One thing that my Educational Technology Cohort is really teaching me is the value of Social Media. I have definitely valued social media in my own personal life, but hadn't thought of all the things that it could do in my teaching. I read a few articles about this idea, and realize that the sky is the limit where Social Media is concerned.
The first article I read had to do with teachers in the arts. For visual and music arts, there are many different uses for social media that could be explored in my classroom. With regards to composing, there are so many different applications and sites that can help students create songs. Students can then post their songs and creations on a website for feedback from peers and for instant feedback from the teacher. One of the greatest things that came out of this article though, was the idea of social media as help for the arts teachers to connect. Often times, the music teacher or art teacher is the only of its kind in a building. This makes it hard to collaborate with others and come up with new, fresh ideas for your teaching. The article talks about Nings, blogs, and even Facebook to connect with other teachers. Pinterest is another social networking tool not mentioned in the article but very useful for other teachers to collaborate as well.
The second article I read was about bringing social networking into the classroom. The main idea of the article talked about how students and parents use social media so often in their personal lives that it is second nature to them. Why then, aren't we using this in our classrooms and our schools? Some projects mentioned included students blogging about a trip they took and using Skype to contact schools in another country for a project. The Skype project had a class communicating and had different jobs for each child, including photographer, secretary, tweeters, and fact checkers. It was a great way to engage students in plenty of different ways. Another idea that came up was a project that involved smart phones and ways for students to post questions or comments about homework. Educators didn't think that it would work, but then when they posted a question about linear equations, they had 75 students create videos to help their peers. This article also brings up the idea of Professional Development by talking about the Twitter hash tag #edchat and all the comments and ideas that come from that for teachers.
Social Media is really transforming the world in many ways, so teachers need to jump onto the train. We need to be using different sites for our own Professional Development and also using different Social Media to engage our students in the classroom. With more training and more time to explore, the classroom can extend its boundaries to the home and beyond so students can become more engaged.
Ash, K. (2011). Art and music learning emphasize interactivity, real-world relevance. Education Week, 30(35), S12-S14.
Davis, M. (2010). Social networking goes to school. Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review, 76(3), 14-19.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
4th Grade Steady Beat Project
I just wanted to share a project that I do with my 4th Graders called the Steady Beat "Dance". It is just for them to reinforce their knowledge of the steady beat in a fun way. It also offers them an opportunity to work in groups, fostering that independence that we all need to be supporting for the Common Core.
Here is the project sheet for each group:
The kids basically make up 6 "moves" that show a four beat pattern each. I don't limit them on what they can do, so often times they have a few moves where it is one pose or motion that goes down the line (1st person does one beat, 2nd person does next, etc.). They often come up with a final move that ends with something funny as well. One group I have this year made it that on the first beat one kid jumps out and on each beat after that they "punch" the other group members and they fall to the ground for the end. No actual contact is made, but the kids have fun making it look like they are flying through the air to land.
I also have a list of fun songs for the kids to choose from to do their dance ("Call me Maybe", "Good Time", "We Will Rock You", "Firework", etc.). That makes it an even more enjoyable project for them, so we have fun with it. I encourage anyone to try doing this and trying it out with their group. I've found that groups of 3 or 4 work best for the project as well.
Happy musicing!!!
Here is the project sheet for each group:
The kids basically make up 6 "moves" that show a four beat pattern each. I don't limit them on what they can do, so often times they have a few moves where it is one pose or motion that goes down the line (1st person does one beat, 2nd person does next, etc.). They often come up with a final move that ends with something funny as well. One group I have this year made it that on the first beat one kid jumps out and on each beat after that they "punch" the other group members and they fall to the ground for the end. No actual contact is made, but the kids have fun making it look like they are flying through the air to land.
I also have a list of fun songs for the kids to choose from to do their dance ("Call me Maybe", "Good Time", "We Will Rock You", "Firework", etc.). That makes it an even more enjoyable project for them, so we have fun with it. I encourage anyone to try doing this and trying it out with their group. I've found that groups of 3 or 4 work best for the project as well.
Happy musicing!!!
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Journal Article About Podcasting
In response to questioning the use of Podcasting in education, I was forced to look into the many different ways that Podcasting could be used. One article I came across talked about the many ways that they could be used in the classroom and outside for student learning, public relations, and just basic parent communication. When thinking about Podcasting, I first thought about how students could benefit from Podcasting in the classroom themselves.
