Final Course Blog Post

Here is the link to final document that I have had to submit on TaskStream. The document contains the blog posts that meet the requirements for the class. Overall, I have really enjoyed the class and I have gotten a lot out of it.

OTEN Conference

I recently attended the OTEN conference and as a whole, the conference was very worth while and took a lot away from it. I really enjoyed both of the presentations that I attended. I liked the way that Jason incorporated video into the classroom. He showed us the video that he uses for the first day of his Animal Behavior class. It was really cool and really got me fired up to learn about Animal Behavior. He really just showed how effective it was to use video to get kids into the material. The next presentation that I went to was about Smart Boards. It was the first time that I have ever seen a Smart Board in use and it was absolutely mind blowing. It really excited me about the technology that is out there for teachers to use. Overall, the conference was very worth while and I am glad that I attended.

Here is my Yodio

Oregon Technology Standards and Requirements

I think that the technologically standards are important because technology is something that is often ignored or neglected in the classroom. Without these standards students may not be given the opportunities to keep up with our ever changing technological world. Take for example my mentor teacher. He refuses to use technology in his classroom and doesn't give students the opportunity to do so. Without these standards, unfortunately I think that this might be more common place.

I think that the goal of these standards is to give students the necessary tools to thrive in our technological world. Often times students won't get this from their parents so it is important that as educators we educate our students on all of the technology available to them. Another important aspect of this is technological etiquette, particularly when it comes to use of the internet. It is important that students understand how to be safe and how to utilize the internet most effectively. This would apply to the digital citizenship standard.

As a P.E. teacher there are a number of creative ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. My favorite idea is to utilize video cameras to provide students with instant feedback on their movements. This would be extremely useful because it is often easier to change what you are doing when you see yourself doing it on film. By using a mini camera you could instantly show students the feedback rather than waiting and watching it at another time. This could also be a very useful tool in coaching. This applies to the communication and collaboration standard. Another strategy that I hope to be able to use is to incorporate the Nintendo Wii into a P.E. classroom. This may not be a possibility at most school districts but if you access to them it would be a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom. Students would be extremely excited to participate which is the majority of the battle in P.E. Students would play games on the Wii and would be exercising without even understanding it. This applies to the creativity and innovation standard. I have embedded a demonstration of Wii Fit below.

Multimedia Project

For my multimedia project I used an idea like Jered's and used Google Drawing as a coaching tool. One of the reasons that I got into teaching was so I could coach, so this was a very practical application for me. I used Screenr to capture my work.

I really liked using Google Drawing for drawing up plays a lot actually. Initially, I was a little apprehensive because I didn't think that it would work very smoothly. I have used football software to draw up plays in the past, but Google Drawing compared to it very nicely. Plus, Google Drawing is free whereas the football software costs hundreds of dollars. I used Drawing to draw up a basic defensive play, Even Sara Xchange versus a Wide set. You don't see it in the video, but Drawing very easily drew formations up. I also really like how it will provide lines on the screen so you can line everything up straight. With Drawing I was able to do everything that I need and I'm sure I could have done a lot more with it. It would definitely be worth exploring more to find other applications that can be applied to coaching. I love how you could easily share it with members of your team through Google Docs. This way players and coaches could access their playbooks at any time and access it easily online.

Initially, I had planned on using Screen Toaster to capture and publish my work. When I went to use it though, the site was down so I used Screenr instead. One thing that I didn't like about Screenr was that I had to create a Twitter account in order to use it. It was one inconvenience of the product. Screenr was however extremely easy to use. I simply hit record and then expanded the box to encompass everything that I wanted to capture. I do like how with Screenr you can capture only what you want whereas with Screen Toaster it captures your entire screen.

Here is the link as well.

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

At first I had a difficult time with this activity. After playing around with it for a while I finally became efficient using Google Spreadsheet. Once I got going with it the activity was pretty easy. I did have a difficult time embedding it at first but I watched Tony's video and after that it was pretty easy. I found Google Spreadsheet way easier to use than Excel. I always had a really difficult time getting anything completed with Excel, but Spreadsheet was easy to pick up and once I did, worked really well for me.

