Thing #11.5: Evaluation

I'm DONE! I gave myself a deadline of July 1st to complete this, and I'm surprised that I finished ahead of my personal schedule!

Reflecting on this experience:

1) What was my favorite discovery?

I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED screencasting. I will definitely use this in my classroom (with a mic, I promise!) to show students how to navigate certain things that we do on the computer. I will also be using it to have my students this year make screencasts to share with my students the following year, as I'm a big believer in having peer to peer tutoring in place when needed.

2) How has this program assisted my lifelong learning goals?

Library2Play2 has forced me to learn new things, regardless of how many years I've been out of college. It has shown me that you can't give up if something doesn't go the way you think it will and to always try again and/or look/ask for assistance when you need it. Also, you guys got me back into my family blogging, which I had put on the back burner for months, so I appreciate that! :)

3) Were there any takeaways or surprises from this adventure?

I was surprised that I disliked Second Life so much. I thought I would have enjoyed it, but in the end, it turned out to be my least favorite thing. My takeaway is that I need to challenge myself to use more technology in my classroom. Maybe I'm hindering my students because of my own fears of technology, so I need to get into the trenches and learn how to use things with them instead of just limiting the technology use to what I feel comfortable with.

4) What could L2P2 do differently?

Not much- maybe just check that some of the links on the things are actually linking to what was originally intended. Some of the links to particular blog posts were to the blog but not to the specific post, and seeing as this program was set up last year, most of those bloggers have blogged a whole year's worth of stuff, making it hard to find the intended post to read. Also, the majority of the things can be used with ELL students, but I think any extra goodies you guys could find that directly benefit ELL students would be super appreciated by all teachers.

Thanks for everything, L2P2!

Now, I'm off to read textbooks, manuals, and lesson plans as I delve into a new year of teaching a new subject at a new school!

Thing #11: Digital Citizenship

I like this image from Cool Cat Teacher. I looked at her blog, Digiteen Digital Citizenship, ISTE NETS-S, and ISTE NETS-T.

Here are my 5 topics that I would make sure I covered with my students in regards to digital citizenship:

1) Safety and Security: My middle school students need to be aware of the dangers on the internet, whether it is online predators or malicious software that can destroy their computers. I would discuss not giving out personal information, trying to talk only with people they know, and not downloading files from people they don't know. (Maybe discuss things to watch for in e-mails- don't open them if you don't know who they're from.)

2) Etiquette: Students need to realize that the same golden rule that we use in the classroom should be applied to the internet. I cannot tell you how many times fights and arguments have erupted in the halls, classrooms, or lunch room this past year because of what so and so said about so and so on MySpace. If you have nothing nice to say, it's probably best to not say anything at all.

3) Validity of websites: I go over this every time my students do a research project. I model how I check the validity of a website and use rubrics/checklists to see if this is a site that is really worth my while when I research.

4) Give credit where it is due: I think it is important for students to understand that plagiarism can spill over onto the internet. You can't take something and pass it off as your own work. The internet is a great place to share ideas and findings, but you always need to let others know where you got your information from.

5) If you put yourself out there, be prepared for criticism: Sometimes, our students think that they live in a little protected bubble. As much as we as teachers and parents don't want to see our children harmed, we have to realize that we can't protect them from critics. If they are going to be blogging on a public level or posting their work on YouTube, anyone in the world will be able to read what they have written or view their video, and some people may have some not so nice things to say. Students need to understand this and know that just because there are a few nay-sayers in the bunch doesn't mean they should give up on their dreams.

Thing #10: Virtual Worlds

Sorry L2P2. This has been my absolute LEAST favorite thing. I'm not a gamer. I've never gotten into Sims or anything like that. I tried to be positive and try Second Life out multiple times, but I just don't enjoy it.

Here's a picture of me: AggieAl Viper at the airport for NOAA. I have no idea why I have a skirt on over jeans and two completely different shoes on. I tried and tried to get myself in an outfit, but somehow, this is what my avatar turned out as. During my first session, my avatar somehow managed to down an entire bottle of wine and then stumbled across the lands while onlookers yelled out, "Hey, she's hammered!" Great start. I found it sometimes easier to talk with other avatars to get information on how to do things. In the morning, people were pretty helpful.

The search option is NOT user-friendly. One avatar kept telling me that I needed to learn to use my search box. Well, I may be blonde in RL (real life), but that dumb search box was not working well with me. I went to several of the places suggested on L2P2, but when I went there, no other avatars were there. You could open up links to read online, but there weren't really people there to interact with.

