Summary of attendance

For the #Booksnaps session, I wasn't really a fan of the whole thing. It seems like it's coming from a good place. I really liked the meaning behind it. Everyone gets something different when reading a passage, and by sharing Booksnaps helps increase understanding between people and how they think differently. I don't like how they use snapchat, and I'm concerned how much critical thinking is involved in decorating a phone screen to reflect a passage. I'd more like to write a paper, which I think gives more room for expression than a phone screen, but I also understand that some people would be against another writing assignment and could maybe express themselves better in this way. 
For the iMovie session, I had a fun time. I learned more about iMovie, which I need because I am unfamiliar with most Apple products. I was hoping to get more of an editing session on small details for iMovie, but with only an hour, we did a trailer instead. I like our trailer, as I think it's kind of over the top, and got more experience using iMovie that I could see myself using for a quick video or displaying some photos in a relatively, quick and efficient manner that looks professional. 

I attended two workshops, one on iMovie and one on Seesaw. I'm secondary education so iMovie will be very helpful for making interesting videos for my students rather than PowerPoints everyday. I don't think I'll be using Seesaw because it is geared more towards younger kid, edmodo might be better for my age group.

For the first professional development session I attended we worked with a speaker who had a lot of experience with blogs. He shared with us his personal experience with having an educational blog that he shares with his peers, parents, and students. He said that it was a great way to express your ideas, opinions, and connect with your students. We then made our own blog on Tumblr and started creating our online blogging presence that we will be able to use with our students. I learned a lot about being able to connect with your students through the use of a blog and how it is important to have a public space where other teachers and parents can see who you are and what is important to you as a teacher.

For the second professional development session I attended we worked with Anne Beck to understand more about iMovie. This is a great tool to my videos for your classroom and the students are able to have a lot of creativity for a variety of assignments. The product that we had to create during the session was an iMovie trailer. We were able to be as creative as possible, we selected the "scary" theme for our trailer and created a trailer about the dreaded AP Chemistry test that high school students have to take. I think that iMovie will be a great tool to use in my future classroom to assess the students learning.

I attended the seesaw and book creator workshops on March 25th. I really enjoyed learning about seesaw, however Anne Back mentioned that there might be a better apps like Google classroom to use in higher grades. Although I did see how it could be useful in a high school classroom. if I were to use the Seesaw app in my classroom she mentioned to have them login using their email to keep them accountable  or change a lot of the settings so that they don't have that much power in the app. this app was capable of outside sharing in the form of a blog and she did warn us to be conscientious of that, and I feel like that applies for any app that you're sharing on. for seesaw there is also a parent app that is compatible with any device.  The second workshop was over book creator. And while we have use that in class already, it helped me explore how I could use it as a high school science teacher. One option is for the students to make study guides and then they could easily export it onto their phones or device for studying later.  One thing Mrs. Beck did say was that technology should always be assisting you, so if you're doing something with technology and it's taking you longer than you're not using technology right and I think that something that's easy to forget. 

The first workshop I attended was called Tap Into Your Creative Mind with The Tech Rabbi. During this workshop, he taught us how to engage learners in the classroom and think with a creative mind. One big idea that stood out to me was sketchnoting. He showed us different ways that we can creatively take notes while learning. He showed us examples from the app he used called Paper53. I have always loved doodling in class and this app is the perfect way to doodle and draw helpful pictures and diagrams, while taking notes at the same time. I can see how this app would be very effective for students to use and I have used it to take notes in some of my classes. It is easy to use and you can change colors, draw shapes, draw straight lines, and write with a calligraphy-style pen. The Tech Rabbi was a very engaging speaker and really opened me up to new ways to incorporate creativity into learning. My favorite quote of his was when he said "you don't have to be an artist to be creative. Creativity is about a personal way of expressing ourselves". I found this very interesting because sometimes people think if they're not a perfect artist, they cannot be creative. The Tech Rabbi shows, however, that anyone can be an artist and sketchnoting is a great way to personalize your notes and learn in a new way.

The second workshop I attended was learning about the app Seesaw. This app is used to display digital portfolios as well as parent and teacher communication. It also allows students to independently document what they are learning through videos, pictures, drawings, etc. I had briefly used this app when volunteering at McKinley Elementary a few weeks ago with a technology workshop for 4th and 5th graders. There, I helped students learn about different apps and we used Seesaw to upload the student work for the teacher to see. In the Seesaw workshop, the speaker taught us how to use the app as well as examples of when it is helpful. She showed her family profile and how every member of her family uses the app to communicate and keep up with each other. She showed a video of her son going through the steps of a subtraction problem. This is so effective for elementary teachers to use with their students because rather than just doing a worksheet, students are engaged and you can see exactly what steps they used to solve a problem in order to figure out where they need help. We created a drawing on the app and posted it for the other people attending the workshop to see. She showed us how we can view, edit, comment, and like other people's work. 

