Week Five Reflection

The two main activities this week, the pecha kucha and rubric, were challenging for me, and it was the first time that I felt the pressure to finish my work on time. I have typically been a procrastinator for most of my life, so what I've discovered most about these projects is how much prep time goes into being well prepared. Yeah, I know; it's obvious, but I have been a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl and have never minded last minute preps, even when teaching classes at times. So when I created my rubric for one of my projects I have my fourth graders do, I found myself exhausted at all the thinking that went into creating just one rubric. My brain was tired! Despite this mental workout, I have to say I was very pleased with the outcome and plan on continuing creating rubrics for many of my other projects. It is such a great way to communicate my expectations to my students. I can't count the number of times way back when I taught high school that students complained that my expectations were vague. Or the number of times where I went to grade their stuff and THEN decided on what my criteria were - so not fair to my students. No wonder they occasionally got crabby with me! Once I finished my rubric for my fourth grade, everything just fell into place, and not only did it give me something for the end result, creating the rubric really forced me to examine why I'm doing this project in the first place. Yeah, this is a real DUH moment for me people!

As for the pecha kucha, it took a very long time to create it, but overall I'm very happy with the result. I appreciate the motivation behind this presentation style, but I was a bit confused about the speaking aspect of it. I know it's 20 slides, 20 seconds, but does that mean you have to talk for 20 seconds on 20 slides? I had a hard time finding an answer to this and never really got one. All the samples we saw were really based on recorded live demos so the speaker spoke the whole time. I have to agree with what someone said in my group; talking for 20 seconds on 20 slides is too much verbal busyness. I think it sounds like you're cramming in a ton of info. Maybe I feel that way because unlike a live presentation, a recorded one doesn't allow for audience feedback and participation. I think it might be more fun to do one live although I think it would be incredibly challenging for me. I'd be too tempted to stray from my script.

Week Four Reflection

I'm very excited about everything that we have discussed this last week. What amazes me is the common sense approach to presentations. It's so funny how I can go along, thinking and practicing one method and then suddenly realize that all that I've been doing has been wrong.

In terms of presentation, I would guess that most, if not all, of us who teach practice the casual approach and the "living in the moment" delivery method. I don't know how you couldn't and be an effective teacher, especially if one teaches elementary or high school. There's no way I could be effective with my students while spending my whole time behind a lectern or reading from my notes. At the same time, it's amazing how many teachers do lecture at students instead of engaging them with narratives. In addition, how many classes have we taken, or how many presentations have we seen where the speaker doesn't know when to quit? I know I can be guilty of babbling on and on, but I have sat through some lectures where I thought I was going to have to throw myself out the window. I think much of it has to do with what Garr says about connecting with your audience and knowing your audience. Also, many of those speakers come across as arrogant and clearly don't care about me, just one of many in the crowd. I'm thinking of one particular presentation I went to of a rather famous author. Although he was entertaining, it was clear that he meant to be center-stage only, and so as he solicited questions from the audience his arrogance became clearer and clearer. By the end, I was completely unimpressed. On the other hand, I would love to see some of the speakers Garr mentioned because I love nothing more than to be completely invigorated by a good speaker.

It's funny and ironic that Presentation Zen's emphasis seems to be to create presentations that are minimal in order to bring out and highlight the speaker, rather than glorify the presentation itself. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I think I have relied heavily on my presentations, not feeling adequately prepared or even knowledgeable, and so have loaded my Powerpoints with bullet points for that reason. How much easier it is to just read from my slides, rather than rehearse and develop an interesting narrative.

On a similar note, as my students learn Powerpoint and other storytelling software, I'm emphasizing the same minimalist approach. I have always told them that when creating a show, they shouldn't read from their slides, but now I will stress the less is more and even stipulate how many words on each slide they're allowed to have. It'll be interesting to see how this approach goes over with 3rd and 4th graders. Something else I'm still struggling with, however, is how to incorporate all these great resources when they require registration. I'm still not sure how parents will feel about their children being registered to all these sites where others can comment or view work.

