Field+Base+Activities+and+Reflections

Field Base Activities and Reflections

**Activity 1 -** Used Activotes within the classroom to enhance student learning. TL-III.A, TL-II.D, TL-IV.A.1 I had done research in one of my courses on activotes. An article I read was: University of Minnesota. (nd). Student response systems. //The University of Minnesota Office of// //Information Technology//. Retrieved on, February 4, 2010, from http://dmc.umn.edu/technologies/srs.shtml This article discusses the use of student response systems which in my case would be Activotes or Activexpressions. I had decided to use activotes for TAKS testing preparation. I figured there is not better time to use these than for TAKS. I knew that using Activotes would allow me to assess the students’ knowledge on certain TAKS objectives. I found that the students really enjoyed using the Activotes with use of electronic games, or TAKS practice tests. I found this activity to be quite rewarding. **Activity 2 -** Introduced electronic games to teachers on my Math Models team. TL-IV.A, TL-III.A1 As you know I try to incorporate technology in all possible ways. I created games such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, and Hollywood Squares. All of the interactive games allowed for teachers to access students needs by seeing what answer choices they choose. I did this activity during meetings and showed individual teachers. A couple teachers were against the games because they stated that their students don’t deserve it, or that the students are too immature. I found from personal experience that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are the best days to implement these games. **Activity 3 -** Created a technology resource folder on the school network. TL-VI.B, TL-VI.C I created a technology resource folder on the school’s network. The folder contained a variety of online tools. I spent countless hours finding websites and other online resources for core course classes to use. I created a folder for English, History, Science and Math. The folders had interactive games in them along with other useful downtime activities. I even found online resources that provided lesson plans. I do not know if teachers have used the folder since I created it towards the end of the year, but I did use it myself. My students loved to play the games after completing their assignments, and most of all they were using their brains. **Activity 4** - Completed and reminded teachers to complete their Star Chart Survey TL-VIII.A When I took the course Teaching with Technology is when I realized the importance of the STaR chart. I thought that the lady sending the emails was exaggerating the need of survey completion. After taking the course and analyzing my school’s STaR Chart results, I found that the survey is quite important, and the school is held accountable for submitting the results. This school year when I took the survey again, I kindly reminded other teachers to take it, and explained to them the importance of the survey. I know what makes the survey difficult is the length and the time needed to take it. This worries me because I do not know how correct our results are much less other schools. I’m sure there are a few teachers who just click an answer.

**Activity 5** - Created a PowerPoint/video on Gradespeed for new teachers. TL-I.A, TL-IV.C, TL-V.C This activity was very time consuming. I am a floater so I could not seem to find a quite place where I could record my voice for the Gradespeed video portion. I finally found some quite time and ran into technical difficulties that I had not run into before. I spent many hours trying to fix the problem and found no solution. I did come up with an alternative and that was to use Microsoft PowerPoint to record my voice. The downside is that I couldn’t record the action of my mouse. I finally completed the video to my best ability. I found that the task was more of a challenge than I imagined, but was perfect as one of my internship projects because of all the new resources and difficulties I ran into. I now know how to create a video presentation much quicker. **Activity 6** - Created flipcharts for student assessment of previous years TAKS scores. || TL-IV.A I really enjoyed this activity. In this activity I had each class go to the Promethean board with their previous year’s TAKS scores and initial their name under their weakest objective on one page and their strongest objective on another page. I then grouped the students in pairs of highs and lows for one objective and vice versa for another objective. Considering I am a floater many other teachers were able to see what I did and liked the idea. I also explained what I did in our team meeting. This activity was the foundation for many activities. **Activity 7** - Created an online survey on technical difficulties to assess ways in which to avoid downtime by providing teachers with a troubleshoot resource TL-VIII.A I created a survey on surveymonkey.com with questions referring to technical difficulties. I found that most teachers have difficulties with their projectors