EEND 680 Artifact 2- SAMR Professional Development

Click here to view the Google Slides and speaker notes!

For my second artifact for this course I chose the Professional Development workshop that I created on the SAMR model. We are not 1:1 at my school. Therefore, some teachers are overwhelmed with effective ways to incorporate technology into their classrooms so I chose to make my workshop centered around the SAMR model in order to share effective tips and tech tools. While creating this workshop, I chose to create a Google Slideshow with active links and boards that teachers could follow along with. This way they are learning with me and can go back to the slideshow at a later date if necessary. I included speaker notes on each slide with directions of what the presenter would be doing and conversation guides. I felt that it was necessary to give teachers lots of work time so that they could apply what I am teaching them to their own classrooms. Creating effective professional development is challenging as not all teachers need the same thing. By giving teachers work time, I was able to differentiate my workshop and I could circulate the room and help teachers with their individual needs. I also decided to use the lunch break to reflect on feedback from the morning in order to make necessary changes for the afternoon portion of the workshop. If the teachers are not engaged and participating, it will not be meaningful so it was very important for me to take the time to incorporate their needs. 

All of the tools and tips that I included in the slideshow are things that I plan on doing in my own classroom in the future. Therefore, this assignment gave me many ideas of how to better use technology in my classroom. I try to use it as often as possible but it really should be used in almost every lesson and I realized how easy that could be by using tools such as Google Classroom, Seesaw, or Padlet. Just as teachers need to be engaged in professional development, my students need to be engaged in my instruction and technology is such an effective way to make that happen. 

References

Google Slides (2018). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/slides/about/

Google Classroom (2018). Retrieved from https://classroom.google.com/u/0/h

Seesaw (2018). Retrieved from https://web.seesaw.me/

Padlet (2018). Retrieved from https://padlet.com/dashboard

EEND 680 Artifact 1- Learning Walk Form

Click here to access the form!

The first artifact that I chose was the walk-through form I created using Google Forms. I chose this artifact because my school district does not currently do learning walks where teachers are able to observe and learn from each other so I found it to be a very interesting concept. I wanted to create my feedback from through a Google application as my school is a google school. Therefore, I know that all teachers and admin have Google accounts so the forms could be easily shared and used among staff members. I chose to focus on the 4 c’s as I thought that evidence of the 4 c’s would be visible in every classroom and would therefore lead to meaningful conversations for teachers to have with one another. One challenge I had while creating this assignment was that I did not want my tool to come across as evaluative as that is not the intent of a learning walk. Therefore, I chose to make all of feedback available in a narrative form. I felt that not have any sort of scale or checklist would allow teachers to feel more comfortable with one another and would also allow a more meaningful conversation so that all teachers involved are able to learn and grow.

This assignment also allowed me to reflect of use of technology and the use of the 4 c’s within my own classroom. It reminded me that technology should be used to help deepen my students’ understanding and creativity. I also need to ensure that I am giving my students choice within assignments and lessons whenever possible. I feel as if teachers could video tape themselves teaching and use this form to reflect on their own lesson and determine their next steps.

References
Google Forms (2018). Retrieved from https://www.google.com/forms/about/ 

Social Media in Schools

In my classroom, I use the application Seesaw. Seesaw is set up to look similar to Facebook with each students having their own portfolio. When at school, students are able to post work to the class feed and then myself, other students, and their parents can view and comment on it. However, parents can only see work posted by their child and myself so their work is kept private. I can also post announcements and photographs for my students and parents to view. As I teach primary grades, this has been a very useful and student friendly way to use technology. I even have the option to approve student posts and comments so I can ensure that everyone is being respectful. This helps eliminate any problems with misusing social networking. All of my parents love Seesaw and I have received great feedback over the past few years. I do not use Facebook or Twitter as it is too mature and complex for my students but our school does have a Twitter page and I will ask my boss to post certain things from our grade level in order to keep the community informed with what is happening in our school. I believe that creating my own classroom Twitter or Blog could be a great way to inform the community about our classroom and it is something that I am considering this school year.

My school’s acceptable use policy must be signed by all students and staff members before they are allowed to use the internet or tech devices at our school. Our school views the following as unacceptable use of technology:
A. Using the network for non-educational uses, including but not limited to games, wagering,

gambling, junk mail, chain letters, jokes, private business activities, raffles, fundraisers, religious activities or political lobbying, unless expressly authorized by the District Webmaster.
B. Using the network for any illegal activity, including violation of copyright or other contracts, or transmitting any material in violation of any State or federal law;
C. Unauthorized downloading of software, regardless of whether it is copyrighted or de-virused;
D. Downloading copyrighted material for other than personal use;
E. Using the network for private financial or commercial gain;
F. Wastefully using resources, such as file space;
G. Hacking or gaining unauthorized access to files, resources, or entities;
H. Invading the privacy of individuals, that includes the unauthorized disclosure, dissemination, and use of information about anyone that is of a personal nature including a photograph;
I. Using another user’s account or password;
J. Posting material authored or created by another without his/her consent;
K. Posting anonymous messages;
L. Using the network for commercial or private advertising;
M. Connecting other electronic devices to the District’s networks without authorization from the Technology Department, including but not limited to cellular telecommunications devices such as smart phones, pagers, text communication pagers, two way text pagers, personal digital assistants, lap tops, net books, PCs that are not District owned, etc.,
N. Accessing, submitting, posting, publishing, or displaying any defamatory, inaccurate,abusive, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, racially offensive, harassing, or illegal material;
O. Using the network while access privileges are suspended or revoked. Network Etiquette - The user is expected to abide by the generally accepted rules of network etiquette.
I believe that these guidelines are very clear and explicit. They should be made clear to all students and I believe they should be expanded on by teachers working with their students to create their own set of technology expectations based off of the school policy. These rules would be written in student friendly language and posted where all students could see them on a daily basis as a reminder of technology expectations.