Week Three Reflection

I'm really finding the material all coming together this week. The section we read in our text has been extremely helpful, and I can begin to envision how my presentations might look from now on. I like Garr's common sense suggestions and the stress on simplifying and streamlining. I can see how my past presentations have fallen victim to the mistakes that many make. I have spent a lot of time filling my slides with words and taking up every space imaginable with clip art so that the slides look busy. I think I will have much more fun creating my presentations from now on.

On the same note, as I attempt to remake my uploaded show, I'm finding that focusing on the central message is not as easy as it sounds, nor is it necessarily obvious. I think I have been guilty of just spitting out information without considering what I want my students to actually know. What knowledge do I want them to gain from my introduction to the Internet? I already know that I need to cut out a lot of my content - actually break it down into separate presentations - but until I can figure out my central message, that will be a challenge. As I re-examine my presentation, I'm also referring greatly to the NETS on Digital Citizenship and trying to incorporate those standards into my discussion. It feels a bit overwhelming. Perhaps it would be helpful to actually create my handout first and work backwards. I'd be interested to know if that's the process others are following. And speaking of the handout, that's another area I'm pondering. Since my presentation is directed at the 3rd graders, I have to question how I want my handout to appear. Is a one-page typed worksheet the best format for 8 and 9 year-olds, or will that be too much for them? Would it be better to list ideas in an outline form so that it appears more organized? I think to answer this, I'll speak to the 3rd Grade teacher. I'm sure she could suggest the best format.

I also am finding the Digitales chapters and especially the 7 steps extremely useful. As I have mentioned, my students do create digital stories and both I and they have found discovering their stories to be difficult. In the past I had them gather photos and then work on their stories, but what typically happens is that they start simply describing what's in the photo instead of using the photos to complement their stories. I guess the obvious solution is to have them create the story FIRST and THEN gather the media later, as the 7 steps worksheet maps out. Clearly, I have placed the cart before the horse in the past.

Lesson Two Reflections

Like everyone, I want our curriculum to consist of resources I can take directly to my classroom. That's why I'm excited about Voicethread. In the past, I have had to combine various softwares to accomplish what I want the students to do. Voicethread allows me to combine that visual with audio AND allows others to comment directly to each other's work. I have used other software that more or less let's students create slideshows and narrate them, but until now I hadn't seen one that allows the comment feature. And to be honest, until I browsed the projects on Voicethread, I hadn't even thought about the comment feature. But now, of course, my mind is zipping in overdrive, coming up with all sorts of ideas. For example, I have my 4th graders create Hyperstudio shows of fictional vacation destinations, and as a finale, I have them view and rate each show on paper and award a prize for the top-rated. I could now also have them summarize visually their destination and have the students make comments directly on Voicethread. One of the shows on Voicethread was the author's top five favorite cartoon theme songs. I could also have students create their "top five" of something and share with others for their opinions. And then as a culminating project, have them create a survey on SurveyMonkey for the actual data collection. How fun!

My frustration when learning all this new, great stuff is how to take it back to the teachers and, most importantly, how to get them to embrace it as much as I do. I am presenting to my faculty next Friday and Monday, and I'm still wondering what to present. Keeping in mind everything that Garr Reynolds is emphasizing this week about presentation, I'm wondering if I should create a Powerpoint. Perhaps I need to begin by doing exactly what he stresses and use the analog approach - get away from the computer and really think about what it is I want the teachers to take away from my time with them. In the past I have done sessions with them, and although I can tell they're enthusiastic and curious, in the end I don't observe any of them using what I've taught them. There still is the overall attitude that because I am the computer teacher, I, alone, teach computers. On the one hand it's great that our students are given the chance to come to the lab twice a week and have that time, but on the other, it's given the teachers a rather easy out, especially for those who aren't real comfortable with technology.

So, all of you out there in the teacher world, if you were to spend two mornings with me, learning technology, what would YOU want to hear and see? And don't tell me silence... THAT is not an option...

