I chose to make an informational presentation highlighting Quizizz for fellow educators. Most of my artifacts up to this point have been for classroom use with my own students. I wanted to instead focus on speaking to fellow educators. I know that some educators still have reservations about incorporating technology in the classroom, so I wanted to highlight how easy Quizizz is to use, while also highlighting aspects that it provides that are important to all educators. My hope is to be able to have presentations like this to share with educators that I may work with as a potential future IT. This will help open the door to build a relationship with those I may be helping and training.
First, I am a big Adobe fan and have been using their products for a long time. This was my first experience using Spark. I use Office 365 quite a bit, and it reminds me a lot of Sway. A strength of Spark is the integration of the image search, and I loved how it credited the author of my image without me having to do anything! I can see how this could be appealing to teachers who may want to use images but are concerned about fair use. I do not recall Sway having that feature. The mixed modality of presenting images alongside text, like Spark and Sway, could certainly help ELL students to help them with comprehension. Combining Spark with Google Extensions and 0365 Add-Ins could certainly assist with a huge group of students who struggle with everything from dysgraphia to English as a second language. Another area where Spark could help strengthen project-based learning is differentiation through the ability to view a presentation as many times as needed, synchronously or asynchronously. I demo things often in class, and it is a life saver to have resources to post for students to view to help clarify concepts and gather context for projects.
I can see how these tools can support collaboration and communication, but it supports communication the most. Comprehension and interpretation can be an issue with everyone. I love how much progress Microsoft has made regarding accessibility in Edge. Natively, the browser supports read aloud, immersive reader, and translating the content to a second language. I have even shared this with some of my students recently, and one of them told me that I was the best technology teacher she ever had! I discovered some of these resources in a project I did earlier in this program for a special education student I worked with, but this module provided even more options, and a variety as well. Just the Control Alt Achieve article alone was mind blowing!
I decided to download two Chrome extensions: OpenDyslexia and Mercury Reader. I tried them both and OpenDyslexia worked as advertised. It converts everything to a specific font to help dyslexic students be able to read better, but I need to research it more. I am assuming it is recommended to be used along with other strategies like read aloud and concept mapping, because dyslexia is such a complex issue. I worked with a dyslexic student earlier in another class for this degree and wish I would have known about that before, so I could have tried it. I know the student’s mother well and will let her know about it if they may want to try it. Mercury Reader was the second extension I used, and it worked well with individual articles, but not as reliably with other pages, like home pages that lead to secondary pages. Interestingly, Mercury Reader detected that, and sent me a message telling me that it works better with individual articles. The extension also had some personalized settings integrated that were useful, like changing font size and contrast. I love having the extension information at my disposal, but I am not a fan of extensions. However, regarding supporting students with a need, I can certainly see the benefits. As I mentioned earlier, I like that Edge has many of those features built in already. As far as how these tools can support students with disabilities and provide differentiation, I feel I have covered a lot of that already. There are areas that could improve in the future. For example, I converted the text of a web page to another language, and it worked great! But then I tried to read aloud that same text using Edge’s Read Aloud feature and it was not the most elegant reading. I know Immersive Reader does read text in various languages, but it would be nice if you could just have that available without sending it to the Immersive Reader. Features like Read Aloud, Microsoft’s Translator, adjusting fonts, contrast, and text size all are helping bridge gaps in communication and student disabilities. I just think you must be careful regarding how much you customize your applications, or they can create the problem they are meant to help solve. Do you really need to order an Uber or a coffee from Starbucks inside Microsoft Word? Is that increasing productivity? References: Curtis, E. (2016, October 8). Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs. Control Alt Achieve. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html Gonzalez, J. (2018, April 15). 4 Ways Microsoft is Making Learning More Accessible. Cult of Pedagogy. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/inclusive/ Hobgood, B., & Ormsby, L. (n.d.). Inclusion in the 21st-century classroom: Differentiating with technology. Learn NC. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from http://web.archive.org/web/ 20180125110137/www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/every- learner/6776/ Microsoft. (n.d.). Using Microsoft Translator for Education. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/using-microsoft-translator-for-education-f96d43c2- b5a4-40e5-b1b5-43763e6f10b6?ui=en-us&rs=en-us&ad=us
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I created a Twitter account to use for professional purposes. I have used Twitter in the past but deleted my personal account a few years ago. I have a good bit of experience using the platform and certainly know how much of the market share it consumes. I followed several of the educational technology companies that I use in my classroom, as well as some others that I have heard about while in the program here at KSU. I also followed Dr. Jim Knight and Eric Sheninger because I loved both of their books. I would rather have a smaller, yet stronger group to follow and branch out from there. I can certainly see the power of learning about features, tools, and personalities related to educational technology and digital leadership by using Twitter. What I really don’t like is all the unsolicited information that is forced on me by the algorithms of the app itself. I use social media as a part of my curriculum, especially when teaching about digital citizenship. My students and I discuss their responsibilities regarding what they view and post online, as well as their digital footprint. I also use digital compass, which is a game-based activity created by Common Sense Media, that weaves in the activities as they relate to different lessons regarding digital citizenship. I will also use Twitter to promote my students during our First Lego League season next year to the community and other stakeholders. My school also has a Twitter account, so we can help promote each other.
