Week 11 - Ideas for Final Project

My lesson plan will consist of providing a workshop for teachers on how to use Edmodo. This will target K-12 teachers.

At the end of the workshop they will learn how to create an edmodo account, how to create a class, post assignments and alerts, create folders and upload documents. How to register students.  How register parents, how to message parents or a specific parent, how to handle grades. One of the great features that Edmodo has is that it collaborates with Google Docs, so you can share your files stored in your Google Docs account.  You can also create student badges and award students when they excel in your class. 

Parent accounts are a great way to keep parents informed of classroom activities, assignments, grades and school events.  The registration process for parents is similar to student registration, with one additional security measure – each parent will need their own unique parent code to register.  This is to ensure that parents can view their child’s school activities. There are so many features that edmodo has that I will not have time to cover all of them, but at least I will point them up.

The code for parent accounts can be retrieved from their child’s Edmodo account.  The code will be located on the right panel, below the notifications section.

You can send a letter to the student’s parents; I am attaching a sample parent invite.

Dear Parents:

This year, we will be using Edmodo in our classroom.   Edmodo is a free and secure social learning network for teachers, students and schools.  It provides a safe and easy way for us to connect, share content and access homework, grades and school notices.

Edmodo also offers parent accounts and I’d like to invite you to join our classroom online.

With Parent Accounts, you can:

• View your child’s homework assignments and due dates
• Stay up to date on your child’s grades
• Receive updates on class and school events

Edmodo is accessible online and on any mobile device with Internet capabilities (they also offer a free iPhone and Android app).  You can access your account on the go, and adjust your notification settings within Edmodo to receive alerts via text or email.

To join our classroom on Edmodo, follow these steps:

1. Go to www.edmodo.com
2. Select “Parent Signup”  (the link is located below the student and teacher sign up buttons)
3. Key in your unique code:  [XXXXXX] in the Parent Code field, then create your unique username and password.
4. Select Sign Up. That’s all there is to it!

After you sign up for the first time, you will no longer need the parent code – you’ll login using your unique username and password to login.

Let me know if you have any questions.  I look forward to connecting with you on Edmodo!

Sincerely,

Mr…

Week 11 - Tools

Since I’m not currently a teacher and my goal is to instruct teachers on how to use technology in their classrooms, I found a great tool that I discovered last year while attending to a conference in technology called TNT.  This tool is called Edmodo, in my extensive web development experience I can tell that Edmodo is a very user friendly application that brings collaboration to another level. Edmodo is a web 2.0 technology that not only brings collaboration to the classroom but communication between teacher and students as well as teacher-parents. This is a very useful tool that I guess K-12 teacher can take advantage of.  This lesson plan is for professional Development and is target it to K-12 teacher to have better control of their students and assignments.  

Edmodo is free; I will cover the most basic functions of Emodo You can have as many groups or classes as you want, after you login, you can customize your profile by uploading your picture, type something about you. 

 

You can also share where do you teach…

 

On the left side of your edmodo page you can see your latest posts, your students, assignments by group or class…

You can easily create groups or classes and create your roster for your class. I like so much Edmodo because it’s Twitter is integrated with Edmodo, you can share a link with your students that they will have to have a code in order to get into that group that you just created.  When you go to Edmodo, it will ask you if you are a teacher or a student, if you are student you will have to enter the code given by your professor in order to register for that class. 

You can sign up as parent as well, which also the professor needs to provide the code for the parents, the great part about this is that as teacher you have control of your class and you can easily track your students and your student’s parents. You can send messages to the entire class, to individual students, to all parents or to a parent in specific. 

Another great functionality is that you can create sub-group. Let say that you have divided your class in 4 sub-groups, you can achieve this in edmodo. 

 You can always reset or lock the code for a class, for security purposes or if you have a limit in your class, for instance if your class roster is for 15 students, once all of your students have registered for your class you can lock your group so you don’t accept anymore registrations.

Another great tool about edmodo is that you can create folders for your class. You can upload files to a folder or you can share your folder with your class for your students to upload their assignments.

You have more than just posting assignments.  You can send emergency alerts, connections, feeds, polls and quizzes; again this can be done in a group or individual basis.

