CEP 811 Evaluation of Learning Material in MERLOT

A review of Elapsed Time StAIR Tutorial


This resource is an interactive tutorial demonstrating the use of a T chart strategy for figuring out elapsed time. It is directed towards second and third grade math students who have been working on basic elapsed time problems and are moving on to more complex problems involving several hours and an odd amount of minutes. This resource caught my eye because I am currently teaching this topic in my math class AND I wanted more exposure to a Stand-Alone Instructional Resource. Although it is labeled as a tutorial, it also has a bit of Skill and Drill added in. The creator did a nice job of "hooking" me into the lesson with it's interesting and colorful background. It started with easy directions on how to navigate through the lesson, a review of what elapsed time is, and then some practice problems. The actual tutorial was a YouTube video that was imbedded into it which demonstrated the T chart strategy which, I have to admit, I've never seen before and thought it was a significant technique I plan to teach tomorrow in math class! I can see using this resource next year with my second graders when we finally have our student laptops. In the meantime, I can teach the strategy being taught on my classroom whiteboard.


Quality of Content:
I felt that the content covered in this resource was relevant for the age group it was directed towards and the discipline intended. It can easily be implemented into any math class as a station students could visit and then return to a classroom assignment or as a whole class experience using a SMARTBoard.


Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool:
This resource seems to be intended for use during the "applying the curriculum to new problems" or more complex problems on elapsed time because it reviews what elapsed time is and has the student do some practice problems. It then takes you to the tutorial to show a new strategy that can be used and can be especially helpful with complex elapsed time problems. After completing the tutorial, students should be able to utilize the T chart strategy to write each elapsed hour and then move on to the minutes column. In the minutes column, students count by 5 minute increments and then 1 minute increments until they reach the new time. It is a very efficient strategy that can easily be understood by all students and because it has the student practice this new technique, they can try it out to see if they understand it before leaving the computer station. Students can easily continue practicing this new strategy with a follow-up worksheet that can be completed at their desks and turned in for assessment by the teacher.


Ease of Use:
This resource was fairly easy to navigate through. It gives clear directions at the beginning on how to use the buttons. The opening page caught my eye immediately with a pleasantly colorful background which was simple, yet interesting. Students are directed to use the forward arrow to move on to each page, a home button the user can use to go back and hear the material again, and an easy click on the answer procedure with a response built into the program. The material is attractively presented on each page and doesn't over stimulate the user with lots of animations, noises, and other things that can be distracting to a young student. The one problem I had while using this tutorial was once I closed out of the YouTube video, I was not taken back to the program. After playing with it a while, I realized the program had been minimized and I needed to click on it to resume the resource. I liked how students were able to interact with the material and practice a variety of elapsed time problems that increasingly got more difficult. Overall, I would give it 4 1/2 stars out of 5.  

Personal Learning Reflection

Having now completed CEP810, I look back and reflect on all the fantastic things I have learned. It has been an incredible journey and learning experience. Although it was not without enduring a lot of stress, I can say that I am very pleased with the growth that I have made during these 8 short weeks.

Coming into this course I thought I had a decent knowledge of how to integrate technology into my classroom but soon discovered that I didn't know much at all when one looks at the whole scope of where technology has taken us. My stress level skyrocketed on the first day of class as I became overwhelmed with the terms and tools we would be using. I can now say, however, that I know what web 2.0 is, what wikis and blogs are, and what an RSS Reader is and how to use feeds. I also know how to bookmark, utilizing and developing a Google Calendar for its educational uses, how to present material using Prezi, and how to do a screen dump and why we might do one. I am able to use cloud computing to collaborate on projects with others, tools I can use to increase productivity in my personal and professional life, and even how to keep my computer running smoothly and efficiently. But one particular thing has had a profound impact on me more than anything else. While researching SMARTBoards for our SIG Project, I became suddenly aware of the fact that my students are not the same type of students that I was educated to teach and I just finished my teacher education classes a mere six years ago. These 21st century students come from the digital world and need more than I have been able to give them to keep them motivated and engaged in our classroom lessons. Our school is so behind in its technology development both for the purpose of teaching with and as a learning tool for students.

I can confidently say I have learned a great deal and have made amazing growth in my technological abilities and am looking forward to continuing this growth through the required courses I will be taking here at Michigan State to acquire my NP Endorsement. I also feel I am at a comfortable place where I can help my school research and make educational decisions on what types of technology would make the greatest impact for our school community's particular needs and budget constraints and will continue to advocate, collaborate, and share the tools I've learned and how we can implement them into our teaching practices. 

The Internet is such a profound tool to use within the classroom. Next year, with the promise of some new laptops my students will have access to once or twice a week, I look forward to teaching them how to research material on the Internet and safe citizenship in the process. My mind is busy working to find ways to implement the limited technology we have into my classroom and equipping my second and third graders with some of the life skills they will need to learn to be competitive in this digital world they will be working in. I believe that technology has a place in the classroom. It is definitely a tool that can be used to help ensure that educators are meeting the various learning styles of our students and it's applications can help to motivate and engage our students with learning.

