Week 15 - Student Presentations: Justin, Sarah, Meiya, and Me

Slow and steady wins the race.

Justin and Haiku
Sarah and Yoga in the Classroom
Meiya and the Chinese New Year
Me and Mindfulness in the Classroom

I love how the presentations this week have such an unified and Eastern theme; the content was so different from the previous weeks' presentations.

My Haiku: Tiger stalks at night,
                   swims the purple darkness,
                   within the canyon.

OMG, I made a Haiku. I was so thrilled because I have been fascinated by Haikus since I was a teenager and never understood the format or the ideas behind their creation until Justin's presentation.
Justin provided all the needed information and encouragement to feel really comfortable exploring Haikus.

Justin asked us to post a favorite animal, location, color, and meditative pass time to the homework forum in preparation for his presentation. Having the answers to these questions made it easier to create my Haiku. Thank you Justin.

Sarah lead us into a discussion and video on Yoga in the classroom and its benefits for both student and teacher. She spoke of how a number of her friends were teachers and how they had utilized Yoga in the classroom with great results. Sarah also discussed some of the concerns teachers and parents have about Yoga in the classroom. Although I could understand the concern over the unknown I thought that waiting until the children were "mature enough" was counter intuitive to the idea of yoga creating self-awareness and helping children self-regulate.

Sarah used the puzzle making software to create puzzles of a few yoga poses which I thought was amusing. I know people who won't try yoga because they think you have to bend into a pretzel shape.
Puzzles and pretzels and well.......that's my mind at play.

And Meiya's presentation tonight was all about playing. Meiya had previously given out Red Envelopes with riddles inside that had to do with the Chinese New Year. I love a good riddle and had lots of fun trying to figure out the two I had plus the other 18 Meiya provided for our review; you would have thought the class was on a game show vying to win a new car. .

Meiya showed us a video on the origins and practices of Chinese New Year and then quizzed us with the software program......, which was new to me. After understanding that you need to look at the computer screen to see what answers the colors on your phone related to, I was good to go.
I think Meiya had the same experience more than a few presenters had, including myself, which was just how quickly 35 minutes can be when presenting. While in the dentist chair 35 minutes can seem a lifetime, but when you're presenting time does seem to fly.

And even though I presented second I've saved the write up of me until last. I wanted to savor the feeling of being done with the presentation and the class right up until the last possible moment;
I'll own it, I'm tired.
Between school and my new business, The Divine Peace Reiki & Wellness Center, I've been stretched in a few directions. I love the graduate program in Educational and Instructional Technology and am doing well but....I've taken in and put to use a lot of new information in the past year.
Yes, I am savoring the moment and taking a victory lap or two.

My presentation was on Mindfulness in the classroom.

Week 14 - Student Presentations: Caitlin, Mike, Caitlyn and Jaimie

Dojos and cookies and monkey paws and noodles, oh my.



Caitlin demonstrated the software Class Dojo. Caitlin uses Class Dojo in multiple ways throughout the day in her classroom, including taking attendance and rewarding good behaviors. Each students are able to create a character to represent themselves which is then placed on the SmartBoard. The software then allows for the teacher to give or take points from each student throughout the day. Caitlin and the students agree on what behaviors cause a student to gain or lose points. In Caitlin's classroom good behavior is rewarded by allowing the student to choose a prize from a prize box or by having lunch with her.

Although I have mixed feelings about Behavior Modification practices I could certainly see how having a tracking method to show parents and caregivers is important to a teacher. 
I especially liked how Caitlin doesn't display points to avoid embarrassing those with low points.

Mike used the LiveBinder software that was demonstrated earlier in the semester to provide us with an overview of some basic but important functions in Photography. Mike also shared information on how to take a great photo. Mike teaches Photography and has a wealth of information which he keeps very well organized in LiveBinder. Note to self: be sure to further explore LiveBinder.

Mike provided a list of goals for the presentation and offered the objective of wanting us to be able "to make not take a photo" after his presentation. The presentation focused, no pun intended, on:
1) Composition (design skills), 2) Focus, and 3) Exposure. Mike used the analogy of under baked, over baked, and perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies to help us better understand Exposure. Yum
With so much good information to cover Mike didn't get a chance to deconstruct the photos a few of us posted as requested. I would still love to know if the Eiffel Tower photo with the lightening has been modified or not.

I came away from this presentation remembering the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words" and wondering if a great picture is then worth even more.

Caitlyn started off by saying thank you to those who posted a response on her forum. I really liked how she did that and will be sure to do the same when it's my time to present. Caitlyn then demonstrated the software FakeBook.  I was not familiar with FakeBook but some of the classroom teachers use it with good success. Caitlyn had us read a story in preparation for the presentation and asked us to choose a character from the story. I enjoyed reading the story of The Monkey's Paw, although I found it to be a little grim. And yes, pun intended.

