important, and it's important for me to understand so that I can teach my students about it, I still think it's boring.

Two things that I really liked was learning how to make Gif's and using PIXLR. These are both thing that I have used regularly since we did them for this class. I didn't care much for making the info gram though.

Then we ended with Storify. I think storify is best app that I have learned about in the last 2 years. I would rank storify as almost as good as kahoot, and that's saying a lot because I really like kahoot. It was so simple to use and you can add some many different types of information very easily.

Teaching my students has changed throughout this course because over %50 of what I have learned in the class I was able to implement right away. I was also able to design lessons that I could use in my classroom and count for a grade in this class as well. I think that was the best part, learning about things that I could actually put to use.

Rubric

This is a rubric that I created using word. Some of the ideas for categories came from a rubric builder. I like using word because in my technology class students can self-grade by dragging the circles to where they think they scored. This will be for a about me presentation they do using google slides in 7th grade.

§  I used this assessment (plickers) in my classroom on Friday! It was really cool and it worked well. I think the students preferred it over just having time to study for the test. I asked them at the end of the class what they would have rather done, Plickers or Kahoot. All of them said Kahoot. I could see myselft using plickers again in the future for a quick assessment like warm-up or exit ticket.  

§  Learning objective for project (rubric)- Students will create an original presentation to demonstrate skills learned in computers and present them to the class.

o    In my 7th grade technology class it is %100 project based and graded with rubrics.

o    My thinking about technology use this week really has not changed a lot this week because I have used a lot of the things that were mentioned in the post.

o     My thinking really has not changed about technology use either, but I do think that plickers is pretty amazing how it works

o    I enjoyed learning about plickers, I did not enjoy the assessment rubric and video portion. Rubric and videos are things that I have always used.

o    I was able to grow by learning about the plickers app. 

ISTE Standards•S
5. Digital Citizenship
B. Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning and productivity.
6. Technology Operations and Concepts
D. Transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies

Video & Questions

Geospatial revolution video 1                                                             Name:__________________

What is a GPS?

How many satellites do you need to find your location?

How do we rely on satellites for?

What types of things can Google maps on your mobile device do?

Why are maps important?

After watching the video how do we use satellites in our everyday lives ?

Video Citation 
Ayanian, S., & Stanford, C. (Producer). Keiter, T., & Doebler, M. (Actor). (2010). Geospatial revolution [Online video]. United States: Penn State Public Broadcasting. Retrieved from http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode2/chapter1

Plickers

Concept/Mindmapping

Rather than writing a post about how I might incorporate this technology into my classroom I created an actual assignment using this technology that I will have my students do next week. You can check out my assignment and webpage at http://computersaregreat.weebly.com/quest-1-fire-rescue.html  I also included a video along with this. Bubbl.us would not let me attache links or videos without having a premium purchased account.

Bubbl.us Mind map

My idea for a lesson is to have a QR code scavenger hunt around the school. Students will have a sheet of paper that has boxes on it with clues under each box to where you would find the QR code in the school; office, gym, media center, etc... They would then have to go through the school and find the QR codes that I had hung up. After they found the QR code they would scan in with their phone and it would take them to a resource. They would have to read the question below the QR code and answer the question using the resource given. They would then record the answer on their paper. The first one to complete the exercise would get a prize.

                Another idea I had was when we talk about animal taxonomy I usually get out a bunch of samples of different animals that belong to different categories. I could label each specimen with a QR code that takes them to a website that has more information about that specimen.  

 This could be a fun adventurous exercise for any class or any topic. This could even be used as a review game. The learning objectives that apply here would be based on what topic you chose for the QR codes to take you to. The factors that could influence the success of this are the cell phone use policies. I teach in two different schools, the middle school and the high school. At the high school we have a more relaxed cell phone policy and at the middle school they are not allowed to have their phones in class at all. In order to do this activity the students would have to be allowed to use their phones. Another issue is that students need to have a barcode scanner for this to be able to work. If they do not have the app then they would need to download it and most app stores do not work on the schools wifi. So I would have to find a way around that as well.

My thinking has changed this week because I think this augmented reality stuff is really cool. Awhile ago a colleague showed me a cool way to use augmented reality and it is called sand box. It is pretty cool some of the stuff you can do with it. Here is a link to the video about sand box

I have attached a couple QR codes to the websites that I use for my classes.  

I am using this video as an extension of an assignment that my students already do. In my technology class I have the students create a digital portfolio using weebly of all of the assignments that they do throughout the trimester. They have to include the 3 presentations that we did in class as well. I used to have the students screenshot each individual slide and then put each image into a slideshow on their website so it could be accessible online. That became extremely tedious. Last week I learned (with one of my students) that you can embed Google drive documents and prezi's into weebly by creating imbed codes with them. It is a little difficult to explain to each student so I decided that I would use what learned in week 4 and I would make 2 short videos to help them along the way. I can't think of any instructional outcomes that I can tie in to this. I feel like the creativity comes from the students creating the presentations throughout the year.  The factors that influence the success of this is the microphone. A good microphone is critical for making a screen cast. I have wasted a lot of time creating screen casts for my class that did not work out due to poor quality audio. Just recently I bought a USB microphone by Logitech and tried it out for my first time this week, it works really good. My thinking has changed this week because I chose to learn a new program for week four.  About a year ago a colleague gave me a program that they won at a conference called snag it. They were never going to use it so they gave it to me. I have been putting off learning how to use it because I have been using screencastomatic for a couple years. The new program worked very well, the quality of the video is good and editing was a breeze. 

