Brainstorm, Storyboard, and Script

For our leadership project Laura and I decided to showcase Edmodo to our colleagues.  We chose Edmodo because it is a great way to manage a Flipped Classroom as well as a traditional classroom.  It also can work for any and all subjects so it can be useful for all the teachers who participate in our Professional Development Seminar.  Edmodo is a site where you can creates "pages" for each of your classes within which you can then add assignments, calendars, quizzes, polls, etc for your students to access at home.  Students can then work on assignments at home and then post their final product directly to Edmodo, so rather than getting email after email with student work it is all conveniently stored on your Edmodo site, its even separated into classes!  Edmodo is much safer than Twitter and Facebook but it also has an easy to follow set up that resembles Facebook so your students shouldn't have much trouble navigating the site.  One of the main reasons Laura and I liked Edmodo as foreign language teachers was because we can have our students create recordings of themselves speaking on sites like Audacity which they can then upload it onto Edmodo for us to listen to!

We created a Powerpoint presentation below that we are using a storyboard to set up the order of our presentation.  We plan on first showing teachers how to set up an account on Edmodo then we will showcase the different features Edmodo provides such as the calendar, how to post assignments, how to create polls and quizzes and just simply how to manage your pages.  Included in the presentation are screen shots of the different features we will be highlighting to make it easy to follow.  You can read our script to see what exactly we plan on saying thoughout the presentation as well. 

Cep 812 group leadership project[1] from fuller40

For our final product we plan on using Jing to create a video with our narration that will correlate with a Prezi featuring all the screen shots you see in our storyboard to create an easy to follow simple presentation. 

Web-Conferencing

For our web conference Laura and I chose to use Google Hangouts mostly because Laura had used it before and was familiar with how to set it up while I had never used it.  We had a few technical difficulties at first because my computer didn't have a microphone built into it but once I switched computers everything went great!  During our conference we discussed our Leadership project and how we were going to explain the our tool, Edmodo, to our audience.  One thing that was a really great feature of Google Hangouts was the screen sharing option where you could show everyone in your hangout your computer screen.  This was great for us because we could navigate the Edmodo site together and decide what features we wanted to highlight for our project.  We even discovered a few differences between her site and mine which we guessed was caused becuase her site was connected to a school while mine was not because I'm not currently teaching.  There isn't really anything I would do differently next time I use Google Hangouts besides make sure my computer has all of the voice and video capabilities.  Overall, I loved my first experiecne with Google Hangouts! It was like Skype but it could be used for educational purposes.  This would be a great tool for my students to use when they're at home and they need to work together on a project because not only can they talk and see one another but they can also see what the other is doing on their computer screen. 

WPP Survey

For my Wicked Problem Project I am focusing on how to change up the traditional method of teaching grammar in the foreign language classroom to make it more student-based and interactive.  My idea for a solution is to follow the Flipped Classroom model for my grammar lessons so the students can decide the rules at home then in class we can discuss and practice more.  However, I have never learned or taught in a Flipped Classroom before so please take my poll and help me learn a little bit about your experiences with the Flipped Classroom! Thanks!

Please take my poll to help me with my Wicked Problem! 

WPP Part B

For Part B of my Wicked Problem Project I delve deeper into the connections between my problem and TPACK.  During my podcast I give an overview of my Wicked Problem (teaching grammar in the foreign language classroom) and then explain how my solution connects to the different aspects of TPACK, technological knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge. 




After you listen to my podcast please consider taking my poll to help me with my Wicked Problem!

Wicked Problem Project Part A

The Problem:

My wicked problem within my French class is teaching grammar.  Grammar tends to be one of the hardest concepts for students to understand because it tends to be very different then in English.  Also, teaching grammar can be very difficult and many teachers just find themselves placing the rules on the board and telling the students how to do it.  This way of teaching grammar is very one sided and is usually very boring so I hope to find a way to change this up.