The format of FakeBook is very similar to FaceBook which is intentional and provides a familiar format for the majority of students. Students can then create a profile for a character in a story which is what the students in our class did; I had fun creating a profile for Mrs. White.
Caitlyn mentioned how FakeBook is a good tool for shy students who may not be comfortable sharing in a group setting.

Jaimie shared the software program Active Classroom rather than the original topic GoNoodle. Jaimie choose this Active Classroom after reading the forum feedback from the class. I thought this change showed Jaimie's desire to make the presentation of use to the audience.
Jaimie shared an agenda with us as well as pictures of her actual students. The students were very cute and engaged. If I remember correctly Jaimie teaches fourth grade.

Jaimie gave us a tour around Active Classroom which has a number of different categories to choose from and different types of motion activities within each category. One choice is two men who sing different songs and demonstrate different movements. I couldn't stop laughing out loud and thinking of the Beastie Boys as I watched them do their demonstrations. The experience for me was that they were loud and old school to the core; I couldn't stop laughing. Jaimie said these two were the class favorites.
Jaimie and a couple of the other classroom teachers from our class shared how they used Active Classroom to compensate for the reduction or elimination of recess at their school. They also discussed the use of the audio guided visualization program known as Flow to calm students.
I liked how Jaimie was able to encourage three students in our class to share their experiences of using Active Classroom.

I came away from Jaimie's presentation thinking there was a need and a market for my guided visualizations in the classroom.

Week 13 - Student Presentations: Karrie, Krystal and Kim

K to the K to the K was all OK with me.

Karrie showed us how to keep ourselves safe from malware, spyware, viruses, phish, bugs, worms and other nasties. Krystal shared an educational game site called Turtle Diary and Kim sampled some Google Chrome extensions.



Karrie started by telling us about her background as a MicroSoft Systems Engineer before she started in the Education Technology program. Karrie started and ended her presentation with the reminder "to be a personal firewall". Karrie had a clear agenda and list of objectives and used Padlet and a TedEd presentation she had created. I found her presentation contained plenty of useful information.

Krystal set up an assignment on TurtleDiary for the class and used Padlet to have us share what games we had investigated on the TurtleDiary site. I had played a puzzle game for 1st graders and a math game for 2nd graders. I especially enjoyed the math game and thought it was a great way for children to learn how to solve word problems. Krystal did a wonderful job in showing us how to use the dashboard, navigation bar, and how to generate reports and graphs.

Kim had some difficulty with her audio which made it hard to follow along with her presentation.
Kim used tabs in Nearpod to organize, by day, the media and other files that an instructor would use for a lesson. I thought this was a great tool to know. Kim also showed us where to find and download Extensions in Google Chrome. My question regarding the recent article by Google in the New York Times about the security issues some extensions pose was answered by implying that if thousands of people download the extensions then they must be alright.

After not being able to hear Kim very well, I was reminded to do an audio check with and without a microphone.

Week 12 - Student Presentations: Becca, Charita, and Joe

Tonight's presentation was a virtual smorgasbord of tips, tricks, and tools. Each presentation left me thinking how I could use the teachings in one or more of the multiple projects I'm currently working on. I'll admit my head is swimming a bit; partially from all the material that was covered but mostly because of  its potent potentiality.

Becca started us off with a presentation software named NearPod that lets you easily create highly engaging presentations with drag and drop widgets, and  has a feature where you and the student can get near instant quiz results data. Charita then lead us into Pinterest and showed us how easy it is to link our Pinterest account to our Yola sites. And Joe finished us off with two types of YouTube modification software, previously unknown features of Google Forms, and some tips and tricks for Google Chrome.
And yes, I do mean finished us off.

Becca started her presentation by telling us how she was introduced to the NearPod presentation software last year as a student teacher and was immediately drawn to the software due to its interactive features. Becca shared that n the Upper New York school where she taught, the students needed to share ipads, and she found  NearPod allowed for great group collaborations. I thought sharing some personal background was a good way to start the presentation.

Charita opened up her very visually stimulating presentation with a nice explanation of her agenda. I thought the agenda was well thought through and took in to account what concerns a new user of Pinterest would want, and need, to know to get started. Charita also included multiple functions that even seasoned Pinners were unaware existed. I really liked the idea of creating a board for my Yola account for both the visual appeal but also because I could pin an article that had an active link and shift the storage off my Yola site and onto the Pinterest site.

Joe used a PowerPoint presentation with active links to keep track on his material and to provide instructions to us on how to use the 2 software programs he introduced. Joe added numbers and arrows, in red, to be sure the audience had the directions easily accessible. I thought that showed that he wanted to ensure students' success and was a nice touch. One of the software programs, ViewPure, allows you to take a YouTube video and have it cleaned of all the ads and comments and provides you with a URL. Joe felt this was useful information he took away from the Google Summit Conference he attended that could help teachers without Internet access or whose school blocked YouTube. I will use the tools when creating Ebooks.