More features about edmodo, Assignments, you can specify the title, a small description, due date, you can attach a file, links or a document from you library.

Edmodo is an ALL-IN-ONE tool, you can manage and track your grades, assignments, classes everything with edmodo, I am not a teacher yet, but this is a tool that I would definitely use. Edmodo is a lifesaver for teachers. I can easily see many advantages.

The other tool I used is JING, is a tool to create screenshots and videos, is free and it allows you to store your content in the cloud.  The screenshoots I used for this and my past assignments, I used Jing, and the following videos as well. Please join me and watch the videos I created using JING. It even allows to create "playlists". You can watch my Edmodo playlist on an basic intro to Edmodo.

  Edmodo - Quick Intro

Week 10 Ideas & Resources

Ideas for my final project, there are a lot of ideas out there that I can use to demonstrate how to use technology in the classroom.  One of the most simplest but very efficient tools is called Dropbox. Dropbox is a web-based solution for online file collaboration.  Dropbox is a cloud-based technology that allows you store files on the cloud and access them anywhere at any time.  You don’t have to worry about USB flash drives anymore or storing your class data into a flash drive that can fail due to an accidental drop or a water leak, a virus on your computer or in your drive, what about lost or stolen devices, with dropbox you forget about all of that, it’s a headache-free solution for educators. 

As teacher we must have our student data digitally. Security and privacy are more items that we need to consider; with dropbox you don’t need to worry about that.  It’s a hassle to leave all of your data, grades and assignments all in one single location such as your computer, or your office laptop.  Forget about emailing files, worrying about flash drive with full capacity limitations, virus, all those headaches are gone with dropbox which is free and platform independent, works on windows, mac and linux systems.  Some of the features I like the most about dropbox is that it has a very user friendly interface. 

Please join me, watching this video about Dropbox...

Week 9- Twitter StoryKit

If you are an ESL teacher this is a must app you need to have, it's called StoryKit, with this app you can create a storybook. I really like this app because is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and it was designed it by researches at the University of Maryland.  This is what mobile technology can offer to todays system education, me as developer/instructional specialist I’m looking forward to build solution for real world problems. I know there is a huge need out there for apps that can make both teachers and students life easier, improve student learning goals, enhance collaboration and make a more effective learning environment. As educators we can use apps like this one to get started using tablets with your students. There are so many ways to use this app, it’s simple enough for most first graders though to catch quickly and be fairly independent using it. You can always use the drawing pad to illustrate your story, use pictures, hook it up to a projector and start collaborating with your students.

Communicating with Technology:

Using technology in a classroom will motivate learning among students, especially for pre-k students. Technology is a great tool that will capture every student attention in the classroom. One of the most beneficial sources of education in technology are the iPads or tablets.  The iPads help educators to collaborate with students. I am pretty sure that we will have classrooms full of tablets in the near future, once school districts realize the tremendous help and contribution that tablets can provide to our students. 

The students these days need little support on how to use equipment, it’s surprising how 4 years old kids know how to use an smart phone and to navigate an ipad. Some students might have ipads at home some we can take advantage of the student prior knowledge.  Students absorb what you teach them using technology because they are more willing to learn using technology they don’t get bored. Using technology in a daily basis will address learning goals equally or even more effectively than traditional classroom materials.

Regardless of what subject and level you teach, there is an app for it. For instance, Phone for Kids, Phone for Kids transforms your iPhone/iPad to a complete Child Safe Phone environment. With this app they will find touch sensitive menus with no less than 24 unique educational games and activity design to interact, entertain and teach. Phone for kids includes easy to digest educational materials about: Colors, Numbers, Letters, Shapes, Directions, Days of the week, Animals, Drawings and much more. The perfect way to use your iPhone/iPad/iPod-Touch as a complete learning and playing experience for your students.

Since I chose a chapter that deals with communication with technology I found this fantastic app about assistive communication.  Proloque2Go is one of the most known apps on the ipad that does a really good job, it is not cheap, but you get what you pay for.  This is an app that is worth paying because it comes full-featured with augmentative and alternative communication solution for autistic children who have problems speaking.  The setup is very simple and it gives you natural sound text-to-speech voices, very high-resolution symbols, conjugations and a vocabulary of over 7,000 items. 