and display of desktop contents on the promethean board. Will the help of our tech guy, Bobby, I was able to discuss with him some of the issues they are having and ways in which we can solve them. I then created a file on the drive that provided them with strategies to reduce downtime when these problems do occur. **Activity 8 -** Use online resources such as BrainPop to integrate technology use in the classroom. || TL-II.2, TL-VIII.D This year I really focused on using online resources since I had a promethean board in each room that I floated into. The only technical difficulty I had was when someone’s board, projector, or computer was down. Using BrainPop I implemented many of their resources such as videos, graphical organizers, quizzes, and vocabulary activities. I really enjoyed doing the quizzes as a class after the video because it seemed that many students enjoyed the assessment without the pressure of failing and receiving a bad grade. The videos are short and sometimes cute, captivating the students’ attention. **Activity 9 -** Using the promethean board, I showed students how to access their online Geometry book and its usefulness of its resources. || TL-II.C I decided to show my students how they could access their Geometry book online by displaying on the promethean board how it’s done. My students are lazy and will not cart around a textbook so by doing this I was able to show them quickly how easy and resourceful the textbook online is. I showed the students the tutorials, extra-practice, and quizzes provided. Overall, it turned out to be good because my students did not have to cart a book around nor did they have to pay late/lost book fees. **Activity 10 -** Created interactive games for students and teachers to use for test reviews. || TL-III.A1, TL-IV.A I created games such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, and Hollywood Squares for test reviews. All of the interactive games allowed for teachers to access students needs at the last minute by seeing what answer choices they choose. I also provided teachers with a folder of interactive games that could be used as well for review. Students seem to enjoy days that incorporate games. **Activity 11 -** Used computers to access Plato for practice of student’s TAKS desegregations. || TV-VIII.D See Activity 27 for more detail of how Plato started. I took my students into the computer lab to work on Plato, and they were so disappointed. Apparently they do a lot of Plato in their elective classes and do not enjoy the program what so ever. I made them work with the program for a bit on their weak objectives. Some students were serious while others were not. At the end I allowed them to go to other interactive math game sites. **Activity 12 -** Used computers to access FreeRice.com for basic mathematical practices. || TL-VIII.D Using the computers in the computer lab, my students donated grains of rice by getting correct basic math problems. The students made a competition among themselves on who could donate more rice the quickest. The website has basic math skills for students to practice. Surprisingly the site is simple and successful. This is a site I plan on using at the start of the year to get the student’s little brains running. **Activity 13 -** Had students type a research paper on mathematicians using online academic search engines. || TL-III.A This activity was a big ordeal. Many students did not want to participate because they felt they should not have to write a paper in math class. I told them my job is to educate. I educate in mathematics along with whatever other educational ideas pop into my head. I required the students to type a minimum four page research paper on a mathematician. This paper worked on students’ technical writing, vocabulary, and ability to use legit resources. Many students struggled with this activity, and many corrections were made. Overall, I do not think I would have students write a paper on mathematicians, but rather another topic technology related that relates to them. **Activity 14 -** Had students create their own rubric and grade themselves as the book //Teaching with Technology// illustrated. || TL-III.A From the book //Teaching with Technology//, I made a copy of a rubric sample the book provided. I asked the students to create their own rubric of their weekly performance. Many students were honest while others were dishonest. I gathered that students need to see how they are doing in the class for themselves. Giving students the opportunity to grade themselves allowed them to realize that they really do deserve the grade they receive on their progress and report cards. **Activity 15 -** Attended a technology meeting to discuss technology budget. || TL-VII.B At the technology meeting we discussed different options for spending $50,000 within a short amount of time. We went from buying teachers IPads to buying 42” TVs for the band halls. I discussed getting a mobile cart of laptops for the math department. We also discussed putting inputting in the new portables. We discussed upgrading teacher’s computers that were