Digital Storytelling Lesson 1

As I watched all the videos and read and reflected on the reading material, numerous things came to mind. In terms of storytelling, I couldn't help but think of those I know whom I find to be great storytellers. To me, a good storyteller is able to combine the fun with the serious and the facts with embellished truths. We all know people whose stories seem to ramble on, boring us completely. I'm sure I have been the teller of a few myself, but I think I can be honest in saying that storytelling was one of my gifts when I taught high school students for many reasons. First of all, they never wanted to learn anything, so anytime my 9th or 12th graders could get me on a tangent was a bonus for them. Second, most, but not all, of my stories were humorous in nature and stemmed from events in my life and typically were stories they could relate to. Third, I think my stories were entertaining because they typically pointed out my follies. I have no problem laughing at myself and telling others about my antics. Fourth, whenever I told stories, I always embellished a little. Honestly, no one remembers everything exact, so it's important to know when to add the hyped details, as long as they don't change the facts of the events. Sometimes my students had difficulty accepting this concept, especially when we read autobiographies. Students often became fixated on story facts, claiming that an author could not possibly remember all the details. Therefore, they sometimes lost interest in the story. So I think when embellishing, it's important to embellish the right stuff. When the heart of the story becomes a bunch of bull, then the storyteller loses credibility, and the audience loses interest. Finally, I think my storytelling was effective because I wasn't afraid to let the emotion surface. I noticed this same occurence in the one video of the father telling the story of his son. At one point he appeared almost teared-up, and seeing him get emotional, brought out the empathetic emotion in me. Often times when I told my students stories, I laughed and sometimes got a touch bit emotional. Overall, the best thing about my stories is that they often evoked other stories from the students. Suddenly, some of my most quiet students would have stories to tell themselves because my story triggered a memory. I loved that.

Taking the verbal story and molding it into the digital story is what I hope to master in this class and beyond. Of course music is the easiest way to bring out the emotions in a story, but I want to learn how to transform the narrative. In some of the examples, I think a bit of the effect was lost because the narrator's voice didn't carry well or the story was missing something. And combining this with the "minimalization" emphasis of presentation that PresentationZen seems to be making, I want to figure out how to bring out the best in a story without going on and on. I think by now, most can see that I do ramble, so I need to figure out how to make things more succinct without losing the power of the story. And then I need to figure out how I can wrap this all up and communicate it to my young students who are masters of storytelling in their own way but who really don't know how to comprehend technique. Know what I mean? It seems the minute I put them to task, their creative juices fizzle. The younger students seems to do better in their natural environment, so I'd like to find the best ways to inspire them and to generate their stories.

EDO525: Final Blog-Making Strategies Work

It's been almost 20 years since I've been in college full time, in the school of education. Even when I was in school, my major was English teaching, so although I had education courses, the focus of my studies was literature, and that is where I generally excelled. Honestly, the education courses I had were pretty meaningless to me. Afterall, I had yet to experience the real classroom environment so studying various theories and practices was like learning to build a house without driving a nail. Hence, I found the strategies we learned in 525 to be extremely helpful. Even though I've incorporated all of these strategies at one time or another, I don't recall ever really learning them or having them so nicely laid out for me like the textbook did. As I peruse over the strategies, I find that I'm strong in many of them but very weak in others.

My strengths tend to be giving recognition, incorporating nonlinguistic learning, providing plenty of practice with little homework, and generating hypotheses. In addition, I think I provide many opportunities for cooperative learning but not necessarily by creating small groups. Instead, as students work, I often allow them to talk to each other and help each other out. I find that this form of cooperative learning not only assists students who have difficulties, but also strengthens the skills of my more accelerated learners.

As I glance at the long list of strategies and technologies, however, I can see several areas where I could use improvement. I always set objectives for my lessons but as I've pointed out elsewhere, I rarely actually state those objectives to the students, nor do I provide cues and questions to direct their learning. I guess in the past I've assumed that the best way to educated my students is for them to follow the lesson, allowing them to have their "ah-ha" moment at the end. After reading the textbook, however, I can see that I might have more success if I tell them where we're going first. Doing so will still give them the "ah-ha" moment while making it clearer the direction we're headed in the first place. In addition, although many of my projects include rubrics, I think I need to provide more feedback and, in general, more communication. I have to admit, like many teachers, I get behind on my grading and so the turnover between presentation and feedback is too long. Incorporating various technologies would most likely help this. Finally, now that I'm actually taking classes in my current field and getting the training I need, I am getting my hands on many, many new resources that I can take right back to my classroom. Thus, this fall I will have a variety of applications that my students will be able to use at home. When I introduce and talk about these applications, however, I will have to be sure to include the strategy of identifying similarities and differences. Prior, I rarely compared and contrasted. Instead, I would simply introduce each subject as something new.