Of all the projects we did, I feel the SIG project was one piece that exemplifies good teaching with technology. It utilized a variety of tools and practices that can be used with our students. The reason I chose this over all the others is because it was a group project in which we each had to research our own material, bookmarked the resources we found useful, wrote our own piece and collaborated online with the rest of our group members to put together the final project as a wiki. Then we utilized Prezi to develop a format for summarizing and presenting the project to our audience. This project had so many different aspects of technology use to it that it ranked highest for me as an exemplary example of teaching in the 21st century.

Technology and the Internet are a big part of our world now and they're not going away. Rather, they will continue to evolve and no one knows where they will take us. I am busy planning ways in which to integrate the limited resources of technology I have available to me and creating lessons to develop my students' skills for using this incredible and powerful tool.      

  

Learning Styles

I first became aware of learning styles in my teacher education classes back about nine years ago. Ever since then, it has been very helpful to me to understand my own personal learning style so I can inform instructors, colleagues, and presenters what my needs are for learning. I am predominantly a visual learner. I need to see exactly what it is that I am learning. I jokingly tell anyone who is trying to teach me something to "draw me a map". I have to see it while it is being told to me. I cannot understand directions for making something, hooking something up, or putting something together without having pictures or diagrams to go along with each step. A few other things I have noticed about myself when it comes to digesting reading material, like textbooks, is that I do better if I can hear myself read it. Otherwise, I find I am simply reading with my eyes and not for memory.

This online class has been a bit challenging because the sound and picture for the live lessons I tune into every Tuesday evening are not in sinc with each other. I get the picture about 15 minutes behind the audio description. I then have to watch the recorded version so I can get both parts together.

After learning about learning styles, I wish it was something that educators knew about when I was in grade school as school was quite a struggle for me. I understand, now, what I need to be a successful learner and I really think it has impacted the way I teach my own students. I have noticed that because I am a visual learner, I tend to include as many visuals as I can with my lessons. However, I also have many students who are auditory learners and still others who are kinesthetic. Even though I can't teach everything in all three formats, I think it's important to have an awareness of what my students needs are and then be able to vary my teaching strategies so I meet everyone's needs for helping them be successful learners.

Every student who reaches second grade at our school is given a couple different tests/inventories to determine their learning style, personality profile, and dominance factors to assist teachers in delivering their lessons to students using the teaching strategies that work best for their particular needs. It is very helpful to know this information, especially when they show signs of struggling. We usually can always flip through their files and find information to help us with figuring out the best interventions for them.

I love knowing about learning styles and I think it is a valuable tool for teachers to have an awareness of.

PC Maintenance and Security

I found the tutorials on Atomic Learning so interesting, I really wanted to watch all of them. Since I don't know very much about maintenance and security, I probably will go back and view more of them for my own benefit. After watching several, I found the continued discussion about malware to be very interesting so I decided to use three consecutive tutorials on this particular topic.


The first tutorial I chose to write about was titled Defining Malware. I have never really known what Malware, Spyware, or Adware were. I will go out on a limb and expose how naive I am about my computer and tell you that I thought Spyware was a software that was good to have because it detected viruses or people trying to "spy" into my information. In this tutorial, malware was explained to be short for "malicious software" and a catch all phrase used to describe all harmful software. I found it very interesting that according to statistics, over 90 per cent of all computers are afflicted by malware. That's not good when I later found out from another tutorial that computers are infected through so many things that are shared between computers. While most people are much more informed about their computers than I am (although the numbers conveyed by statistics show otherwise), I probably won't share this information with people because of the fear of getting laughed at. I have other information to share from the other tutorials.....


The second tutorial, titled Understanding How Malware Spreads, was even more fascinating to me and truly made me think I couldn't afford to own a computer unless I started putting some protection on it. I am currently using my new laptop and in discussing all this information with my husband, he mentioned that our son had installed AVG(?) on his computer. Well, it seems he forgot to do that to mine!!!!!!! So I will take care of protecting my own computer, I guess.


I was amazed to learn that so many "normal things" we do in our daily lives when we're on the computer can actually spread malware from computer to computer. I knew not to open SPAM or any strange email but I was unaware that email attachments, file sharing, and Instant Messaging could spread viruses. Since these are things that I must do, it's one more reason to get to work on getting my computer protected!


The last tutorial that I would like to describe was titled Problems Found on Unprotected Computers. In this tutorial, it was explained how to protect one's computer from being infected. I was unaware that so many spyware components, including tracking cookies, were on most computers - anywhere from 100 to 5000. The first thing that was suggested for a safer computer was to get a more secure web browser than Internet Explorer. Of course, I had to share this right away with my family and I was told that that was why we have Google Chrome as our web browser. Cool, I thought. That takes care of one thing. The other suggestions were all things that I already learned in our PC Maintenance lecture. However, before taking this course, I thought that all I needed was a firewall. 
   
In summary, I think I'm really learning some very valuable information in this course. Thanks so much!