old, and buying new computers. I am unsure of the result of the meeting because I had to leave to coach the cheerleaders, but I do believe it was the TVs and computer upgrades. **Activity 16 -** Attended a technology meeting in reference to floaters (teachers without rooms) || TL-VII.B Bobby and I called this meeting because we felt that it was important to consider the technology issues of floaters. This year was the first year that floaters received laptops. The problem with the laptops was not having wireless internet, and most of all connecting to the promethean boards. The floaters could deal with finding a cable to connect to the internet, but floaters could not disconnect a teachers computer to connect a projector and promethean board to their laptop. An idea brought up was to provide each floater with a cart that contained a laptop and projector. This only allowed for projection as long as a promethean board was not needed. I told them I had done the cart around before, and it’s actually quite frustrating considering you then have two carts to drag down a busy hall. Condensing is not possible with the size of the carts given. We finally came up with the conclusion of providing floaters with ActiveSlates. The slates come with a USB that allows the slate to work just as a board. An individual writes on the slate and it appears on the board. The pen with the slate works just as the mouse on the board does. The next issue is affording ActiveSlates for the amount of new teachers. **Activity 17 -** Attended a technology meeting in reference to teachers moving classrooms at the end of the year || TL-VII.B This year my school has made major changes for teacher locations next year. We have divided off the building to form a 9th grade center. Many teachers at the end of the year have to move from one side of the building to another. Due to the vast amount of teachers moving it was decided in our meeting for teachers to leave their computers behind. Considering we have so many projectors and promethean boards connected, it would be a mess to have to reconnect so many. We then decided to create a document with picture of how to back-up your data on your old computer to put it on your new computer. It seems that we have not had any problems at this point. Of course, the new school year has not started. **Activity 18 -** Used mass storage devices || TL-II.D Throughout this year and last I have used the school’s network drives to save and share information. I have also used my flash drive along with others. These devices provide a quick means for transferring data and documents. If I had any trouble, it was that sometimes a mapped network would not appear. It was nothing that could not be fixed. **Activity 19 -** Learned and used graphing calculator on Promethean Board for student display and technology integration || TL-V.A, TL-V.A A teacher took the time to show me how to integrate a graphing calculator into ActivInspire. I then used the calculator in ActivInspire to show my students where certain buttons are and how to use certain useful areas within the calculator. The students were able to use their calculator along with watching me enter the information. This was beneficial to both parties. I did not have to constantly describe the location of a button, and the students could easily see what I was typing while performing the functions themselves. **Activity 20 -** Created two Wikispaces for content teams. || TL-V.A, TL.V.D, TL-VIII.C This task took me some time because I can sometimes be a perfectionist for the smallest things. Creating the two wikis for my content team was quite exciting. I was implementing something new to my fellow content team members, while learning to create and work quickly in Wikispaces. I provided my team members with examples, and how we can continue to implement the site. I trained them on the use of the site along with providing them with week one’s quiz. The great part about the wiki and my main intention was to avoid having to meet weekly. With the wiki we received permission to meet bi-weekly. We were later blocked by the district. I contacted our district’s technology liaison, and he stated that Wikispaces holds no educational value and that the district is providing each teacher with a web page. **Activity 21 -** Created my Dobie teacher webpage || TL-V.A, TL.V.D, TL-VIII.C This was a simple but yet complicated task at the same time. We received instructions for creating our web page, but many of the steps were missing in the instructions. This caused many teachers to be confused and already against the use of the new web pages provided. I was not part of the trained team on teaching others how to create their web page, but if I had been I definitely would have recreated the setup instructions. **Activity 22 -** Displayed Real World Math & Science videos from the Future Channel on the promethean board. || TL-VIII.D, TL-II.C.2 I used the promethean board to display videos on the reality of importance for mathematics. The Future Channel provided many videos of how math and science play into many activities and job