I have had a “professional” presence on Twitter for a long time. I started our engineering program Twitter and my own back in 2008 (or 9). At the time, it didn’t do much because the people I was trying to reach were not there. In 2017, I got more serious about using Twitter professionally and consistently. The best thing I have done is to become involved in Twitter chats on a regular basis. I have been very consistently participating in #AppleEDUChat on Tuesday nights. From time-to-time, I also check in with a couple other’s at school. These chats have helped me to grow professionally and expand my teaching practice. I can see a difference in both my classroom and self.
Prior to the Twitter chats, I was not sure that I wanted to do more than teach in my same lab until retirement. The chats opened up new doors and expanded my vision. I realized that I did want to seek out other opportunities. This class ties in with that. I started in the DLL program to be able to take on new leadership opportunities. All of the things I have done in this course tie in with the path I have been on. I like to share with others, not because I know more than anyone, but because we all have things to contribute. With that mindset, we can all grow together and make a difference. The last couple of years have been a monumental shift in my professional journey.
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My currently favorite tool to use for bringing video into the classroom is the Everyone Can Create: Video Apple Book from Apple Education (2018). At first, the things I like about it is that it isn’t just a list of projects or tools. It starts with the assumption that the teacher and learner have not used any of the tools and are new to video. The author used to teach video in school so there is a good deal of pedagogy behind it. It starts with lessons on using Clips and getting good shots while telling a story. Like I said, it’s not just about video. Each project uses the skills learned and then builds on previous projects. There is a teacher guide with rubrics and suggestions for use in other disciplines. I have been using it in my classes for two years now. It is easy for my beginning students as well as my advanced students to create good videos that demonstrate what they know in their own way.
Applying the rubric from Learning In Hand (2010), the book makes use of two free video applications, Clips and iMovie. Through all of this, everything is in the 3 to 4 categories depending on how the teacher applies it. The flexibility and content integration are very open. Our learners have been using this guide to make all kinds of videos to reflect on their learning, explain something new they learned, or to do a final presentation of a project. They have even been doing fun projects on their own using the same techniques. References Apple. (2018, October 1). Everyone can create video [Apple book]. Retrieved from Apple.com Vincent, T. (2010, October 26). Evaluation rubric for educational apps [blog]. Retrieved from https://learninginhand.com/blog/evaluation-rubric-for-educational-apps.html There are a lot of great resources available for use. I made the mistake early on by trying to read all of them. It just isn’t possible. I have settled on ASCD (http://www.ascd.org/Default.aspx) for their books and journal, Educational Leadership (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership.aspx) currently. In addition, I still stay current in my field with ASEE (https://www.asee.org) and CTAT (https://www.ctat.org). The volume of other resources within the DLL courses over the past year and a half have forced me to cut back on other publications. Twitter is my go-to source for staying in contact with other sources. I am able to allow my PLN to help “curate” other sources for me and manage my time better. Using Tweetdeck gives me the opportunity to follow a couple of threads and lists at the same time and not spend hours online combing through things.
These resources allow me to stay in touch with items in my classroom and also areas of interest for me. My current interest areas include computational thinking, accessibility, and standards-based grading. There is a lot of overlap in these, so it is easy to manage. My proposed article will definitely fall in one of these areas. This also fits well with my innovation plan. Evaluating technology for use in the classroom is tough. There is always something new coming along. At the same time, there are a lot of people trying things out and reporting on it. Sifting through everything is hard to do. It is difficult to know if the evaluation is because a company asked them to do it or not. Just because a company is involved doesn’t immediately negate the validity or value of the information. It just requires an open mind and careful consideration. I tend to try to find information about a topic or trend in as many places as possible. It seems that if everything I find says the same thing, then there is likely one source behind all of it. If I find a variety in the opinions and results, then I seem to have better luck with it.
That being said, I try not to jump on every new thing that comes along. I’ve found through bitter experience that “less is more”. Our district used to jump on every innovation and new idea. We were always trying out the latest and greatest. In the long run, we ended up never being good at anything. I’ve learned that it is far better to be great with a technology and technique that might not be the newest than to be mediocre with the newest innovation or concept. At the same time, it is easy to do the same thing with information in the classroom. More resources is not necessarily better. Shrivastav and Hiltz (2013) showed how information overload can hinder a student’s learning. Less is more. References: Shrivastav, H. & Hiltz, S. (2013, August 15). Information overload in technology-based education: A meta-analysis. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ff94/d26c6b4711216b6e034072b0cbbc2fae10fd.pdf Part 2: Edshelf I had fun putting this shelf together. It goes very well with what I am doing for my project and helping with one of the main problems that teachers have when getting started with coding in a core class. There is just way too much information out there. I recently wrote that MIT is proud of the fact that they say, “getting an education from MIT is like taking a drink of water from a fire hose.” Well, when trying to get started with coding in the classroom, when you search, it seems like trying to drink from a tidal wave. Again, less is more. https://stemtoolkit.weebly.com/project-documents.html |
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