GoAnimate was a "no-go"

So I thought it would be a very cool culminating activity for my students to use GoAnimate to create a cartoon clip of how an interview should go.  When we first turned to the website, it seemed like it captured their attention!  #eduwin I thought to myself!  Then, things went downhill.  First, I had some students who chose to use the technology inappropriately, getting the characters to say inappropriate things.  Needless to say this was frustrating.  Secondly, and perhaps even worse, there were no SAVE capabilities!  Apparently as Go Animate has gotten more popular, the "free" features have become less and less.  This was really disappointing and kind of put a kibosh (sp?) on the lesson.  At least I tried....

The alternative suggested was PowToon.  I directed some students to try this site, however, I found it to be MUCH less user friendly.  The students were not able to pick it up on their own and since I had only prepped with GoAnimate, I wasn't of much help to them.

As I use new tools like this, a question I struggle with is how much time to spend to "teaching" the tool.  In this case, I did not want to spend an entire class period teaching how to use PowToon so they could use it for this one assignment.  If it was something more globally useful, say Prezi, I would in fact dedicate the time.  But, in this instance, with an already jam packed curriculum it just wasn't something I could devote the time to.

Flip! Flop!?

Well...it's nearing the end of the semester and it's CRUNCH time.  I'm teaching a new course this semester and apparently I didn't plan out my time all that well and it's getting down to the buzzer and I have quite a bit left to fit in.   I found myself in this dilemma AND contemplating new ways to deliver new information to students other than notes, Powerpoints, etc.  I get so bored with those "lecture" days, yet I still feel they are somewhat essential at times so I still do them, but I"m sure the students get bored too.  Between a crunch for time and a hatred for lecture, I decided it was time to try "flipping" my classroom.  I asked my class today, "Can I count on you to do additional readings at home, so that we can spend more time in class doing hands-on labs?"  They replied with a resounding "yes" as they are very anxious to do the skills labs.  So, this week, we will begin.  Instead of giving the dreaded notes I was planning, which contained the details of several jobs in the Diagnostic Services cluster, I am going to have them review the section of the chapter and then choose 1 of several YouTube videos to watch (from a list I provide).  In class, we will get to spend the extra time with a guest speaker from the field and doing a lab to practice diagnostic type skills.  We shall see how it goes!  Let's hope this FLIP doesn't FLOP!

Lions and twitters and bears ... oh my!!

So, delving into the world of Twitter and #10ThingsTechie has been an "interesting" experience to say the least.  Unfortunately for me, I'm a bit of a compulsive "checker" and I really don't like to miss out on anything (yes, I was the kid who didn't want to go to bed because I was afraid really cool stuff happened while I was sleeping), so at first Twitter was EXTREMELY overwhelming.  It is clearly impossible to keep up with every post from your followers and those you follow, unless of course you have absolutely no life.  After about a week or so, I came to the conclusion I should either give up on Twitter altogether or let go of my compulsive need to "check" and keep up with everything.  I, thankfully, chose the latter and have come across some interesting finds.  Not only have I read many inspirational articles and taken in some sound leadership advice, but I have come across new resources to use in the classroom.  Most specifically, this week I showed my students The College App Map, a road map of sorts linked to a multitude of apps and websites that help with the college and career planning process; I also used a Virtual Job Interview site I came across from Twitter; and began to explore Skype in the Classroom for potential future guest speaker connections.

Aside from Twitter, I'm finding the best addition to my teaching repertoire this year to be Edmodo.  In the spring I plan to use it more extensively with my Health & Medical Careers II classes.  For now, I am piloting it in Health & Med I as it seems to be appropriate for this audience.  (Not so sure it'd work as well with my less motivated Career Planning students....one small step at a time!)  It seems to be going EXTREMELY well.  It is super easy to use on both the student and teacher side.  It looks a lot like Facebook, which I'm sure has some student appeal.  I have found Edmodo to be a great communication tool - to remind students of assignments, upcoming quizzes, etc.  I also have utilized Edmodo to collect the tentative hypotheses which the students must submit prior to the guest speakers in class - much better than 24 slips of paper, plus they can refer back to it as needed, etc.  I was amazed the other day when I posted an optional article for the students to read and comment on.  Their insightful comments were definitely an #eduwin!!!  I couldn't believe they were having a conversation outside of class and school hours about the material we were learning!  I then awarded the students who participated in the discussion a "participant badge", needless to say the others were jealous and quickly jumped on board.  Edmodo has enabled me to be a better teacher and to meet the needs of more students.  Tonight, I posted a Powerpoint of "flashcards" for the students to use as review for their quiz on Wednesday.  Because Edmodo makes it so easy to transmit files, such as this, it was a no-brainer.  Previously, I may have just said "study your notes".  Now, I can provide them with additional study tools with a click of a button and hopefully address different learning styles in the process.

My one complaint, if you will, is that I wish Edmodo was our school-wide platform.  As each of us works to integrate technology into our classes, it will become burdensome on the part of the student to check say 5-6 different sites for each teacher's assignments or postings.  One central location would be nice and certainly more efficient.  Well, until then......

Are kids really tech savvy?

As I work to integrate more technology into my daily classroom lessons, I begin to ask myself the question - are kids truly technologically savvy?  Sure, they know how to use their iPods to listen to music, post to Instagram, and play Candy Crush, but day after day I discover what I believe to be a task every novice computer user should know, that they do not.  For example, just this week I found several students unfamiliar with how to attach a document to an email.  Since this is going to be the way of their world, I think it's important that we not only use/teach the fancy bells and whistles, but not forget about the "basics" as well....

http://visual.ly/how-tech-savvy-are-our-kids

Financial Literacy

Excited to attend the 2013 Jump$tart Financial Literacy Conference starting tomorrow in Washington DC!  Check out more info here:
http://jumpstart.org/teacher-conference.html

Cool STC Stuff!

Check out what Wallingford Public Schools are doing to expand school to career opportunities for students.  Talk about 21st Century Skills!

http://www.myrecordjournal.com/wallingford/wallingfordnews/2664172-129/wallingford-school-board-plans-downtown-business-center.html

Trying new techie things

Well, this group and blog assignment prompted me to try and incorporate more technology into my classroom.  I signed up for edmodo.com yesterday and will be asking my students to sign up today.  I will be posting a "secret word" for extra credit this week and see how many students view it.  Let's see how it goes.