Reflection #6

Can you hear me now?

This lesson was a great teaching tool and really challenged me.  I found that coming up with the topic for the podcast was possibly one of the toughest decisions to make.   I realized that it is important to focus on the information you want to make clear or make sure your listener is getting that out of the podcast.  I did my podcast about using credit card calculators online to determine the length of time to pay off a credit card paying the minimum payment and paying off a credit card with a set time frame.  I just recently taught this lesson in my Principles of Business class and if I knew how to make a podcast last week, I could have shared this with them to reference to on their assignment, instead of repeating myself 25 times.

I can personally see how the podcast makes the online course discussion more personal.  I have taken several online courses throughout several years and the last few years they have really become much more involved including more exciting communication.  It is no longer just a computer screen and reading assignments, you can now interact.

I am very excited about the possibilities that podcasts create.  I intend to use in my classroom as much as possible and also as a realtor.  I can create podcasts to help my students with an assignment or to help clients search for a home!

I used jing and screenshot to create my final podcast.  I also downloaded cinch on my computer and my iphone and I am really enjoying learning about that tool.  I loved the teacher’s idea about having students read their book reports into a cinch podcast and posting to a class website.  I am currently thinking of a way to incorporate that into my current book report project I have my class doing.

Podcasts were very difficult for me because I had no experience with them and it took watching the videos and searching for additional information before I began to understand it.   I finally had that “ah ha” moment and it just made sense.  That is when I got excited about it and began to see all the many possibilities that I can use podcasts for in the future.

Reflection #5 - Information Literacy & Social Bookmarking

Information Literacy

When it comes to searching for information on the interest, I knew that the information you could find was virtually limitless, that some information was reliable while others were not, that anyone can post anything online, and for research purposes you should be careful what information you chose. After taking the information literacy quiz on novemberlearning.com, I was shocked by just how information illiterate I was. I knew a number of search engines, but I had no idea what a directory was. I also had no idea why you would use quotes to search for something, but now I know it is to make sure your keywords actually show up in your search results. I found this quiz to be very beneficial and educational. When it comes to searching for information on a website, I will search for the links from Google; it appears to be a useful tool for quick searches.
I am relatively confident that my research information coming off the internet in the last 2 years was reliable information. I am not confident of research in earlier years because I used sites such as Wikipedia and Google search information that is not necessarily research quality. I believe that the information I have taken from online sources for teaching are reliable. I stick to government sites and research online material myself for accuracy before using in the classroom or suggesting students to search a particular website. I choose the website California’s Velcro Crop Shortage for this activity and laughed throughout the reading! My grandfather owned a cotton gin so my prior knowledge immediately made the information funny. At points it was very convincing, especially to someone who had no prior knowledge on the subject or experience with Velcro. After all, look at all the uses we have and things we can make with cotton. I could see where someone might find this information believable and unfortunately use it as a resource for research. This activity made me aware of even more tools (other search engines & directories) I can incorporate in classroom research and project based assignments that I got so excited I also started working on a web search lesson for my classes! As teachers, we should explain and allow students to explore information on the website and help them realize that not everything out there is reliable or accurate. There are those people that believe everything they hear and read and we do not want our students to be those people. We want our students to be able to think for themselves and question the information they have been given, be able to verify something. For example, some of our students are already voting age or will be soon and if they believed everything they heard and read about the presidential candidates they would have mixed messages and are even more confused about who to vote for. By teaching them this information they will be able to discern if the information is reliable, be able to research accurate information on each presidential candidate and make an educated vote they are confident with.


Delicious – Social Bookmarking

I love the ease of bookmarking! I am one of those people that have a thousand favorites; so many that I don’t even use the tool. Seriously, I saved the websites I used the most for convenience and it was no longer convenient. I am excited that with the fact that the delicious account is web based, enabling you to access your “favorite” websites from any computer! After adding my initial link and initial stack, it was very easy! The ability to share information and have access to others tools is a great idea for teaching. We are challenged everyday to bring technology into the classroom and having access to view what other people have linked is terrific, you can use their ideas or build upon their ideas. I am also a real estate agent and there is multiple website I use to research information on homes. I had those websites saved in my favorites, however if I was working on a office computer or any other computer besides mine I did not have access to the least used sites I did not remember. With delicious I have created a stack with all the websites I use and I actually find it freeing and relaxing. If my laptop battery dies and I forgot my power cord at home, I can still utilize all the websites I need from delicious. When looking through the other websites I liked the Diigo website, it was easy to read, seemed user friendly, was ipad/iphone compatible, and you can save other media with your bookmarks such as PDF files and photos. I did find where you can add delicious to your ipad and iphone, so I will be utilizing that feature as well.

