Summary of attendance

this was like and IWB but with slides. I created a PowerPoint over grammar. This can be used in your classroom by creating videos for children to take home and review, watch if they are absent or for parents to view to see what their studnets are learning. 

We learned how to use voice recorder and record over a picture that we drew using paper 53. You can use this with your students by having them draw scenes from a story. Once they draw these scenes they can then give a brief summary as to what happened or what their scene is about, which tests comprehension. You could also use this to do an about me presentation or a recap of their summer, the possibilities are endless. 

The first workshop that I attended was blogging with seesaw. I first learned about the different tools that app holds and how to use each one. After getting through the basics, I then learned how to set up my own classroom blog and how to add students and parents to the app. I feel that I will for sure use this app. It is an exciting new way to communicate with parents about the fun things that are happening in the classroom and share information about their child. I especially like that I am able to share information to the whole classroom community such as homework or I can share information personally with a certain parent if need be. 


The second workshop that I attended was google links. I first learned how to download google chrome on my mac and why it is more beneficial than safari or basic google. I also learned that with google links I can add different tools to my toolbar at the top of the page and use them to share with my students such as the scan bar. The scan bar allows teachers to make a bar code where the students can scan the code with their iPads and be directed to the link that I am viewing. I feel that google links is something that I might use in my future classroom. I think that I would make the technology in the classroom easier by having everything pre downloaded on the computer. 

I attended two face-to-face workshops at the College of Education this semester.

The first was Booksnaps, with Tara Martin. Tara in an educator who has been using the application 'Snapchat' to connect her students to the curriculum in a fun and exciting way. She stated that using applications, such as Snapchat, can be utilized to help kids connect to curriculum that is meaningful to them and gives them a voice. Tara has her students take a photograph of passages from books that they connect to. They import the images into Snapchat, and use filters, text boxes, and stickers to emphasize how they feel about what they are reading. The students can share the images with the class via Padlet, or other content sharing applications. She referred to this method as "a digital highlighter" to help students express themselves. Personally, I don't know how I feel about this method of learning. I feel that if there is an application that students already associate with 'leisure', such as Snapchat, this can create a distraction to students. There are other applications that have similar functions that might be more helpful and less distracting. As a future educator, I'm unsure that this method is something that I would seek to employ in my classroom. 

The second workshop was Art with iPads with Anne Beck. I was so happy to go to this workshop because I plan to teach high school art, and I'd love to learn as much as possible about creating digital art. I learned about many different drawing applications, some that I was familiar with and some that I had never heard of. The app that I learned the most about was "Procreate." Procreate is an iPad app that is much like Adobe Photoshop, and allows the user to draw images using many different tools and layers. Layers can be used to created animated gifs within this app as well. I felt that this app was very easy to learn, and felt very intuitive. I used a regular stylus when drawing on the iPad, and it was easy to use. I additionally got to use the Apple pen with the app "57." This app does not allow the user to create layers, but it is very nice for sketch noting. The apple pen was wonderful to use, it is pressure sensitive and creates very nice varying line weights with great ease. I think that students could use both of these apps to create and experiment with drawing in a very helpful way. There is no mess or clean up associated with digital art, and it is very easy to "undo" if you make a mistake. iPads have a large upfront cost, but you don't have to continue purchasing art supplies which can become very expensive. Additionally, I think that art is moving quickly into a digital age, and it is very important for students to keep up to date with technology, especially if they are interested in pursuing art as a career. I will definitely consider using apps such as these in my classroom someday.

Tara Martin Skyped and taught us how to create book snaps. She used snapchat as her app. The idea was that the students would read a book in class and take a picture on their phone of their favorite parts of the book. The students would then annotate the picture using the in-app tools. These tools included highlights, stickers, and text. She also encouraged us to use different apps if we could. I tried to use Microsoft OneNote for booksnaps. It did not work very well because the program is not friendly when trying to draw on top of a photo.

Josh Flores talked about podcasting and how you can use it in the classroom. He also talked about how he uses it with teachers across the state. He demonstrated his equipment, his different interviews, and how we can use them in curriculum. Podcasts can be used for discussion or displaying knowledge of lessons. We also discussed and debated the topic of English classes requiring students to read an entire book in class or just excerpts. A large majority of the class thought that the whole book approach was more appropriate. There was no mini project to create for this workshop.