Another app that will help in the classroom is iCommunicate that it is a little bit more affordable and does a really good job to create pictures, flashcards, storyboards, routines, visual schedules and record custom audio in any language. This app comes already with thousand pictures. This app will definitely help educators to aid students in their communication skills.

Twitter week 9 - edmodo

Edmodo is a web-based tool that aids teachers and students to communicate and collaborate in a more effective way. Edmodo is an education social networking that brings a lot of collaboration into the classroom. It also helps professor to communicate with parents or even send message to specific groups. Edmodo has a tool to monitor and keep track of student grades and assignemtns as well as sends reminders about those assignments. As teachers it allows you to create multiple classrooms if you are teaching in multiple rooms, each session allows to create your own group of students with high levels of security standards. You can even restrict the use to certain students if discipline is an issue.  I think edmodo is a great tool not only for teachers but also for parents and students. It helps to keep parents in communication with the teacher, grades and assignments, so parents always are on top on what’s going on with their children grades.

Self-guided learning with Twitter

Twitter in Technology Education. I am following EdTech Magazine tweets, because is a very rich educational source to be on top of technology that focus on K-12.  I really like EdTech magazine because it has information on technology around the classroom. It also talks about what other educators are currently doing in their classrooms. It also provides information on all of my favorite fields, such as Security, infrastructure optimization, storage, cloud computing, networking, web 2.0 technologies, mobile technology, hardware and software and management.

Another resource I really liked is EdTech Digest. The have a section called Cool Tool that gives you information about the latest technologies and how people are using them. For instance take a look at this from EdTech Digest  “Jakub Roz, an 18-year old student at the High School of Computing Technology in Prague, Czech Republic, found taking notes too inconvenient in Word—and hard to share amongst friends—so he did what any practical student might do: he programmed a simple system and made it accessible to everyone. So far, more than 25,000 users agree with him. He calls it MySchoolNotebook.com (there are Czech, German, and English versions as well as a Spanish version in progress). Students create virtual notebooks where they can write their notes; it also integrates with Facebook. For $2 per month, it’s comparable to a couple of iTunes downloads and for a rapidly growing number of students, it’s worth it.” (EdTech Digest).

I think this is a really cool feature for students, they are being encouraged to take notes by using technology and not only that but they also collaborate among other students.

The new iPad

New iPad. I looked at the new features for the new iPad and it’s amazing how Apple engineers were able to produce this amazing product. The resolution that this new iPad is comparable to today’s latest LED HDTVs.  Which is one of the most talked features about the new iPad, its resolution and the speed of the processor.  I like to comment on this new gadget since people just go by the marketing and don’t realize the major upgrades.  Apple spends millions of dollars in marketing to advertise their products, but regardless of that they have developed quality products in the last 10 years and the products speak for them selves.  I am not a mac fan, but I have tried their products and I know they are expensive, but it’s worth it. I am a linux user and mac are linux-based, that’s why I decided to try apple products. Please check the following article where they talk about the new iPad  and give a pretty decent review about it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577281472610072322.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

SmartPens - State-Of-The-Art Technology

Pen and pencils are still used by students from K-12 to higher education.  Digital pens are another state-of-the-art technology available for students.  Now we have Digital Pens, there is this in particular called LiveScribe smartpen that captures not only what you write down, but also it records audio. There are several digital pens out there, but some of them require special paper or they are not very accurate. LiveScribe smart pens transfer all you write or draw to your computer and it allows you to create notebooks to organize your notes.

This technology can be used from K-12 to higher education.  Since this can be sued for both Educators and students, I have the flexibility to demonstrate its use for the students and for the teacher; first I will start of with the scenario to integrate college students. 

Subject: Writing

Learning objective: Students will be able to store their notes digitally in their computers and be able to access them anywhere any time.

Checkout the following video on how the smartpens are used in K-12 education.  This is an awesome technology that can tremendously help both students and teacher in Technology Education.  It’s a great learning tool. It can improve student learning offering a better understanding of what teachers are talking about. 