http://delicious.com/tiffch324

Reflection #4 - Eportfolios

Learning is a continuous process and I have always been told if I am breathing, I should be learning something new every day. I enjoy learning and believe that eportfolios are a great way tool for assessment on learning. The first time I used a portfolio was in 6th grade art class, we kept every piece we created in class throughout the year and stored them in a portfolio that was also a piece of art. I remember showing that portfolio to my parents, grandparents, and anyone else that would pay attention. I also remembered the pride I had in my art work and how the anticipation grew as the pieces in my portfolio got better as my skill and understanding grew throughout the year. Today’s eportfolio is no different to me. I still want to show my parents, grandparents, potential future employers, and anyone else that will look at my work. Even as an adult I am proud of what I have learned and I believe it shows in the work I produce. I think that the eportfolio is a great tool because it allows you to store information from many sources and you can see the growth of a person on many different subjects. Also, it gives you the ability to use your past work as a source or reference to build upon and continue learning. You have the ability to conveniently revisit that lesson, which eliminates or lessons the chance of you forgetting something you have already learned.


The article, Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep learning, discussed two assessments; assessment for learning and assessment of learning. A few comparisons between the two assessments are: Assessment of learning checks what has been learning to date, usually compares the students’ learning with either other students or the ‘standard’ for a grade level, and does not need to involve the student; Assessment for learning checks learning to decide what to do next, usually focuses on improvement, compared with the student’s ‘previous best’ and progress toward a standard, and needs to involve the student – the person most able to improve learning. These are the main reasons I have to say I most relate to the use of eportfolios as assessments for learning. I believe that learning is individualized; you decide what is important to you and study those things to learn them. In other words the ability compare your current work to your previous work is a bigger motivator for improvement and growth than comparing your work to your peers. I believe the potential for portfolio assessment is great and a terrific way for assessing a student’s knowledge of that subject before moving forward. As stated before, I also see it is a personal motivator and as a tool to recall prior learning and build upon instead of forgetting. I believe that the creation of my class eportfolio will assist me in the future because I am already thinking of the many things I can utilize this for in my classroom. I love the idea of having a site that I can share with my students and their parents as a tool for communication, I can create a contact form where students and parents can email directly from that with any questions or concern they might have. I can share homework assignments and instructions; this would be a great tool for students who were working on projects over the weekend or anytime outside of school. I can share class and school information conveniently, such as field trips and holidays. I can brag on students and good work examples, such as student of the week/month in my classes, pictures or videos of projects being worked on in class.

Reflection #3 - Wikis

Reflection blog #3 - Wiki Week!


I created a wiki for teachers to share technology ideas and create a community to help each other enhance lesson engagement with today's digital native students. Teachers have a 30 minutes lunch window, conference time, and staff development days together, which is rarely enough time to discuss ideas. This wiki will allow teachers to share ideas and success stories at their convenience and others to read at a time that is comvenient to them.

Wikis are a great way for a group to communicate and build upon each others ideas. If something worked for one person and did not for another, they can share those stories. Not only technology, but they can share strategies or any other tool that came accross as exciting to their students.

Since I am student teaching, I have shared my wiki with my mentor teacher. I will ask him to share with the other teachers in the CTE dept. I am excited to see what kind of reaction the other teachers have to the wiki and this type of communcation. I hope they see how this can enhance their own classroom and share ideas.

The advantage of wikis is simply the ease of communication and ability to share information quickly and at your convenience. The disadvantage is simply not using the wiki and for some the new technology may be overwheming. I remember the first time I signed on to facebook and I thought it was a different language compared to the ease of myspace. Until you have actually used a tool several times, it can be scary and not seem to be worth your while since you do not understand how to navigate the system yet. However, just as I learned to use facebook, we can all learn to use new tools and as teachers we should always continue to learn, especially new technology!

I am looking forward to the day that I can set up a wiki for my own classroom! I believe that a wiki would be a great way to communicate between the teacher and student. I would be able to post lesson information and share different tools and references for the students to utilize both in the classroom and from home. Everything on the wiki is public, and that would be great to share with parents as well. Parents would be able to see lesson directions from home and help their child or post a comment or quesitons that I could reply to online. I think that the open communication is an obvious advantage.