As far as my data is concerned, I analyzed a couple of different things. First, I determined each student's test average, and the average for each different test for the class as a whole. All of the analysis is within the sheets. I also analyzed the mean, median, and mode of the below class average students, as well as for the entire class. I also graphed the below average students which is another way to effectively analyze the data. The data is present in a visual representation that is very easy to compare numbers with others. One feature that I really like about Google Spreadsheet is that when you click on one of the bars in the graph it also gives the numerical value.

Here is the link to my graph and it is embedded below.

My Favorite Web2.0 Tools

My definition
To me Web2.0 is any website or tool that promotes the sharing of information and collaboration and does so through the internet. I think that Web2.0 can be any website where you interactively share information with one another. It could be anything from Facebook or Twitter to blogs or Wikipedia.

TinyURL
TinyURL is a very cool tool that takes your long URL's and condenses them into a small URL. The website is very easy to use. All that you do is copy the URL that you want to be condensed and then paste it into the box on their website. It then turns your URL into a very short, condense URL. I really like that it gives you the option of customizing your URL as well. This way if you want something that you can easily remember or want a URL that relates to your page, you can easily do so. I also like that you can very easily add the tool to the toolbar on your browser. Then all you have to do is click the toolbar and it will make a URL for the website that you are visiting.

As far as increasing productivity, this website allows you to condense URL's that often times don't always work because of their format. You then eliminate a lot of the hassle that is involved with sharing a lengthy URL with others. Additionally, TinyURL makes things look much more professional in an email or blog. This is very important when trying to make a good impression.

ScreenToaster
ScreenToaster is another very cool tool that can easily and effectively be used in the classroom. ScreenToaster allows you to record all on screen action that you are doing on your computer. For example you could easily record a PowerPoint, or record how to insert a chart in Word. Once you are done recording you are given a few options. You can either save it to your computer, save it on their website, or upload it to YouTube. ScreenToaster is also very easy to use and very straight forward. You also have the option of viewing other videos that have been produced using ScreenToaster.

The uses of ScreenToaster in the classroom are seemingly endless. It is such a neat thing that so many teachers and students can easily utilize. Anything that you do on your computer can be easily recorded, which I am absolutely amazed by. Say, for example, that a student misses school because they are sick. The teacher can simply upload what they did in class to YouTube and the student can easily catch up on what they missed. Teachers could also post lessons captured by ScreenToaster to their blogs for students to review. You can use it to record presentations, demonstrations, webcams, literally everything that you can do on your computer. ScreenToaster is an amazing tool that I plan on utilizing in my classroom.

Google Drawing

Brief description of the tool:

• Create drawings and diagrams that can be easily transferred to other Google apps
• Import and edit images
• Can search for images through Drawing
• Share with others and allow others to edit the drawing
• Can use pre-made lines and images or can create your own
• Add text to your images

The first application that I can think of in regards to improving teaching and learning is to use the tool to edit diagrams or images. You can easily draw attention to important points through the use of arrows or you could easily circle or highlight them. You could also very easily use this program in conjunction with Picasa. It would be fun for students to edit photos in any way that they want to. I think that Drawing could be easily used in any classroom and I think that students would have a ton of fun with it, no matter there age.

My learning curve with drawing was very quick. I had used Microsoft Paint a lot in the past so it as a pretty easy transition for me. I like Drawing much more than Paint though, because there is a lot more that you can do with it. I wouldn't consider myself particularly tech savvy, and I had no problem figuring out what you can do with the program. I also found Google's Drawing blog very helpful in figuring out what exactly you can do with the program.

I contributed to the project by first just playing around with Drawing on my own. It is a very easy way to kill a bunch of time just playing around with it. After I got familiar with the program I detailed the basic features of it on our document. I also contributed my thoughts to the reflections portion of our document.

Here are the links for our work:
Drawing
Document