One important reminder that I've come away with after watching the other students' presentations is to allow for the unexpected when presenting, whether you're presenting face to face or on-line.
You can have technical difficulties; more questions than you expected; a student that needs extra help; or .....more technical difficulties. All good plans contain contingencies.

So, so far I have been reminded to do a timed mock run through of the presentation and to allow time for the possibility of an unexpected problem. I don't like to rush at the end of a presentation to cover necessary material; the listener always knows. And because it all could run smoothly, I will plan an exercise to fill the time I allotted for any unexpected problems.

Yes indeed, slow and steady wins the race.

Week 11 - Student Presentations: Julio, Cat, and Joey

Tonight Julio, Cat, and Joey started off the class' presentations; courageous individuals indeed.
I utilized the strategy of signing up for the last presentation date.

Julio used a PowerPt. and started by asking for questions on the homework or what we wanted to learn about Newsela. He then put the questions to the side saying he would come back to them after the presentation to be sure the questions had been answered. I often used this technique when presenting and always found it a great way to close and bring the teaching full circle.

Cat covered Livebinder which I could see being very useful if I could figure out how to open my binder. I was able to create an account and upload some docs and links into a binder called Reiki but once I closed out I kept cycling back to the tutorial page when I tried to open the binder. The site was not especially intuitive to me so I will need to set some time aside to work out the navigation. I do see how it could be a better way of organizing my materials than just putting everything into a folder on my desktop.

Joe showcased Edublogs which is a site I used for another one of my Educational Technology (EDT) courses. Joe started out using Padlet to ask us what we currently use to communicate with our students and what other communication tools we would like to know more about. I thought this was a nice opportunity to get the conversation started and like that it was interactive. I do think though that the second question took the focus off using blogs and eat up some time he wanted to use for discussing a resource at the end of the presentation. Joe choosing to show us how to pick a theme and how to make a blog entry was a great way to keep it simple while helping us to get to know the site.

I came away with some new tools to use for both my own presentation and in my teachings. I'm going to refocus my presentation and include tips for teachers on how to use breath and mudra in the classroom.

Week 10 - Spring Break

The break flew by at nearly the speed of light, or so it seemed.
 
I went into New York to visit my family in Brooklyn and to see a friend of mine who comes to the East Coast a few times a year for a week or so. My friend Kerry is a shaman from Australia who I've known and studied with for more than twenty years. Because of the shamanic work I do with clients, especially trauma survivors, I go to see Kerry (http://www.shamanicgrace.com) twice a year to get a good "dusting off".

This visit was a little different as Kerry is now offering what is know as Streaming where she connects to each person's personality, spirit, soul, and Monad to share your life's purpose and any areas that need attention and alignment. Streaming is an outgrowth of the work we have been doing with an angelic collective know as the ARCS for the last nearly 7 years.

It was an energetically busy week.

I also continued to refine my Moodle project and really started to feel that I was understanding the mechanics of the platform. I do so much better integrating learning by taking a hands on approach and applying what I have heard and or read.

Learning from my mistakes and a trial and error approach sums up not only my learning style but often, my lifestyle.

Week 9 - Moodle News

In class tonight we learned how to save our lives. No joke, we learned how to back up our Moodle. Maybe you're not the sort to ever hit the wrong key and wonder into what dark void your hours of work now lie, but I am.

You've got lots on your plate and you're up to midnight, or later, doing your homework and it looks great but you're tired and.....then the void. Thankfully you have a back up of your work; especially for your Moodle project which takes hours and hours and hours of work to produce.

At first I couldn't hear the instructions in class because nearly everyone was talking out loud they were so excited to learn how to back up their work. I finally caught on to the process and practiced again a few times at home. Piece of cake.

We viewed some of the student's blogs which looked really good. I especially like the use of pictures by Sarah and decided to be sure to apply the 7 Design Principals to my blog.

We also choose our dates to present via WebEx on a first come first serve basis. I moved like the Flash to sign up for the last presentation date. I usually like to go sooner than later to impress but I've grown comfortable with the metaphor, "slow and steady wins the race" since I opened my new wellness center.

Week 8 - Scratch

Well, I wouldn't have imagined that learning a coding program for children ages 7-12 would cause me such anxiety and such joy.

When I worked as an Account Executive in the field of IT Education I was able to take all the classroom training I wanted for free and I took alot of courses. I always enjoyed Math and Science and love free. I took all the Microsoft Systems Engineer courses and was working on the Database Administrator track when the technology market crashed in 2001. I used to sell coding certifications and yet, I feel like Scratch is from another world. Maybe it just seems too easy to be coding.