I previewed the TedTalks and looked over the NPR podcast directory. I have listened to podcasts by both organizations numerous times over the years and find them extremely useful and educational. I use TedTalks (videos) in the classroom to showcase various topics and love them! I love how Edpuzzle integrates TedTalks right into the website, and plan on utilizing that aspect in the future. Some of the TedTalks videos can get lengthy, and I like the idea of cutting videos, as well as annotating in Edpuzzle. Most of my students respond better to shorter videos. Also, the ability to share and post in an LMS is also very appealing. That level of personalized learning is something that helps me focus my time in the classroom on things that matter, like conferencing one-to-one with students and answering questions, as opposed to being their technical support representative. My colleagues in the county and I have discussed the concept of teaching podcasting to our students and I feel it plays right into the type of experience students of today enjoy and appreciate. The collaborative aspect can certainly be incorporated into lessons regarding podcasting about many different subjects and assignments. I am currently developing lesson plans for podcasts, as well as videocasts, or vlogs. I feel its important to scaffold lessons like podcasts over time by teaching them smaller supporting tasks, which eventually culminate into a larger project like a podcast.
Reference: Common Sense. (n.d.) Common Sense Digital Compass™ | Educational games for kids to help teach digital citizenship and digital literacy skills. https://www.digitalcompass.org I really enjoyed learning about some new assessment tools and resources in this module. I explored several of them, but I would still like to dig deeper into many others since I had not heard of many of them. I love how Web 2.0 tools augment my teaching and I feel you can get a lot out of many of the free versions. I am also glad my district purchased licenses for Edpuzzle. That certainly helped me with this assignment. Over the course of this assignment, I discovered the term “in-class flipped classroom”, (Doubet, n.d.) which was new to me. I even used it in my video! I had a little familiarity with both tools, but I had not used Edpuzzle much at all. I enjoy using Nearpod, but I really like how Edpuzzle supports video because I use a lot of videos to support my teaching in class. It is time-consuming, but it is definitely worth the effort in the long run. Students retain information much better with my standards with an in-class flipped classroom approach. But as I mentioned in my video, editing only can help so much. Time and experience teaching content open other ways of understanding your content and how your students interact with it. Therefore, the ability to edit and keep it dynamic is crucial. Edpuzzle is a great fit for that. Quizizz makes assessing student’s knowledge more fun. By incorporating memes and gamification, students respond better to it than a more traditional approach to quizzes/exams. Both resources make administration much easier and provide very important data as well. All educators value data, especially data that supports their content and how their students retain their content. I have been using Screencast-O-Matic now since the COVID lockdown and I am enjoying it. I feel it is easy to use and does a good job. I mentioned earlier that I use screencasts for an in-class flipped classroom approach, and I am incorporating it more and more each semester. I have a library of videos that I use to support tasks large and small, and my students are used to it at this point. Cobb has an LMS, called CTLS, and I upload much of the content there. I also add much of the content I produce to my website, which also augments much of my instruction. With CTLS and so many virtual learners (Cobb is hybrid now), the videos really help. Another way I would like to incorporate it is for my students to produce content in different ways for class. I have been thinking about that for a while, but I still haven’t tried it yet. I would love to produce a videocast (vlog). I am certain they would like that, but the logistics right now aren’t ideal to try it. However, I am currently planning out some ideas for the future. I also believe having students collaborate on video projects holds a lot of promise. Many of my virtual learners rely on video and publicly accessible content to keep them up to date in school. These tools are one way to provide that accessibility without having to create your own solution, which can be expensive and intimidating. References: Doubet, A. (n.d.). Flipping the Elementary Classroom | Creative Educator. Creative Educator. https://creativeeducator.tech4learning.com/2015/articles/In-Class-Flip Sheninger, E. (2019). Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times: Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times (Second ed.). Corwin. |
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