![]() This final blogfolio is an overview of the entire ITD 645 class, Computers in Education, for the summer semester 2020. It includes the various technology tools that we have implemented in this class as well as my personal feelings about each tool, experiences with hands-on projects, group teamwork, blog and blog commenting, video clips and the electronic portfolio. What I learned in this class ![]() This course was an interesting journey for me as I am not a classroom teacher but work in the professional field as a senior program manager. I can see how this could relate to my area of work in setting up and coordinating various training needs and applicable to my future career field of human capital development and IT instruction. The textbook, Teaching and Learning with Technology, by Judy Lever-Duffy, and Jean McDonald, provided great insight and direction in understanding the relationship between technology and education, whether it be classroom teaching or instructional design. I learned about several previously unknown national standards for teaching, as well as technology tools, lesson plans, learning objectives, and DID models. I had never even heard of many of these prior to this experience. The videos were a great aid to the reading of the chapter materials and enhanced my learning experience. The hands-on projects, however, were my favorite learning experience in this class. This hands-on experience with various tools opened my eyes to what's available and what will work with future needs I encounter in IT Design. It also helped prepare me to be more considerate of potential difficulties that my future students/trainees might encounter when using these or similar tools. I have a lot of previous knowledge of technology and tools, but many of the ones we used in this class were brand new to me, and the experience of using them has been hugely beneficial. Some will be used in my professional field, while some I see being useful in future teaching endeavors. I thoroughly enjoyed the group portion of this class. I was partnered with a wonderful group of women and was fortunate to have teachers with classroom experience on my team to make up for some of my lack of experience in that area. We communicated and worked well together, dividing tasks and getting done ahead of schedule. We produced quality assignments that I am proud to showcase in this blog. Reflection on Learning Tools ITD Learning Portfolio Blog Our first project consisted of creating a blog using the web development platform Weebly to record our weekly homework reflections, share our class projects, and interact with our group members and teacher. I have made several websites on Weebly, so this was both a relatively easy and enjoyable task for me. By nature, I am not a huge talker, nor am I an avid blogger, but this has been an excellent experience for me in how a blog can keep track of learning experiences or projects completed. Slack After several failed attempts to establish the WeChat app for our group communication tool, we decided to use Slack for group communications and file sharing. I had used it previously and love the application and the ease of use along with the various channels and the mobile notifications. I find it to be easier to organize projects and keep track of things than multiple emails or texts. Classroom Funding Proposal Our first group project was to submit a classroom funding proposal. We worked well together on the various aspects of this document and ended up with a quality proposal. You can read more about Our Ideal 21st Century Classroom and view the proposal document by HERE. This was a great learning experience for anyone seeking grant funding. Click on the header for links to each group project Lesson Plan The lesson plan was a new thing for me to experience. I have never put one together before, so I relied heavily on my group mates with teaching experience for this project. This served as the basis for all of our future group projects, so it was critical that we have an excellent and cohesive lesson plan. The lesson plan included: course title, objectives, grade level, activities, assignments, and resources. It was a helpful experience should I ever need to create my own lesson plan. Google Apps (Google Form, Google Slides & Google Docs) Using google forms for a survey was new to me as I primarily use a survey service such as survey monkey. This is one tool that I plan to implement in my professional work moving forward, as I was very impressed by the capabilities and the fact that it is free! I use google documents regularly, mainly when training my student workers or for project planning. These are a fantastic tool for collaborative projects/learning and could be easily implemented into classroom and group projects. Podcasting Software I loved learning about creating a podcast and am excited to use this in the future for various instructions needs both in and out of the classroom. I love to listen to podcasts but never considered making one myself before. I could see how this could be applicable in my marketing or recruiting strategies in the future. I can also see how this could be an excellent homework tool for students or an online resource to supplement a course. Movie Making Software Videos are useful in a variety of teaching scenarios. I enjoyed exploring the Windows Movie Maker, Windows Live Movie Maker, iMovie, storybird.com, and wevideo.com software as options for creating a video. I have made several videos for marketing purposes but enjoyed the application to the teaching perspective. This can be an invaluable tool in the classroom to highlight a lecture or enhance a learning module by providing a different, fun way to hear the information. For our Movie Story we used the Adobe Spark platform which was very intuitive and easy to use. Interactive Video The Edupuzzle was utterly new to me, and I was intrigued by how this could be used in the teaching field. I don't see it as very applicable to what I currently do, but could see it being useful for future IT design or workers training. Edupuzzle class code: dorsuja Weebly Course Website The course website was, by far, my favorite assignment simply because I love to create and manage websites and have a lot of experience with them. However, this was my first experience in making