Here is a link to my videos, I made two of them for my technology class. I hosted them on my own website so I cannot embed them here. http://computersaregreat.weebly.com/digital-portfolio.html 

My Idea for this lesson is going to be to teach my students how to edit an image using pixlr.com. I teach a technology class and I think the kids would really enjoy doing this activity. This will be going along with talking about copyright because they can search for the image on pics for learning. At the end of the lesson the students should be able to apply the skills learned by creating an original work from an image with the appropriate licensing. I will have them post the images they have created to their weebly websites that we create as a digital portfolio. A consideration that could be made is that some of my students do not have the tactile ability to operate a mouse with enough coordination to use some of the tools in PIXLR.com, I would have to find an alternative program or assignment for them. I could play a part in the lesson by modeling for them how to do it by creating my own image for them

                The readings from this week align to my lesson because we are modifying a picture and much of the reading was about the ethics related to modified images. I could also teach about the ethics of modify an image but I felt like the ethics related more to modeling. I didn't really apply much from the readings to my lesson because I could not think of a way to do it.

                My thinking really did not change this week about technology use or the ethics of images. I felt like the ethics of modifying an image does not really relate to education as much. The strengths of this week for me was learning how to make a gif. I use gif's all of the time in my class. I usually have one  on the board everyday embedded in the PowerPoint with their daily schedule, this way the students look up at the board to see what their supposed to be doing. It is also a fun way to start the day and I usually have a little mini lesson of something that can be learned from the gif that day, which is usually not related to the class or current topic. Now that I can make my own I can find more creative ways to relate them to the days content. I did not enjoy learning about access or ethics because I felt like they did not really relate as much for me.  

Global Warming
Create your own infographics

Video from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX3Y5bzNDiU

Photo from: http://jcantelo.deviantart.com/art/Cloud-Background-283925811 

Padlet lesson and reflection

I think it would be fun to use Padlet as a way to teach my weather unit. I could have each student create a padlet on a weather topic of their choice but let only one person do each topic. Some of the topics would be Pressure, Temperature,  Layers of the atmosphere, Fronts, Global winds etc... Then we could post the padlets to the class website and review each other's work. I will design a rubric that sets outcomes and expectations for the things that need to be covered for each aspect of the assignment. Students will use technology to create a multimodal representation of a weather topic of their choice.

The readings from week 1 align with the activities that we did this week because it gave me a tool that I could use to have my students create multimedia online for an assignment to learn about it as well as an assessment. The principals that I feel applied when I created my padlet was that a lot of the things I found myself adding to the padlet were media rich digital resources.  The principles I intentionally used was that I wanted to use multi media as an assessment because I usually only used it as a teaching strategy and students usually don't have an opportunity to demonstrate what they've learned the same way we're learning about it. This is one way that my thinking has changed. It seems like such  a simple concept to allow students to use multimedia as a way of showing mastery for an outcome but I had never really thought about it before. Sure I have done projects but I didn't really think of it as an assessment.  I feel like the struggle now is going to be to design projects that assess using multimedia. The information that stood out in my mind is the lack of knowledge that a lot of students have about copyright I had some conversations with a few students to see if they've learned about it in any of their classes.  I do not think that it is part of any curriculum in any of our classes. I enjoyed learning about multimedia last week more than I enjoyed about copyright this week.  Copyright seems dull and boring to me, but I did like the guys analogy in the video comparing copyright to speeding. I used that when my class was in the computer lab the other day and we were talking about what plagiarism is.

Created with Padlet

Week 1 Blog

Right now I use a lot of multimedia in the classroom. I use PowerPoint and Prezi Daily for typical notes. We also watch a lot of YouTube and school tube videos. That are integrated into all of my presentations. I draw models and diagrams on the board and explain them as we go. Students will take pictures of what I have written on the board, which I think is helpful. I also use music in my classroom that connects to the content for example. When we are learning about weather, specifically air pressure and density, I play the song "under pressure" while the students are coming in, they will not get the connection until we start talking about our content that day.  I also share raps and other songs that teachers have made about things like the water cycle to help them remember. I have built several web quests that include models for the kids to look at as they go through their work. I try to do 1 demonstration related to our content each day and if I cannot find one I will try to find one just for fun.

I feel like I aligned well with the theories for teaching while using multimedia because of all of the multimedia that I discussed in the previous paragraph, I did learn some helpful tips about how to get more out of your presentations though.

I feel like I depart from the theories and principals in the reading when it comes to using multimedia projects. I have little to know projects that involve the students using multimedia to exemplify mastery learning. I feel like building these projects is something that I am not very good at and could improve upon. I would love to have more classroom participation when it comes to completing group projects and incorporating more multimedia may be a good way to do that.

As soon as I read the first article about the air pump and diagrams it reminded me that I want to try and find an interactive module that could demonstrate gas properties and let the students manipulate it. I was able to find one right away to use in class the following day. We were in the computer lab and I actually had to tell some students to stop messing with the interactive model and get back to work, they were very engaged. I also liked the fact that Multimedia projects give students a reason to do their work. Often I feel like the kids are not motivated to do the work and having some more multimedia projects may help. 

Hello Everyone, my name is Ken Schafer. I am a High School Science teacher at Mt. Pleasant Public Schools. I currently teach Computers and Technology, Earth Science, Biology and Physics. I completed my undergraduate degree from CMU and after my 4th year of teaching I have decided to get my masters in Educational Technology. I am looking forward to learning new things and collaborating with others. I enjoy anything outdoors including hunting, fishing, and camping. Thank you for reading!