positions in our daily lives. I usually use the videos when it seems my students’ heads need a brief break. I am unsure if the students are interested, but they do remain quite. It might possibly be more interesting to me than them. I will have to ask the students what they think about the video clips. I think they will say they like them just to avoid work. **Activity 23 -** Created a Schoology page for a future staff development || TL-II.E, TL-III.A.1 Because we used Schoology in a degree program course, I was able to see how resourceful the site is. I had been looking for a site such as Schoology for a long time. I decided to create a staff development on the site because of how user-friendly it is, and most of all that it’s free and unblocked. From teachers that I showed it to, they seemed to really like how simple it is to use. Our campus liaison has tried to get the district to adopt it, but as stated in a previous activity, we already spent big bucks on Blackboard. **Activity 24 -** Created a flipchart for a math meeting to show integration of technology resources. TL-VII.B, TL-V.B.1 || Using ActivInspire I created a flipchart to show the use of links, electronic resources, backgrounds, and simple maneuverability of flipchart actions. It seemed that the teachers like the ideas and listen to the steps, but I am unsure if they have attempted it outside of the meeting. Teachers on my team seem to like new ideas, but if it requires some work from them, they sometimes will avoid doing it. Their main complaint is that the kids do not care so why waste their time. I tell them that the kids do care, but we have to meet them. It is more exhausting on us more than anything, but that’s how they will learn. **Activity 25 -** Showed teachers the use of CAST UDL for their own classroom use. || TL-II.C, TL-V.C CAST UDL and BookBuilder seemed to me to be more for other subject areas than math. I have yet to incorporate the two resources with mathematics, but they have been implemented in English and History. The lesson builder seemed to be a bit overwhelming for them, and they were not too crazy about it. Creating a book, I was told became a bit tricky and difficult at times. I could see that because the first time I used it, I took forever to finish my assignment. I do know that the teachers who used it have not used it since their first run. **Activity 26 -** Provided staff development on the use of Wikispaces || TL-V.C, TL-VIII.C, TL-V.B.1 I provided a staff development on Wikispaces. I used the wiki spaces I had created for my content team as an example. I showed others how to create a site, choose a template, colors, and create a page. I also showed them how to add text, files, images, links to internal pages, and hyperlinks. I think that many liked the idea of collaboration. I showed them how teachers could collaborate in creating a test, quizzes, and assignments. I think that the training was successful despite the fact that the school later blocked the site. **Activity 27 -** Received training on Plato and was administered as an admin || TL-II.E, TL-VIII.D Was this one a challenge or what? I met with my mentor so that I could create a class in Plato for my students to practice on their weakest objectives. We struggled a great deal with finding the password to access the account and naming me as an instructor. It turned out that my title did not give me authority to do much so I was made an administrator. I then had to create a roster with my student’s names and IDs. This is not as easy as it sounds. Since I am a floater not all of the computers could download Plato properly. I finally got all of the computers to work, and then compiled my lists. After my class went to the lab I then had to place my roster of students in another folder for another administrator’s use. Again, this activity took a while. **Activity 28 -** Received training on Blackboard and was administered as admin || TL-I.A.1, TL-V Like Plato this was a time consuming task. I was made an administrator so that I could update the math website and create a quiz for a staff development/presentation on Gradespeed (Activity 5) for new teachers. I personally feel that Blackboard is not a user-friendly site. I like WebCT better, but Blackboard now owns WebCT. It turns out that our district spent big bucks on Blackboard so now we are forced to use it rather than using other user-friendly sites such as Schoology. For the 2010-2011 school year we will be moving to Blackboard 8.0 according to my technology meeting lead. I do not think that other school employees will be happy. **Activity 29 -** Downloaded Pronto for online chat/communication with advisor || TL-V.C Pronto is a program that we use to chat. I was emailed directions as to how to access and download Pronto. They are as follow: After downloading the necessary program for chatting I was able to chat with my mentor after we put our kids to bed. Wimba is a good educational resource that is not school blocked but school paid for. I personally feel that not many teachers would like to use Pronto over Google Chat, but it is a provided resource.