One idea mentioned was recording general classroom activities and making them available for view and listening to all. Students could review a song or an activity you did because they can hear their class actually doing it. The other way students themselves could record is creating assignments for a podcast such as creating a radio show for a subject you are talking about or having students publish a song that they created in a group. In the music classroom this is very valuable because, as mentioned in the article, music is a class that students can not hang on the refridgerator. Aside from productions put on, many don't understand what goes on in the classroom, and this is a way to do that. This goes along with the idea of using Podcasting for public relations. I often have students record songs they created but this idea of podcasting can allow the students to then show their parents what they created as well. Assessing an assignment like this would have to be done using a rubric that talked about different parts that I required, but for elementary students, I would be focusing on content of the podcast and not of recording quality or professionalism. This is a new medium for these younger students, and I view podcasting at this age to be more of an introductory stage. At the older levels, the rubric would include professionalism, quality of recording, and ability to publish where needed (i.e. Dropbox or Google Drive).
The other way that was mentioned was for teachers to create the podcasts for students. In this way, information can be disseminated from the actual class in forms of reviewing for students or supplying a class for students who are absent. One idea mentioned that would fit into my district's curriculum is creating videos for the recorder. Showing your fingers as you play a song that the students are working on. Being able to see this is very valuable for students to work from. Along these lines of the teacher creating podcasts, the article mentioned it as a parent and administration communication tool. Having a podcast that talks about what is happening monthly in the music room, talks about the expectations of the year, or provides dates for parents is a great way for communicating to them.
Aside from creating your own podcasts, the article lastly mentions the availability of many educational podcasts already published. Looking through different podcasts and picking out ones that will fit into your school's curriculum can serve some of these purposes as well. If you were going to create a podcast about how to read the notes on the staff, but there is already one created for that, then you save the time by finding it and sharing the link with your students.
After reading the article and thinking about what I would want to do with Podcasting in my room, I have many different ideas that I feel could work for me. I think that the idea of sharing student work is something that I am very excited about. Students in all grade levels create work that I record rather than have them perform live. By creating a podcast to display this work, students can go home and share with their parents what they created in music that day. This also lets the students get even more engaged because of the idea that they will hear themselves and their classmates in the final product. I am excited to get started.
Kerstetter, K. (2009). Educational applications of podcasting in the music classroom. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 23-26.
One idea mentioned was recording general classroom activities and making them available for view and listening to all. Students could review a song or an activity you did because they can hear their class actually doing it. The other way students themselves could record is creating assignments for a podcast such as creating a radio show for a subject you are talking about or having students publish a song that they created in a group. In the music classroom this is very valuable because, as mentioned in the article, music is a class that students can not hang on the refridgerator. Aside from productions put on, many don't understand what goes on in the classroom, and this is a way to do that. This goes along with the idea of using Podcasting for public relations. I often have students record songs they created but this idea of podcasting can allow the students to then show their parents what they created as well. Assessing an assignment like this would have to be done using a rubric that talked about different parts that I required, but for elementary students, I would be focusing on content of the podcast and not of recording quality or professionalism. This is a new medium for these younger students, and I view podcasting at this age to be more of an introductory stage. At the older levels, the rubric would include professionalism, quality of recording, and ability to publish where needed (i.e. Dropbox or Google Drive).
The other way that was mentioned was for teachers to create the podcasts for students. In this way, information can be disseminated from the actual class in forms of reviewing for students or supplying a class for students who are absent. One idea mentioned that would fit into my district's curriculum is creating videos for the recorder. Showing your fingers as you play a song that the students are working on. Being able to see this is very valuable for students to work from. Along these lines of the teacher creating podcasts, the article mentioned it as a parent and administration communication tool. Having a podcast that talks about what is happening monthly in the music room, talks about the expectations of the year, or provides dates for parents is a great way for communicating to them.
Aside from creating your own podcasts, the article lastly mentions the availability of many educational podcasts already published. Looking through different podcasts and picking out ones that will fit into your school's curriculum can serve some of these purposes as well. If you were going to create a podcast about how to read the notes on the staff, but there is already one created for that, then you save the time by finding it and sharing the link with your students.
After reading the article and thinking about what I would want to do with Podcasting in my room, I have many different ideas that I feel could work for me. I think that the idea of sharing student work is something that I am very excited about. Students in all grade levels create work that I record rather than have them perform live. By creating a podcast to display this work, students can go home and share with their parents what they created in music that day. This also lets the students get even more engaged because of the idea that they will hear themselves and their classmates in the final product. I am excited to get started.
Kerstetter, K. (2009). Educational applications of podcasting in the music classroom. Music Educators Journal, 95(4), 23-26.
QR Codes
One thing that I learned from my first class working on this ed tech Masters was how awesome it is to create QR codes. As I was working on my information for our curriculum night on Tuesday, I decided that I would create a QR code with my e-mail, phone number, and school website and put it on the handout. Anyone with a QR reader on their phone then has all my information at their fingertips. Here is an example of how I put it on my handout:
Here are a few different sites to try out. The first is just for individual information and you can get a WHOLE bunch of fun stuff with your QR Code on it and the second allows you to create a contact QR code for something like what I did.