a course website, and I learned a lot of valuable information in the layout, design, and planning for an education-related website. It was a work in progress as we worked through different projects. The course website included the home page, the course materials page, the page for assignments, the resources page, the contact page, and a page linked to our group's individual blogs. Padlet Padlet was a brand new tool that I was introduced to in this class. Padlet is a virtual collaborative whiteboard. I absolutely love the collaborative nature of Padlet and can see a multitude of uses for this technology tool! It was easy to embed into the website and easy for the group to contribute to the project. Thinglink Thinglink was another platform that I was completely unfamiliar with prior to this class. I found Thinglink to be a very user friendly free resource that turns any image into an interactive bulletin board. Hot spots can be created for videos, reading materials, quizzes and more. It easily embeds into a website or blog. I loved using this platform and plan to use it for marketing and recruiting in my job. Scoop.it Scoop.it is a mashup of a social network site and a content creation tool. It allows you to create interactive bulletin boards where users can share content, thoughts, comments, etc. while connecting with other users. Users can post new material, get suggestions for material from Scoop.it or "scoop" content from other Scoop.it boards. Sharing of scoops via social networks is easy and a great way to build your audience. This is another great marketing/recruiting tool that I will be utilizing in the future for my job. Quizzizz Quizzizz is a delightful platform that easily interacts with Google classroom. It offers bright colors and fun music to create a game-like experience for learning. It boasts a clean simple design while being easy to set up and use. The instant student feedback makes learning a snap and it is a useful tool for any learning environment. Rubistar We used RubiStar to create our classroom rubric. It was fairly easy to use by following a pre-designed template or creating your own. Personal Strengths and weaknessesMy biggest weakness in this class was my lack of teaching and classroom experience. Many of the standards, the DID plans, the lesson plans, the rules, regulations etc. were simply new to me and quite overwhelming at times. Most of the questions were geared towards the classroom and how I would implement or integrate my learning with the classroom. I struggled greatly with this as I have no classroom experience so was answering hypothetically and often felt that I couldn't relate to a real-world experience. My greatest strength in the class was my previous experience with a variety of technology tools. While I am always looking and open to new tools, my background, diversity and experience with multiple technological tools greatly helped me with this learning experience. Integrating into the classroom ![]() While I am not a classroom teacher and have no plans to be a classroom teacher, I do see myself implementing many of these tools in my future career in human capital development and IT design. I am planning to create online workshops and training tools and many of these tools, insights, design elements, and more will be very useful to implementing a successful training program in the future. Future learning goals I am a lifelong learner. I have been a student and learner my whole life and I don't see my educational journey ending anytime soon. I am already looking into possibilities for obtaining my Ph.D. once I complete my masters degree in the fall of 2021.
It can not be denied that technology is a rapidly changing and developing field. Technologies will continue to expand and grow at a rapid rate and I am excited to see what the future holds in the way of technological breakthroughs. I look forward to staying abreast of new and upcoming technology and various tools relevant to my career.
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Reflection Question: Chapter 10, Prompt 2 This chapter suggests your role is to become a technology advocate and change agent within the education profession. Do you agree that this is indeed a responsibility of 21st century educators? Why or why not. ![]() Technology is rapidly changing and expanding. While ten years doesn't seem that long ago, if you look at the last decade alone you can see massive transformations as streaming and the use of the cloud became popular. We went from having to email a document to being able to have multiple people access it and work on it in the cloud. You can literally have access to any file 24/7 on any device if it is stored in the cloud. We used to love how slender a DVD was an the image quality. Now its just a hassle to have to handle a disk when we can just click a button or even better - talk to our TV! We are moving into the era of self driving cars, touch displays, 3D printing, drones, virtual reality, smart homes, robots, automated work stations, and voice controls. Phones and tablets have become mini computers and we have Alexa and Google devices to help us manage our daily lives. Even security systems have gone high tech allowing people to access views of their home from their phone or laptop. There is every reason to believe that we are still in a rapidly expanding technological world and technology will surely improve and change the world in the next decade as well. This means teachers need to adapt and integrate new technologies into the classroom on a regular basis. This helps to improve student learning and motivates teachers to think outside the box. Being on the leading edge of technology and embracing technological changes will help to build a student population that is better adept at integrating into a post learning world and becoming productive members of society as well as responsible digital citizens. Additional Recommended Resources: ![]()
Reflection Question: Chapter 9, Prompt 1
Assume that one of your students tells you that an enrichment class at your school has developed a website and that every student’s name and picture will be available on the website as a talent directory. What concerns do you have about this discovery and how would you approach your colleague and your school to address these concerns?
