Thing 23 Final Reflection

23 Things has been one of the most beneficial parts of the TIS program for me. This module has introduced me to so many wonderful production sites on the internet. I have absolutely loved it!! Of course when I learn about some fun new "thing," I am going to share it as soon as I can because it so exciting. Items on the 23 Things list were easy and fun to use which make them so enticing to use for both teachers and students.


TechSteps and doing numerous trainings on TechSteps projects had given me a pretty good knowledge of the NETS-T and I could easily see how this module was also built around the same indicators.

 I have always used "explore and play" with students, but hadn't actually labeled what we were doing. "Explore and play" is usually the way I learn new programs and I have always done it out of pure curiosity. However, not everyone does that. I feel as if it is my job to give them a reason to "explore and play." This has made me a better technology coach hands down.

Thing 15 Collaborate in an Image

I used a Thinglink in our blended learning unit on World War I. The teacher I worked with chose and uploaded the picture, I showed her how it worked and she explained it to her class. It is embedded in Schoology and each student has to add two links during the next two weeks, the length of the course. We will begin seeing the nubbins here as the students start adding them. It is an Advanced Placement class and there are only eight students. Therefore, we should end up with at least sixteen links.

Thing 16 Back Channel (Todays Meet)

This was incorporated into our blended learning unit on World War I. Introduction of the Schoology course included signing up on Schoology, becoming a member of the course, a tour of the course and where to find assignments, discussions, files/links, netiquette for an academic professional course, setting up an electronic KWL on Read Write Think, how to use Thinglink and Todays Meet. Students were to add comments to http://todaysmeet.com/ushistoryMD about their thoughts of how they envision a blended learning course to be like.

 



Thing 14 Publish Something



 

I worked with a 5th grade teacher to do our Publish Something project. We set up groups and each group had their own GoogleDoc storyboard to work on. They worked in the lab and group member were spaced all over, it was really nice seeing that. Watching them collaborate without verbally talking. Each group member came up with a noun they wanted to incorporate in the story. They worked out by sending notes through their storyboard, the setting, the problem and solution. They worked on the introduction and conclusion together, but each member had a middle paragraph they did on their own. Then, they worked on writing mechanics to make the story better. This took three thirty minute class periods just to get the story down.

During this time, back in the classroom, they were given time to draw the illustrations for their story. We just told them to make sure their graphics were large and filled the page. They could do it however they wanted. One person could do the drawing while other colored, or just however they chose to do it.

They used a handheld scanner to scan their illustrations. The illustrations were added as backgrounds for each page. This was saved in PDF form and uploaded to flipsnack. Once this was done, we had them to make a screencast at screencast-o-matic because I couldn't figure out how to put a link to our project without having to have a login. This meant I would have had to pay for the premium version. Therefore, we have sound.