Managing My Things

As for organization, I always thought I was doing better than others. I have not graduated into the digital world so my organization tools remain to be paper, pencil, and monthly planner. I learned a while back that I had to get my thoughts out of my head in order to be able to sleep at night. Because night time is when the house is quiet, I even got into the habit of keeping paper and pencil on my night stand so I could write things down that came to my head in the middle of the night. Organizing my tasks is the easiest part for me. If things feel like they are piling up, I will write them all down and then prioritize them and check them off as I complete each task. 

Organizing the paper work, phone calls, and emails is a bit more challenging for me. I try to go through my emails only once in the evening, deleting everything that doesn't require my attention right away. Then I copy all the information that I need to act upon in the very near future. Lastly, I read and "mark as new" the emails that I need to keep and respond to later. Yep! You may have guessed it, but this has not been working for me very well. My email now has over 90 things on it and I can't keep track of all the papers I copied. My papers get lost because I don't organize them into a file system. 

I have three challenges that I need to work through. One of those challenges is the lack of stamina I still have after my cancer treatments. This makes for shorter than normal days. Another challenge I have is feeling like if I can't physically see it, I forget about it. And finally, the biggest challenge I have is the feeling of moving at warp speed to get so many things done in a short amount of time, so nothing really gets adequately organized. I am sprawled out all over the place at my house. This is no good.

I learned a lot of good ideas from Getting Things Done. I like the file folder system that the guys talked about in the video. That seems like a feasible idea for me to tackle in order to organize the projects, paper work, and other tasks that come across my desk. Another idea that Josh and Joe talked about was archiving email older than 6 weeks old. That is an idea that I am now doing so that "new" email list goes down. I feel like I can take small baby steps towards implementing many of the ideas referred to in the article and video. My goal is to then be comfortable enough with technology to convert over to programs I can put on my computer and get a blackberry so I have access to all my information no matter where I am. 

Letting go of my feeling to have everything in visible sight is a huge hurdle for me to get over. I can visualize how with the right tools, this is something that I can achieve, however. 

I admire how my 21 year old son handles everything with the help of his computer and phone and how comfortable and natural this is for him because he grew up with technology. Then I look at me, who grew up without the help of technology and how difficult it is to change over. So, my goal for this class is to really get comfortable and knowledgeable about the technology that is out there and how it can help to make my professional and personal life a little less hectic, freeing up more time for enjoying quiet moments alone or with my family.

Social Networks

As with everything else I've been learning about, social networking has not been something I am really up on. I have always used my email to get in contact with people I need to send messages to. A couple years ago, my friends from church persuaded me to open a Facebook account so I could keep everyone posted on my recovery progress when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I truly never did figure out how to use it and didn't feel much like contacting people anyway. I'm also not one who has time to keep up with everyone's life by following my friends, family, and colleagues on Facebook. I can't hardly keep up with my email. Recently I finally closed my account.


As a professional tool, I can see where social networking has its advantages and applications. I can understand how it can provide teachers with the professional development that they really desire instead of having to sit through those rigid and formal events that the district sets up for them. Again, I respect how important it is to keep in contact with others but time is always an issue for me. I did like learning how it can be a great way to find outside resources schools can team up with for various reasons. 


Some teachers use social network sites to chat with their students and families but at our school this application isn't a possibility. We are not allowed to "friend" our students. Personally, I like keeping my personal life private. We communicate with our students' families through newsletters and email. I am trying to figure out which tool (blogging or social networking) would be best for posting a "newsletter" on so I can eliminate the use of paper. We are finding that so many of our parents aren't reading the newsletters anyway. However, with a tool that you can add to and past posts can still be seen, it would be a great way to help parents keep up with things if they can't read the most recent newsletter. 


To summarize, like everything else, there are definite applications for social networking in a persons personal and professional life. I am still deciding if it is the best tool for my purposes at this time in my life and career. The jury is still out.  

RSS Page Reflection

Wow!  What an incredible tool. Although following too many blogs or having several feeds can bog a person down with all the reading, it is amazing to see all the information that comes to you. I found myself reading posts and then seeing other topics of posts at the same site that I was curious about and soon discovered that I could read for as long as my interest and curiosity stayed in tact or as long as I had time for.

I subscribed to a variety of topics that interest me as an elementary teacher in a charter school. Edutopia has a great selection of topics out there to keep teachers well informed about the hot topics in education, great ideas being shared by other educators on lessons and classroom management, and new technologies being used in the classrooms and their applications. There is sooooo much information out there to keep one on the computer for hours and I can see how one would have to manage their time wisely so they didn't become a "well informed hermit".

Because I am a teacher at a charter school and have heard my share of negative comments about the charter school system from other teacher acquaintances of mine, I responded to a blog about charter schools and how they don't live up to expectations, how they hire alternative teachers and teachers who are not highly qualified to teach, and other negative talk. I responded back that there are plenty of schools that are failing and many more that are performing wonderfully in both the charter and public school systems. I feel it is as unfair to lump all charter schools together just like it is unfair to lump all public schools together in one group. Every school delivers a different educational setting for its students and their families. Not every school is the perfect fit for every student. Education is not a one size fits all match.

This is the first time I've been involve with blogging. I think I could become "hooked" on it. It's pretty cool to know that you have a voice and you can publish your opinions and knowledge out there on the webisphere.