While most school's have a school directory, most parent's aren't aware of how much private information this contains and that the school (under the law as it stands now - See 34 CFR §§ 99.31(a)(11) and 99.37) can disclose this information without prior parental consent. Directory information can contain very personal information such as
While the above described scenario falls under similar information being released as the School Directory issue, I think that it goes even further in that it is placing the information on a website with public access. However, I don't think that the school would be breaking any current laws in doing this (if it's just the name and photo on the website). I am not a teacher, so I may not have a full grasp of the legal ramifications or laws, but what I could find on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) website seemed like this would not be an issue (from a legal standpoint). Data protection rules – governed by the Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2003, The Data Protection Act 1988 and Video Recordings Act 1989 – also mean that there are a range of issues to consider when publishing images of minors. There are several legislative acts that protect students privacy such as: –Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (C O P P A) –Children’s Internet Protection Act (C I P A) –Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act (Amendment to C I P A) However, I would be concerned that the content may cause some students embarrassment or that the images could be taken and misused. There are some common sense rules for teachers to follow such as
My Learning Experiences
Kahoot! vs. Quizizz
While both of these platforms are free and relatively easy to sign up for and use, there are some major differences and advantages to one over the other. While Kahoot! wins in the game variety and student engagement, Quizizz is a great alternative that easily interacts with Google Classroom. For the students experience both of these platforms offer bright colors with fun music to create an energetic game-like experience. For a more interactive student/teacher experience Kahoot! is the clear winner here as students must look at the classroom screen to view the answers (vs. Quizizz they can see them on their individual devices). Both of these platforms fall short on the data collection aspect by not providing the ability to track/identify student growth. Kahoot! Pro's of using Kahoot!
Pro's to using Quizizz
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Reflection Question: Chapter 8, Prompt 2
Reflecting on your experience with the following subjects, (language arts, mathematics, history, science, music), which ones do you think would be adaptable for distance education and which ones would not? Why? Would there be a difference in adaptability depending on grade level?
I have taken many online courses throughout my graduate and undergraduate educational journey. I love the online learning experience as an option and typically prefer or choose that whenever possible. However, some classes would not translate well to the online learning environment.
The ones that primarily come to mind as not being successfully adaptable are math-based classes. While some of the more beginner classes could be effectively taught online, the more advanced courses need the interactivity that you get from walking through a formula with the teacher, asking questions, getting explanations, and learning from copying the teacher and doing. One of my bachelor's degrees is in finance, and there were many of the upper-level classes that I feel I would not have done well in had those been online-only classes. Other subjects that would have adaptability issues are any of the science classes that require a lab component. The labs are very hands-on, and it would be hard to adapt to an online course. Music classes as well would not readily fit into the online learning model. There is a lot of interaction between the music teacher and the student, as well as a lot of hands-on demonstration, which would be very problematic in an online setting. Some classes would easily fit into the online learning environment. These include subjects such as English, Literature, Social Studies, Psychology, Anthropology, and many others. I believe that adaptability for the online learning environment doesn't depend on grade level so much as it does the interaction needed to master a subject. Some subjects are relatively easy to adapt to the online setting, and videos and reading are all that are required to learn those subjects. However, there are many subject areas and classes that need the live interaction with the teacher, the one-on-one feedback, and the demonstrations to understand the material thoroughly. Online courses have the disadvantage of having a delay between the student asking a question and getting feedback making it problematic for many subjects. My Learning Experiences![]()
Our group did a fantastic job coordinating, working together, and playing on our individual strengths, skills, and interests to collaborate and conquer this week's group projects. We utilized the Lesson Plan as our central component as we built our other projects based on it. We communicated and collaborated, helping each other out, giving feedback and editing to accomplish a final completed project for each item.
Once again our group communicated with each other, primarily through Slack and text messages. We consulted the weekly project channels in Slack with the projects due for this week, division of assignments due as well as the individual assignment instructions. We then asked questions and received feedback on individual projects to collaborate on a final project to be submitted. This week we completed the movie story, the interactive video (Edupuzzle), the Padlet, as well as our course website. I found these to be excellent resources for both teachers and myself in the business environment. You can find all of these project below. Movie Story
The movie story was another that I was not previously familiar with, but can see myself integrating into my job in preparing course materials or even as a marketing or recruiting tool. This can be an invaluable tool in the classroom to highlight a lecture or enhance a learning module by providing a different, fun way to hear the information. Chapter 7 (page 234) discusses the use of video in the classroom in great detail. Various tools for video production are suggested including Microsoft's Movie Maker, Apple iMovie, Animoto, Stroome, TeacherTube and Khan Academy. I have personally used Animoto and love this platform. With today's tools, almost anyone can easily create an educational video. This is a great way to add variety to they typical classroom learning style.
Interactive Video
The Edupuzzle was completely new to me and I was intrigued by how this could be used in the teaching field. Since I am not a teacher, I am not sure that I see myself using this in my professional work though.
Interactive Padlet
Padlet on the other hand was very useful and has a plethora of possibilities for usage both in teaching, personal use and my job. I absolutely loved the ease of using this program, the ability for others to easily contribute, the ease of embedding it into a website and the potential uses it offers. I will definitely be using this in the future. Technology tools enable real-time (synchronous) interaction with students as well as supporting asynchronous interactions. To be successful, digital learning programs need a combination of various tools for interacting with students and peers (Chpater 8, page 262).
Course website
I use websites in a variety of ways in my job and have designed and managed many different websites on a variety of platforms over the past ten years. It is one of my favorite aspects of my job. Chapter 1, page 21, of our textbook demonstrates the use of a class website to facilitate teacher/student/parent communications.
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AuthorMy name is Melanie and I am in my first year of pursing a Master's degree in Human Capital Development with an emphasis on IT Design at USM. I currently work as a Senior Program Manager for USM. Blogroll
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