Well, I struggled to put together a sprite of a cat doing a simple dance in the desert. That being said I was delighted and watched it over and over. I laughed out loud watching it go.

This is the link to my last creation; still really simplistic but ........

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/54017998/

In class we brain stormed a list of items to use to evaluate our game creating group projects' field test next week. It was a great group effort and an extensive list of critique criteria was developed.

I felt pretty good going into the field test as I had already created the 3 game boards in Photoshop and just needed to print them out and glue them to cardboard. What could go wrong?

Well....I learned that a box cutter works better than a pair of scissors when cutting cardboard. Live and learn if you're lucky.

Week 7 - Evaluation

This week is field test week. As a best practice a field test is in order to gather feedback on the functionality, aesthetics, and effectiveness of our Moodle. We are past the mid-point of our timeline to complete the project so if there are changes and tweaks to be made now is the time to make them.

Since we are developing e-learning it only makes since that the field test would be done on-line. My task was to develop and post a survey form in Google Forms. Once the survey was developed I posted it on my Moodle for Karrie and Mike to complete.

I choose to create a survey primarily about the format and aesthetics with yes or no questions and a space for comments under each question. I choose to focus on the format and aesthetics for multiple reasons including the fact that I like to set up the look of a project first. And yes, I color the outlines in a coloring book first.

I was partnered with two people rather than one as we have an odd number of students in class. At first I was not very happy to have extra work to do as I was running like Alice with the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass already but.....I knew that both Karrie and Mike were excellent students who did good work so I decided to look at the situation as a good learning opportunity.

They each created a different type of survey that functioned well for their Moodle projects. I was very thorough in completing each field test survey. I looked at every posting for active links, spelling and grammar, aesthetics, chunking and segmenting, user friendliness, and whether it was audience appropriate or not. I spent more than an hour on each survey not counting the survey completion and posting. It was definitely a learning experience for me but.....I learned so much invaluable information that I wouldn't have otherwise.

And the feedback I got from both Karrie and Mike on how my comments were helpful to them was an unexpected bonus.

Week 6 - Animation

Sometimes I feel slow compared to other students. I like to think through an assignment or project and plot out the concept before creating anything; story boarding works well for me.

I have also become aware that even though I can manage a project from start to finish in a timely manner, I am more of a process person than a project person. I see what comes before the project and the multiple potential outcomes and even where a particular outcome can lead.
My awareness is very expansive and broad and that's why working with a story board is important for me. I am also very visually oriented and really enjoy putting pencil, preferably colored, to paper and drawing the ideas I have about how to create an assignment.

So that brings me to this week's class and homework: Animation.

I love cartoons and at one point desperately wanted to to work at Disney helping to creating cartoons as an Inker. The idea of learning even a simplistic method of animating was exciting.

We learned two types of software to create a Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and created one GIF as a class with Dr. Sponder leading us through the process and then it was for us to create and post another GIF on our own. This is were my expansive thinking and .......the desire to "kill two birds with one stone"and .......wanting to understand the process fully first and ....... a desire for perfection, slows me down.

I could see other students around me having completed their GIF while I was still thinking about what I could create that I could use for my Moodle project; I had a bunch of ideas. I picked one and was enthralled with changing its size and speed.

I got my GIF posted in time and at the size and speed I wanted and at least it was a prototype of what I would eventually use in my Moodle, but just barely. In the same way that working on Visual Fine Arts projects suspended time for me I saw that working with animation could do the same.

Week 5 - Audio

Yes, I do know that this was the logo for the RCA Victor company. And no, I have never listened to a Victrola, although my grandfather did have a floor radio that must have weighed a hundred pounds.

This week's homework was to create audio files for our Moodle using Vocaroo. Thankfully this is software I've used for another class so......easy enough, but the process got me thinking how I was drawn to earn my Bachelor's Degree in Communication because I love sound; especially music.

For a few years, while pursuing my B.A., I worked part-time in sales, marketing, and fund raising for both The Hartford Symphony Orchestra and The Hartford Stage. I loved working in the Arts. My "having" to attend all the performances, in addition to "having" to learn about the costuming and staging aspects of the plays was such torture; NOT.

To me sound, especially music, can convey so much to a person; including emotions. The change in the tone of a person's voice and the emotions it elicits make for an exceptional experience for the audience; be it patron or student.

I find that my background in Communication is a good one for the Educational Technology program. I think that the communication tools I've learned make for a good segue way into the software and learning platforms taught in the EDT program and the communication aspects of the two programs fit well together.

How do humans learn? What ways do we delivery information to each other? What roles do community and "soft skills" play in communicating ideas and ideals? I believe this is were my degree in Human Services and my work with indigenous practices is of benefit.

After all, who doesn't love a good story.