In order to solve this problem I want to try and not only make learning grammar more interactive but also create more time in class to actually practice using the grammar.  Many students learn the rules and think oh I got this, this is easy then when it comes to using it they freeze up.  I have lots of ideas on things I want to try to make learning the grammar more interactive but for the purposes of this project I'll just focus on a few.  Firstly, I've always been very interested in the idea of a flipped classroom where the majority of the lectures and learning take place outside of the classroom while class time is dedicated to practice. Many of my students last year said they struggled at home with their homework because there was no one there to help them through it.  My hope is that by turning homework into classwork my students will have a better chance of mastering the lesson.  Another piece of technology I'd like to experiment with is Poll Everywhere and turn their phones into tools for learning.  Poll Everywhere allows you to place a multiple choice question in a PowerPoint, Prezi, etc. and your students will then text their answer to Poll Everywhere and the results will be displayed on the board.  This is a great way to see if your students are understanding the material as you go along and make adjustments if they are not. 

The Plan:

During this course I hope to start making a few podcasts that I can use while teaching select grammar topics my students tend to struggle with.  I know that creating a flipped classroom is a lot of work so I'd like to start with some of the more tricky concepts on gradually add on more as time goes by.  My ultimate goal for my students is that they get as much time as they need in class to feel confident with each topic and hopefully by learning the material at home where they can rewatch it as much as they need and simply reviewing in class they will have that opportunity.  I would also like to play around with Poll Everywhere during this course and research other types of technology that can help solve my wickedly boring grammar problem. 

The Resources:

Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. (2009, May). Too Cool for School? No Way! Learning & Leading with Technology, (36)7. 14-18.

Harris, J., & Hofer, M. (2009). Grounded tech integration. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(2), 22 -25. Retrieved from http://find.galegroup.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/gtx/infomark.do?&contentSet=IAC-Documents&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=AONE&docId=A209406804&source=gale&srcprod=AONE&userGroupName=msu_main&version=1.0

CEP 812 Intro Video

Here is a short summary about me for you all to get to know me a bit!


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Final Reflection

What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

What resonated with me the most throughout this course were the UDL, WebQuest and StAIR lessons.  I feel like these three lessons provided such great tools that I will use in the future not only integrate technology but also to make sure my lessons as accessible to students of all learning types.  The UDL guideline checklist is a great way for teachers to systematically go through their lessons and ensure that all different types of learners will be able to connect and learn.  I really love the idea of using WebQuests to reinforce a topic, it gives students the opportunity to work at their own pace and explore.  Finally, the StAIR assignment gave me many ideas on how I could change up my lectures into presentations that will allow students to learn at their own pace and provide them the time they need to really understand a topic.

How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

In the past to incorporate technology I have just added in some YouTube videos or created a presentation on PowerPoint to mix things up however now, after learning about all these different options for technology I've come to realize I could be doing a whole lot more to improve my lessons.  There is so much out there and its important that we introduce all these different techonologies to our students because it is essential for them in the future since our lives are only going to be more and more reliant on technology. 

How have you met your own personal goals for learning about technology integration?

Yes I believe I have met my goals for this course.  I learned about many different ways to integrate technology into my classroom and I had the opportunity to learn how to use many different websites and programs I previously had never even heard of.  However, as always in education, I still have more to learn throughout this Masters program.

Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

A personal goal of mine as a French teacher is to try and find some way to involve my classes in some type of webcast with a class of students from France.  I think that a webcast such as this would be such a valuable resource for my students because they would have the opportunity to speak in French with French teenagers from the other side of the world.  Not only would it be great for their listening and speaking skills but it would also be such a great cultural exchange between the two classes that you can't learn in a book.  In order to reach these goals I hope to get in contact with a English teacher in France who is willing to put the time and effort into this exchange and go from there.  In order to reach my long term goal of simply becoming more fluent with technology I plan on continuing my coursework with the MAET program and keep researching different sites online.