Leaders could help teachers recognize signs of cyberbullying by creating a clear set of rules and expectations regarding technology that are enforced in all classrooms so that students always have the same expectations. Leaders need to encourage teachers to take the time to have open dialogue with their students about interactions among students both in person and on social media. This will help teachers learn if there are any issues going on among their students. Leaders can also encourage teachers to model usage of proper social media interactions so that students can have positive role models.

EEND 680 Introduction

Hello! My name is Katie Trafton. I am a second grade teacher at Troy Heritage Trail in Joliet. I have been teaching at Troy for six years. Next year, I will be teaching kindergarten and I am very excited to teach a new grade level! In my classroom I have ten devices for my eighteen students. We have seven Chromebooks and three iPads. Each grade level in my district is assigned a different amount of devices. The number of devices increases in the higher grade levels. Each school in my district also has an iLab which contains Chromeboxes, Chromebooks, iPads, and a green screen. Each teacher is assigned an hour in the iLab each week and have the opportunity to sign up for additional time. We are a Google school and I have found one tool that I use daily is Google Classroom. By using Google Classroom, I can create assignments and easily send a copy to each student. I can then view the assignment as they work and leave comments and give them assistance. Another feature of Google Classroom that I like is that it organizes all of the assignments in folders in my Google Drive. Therefore, I can easily look over the assignments and access them whenever I need to. I also like that I can create multiple classes. Therefore, I have made a “class” for each of my reading groups. This allows me to stay organized and easily send different assignments to different students. I am very excited to learn more ways to integrate technology throughout this course. I am very comfortable using technology but I want to work on using it in all parts of my day in meaningful ways.

EEND Artifact 2- Flipped Learning

The second artifact that I chose was the screencast that I created for our flipped learning discussion. I created the video using the Google extension Screencastify. I have used this extension before and have found it very easy to use. I wanted to create a video that could be used as a resource for my students. In my classroom, my students use a hundreds chart on a daily basis. Therefore, I created a video as a reminder of how to find a number on the chart. They then could play the video whenever they need it, even if they are working on an assignment at home. I chose this artifact because it shows how technology can help meet student needs even outside of the classroom. I plan to make similar videos like this in the future so that my students parents can be aware of what and how their child is learning and so that students can independently review topics when needed. One limitation is that students are not able to ask questions in real time. They would be able to email me a question but I may not to be able to answer in time for them to complete the assignment. Therefore, I need to give my students multiple videos and supports to ensure that they are successful when completing assignments both inside and outside of the classroom.

References Origo (2017). Retrieved from https://www.origoslate.com. Screencastify (2017). Retrieved from https://www.screencastify.com/.

EEND 678 Artifact 1- PBL Unit

Click here to view my Project Based Learning Outline!

My first artifact for this course is my PBL unit based on how to create an environment where chicks can survive. Before this course, I have never used project based learning in my classroom and I did not know how to make it work. I than began to think about real problems that arise in my classroom. One of the first things that came to mind was how to take care of our class chicks. In the spring, my students will be responsible for caring for eggs and then baby chicks. Instead of me telling them how to care for the chicks, I decided that I could create a project based learning unit where the students learned and discovered what the chicks will need to survive. This is a unit that I would be able to use every year and I also will be able to share it with my teammates. One obstacle with this unit is that I need to make sure that my students find a way to meet all of the chicks’ needs as they are living creatures. Therefore, I decided that my students could be given a checklist before they present their final project and make sure that it meets all of the criteria. This project allowed me to teach a fun science unit in a way where my students are actively engaged in their learning.

EEND 678 Course Reflection

Throughout this course, I have learned many tips and ideas that I can apply in my classroom. The biggest thing that I took away was how to design a PBL unit. I have never used a PBL unit in my classroom before and to be honest I was unsure of how it would work in the primary grades. However, as I read more articles and did more research, I realized how engaging and beneficial it actually was. I became excited to find a way to try it out in my own classroom and enjoyed filling out the outline and coming up with multiple ideas that would work for my second graders. I am excited to try these units throughout the course of the school year.

Another takeaway was the idea of creating a class agreement for technology devices. I always work with my students to create a class promise at the beginning of the school year and I always take the time to go over expected behaviors when using technology devices but I have never made a specific technology agreement. I plan on making one with my students in the upcoming weeks and keeping displayed in our classroom next to our original classroom promise. I could then easily refer back to it if I ever see an unwanted behavior while students are using tech devices.

My last takeaway is that I want to spend more time looking into grants that I could use to better my classroom. While researching grants, I realized how many different types that they were and how frequently new grants were available. I always feel as if I am noticing something that my students need to grow as learners and applying for more grants may help me solve that problem.