QRStuff
ZXing Project
Other ideas for all this QR code stuff is to create QR codes with clues around the building and send kids on a scavenger hunt that uses QR codes to tell them where to go next. This if you have iPod touches or iPads in your classroom you can use something like this around your classroom where kids have to identify symbols and see if they are right or not. There are a bunch of fun ways to use it, but I thought that the most practical and not scary was for basic contact information. Enjoy!
Here are a few different sites to try out. The first is just for individual information and you can get a WHOLE bunch of fun stuff with your QR Code on it and the second allows you to create a contact QR code for something like what I did.
QRStuff
ZXing Project
Other ideas for all this QR code stuff is to create QR codes with clues around the building and send kids on a scavenger hunt that uses QR codes to tell them where to go next. This if you have iPod touches or iPads in your classroom you can use something like this around your classroom where kids have to identify symbols and see if they are right or not. There are a bunch of fun ways to use it, but I thought that the most practical and not scary was for basic contact information. Enjoy!
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The First Day of School
Back to school!!! This post really isn't going to have anything that is remotely productive for the rest of you, but I just want to tell you all that we are back in school in my district as of today. There is just something about that first day back with all those kids looking at you and getting excited about the new school year.
There is comfort in knowing your past students so well that it doesn't surprise you when one of them is crawling like a dog around the floor during the game because he is CLEARLY not used to being back at school again. There is comfort in the hug that you receive from the one who hugged you every time they came into music last year. There is joy when a parent comes up to you to tell you that their son said that the thing he was most excited about for this school year was getting to see you again. There is joy in meeting a new student for the first time and they smile and laugh when you say "Who are you and Where do you come from??" in a voice that tells them that you are just trying to be silly to make them feel welcome. There is pride in introducing yourself to a new group of 1st graders and having a few raise their hands when you ask them if they know your name and then tell you that their big brother or sister talked about you all the time. There is pride when you open the doors in the morning and the parents drop the child off and say "Don't worry, Miss Rains will make sure you get down there okay!"
My favorite really is getting the younger siblings for the first time in first grade. Today we didn't do much in first grade music, because it is my tradition that I have every student sing me their name. In between rows we sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and I start to take out words and the little ones giggle like someone is permanently at their sides tickling them. I watched one of those younger siblings today, who I knew from when they were just a baby, and my heart sang when the smile never left his face. He giggled, he sang his name, he laughed through singing "If you're Happy and You Know It Shake Your Booty" (because that is the best version... that and do the disco), and I could tell that all that his siblings said before came true before his eyes. Miss Rains really is as crazy as they've said she was all these years.
I LOVE the first day of school.
There is comfort in knowing your past students so well that it doesn't surprise you when one of them is crawling like a dog around the floor during the game because he is CLEARLY not used to being back at school again. There is comfort in the hug that you receive from the one who hugged you every time they came into music last year. There is joy when a parent comes up to you to tell you that their son said that the thing he was most excited about for this school year was getting to see you again. There is joy in meeting a new student for the first time and they smile and laugh when you say "Who are you and Where do you come from??" in a voice that tells them that you are just trying to be silly to make them feel welcome. There is pride in introducing yourself to a new group of 1st graders and having a few raise their hands when you ask them if they know your name and then tell you that their big brother or sister talked about you all the time. There is pride when you open the doors in the morning and the parents drop the child off and say "Don't worry, Miss Rains will make sure you get down there okay!"
My favorite really is getting the younger siblings for the first time in first grade. Today we didn't do much in first grade music, because it is my tradition that I have every student sing me their name. In between rows we sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" and I start to take out words and the little ones giggle like someone is permanently at their sides tickling them. I watched one of those younger siblings today, who I knew from when they were just a baby, and my heart sang when the smile never left his face. He giggled, he sang his name, he laughed through singing "If you're Happy and You Know It Shake Your Booty" (because that is the best version... that and do the disco), and I could tell that all that his siblings said before came true before his eyes. Miss Rains really is as crazy as they've said she was all these years.
I LOVE the first day of school.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Binder Organization
I thought that I would do a couple things in this entry to talk about organization for an elementary music teacher. This is HUGE!!! Most schools don't have either a set curriculum or a set of resources for the music teacher, so it becomes a hodge podge of creating your curriculum from what you know and what you can make or get with your tiny budget! Being inspired by a 1st grade teacher who puts all her stuff into binders, I decided to do the same thing. I seperated by binders into the following categories...
The reason why I had Instruments and Rhythms in their own binder is because we do both in every grade level in my district, so they have a LOT of resources.
In each binder there are lesson plans that go with the subject. That way you can just add lessons as you come up with new ideas every year and take out ones that weren't successful.
All of the resources I use from books were also copied. This way you don't have to go through your books looking through to find where it is. You have the resource written down on the top corner (5th grade book, 4th grade book, Railroad CD, etc.), and I highlighted the CD track number so I could easily play the song for the kids.