In the first workshop I learned how to use shadow puppet. This app is useful for creating video slides with voiceover. This will be useful for my students future presentations. This is helpful to me right now for things like art presentations. The meme workshop taught us how to create our own memes. This can be useful right now for presentations and it can be useful in my class for teaching classroom expectations or attaching to emails.

In this workshop, Anne Beck taught us about the different features of iMovie. There were many great editing tools and templates to follow. I will be using iMovie in my integrated curriculum class and this workshop really helped me learn how to use the app. I will be making a video on my kindergarten project approach lesson. When I am a teacher I will also be able to use iMovie in my classroom. Students can make movies for presentations or I could make a video about a class field trip or project. 

this workshop was my favorite. Such a cool tool to be able to use in the classroom with ELL, special ed, or really any kind of learner. I learned how to create osmo words and link it to my iPad so I can use the app with my own creations. I wish I had my own to use with my family because it's just fun. But as a teacher I hope to have a classroom game set so I can help kids learn in ways other than just writing their spelling words down every day. I want to look into more of the other accessories with osmo and their other games. I think they would be helpful too, but I just learned about osmo words in this workshop. 

I attended two workshops in the College of Ed with Anne Beck. In the toontasic workshop we learned about the Toontastic app. This app can be used by students to create interactive and animated storybooks. I made one about friendship and solving problems. We learned how this can be used to do a book report alternative. Next I attended a workshop on meme's and how they are created and can be used in the classroom. We created a meme of common teacher cliches and shared them. Mrs. Beck shared that she thinks creating memes to demonstrate classroom rules or introduce chapters would appeal to the students more. 

I went to the teaching literacy speaker that you said could also count as a workshop and "What Do You Meme?" with Anne Beck. Both were somewhat informative and useful, both as a current student and as a future teacher. The teaching literacy speaker was not entirely what I expected. Rather than a presentation or explanation of their theories, we actually went through several of the lessons they use. Unfortunately, it was entirely focused on elementary age children, and I am going to teach secondary. However, the first part of the event was an explanation of how people are affected by dyslexia and how persistent it can be as a disability, which was very helpful to me as a future teacher, and very insightful information in general as to how it relates to many of my fellow students. The second workshop, "What Do You Meme?" with Anne Beck, was more specific to my major and interests. She explained the different ways incorporating memes into a classroom can create a more relaxed and relateable atmosphere for your students. My favorite example was using a meme with very poor grammar and spelling as a bell work activity where the students have to correct it at the beginning of class. It is both funny and educational, and a way to connect to the students through something they use daily in social media thus making it accessible and interesting. It will be difficult to use this as a current student, but certainly as a future teacher it will be relevant. 

The first workshop I attended was hosted by Scott Haselwood and discussed Gamification. Gamification is more than integrating games into a classroom. Gamification transforms the entire course into a game. Mr. Haselwood told us that Gamification is based off of the premise that we have to first fail in order to succeed. Gamification allows students to fail without being punished for their failure. When Mr. Haselwood used Gamification in his classroom, students were required to repeat every test until they passed with an eighty percent or higher. By enforcing this rule, Mr. Haselwood allowed the students to fail as many times as needed until they succeeded. At the end of the semester Mr. Haselwood had all of his students pass (with an eighty percent or higher) except one student. Gamification has been proven to be effective and I look forward to employing the techniques in my future classroom.  

The second workshop I attended was hosted by Mrs. Beck and discussed memes. Mrs. Beck showed us what apps we can use to make memes of our own and how to do it. During the workshop, Mrs. Beck explained to us some of the many different ways a teacher can incorporate memes into a classroom. Memes help the students be more interested in the assignment and have a deeper connection to the material. Mrs. Beck recalled on times when she would use memes at the beginning of class and stated that those were the days she did not have to send students to the principal’s office because they were more focused and having fun. Memes are easily created and help immensely to keep the students focused, I plan to use memes in my future classroom. 

It was really fun getting to do the workshops I signed up for! Both seem like fun ideas, especially for a younger class grade. My favorite was working with Stop Motion and making play-doh birds and making a movie for it. I feel like that allows students to think up their own creative ideas and make it a reality. Sometimes students are discouraged by being told "that's not possible" or "that's too weird to be anything." Letting students be able to make a movie through inanimate objects could make life more fun! I would use this during a arts and crafts period or during story time; they could make their own visuals of characters from a story, and recreate a scene however they want. They wouldn't only get to share their stories with the class, but they could also share their creations with their family to show that they are learning new aspects of technology. I did also like that tellagami allowed students to record their voices to tell a story versus recording themselves on video. As a child, I have always been so shy about being on video; I sometimes still am. If I had this to work with, I would have felt a whole lot better about my presentation skills. I will say, I wouldn't want it used all the time because I do want my students to practice presentations on their own and know that they can do it with a little practice and effort. My only fear is that they would create a comfort cushion out of the app, and try to make use of it for all the presentations they would ever have to make in their lifetime. I would want them to know that it is a good tool, but it can't be the solution to every speech presentation. I might go to more workshops when I have time because I enjoyed them a lot! i really think they are beneficial to our teaching futures.