Being the technology teacher, I have all the technologies necessary to incorporate into my strategies and really no excuse not to. To communicate objectives to my students I can do everything from creating Powerpoint shows to laying out the objectives in a Word document. In addition, my District is fortunate enough to have Kid and Inspiration, which I have very rarely used in the past but which I will find extremely valuable now for a variety of strategies, including brainstorming and communicating objectives and providing cues and questions. In addition, I will use Kidspiration as a group to look at the similarities and differences between different applications. For example, in the past my students have only used MS Word for all word processing, but this fall I plan to create Google accounts for my older students. Therefore, they will now have the option of using two word processing applications. I plan on showing them even more, such as Thinkfree and Etherpad which provides actual real time group collaboration. Kidspiration will be an excellent tool for comparing and contrasting these various word processing applications. In terms of communicating more with the students, I am planning on exploring RCampus in more depth. This site provides not only rubric-generating resources but also a potential way for students to log in and see classroom progress, instead of waiting for me to hand something back to them. In addition, I'd love to find the time to try a Wiki for one of my classes. Last year, I was out for a couple of weeks for back surgery and so I created a Google Presentation and logged in during my class and conducted the presentation. My students absolutely loved it and were undoubtedly more tuned in than they would have been had I simply shown them the Powerpoint at school on the projector. To them, it was playtime, even though they were learning a great deal. I think they would find the same enjoyment if I created a Wiki. Since I'm the librarian, I could create a book club. This would be another way of communicating with my students on a regular basis. Another technology I plan on using this fall is our new Pixie Suite. This application allows the users to create everything from slideshows to podcasts and websites. This would be yet another great way for students to communicate to their families all the things we're doing in class. In addition, publishing their work would be a great way to provide recognition and feedback.

I'm very excited about all the changes I'll be making this fall. I have my work cut out for me, but investing the time is sure to produce results I had never dreamed of before and provide a much clearer direction for my curriculum.

Week Three-Online Tools Review

Like many others, my curriculum is almost composed entirely of online tools. Because of cost and issues with our server, I have looked more and more to cloud computing and finding effective, inexpensive teaching tools. My school does, however, still purchase software occasionally and five years ago purchased the Kidspiration and Inspiration software. Kidspiration, along with Bubbl.us and Exploratree.org offer three great options for creating and sharing graphic organizers.


I've worked with Kidspiration many times. The software is an excellent source not only for creating graphic organizers but also for the writing process. Students have the option of creating a graph from scratch or from numerous templates on a variety of topics. In addition, Kidspiration includes tons of pictures, or students may import one of their own. I like how easy the software is to use, and students of all ages enjoy the software. In addition, once students have created their graphic, they can select the outline option that automatically creates the outline of their graphic, thus making it easier for students to move into the writing process. Of the choices, I think Kidspiration is the best, but it also isn't cheap.

I also viewed Bubbl.us and Exploratree.org. Both have the capabilities of creating brainstorming graphic organizers, but I liked the huge variety of templates that Exploratree offered. Bubbl.us appears to be very useful when you want to create and print a quick organizer. The students could easily log in, and as a large group, the teacher could walk through the process step by step. Last year my school purchased a mobile lab, and this would be a wonderful site to use in the classroom with the laptops as a way to teach students how to take notes. Exploratree, unlike Bubbl, allows the user to either create his own graphic or select one from a list. In addition, each type of graphic organizer is explained and examples are given. Since I don't have very much experience with organizers, I really liked this site. Not only does it offer organizers, but the site itself is a sort-of brainstorming resource for teachers. Looking at the options gets me thinking how I might use them in my lessons.

During in-service this fall, I am charge of a technology day with my colleagues. I can't wait to show them these sites and add them to our school's Delicious account as resources. I'm pretty sure right now the teachers create their own organizers or copy ones from textbooks. They'll love using this site.