I also like to use power points in my lesson, so I print out the power points so I know what is coming next and when I've got to switch slides nd whatnot. All making your life a little easier!
The reason why I had Instruments and Rhythms in their own binder is because we do both in every grade level in my district, so they have a LOT of resources.
In each binder there are lesson plans that go with the subject. That way you can just add lessons as you come up with new ideas every year and take out ones that weren't successful.
All of the resources I use from books were also copied. This way you don't have to go through your books looking through to find where it is. You have the resource written down on the top corner (5th grade book, 4th grade book, Railroad CD, etc.), and I highlighted the CD track number so I could easily play the song for the kids.
I also like to use power points in my lesson, so I print out the power points so I know what is coming next and when I've got to switch slides nd whatnot. All making your life a little easier!
Then you've got tests and projects in there as well, so you have a master to make copies from if you need them.
Again, all of this is so you can have everything in one spot when you are lesson planning. Then, paired with my lesson plan book, I look through the week and decide what to do. In the example below, you can see that there are some classes with X's in them. That's what I do when I know that I won't be seeing a class that time. So 2K and 2G miss their class the first time that week, and resume with Steady Beat lesson 1 on their 2nd meeting time.
Having all these lessons to pick from is also good because I KNOW that there are some lessons that we put in as filler lessons for those classes that never seem to miss music. When you have it all laid out in front of you, you can then decide that since one class is behind, they can skip a certain lesson or game and still get the objective that you are aiming for! Anyways, that was my random idea for the new school year, and we'll see how it works out!!
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
My Classroom
I thought that I would let everyone check out my new theme for the school year!! Our school theme is genres, jumping on board with the Common Core Standards and working on academic focus. Well, of course, I'm going to use this opportunity to talk to the kids about musical genres as well.
The above picture is what is going on in the front of my classroom, my "desk" (two random tables) is there on the left, with my randomness bulletin board that has my schedule. The black cart next to it houses my document camera every year, which is quite nice. Then the top runner has Country, Pop, Jazz, Classical, and Rock artist around it so kids can see all different people in music.
Then we have the back of my classroom with the digital piano, some boomwhackers, and our theme title. The blue stripe on the back is an idea I stole off Pinterest of having a timeline. I'm going to have the kids talk about what they learned at the end of each unit and we're going to put up some cool stuff for what we've done.
The white bookcase (a new donation from my third grade pal Nicki) has crayon boxes, markers, white boards, dry erase markers, white boards, clipboards, and basically everything that the kids need to work on all their stuff in class.
On this front board, I'm going to put different reminders up about upcoming dates and tests and things like that. I just laminated some cardstock, so I can use a vis a vis or I can use dry erase markers on it.
Here are my file folders for 2nd-5th grade. Each class is a different color and each student has a numbered folder. This way, when they are doing group projects or anything like that, they can just put things in their folders and it is their responsibility to make sure it is in the right place. It's actually quite nice to have them keep track of their stuff!!
So that is my classroom basically. My other wall has a bunch of boring cabinets that you don't want to see. For now that's all I got going on, and I'll be posting some new stuff later on as we are getting into the school year.
The above picture is what is going on in the front of my classroom, my "desk" (two random tables) is there on the left, with my randomness bulletin board that has my schedule. The black cart next to it houses my document camera every year, which is quite nice. Then the top runner has Country, Pop, Jazz, Classical, and Rock artist around it so kids can see all different people in music.
Then we have the back of my classroom with the digital piano, some boomwhackers, and our theme title. The blue stripe on the back is an idea I stole off Pinterest of having a timeline. I'm going to have the kids talk about what they learned at the end of each unit and we're going to put up some cool stuff for what we've done.
The white bookcase (a new donation from my third grade pal Nicki) has crayon boxes, markers, white boards, dry erase markers, white boards, clipboards, and basically everything that the kids need to work on all their stuff in class.
On this front board, I'm going to put different reminders up about upcoming dates and tests and things like that. I just laminated some cardstock, so I can use a vis a vis or I can use dry erase markers on it.
Here are my file folders for 2nd-5th grade. Each class is a different color and each student has a numbered folder. This way, when they are doing group projects or anything like that, they can just put things in their folders and it is their responsibility to make sure it is in the right place. It's actually quite nice to have them keep track of their stuff!!
So that is my classroom basically. My other wall has a bunch of boring cabinets that you don't want to see. For now that's all I got going on, and I'll be posting some new stuff later on as we are getting into the school year.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Glogster
This is a glog for something called the Webster Electric Ekotape. It was something that we researched during my Ed Tech Masters, but I liked putting it on the blog here to show off using Glogster, which you can also use glogster edu for teaching!!