In addition to a full day Steve Spangler workshop (posted under Edcamp), I attended a workshop about Bookcreator and a workshop given by a speaker about podcasting in the classroom. Although I was already exposed to the Bookcreator application, Mrs. Beck gave some additional tips and tricks I was not aware of. In addition, she mentioned additional uses of a bookcreator such as using it as a method to create a book about yourself as a teacher to present to students and teachers. My attached evidence is the first few pages of what I may create as a future science teacher. 

My second PD workshop was about podcasting and it was presented by Josh Flores. I really enjoyed learning about how I can implement podcasting in the classroom and how it can be a great way for students to articulate their projects or explain concepts. It is a great tool that can be used to show student progress to parents or even just to document when the class has had a discussion on an issue such as ethics. 

I can see myself using both of these technologies in my future classroom to enhance the learning of my future students. 

I did not actually get to attend the Tellagami workshop but Anne Beck basically ran the workshop through with me when she was in our class. I absolutely loved it. Making your own avatar and then speaking with the lips being synced is something the kids will instantly fall in love with. I want to teach 8th grade US History, so I made my Tellagami recite the Gettysburg Address with the Lincoln Memorial in the background. I would want my students to recite a speech, hold a conversation in a foreign language, or create a "how-to" video such as maybe cooking instructions with picture of the ingredients in the background. It was super user-friendly and I picke dup on it rather quickly. 

in the second workshop we learned the ins and outs of see saw. This is definitely an app that I could use in my classroom with my students and their families. They can upload their work from home that I could see or they could upload pictures from school for their parents to see. 

first section- in this session we learned how to use explain everything to make  slide show. we made a small slideshow of ou history with pictures and information under each picture. Was a good workshop something that will be very helpful in the classroom!

second section- made a story using shadow puppets, we were given 5 words and had to find pictures to create a story and also have a voice over! 

I will definitely use these in the classroom. Especially the slides(timeline).  Not only is that a great activity for students but also a teacher. Fast and easy way to create a timeline with pictures, dates, and information. The shadow puppets would be great for a literacy lesson. I could easily ask them  to create a book and then upload it to seesaw. I think that this app would be super interactive and fun for the students. They would love adding their own pictures, songs, and voice overs. Parents would also love this! 

The guest speaker talked a lot about learning, and the differences between learning about and learning for real. I had never heard this phrased that way and so i was shocked and pleasantly surprised by the eloquence of that description. He used multiple examples that showed our past knowledge strongly colored our beliefs even when faced with the knowledge that we were wrong ( example of a hole in a sheet of steel). 
He also explained that our connections are really important to how we learn. Random facts hold no importance to us unless we see how they connect to us. So connecting the learning to the student is also really important. Overall he introduced some novel ideas that i wish to implement. 
In some ways its seems that based on the prior knowledge, in addition to a pretest showing what people got right, it may be more important to pay attention to what students got wrong and WHY they got it wrong to spend a lot of time discussing those. I had a teacher that would offer half credit back on missed exam questions if you explained why you got it wrong and how to get the correct answer in-depth. Applying that method would incentivize figuring out why you got things wrong and how to get over those misconceptions. 
As for connection to the students its on a case by case basis, but I think it would be important to explain how they use chemical reactions to clean and do other things in daily life, maybe explaining through examples of soda or other things. 

The workshop was held Friday, March 10th in C334. The workshop was titled, "What do you meme?" The workshop was tons of fun. I always wondered where people found templates to create memes because I love memes and they make everything less stressful and humorous. I will use memes in my classroom. I can see myself using them when I am covering the rhetorical device of satire. I believe creating memes in the classroom would work well with satire and many other rhetorical devices. I could have meme bell work examples--students finding specific rhetorical techniques that memes have or students can create memes that have rhetorical devices. The workshop was extremely beneficial for me, creating memes was quick and fun! That same day, I also created an interactive video on Toontastic, the link is provided. The video was an instructional video on how to create a free verse poem, the characters in the video are excited and ready to start on the lesson. I had a lot of fun with Toontastic, I will use the app for middle and high school, even though it might seem for younger grades, I believe they will still enjoy it. 

I learned that seesaw is a great forum to use for students to turn in their work and for the students parents and teachers to be able to comment on their students work. I also learned that students are able to add to, and edit each other's work. I think this is a great tool as it allows for easy collaboration among students. I will use this in my science classes as a way for my students to turn in their homework assignments. 

I learned how to create a timeline on explain everything. This is a great and easy tool for students to use to be able to make a timeline of their science experiments and to show a change over time for certain assignments that they do. I think this is a great tool, particularly because students are able to record themselves explaining the timeline.