For educators using the same technology they can create what is called pencasts.  Which is a digital version of the class you are teaching capturing both notes and audio.  You can use the pencasts for any topic from math problems explanation where you can actually draw formulas and all the fancy symbols to chemistry classes where you can write chemistry equations.

This smartpen is like a computer in a pen, it can even translate.  Please checkout the following link where you can see all the different examples on how pencast is currently used.

http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/solutions/k12/pencast.html

 

MathBoard - Technology Education

Student learning can be highly supported by technology.  Mobile technology can tremendously help technology education teachers and students, through the different educational applications developed for tablets.

Subject: Math

Grade level: 4^th

Topic: basic math operations

Learning objectives: The students will be able to perform and practice integer operations on a mobile app called MathBoard ( or Desktop Version, if iPads are not provided by the school district).

This is a great and a very interactive mobile application for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division operations.  It can be customized depending on the math operation you would to practice, this mobile app makes math fun. 

 

This is an application developed for the iPad and is a fantastic math-learning tool for kids from kindergarten all the way up to elementary school. MathBoard allows generating up to 250 questions per quiz.  Each quiz can be time out.  You can also save the quizzes, so you can replay them and go over them with your students about the mistakes made.  MathBoard is a LanSchool EdApp certified.  Mathboard is designed as quiz, so you can practice and test students. Please join me to view the following video on how MathBoard is being reviewed. You can see how it works.

I could use MathBoard to randomly give a pop quiz to my students and time them to see how long does it take them to complete a 10-question quiz. See the scores and then I will be able to see how my students do in arithmetic operations, as well as more complex operations.  This can definitely help math teachers to practice with students.

MathBoard is also available for Mac users as software. You have the same functionality as the mobile app, the only difference is that you run the software from you computer rather than from a tablet.  You can also view how the desktop version works in the following video.

  Desktop Version:

1. Tablet computers are very popular, but are they classroom ready?

Vineet Madan, Vice President of McGraw-Hill Higher Education eLabs, argues in this Mashable article, that tablets are ready for the classroom.
While the article focuses on higher learning institutions, the examples would work just as well in K-12 classrooms.

http://mostateteachers.typepad.com/missouri_state_teachers_a/2011/05/6-reasons-tablets-are-ready-for-the-classroom.html

2. What do you do with a Digital Pen?

This technology can be used by students with disabilities for note taking, writing, reading, mathematics,
and virtually any content area. Using the pen for augmentative communication, as well as in-class assessment
is discussed. Teachers can use a recording digital pen to create a “pencast” of a lecture. The
pencast could then be available for repeated viewings by students who require repetition for learning
or those not available when the content was covered. The chapter concludes that the recording digital
pen’s applications and usage will expand as knowledge of the device increases.

link to PDF document

Visual aid in Education

I am the person who in a classroom will use a lot of media to teach, I will go from pictures, PPTs, videos, animations, you name it. I think that the human being understand better through images and retains most of the information when is presented visually. A perfect example would be a movie, how many of us we are like, have you seen this movie? Do you remember when “this” happened? And we start remembering the entire movie, and that’s because we have stored those images and video sequences in our head.  For instance, I bet that those who have read Harry Potter movies would remember more by watching the movie that actually readings from the book.  I am not currently a teacher but as student I can say that I learn  more from visual materials. 

  We can make use of visualization tools to help our students to understand better a certain concept. 

Another important aspect of visualization with these technologies is collaboration. With the use of Web Video conferencing we achieve another level of student sharing and collaboration.  As IT manager on a university I have experience even in Math classes how visualization technologies aids student learning. With the use of smart-pens, or digital boards such as Smart Boards, and sketch/drawing tools, student and teachers can draw mathematical equations and explain the process in writing but “digitally” where this can be later uploaded to a shared space for the teacher to evaluate or simply it can be posted for sharing an example on how to solve a math problem with the rest of the class. 

I love mobile technology and I can see a great trend with this technology in Higher Education, students now use their tablets or iPads to go over assignments, do research and even communicate with other in webinars or other video mobile conferencing tools available for these tablets.