Thursday, July 26, 2012
RSA #3
Preservice teachers and inservice teachers may have never heard of the term "C3" before, which is becoming a very serious problem when talking about the integration of technology in the classroom at any level. C3 stands for cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity. These three outline the risks to technology and the internet that teachers need to be aware of. Cyberethics refers to how someone conducts themselves online through comments and also includes plagarising. Cybersafety includes the knowledge of internet prowlers and how to minimize exposure to things that can be harmful to a computer or its user. Cybersecurity is the technical aspect of everything including accurate virus protection and firewalls that protect users. In the research, it was found that most teachers were unaware of these threats and only were confident in teaching about a few of these. One of the main points that the article brings up is that the teachers that are coming out of colleges are primarily what are called "digital natives" and have grown up with technology all their lives. However, in the majority of cases, these "digital natives" didn't know much more than those termed "digital immigrants", who grew up in an age where computers were not available at all times. One of the last complications brought up was the fact that no matter what, the content of C3 is always changing.
It was very interesting to read this article only because it made me think a great deal about the teachers in my own building. I remember a few teachers that got viruses on their computers because they clicked on a wrong button when it popped up or thought that a site was okay when it wasn't. It was because they didn't know what to look for. If the teachers don't know what to look for, then the kids certainly don't know what to look for. In the article it mentions several different parts of C3 that teachers should learn about and talks also about who the responsibility lies with. Many beleive that this should be the responsibility of the parent, and with some cases, I do agree. We are not going to be using a child's cell phone in the classroom, so parents are in charge of setting the boundaries on its use. If we are using wikispaces or blogger in the classroom though, I feel that it is in fact my job as an educator to teach the students what is and isn't okay to do online. Overall, it was a very interesting article that brought up a lot of good points.
Pusey, P., & Sadera, W. A. (2011). Cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity: Preservice teacher knowledge, preparedness, and the need for teacher education to make a difference. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2), 82-88.
It was very interesting to read this article only because it made me think a great deal about the teachers in my own building. I remember a few teachers that got viruses on their computers because they clicked on a wrong button when it popped up or thought that a site was okay when it wasn't. It was because they didn't know what to look for. If the teachers don't know what to look for, then the kids certainly don't know what to look for. In the article it mentions several different parts of C3 that teachers should learn about and talks also about who the responsibility lies with. Many beleive that this should be the responsibility of the parent, and with some cases, I do agree. We are not going to be using a child's cell phone in the classroom, so parents are in charge of setting the boundaries on its use. If we are using wikispaces or blogger in the classroom though, I feel that it is in fact my job as an educator to teach the students what is and isn't okay to do online. Overall, it was a very interesting article that brought up a lot of good points.
Pusey, P., & Sadera, W. A. (2011). Cyberethics, cybersafety, and cybersecurity: Preservice teacher knowledge, preparedness, and the need for teacher education to make a difference. Journal of Digital Learning in Teacher Education, 28(2), 82-88.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
RSA #2
Connectivism is a proposed theory set out by Siemens in 2004. In the article "Connectivism: Its Place in Theory-Informed Research and Innovation in Technology-Enabled Learning" put out by Frances Bell, connectivism is discussed put into a category of phenomenon rather than theory. The article states that knowledge is a commodity and more and more is becoming a social activity itself with the sharing and refining of ideas over the internet. The internet and social media is now changing education and knowledge because it is now residing in what is called a non-human appliance, where previously it was only held in networks of humans. Goodyear and Castells, as discussed in Bell's article put forth the idea that past learning theories are not providing an adequate framework for us to think and act in this new digital and connected world. That being said, there need to be additional theories to explain the changes, plan interventions, and develop policy. This is where Siemens proposed connectivism.
George Siemens claims that connectivism should be thought of as a successor to behaviorism, cognitivism, and contructivism. He describes limitations of each being the intrapersonal view of learning, failure to address learning withing technology and organizations, and lack of contribution to the value judgments that need to be made in knowledge-rich environments. Branching of the chaos theory, connectivism talks extensively about networks, defining them as connections between entities. These entities can be people, groups, systems, fields, ideas, or communities. Some principles of the theory include: learning residing in non-human appliances, learning being a process of connecting specialized entities, and accurate and up-to-date knowledge is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. In this theory, he does not specifically address technology but does elude to it in the idea of non-human appliances. Siemens theory was something widely spread when it was introduced, but has failed to make a significant impact in scholarly publishing.
The author suggests then that connectivism is not a theory but a phenomenon that is making most of its impact at the level of curriculum. There needs to be more research and elaboration to go beyond just that. In the articles conclusion it presents a few different scenarios that could eventually lead to the development of more theories relating to this ever-expanding technology integration.