When I went to random places on SL like a ski chalet, beach, and dance club, I truly realized how much I wasn't enjoying my experience. My avatar got hit on by a 13 year old boy (who shouldn't be on SL in the first place!), a blue fairy tried to eat me, some guy kept calling me a w**** and shouting the f-word, and when I asked questions about how to get to places where I could learn, lots of avatars told me to stop trying to learn and just play, buy stuff, etc.

I even Googled "How can I use Second Life in the classroom?" I found these slideshares (go figure!) I read through some of the posts about using SL and even asked a few avatars why they thought SL would be useful in the classroom. A lot of what I heard was: You can make learning more fun, and some students who are reluctant to do classwork may be more willing to learn in this gamer setting.

Okay, points taken. I'm sure SL can be a great tool for education and for getting students motivated. Can I be the reluctant one now and say that I'll pass on SL? It just wasn't MY type of thing. (Update: I don't think any of my current beach buddies have gotten to this thing yet, so I looked at blogs from last year's class. Apparently, I'm not the only one who feels this way, so I feel a lot better about not being into this one! Whew!)

Thing #9: Slideshare

The question for this thing is: Would it be important for students to use Slideshare? If so, why?

My answer: I don't know that it is necessarily important or essential for students to use Slideshare, but I do see a few advantages to the program.

- You can share your presentation with others on a website instead of just through e-mail.

- You can do voice over instead of just having the audience read your slides/notes.

- You can search, view, and download others' slideshows.

- You can embed your slideshow onto your blog and other websites.

I'm not sure about high school as it has been a while since I was in it, but I know in college, slideshow presentations were a requirement for many of my courses. If students are able to practice making slideshows, they will be able to work on their presentation skills, something that will only help them later in life when they have a job.

As a teacher, this program is beneficial for the same reasons I listed for students. If students are absent, they can download your slideshow and listen to your presentation instead of just asking someone for the notes. I think a lot of the teachers who attend professional developments would find this useful to look at after the presentation to review the key concepts.

I looked through the channels on Slideshare, and there are currently only two contributors to the Education channel. Maybe this will pick up in the next few years so that educators can share ideas for their classrooms?

Thing #8: Screencast

Here's my try at a screencast. I used ScreenCastle. I made one about how to take screen shots and post them on your blog, hence the post below. When you click on it to play, please make it full-screen. I didn't use a mic (I detest listening to myself speak!), so I wrote commentary out and highlighted it as the screencast takes you through taking screen shots of websites. I think this was super cool! I could use this tool to go through instructions before heading into the computer lab and then leave it on my blog for students to refer to if they forget and without me having to repeat the same process seven million times! (I would use a mic for my actual classroom projects.) I also like how L2P2 suggested having students make screencasts so that next year's students could watch and see how other kids did something for my class. Sometimes, you feel like you say the same thing over and over in so many different ways that it would be nice to see it done and to have a student help another student with a classroom process.

How to add a screen shot to your blog

How to take a screen shot and load it onto your blog...

1) Open up whatever page you would like to take a shot of.

2) Hold Ctrl and the button that says "Print Screen"

3) Next, you should open up a document like Powerpoint

4) Now, you can paste the screen onto the document

5) Here, you can crop or add text- whatever you need or want to do

6) Now, you want to save that Powerpoint page, but make sure you change it to a JPEG file.

7) Finally, you want to add the page onto your blog by adding a picture to your blog.

8) And there you have it! Hope this helped!

Thing #7: Video Resources

I viewed the video and looked through some of the information about fair use. On campus, we usually have posters in the copy rooms about legal limits about what can and can't be reproduced. I understand that I can pretty much show videos that I have found online. Does fair use correspond more with if I took videos I found online and put them into a video I made? This is what I was gathering from what I viewed.

I had trouble searching on The National Archives Video Collection. However, I went to their link and found a lot of great stuff to use in my class with reproducible primary sources!

Here are two videos that I found that I could use in my history class. Both are from PBS.

This first one I was able to embed because it had a code. This is a short film that reviews the key causes for the Civil War. This would be good to use with my eighth graders before and after the unit to help students quickly recall the main ideas.

The second video, I have to link to. (I guess because of its length.) I like that this video brings the history to life. (And I think students will like this option of seeing history in action, instead of just through photos) Instead of it being a slideshow, actors act out what happened and is mixed with interviews with historians. We Shall Remain

Watch the full episode. See more History Detectives.