I enjoyed the very scholarly article, but found myself wanting a better explanation of just what Siemens set out to say with his theory. With the exception of the addition of non-human appliances, I feel that the theory was not bringing anything new to the educational "table". My favorite part of the article was actually in one of the proposed scenarios of study. Researches in the UK are trying to use social media for informal learning and describes innofusion and domestication with technology. Innofusion is innovation that happens at the site of use, and domestication is where the consumer innovates by using the artifact in ways not anticipated by the designer. With regards to what we were discussing today, I feel like the domestication is what we are striving for... this idea of presenting something to kids and having them create their own knowledge from it and create something totally unexpected while learning. It was interesting to see that this infant theory was working towards that as well.
Bell, F. (2011). Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation in technology-enabled learning. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(3), 98-118.
Monday, July 23, 2012
RSA #1
HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking, puts forth the idea of using blogs in the language arts classroom and follows one educator's journey in implementing them with her fifth grade class. The teacher began her blog as a reading response blog in which she would post a discussion and children had to post their responses. After her students' waning interest she posted the question about what they could do to use the blog in other ways. We find out that in response to her students answer to what they would like to use the blog for, she allowed for students to post different work on the blog, post their own sets of questions, and even work to bring in outside literature they were excited about.
The article describes what a weblog or "blog" is in general and goes on to say that the Internet is this generation's most important technology for literacy. Each aspect of the Internet requires new skills that the schools need to prepare students for including collaboration, problem solving on the Internet, and communicating safely on the Internet. Classroom news blogs, mirror blogs, showcase blogs, and literature response blogs were the four types of blogs the author mentioned as being used most often.
After outlining the steps for best going about creating a blog, the steps for HOT blogging became the focus. Beginning with the idea of bolstering the background the teacher posts activities and questions that help students build their background knowledge of the chosen subject. After building background knowledge, teachers "prime the pump" by inviting students to share their thinking, including confusions, summaries of what they learned so far, and self connections. The goal of this is to give other students an opportunity to read and then prepare themselves for conversation. Next, the teacher facilitates continuing the conversation by having students synthesize their knowledge gained from multiple texts including their background research, other student comments, and the direct text they are studying. Lastly, the teacher directs students to read, think, and comment on the blog. All of these steps work together to promote a higher level of thinking.
Overall, I felt this was a very interesting article. I liked the personal aspect of it, bringing in a teacher who was just learning about how to use blogging in her own classroom. She got frustrated at first, because students were starting to lose interest. After asking them how they thought they could use the blog, she was able to provide other opportunities for learning by incorporating their ideas. This idea of asking the children what they want out of it is in itself a higher order thinking that I appreciated. In my own teaching I often allow for this constructivist practice, giving students access to materials and giving them a task such as making up their own game to learn note names. The results of this are better than anything that I could come up with on my own. This makes me believe that students want to be encouraged in this way. They want to be given the opportunity to respond to each other and to the teacher in their own comfort zone, which is often using technology. The steps outlined in this article were helpful in that it lays out a practical way to apply it to your own teaching, but outlines a very vigorous first attempt at blogging. I feel like a first time blogger would be better off using blogs in one of the four ways mentioned first, like a classroom news blog before getting into something as deep as this higher order of thinking framework.
Zawilinski, L. (2009). Hot blogging: A framework for blogging to promote higher order thinking. The Reading Teacher, 62(8), 650-661.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Lesson Plan Notebook Template
I've included a .pdf of the new lesson plan pages that I'm going to try using this year. After 6 years of teaching, I feel like I don't need as much space to write every little thing that the kids are doing. I did however add a week calendar to each week to write down things like assemblies and whatnot so I can keep up with things. Comment if you would like an editable excel file of the the document!
Lesson Plan Book
Lesson Plan Book
Article 3 Review
And now I'm back with a review on social media in education!
The article starts with talking about how social media is taking its place in education, and with it comes a whole new set of interesting programs and interesting challenges. It talks about the idea of bullying becoming cyber bullying, note passing becoming sexting and social media being a potentially huge liability. However, it goes off to say then that even though these challenges exist, if schools nurture this great responsibility, the social media resources will be great. Then there was a list of different social media platforms that educators can look into: Edmodo, SchoolTube, Glogster, Collaborize Classroom, EDU 2.0, Kidblog.org, Edublogs, Nin, Elluminate, SurveyMonkey, and other blogs and wikis. The last thing that is mentioned is that social media in education is something that teachers have to just jump into to experience it for themselves.
The article was interesting because of the different tools that the author mentions and also interesting in the fact that he brings up the very serious issue that a lot of us have brought up before. What about the privacy factor. How are we going to protect our students? Then it talks about how if we really examine this responsibility and nurture the idea of it, then we can use it. I think that it is important that we talk about putting all of these things into perspective and think about every major thing that has happened with technology and/or education. Each new trend has met resistance and had to have a set of expectations and rules that went along with it. Every time we have succeeded in rising to these new expectations and working through the challenges.
Rivero, V. (2011, June). We're talking social media in education. Internet@Schools, 18(3), 12-15.
The article starts with talking about how social media is taking its place in education, and with it comes a whole new set of interesting programs and interesting challenges. It talks about the idea of bullying becoming cyber bullying, note passing becoming sexting and social media being a potentially huge liability. However, it goes off to say then that even though these challenges exist, if schools nurture this great responsibility, the social media resources will be great. Then there was a list of different social media platforms that educators can look into: Edmodo, SchoolTube, Glogster, Collaborize Classroom, EDU 2.0, Kidblog.org, Edublogs, Nin, Elluminate, SurveyMonkey, and other blogs and wikis. The last thing that is mentioned is that social media in education is something that teachers have to just jump into to experience it for themselves.
The article was interesting because of the different tools that the author mentions and also interesting in the fact that he brings up the very serious issue that a lot of us have brought up before. What about the privacy factor. How are we going to protect our students? Then it talks about how if we really examine this responsibility and nurture the idea of it, then we can use it. I think that it is important that we talk about putting all of these things into perspective and think about every major thing that has happened with technology and/or education. Each new trend has met resistance and had to have a set of expectations and rules that went along with it. Every time we have succeeded in rising to these new expectations and working through the challenges.
Rivero, V. (2011, June). We're talking social media in education. Internet@Schools, 18(3), 12-15.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Article 2 Review
As we were figuring out what to do for our final assessment in this class, my partner and I decided to look more into the iPad for education. This article came out of that research.
The article was really the result or the explanation of a study done in Texas in 2011. The high school decided to pilot a program with having iPads in the hands of all the children. It didn't end up being all students, but all students in their Junior and Senior years as well as a few other. The results of the study were consistently in favor of students being able to have their own iPads for educational use. The article starts by talking about this 1:1 initiative and rolling the iPads out first to all teachers in the summer, then a small group of students helping with the initiative still during the summer, and finally to the rest of the students that would be participating. The school created an iPad help desk in the library space with charging stations and students and staff to help with issues. Teachers reported that they were able to do a lot of different things more easily, including doing a lot of assignments paperless. A teacher could create a .pdf file of the assignment and post it, students would use a .pdf annotator to write on the assignment and send it back to the teacher, the teacher graded it on the .pdf, and sent it back to the student. In the special areas, especially the ASL classrooms, the teachers and the students were able to do presentations using the video cameras and use those to practice homework and view for more practice. Apps such as Tap to Talk or Dragon Dictation allowed students that had a hard time with typing or putting their thoughts on paper were able to talk through their assignments. It did talk about the idea of trying to get the school library on a digital service like OverDrive for students to check out books to read on the iPads as well, but the process is too costly for education as of right now. At the conclusion of the school year, they surveyed students and teachers with the overwhelming majority saying that their learning improved, they were more motivated, and it wasn't the distraction that people thought that it might be. Teachers, students, and even parents come together frequently to talk about the iPad and brainstorm new ways to use the iPads as they go forward. It also mentions at the end of the article the real exploratory climate that came out as a result of administrators, teachers, and students all learning to navigate this new technology at the same time.
I loved this article! It showed how a school, with a lot of collaboration and time really put iPads in the hands of the majority of their students with great results. I think that the part of the article that hit me the most though was something said about the distraction of all this technology. At one point, before the study they had interviewed recent graduates who reported that they felt like the technology available to them at college was a bit overwhelming because of the lack of exposure. Students don't feel that will be the case now that they have participated in this. It really makes me think of our elementary students, who are looking to junior high and high school where technology is used more. It makes me wonder if we are setting them up for those same feelings, or if they are going to walk in knowing that technology can be a great and powerful tool for their education? I also thought about all the time and effort the staff and different students worked to get this program up and running, which concerned me. There are so many of us that are ready and willing to get these things done, but also so many that are thinking that it is just another thing that they have to learn about.
Foote, C. (2012, February). Learning together: The evolution of a 1:1 ipad program. Internet@Schools, 19(1), 14-18.
The article was really the result or the explanation of a study done in Texas in 2011. The high school decided to pilot a program with having iPads in the hands of all the children. It didn't end up being all students, but all students in their Junior and Senior years as well as a few other. The results of the study were consistently in favor of students being able to have their own iPads for educational use. The article starts by talking about this 1:1 initiative and rolling the iPads out first to all teachers in the summer, then a small group of students helping with the initiative still during the summer, and finally to the rest of the students that would be participating. The school created an iPad help desk in the library space with charging stations and students and staff to help with issues. Teachers reported that they were able to do a lot of different things more easily, including doing a lot of assignments paperless. A teacher could create a .pdf file of the assignment and post it, students would use a .pdf annotator to write on the assignment and send it back to the teacher, the teacher graded it on the .pdf, and sent it back to the student. In the special areas, especially the ASL classrooms, the teachers and the students were able to do presentations using the video cameras and use those to practice homework and view for more practice. Apps such as Tap to Talk or Dragon Dictation allowed students that had a hard time with typing or putting their thoughts on paper were able to talk through their assignments. It did talk about the idea of trying to get the school library on a digital service like OverDrive for students to check out books to read on the iPads as well, but the process is too costly for education as of right now. At the conclusion of the school year, they surveyed students and teachers with the overwhelming majority saying that their learning improved, they were more motivated, and it wasn't the distraction that people thought that it might be. Teachers, students, and even parents come together frequently to talk about the iPad and brainstorm new ways to use the iPads as they go forward. It also mentions at the end of the article the real exploratory climate that came out as a result of administrators, teachers, and students all learning to navigate this new technology at the same time.
I loved this article! It showed how a school, with a lot of collaboration and time really put iPads in the hands of the majority of their students with great results. I think that the part of the article that hit me the most though was something said about the distraction of all this technology. At one point, before the study they had interviewed recent graduates who reported that they felt like the technology available to them at college was a bit overwhelming because of the lack of exposure. Students don't feel that will be the case now that they have participated in this. It really makes me think of our elementary students, who are looking to junior high and high school where technology is used more. It makes me wonder if we are setting them up for those same feelings, or if they are going to walk in knowing that technology can be a great and powerful tool for their education? I also thought about all the time and effort the staff and different students worked to get this program up and running, which concerned me. There are so many of us that are ready and willing to get these things done, but also so many that are thinking that it is just another thing that they have to learn about.
Foote, C. (2012, February). Learning together: The evolution of a 1:1 ipad program. Internet@Schools, 19(1), 14-18.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Links and Blogs
Here is the list of blogs that I found in the Instruction Blogging article for my class. I found a lot of them very useful...
Dr. Joe Pisano: http://mustech.net
Very big site with a few different contributors reviewing different apps and tackling every day questions submitted by educators.
Barbara Freedman: http://musicedtech.wordpress.com
Links to different professional development for teachers. Has links to different hand outs from professional workshops, which have TONS of information.
Owen Bradley: http://digitalmusiceducator.wordpress.com
Very cool blog with reviews of different apps for iPhone and iPad. Also links to different free websites for music educators.
Carol Broos: http://www.beatechie.com
If you don't know who Carol Broos is, you need to get to know her. She has done AMAZING things with her students and is one of the front runners for technology in the music classroom. I have seen her present, and some of the things that she talks about seem like dreams until you actually view some of the student work on her site. She is a MUST READ blogger.
Andy Zweibl: http://musicedmajor.net
This blog is geared more toward college music education majors, with talks about job interviewing and things like that. It's definitely a good blog to check out if you are just starting.
Article Review #1
One of the things that we are supposed to do for this class is to research different topics in technology. Of course I chose to find the articles that also relate to music. Here is the first of those articles that I found interesting.
Instructional Blogging in the General Music Room, written by K. Kerstetter was an interesting article that talked about the shift of general music classrooms from sing alongs and record listening to something entirely different. With technology, music itself has changed so much that the music classroom has digital streaming, document cameras to look at music, SMART boards, and a whole other host of things. The best analogy that I've seen explains that the teachers of yesterday and even some of today are kind of visitors of this new environment, where the students are the "digital natives". They already speak the language and we need to get on board with that. There are several music teachers who have jumped on this idea though and have really shown what technology can do in the classroom. These are professional blogs that are put out to further our profession, but the idea of blogging in the classroom is coming to be common as well. The article gave a number of examples of ways to use blogs in the classroom including, a listening log, evaluating music, "voting" on awards like the Grammys, sharing personal music experiences, and having students reflect of class happenings. It goes on to also mention the classroom theories behind the idea of blogging, talking about Vygotsky's theory of learning. With blogging, it follows the idea of the student's learning increasing when given the opportunity to learn on their own with just assistance from a peer or adult. Another educational theorist, Lipman, then talked about the social component of learning where blogs are allowing students to listening to each other, build on their ideas, and challenge each other in different ways.
I felt that the article was very informative and helped me understand the ways that I can validate blogging. In the music classroom, this would give students an extra opportunity to write and communicate that I don't have the time to do in two thirty minute sessions. The ideas that the article provided for different ways to use blogs was also very helpful. Going forward, I know that I want to let my students do these things, but worry about the legalities and the technicalities of doing so. When I sit down and really think about all that the kids can do, and drawing from personal experience at using things like WikiSpaces in the past, I know that they would love it. This is going to be a goal for me this year definitely, getting the kids online and discussing with each other and me digitally.
First Post of the New Blog
Originally, I made this site after seeing the lack of music teachers on Pinterest. Then, after a few of my friends convinced me to join up an Educational Technology Cohort, I found out that part of the class was going to be blogging! So, here I am proving to my professor that I can create a blog. Hopefully later on this summer and during the school year I will start posting more things that I've found and things that I would like to share with all the general music teachers of the world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)