ILP “Participation” – Lynda.com tutorial: Up and Running with Edmodo

My Learning Experience with Lynda.com Tutorials
I have no idea why I didn't think to complete this tutorial before creating an Edmodo for my first Independent Learning Project. However, after being somewhat familiar with Edmodo this tutorial was simple to follow while still teaching me SO MUCH. I knew the basics and this tutorial provided much further knowledge about using Edmodo and all of it's many features. Lynda.com tutorials are easy to access and contain so much useful information. I will definitely be accessing this resource more often while I am a student at Florida State.
The best part about this specific tutorial is the way I was able to see what the instructor was doing on the website. Capturing screenshots made it easy to follow and will be good resources for my future Edmodo classroom (see screenshots below). Another thing I liked was how the instructor showed me what each post looks like from a students profile. 
The coolest feature about Edmodo that I learned in this tutorial is the quiz customization. There are so many different options to choose from to make the quiz just the way it needs to be (see notes below).
  
Notes

Edmodo can teach students about digital citizenship and how to use social media in a safe and secure way.

*Join communities on Edmodo, specifically, Digital Citizenship community.

"Range" allows for selection of more than one grade.

Create groups for each class period AND small groups for projects, discussion boards, collaboration, etc.

To customize profile settings: upper right corner - enter profile information - MAKE SURE TIME ZONE IS CORRECT (tests, assignments, due dates will be affected by this).

Left side bar: add school to make connections with other teachers/co-workers; customize URL; email and text updates option.

Choose who you want to send messages/assignments/quizzes/notes to.

Group code or Join URL to invite students.

Parent code connects to students account so parents can only see things posted by their child or the teacher.

Lock the group code after all students have joined.

Teacher can delete anything students post to keep it appropriate.

The clock icon can be used to schedule posts so teacher doesn't post during school time.

Polls can provide important student feedback for the teacher.

*Post a poll the day before an in-class discussion to prompt students and get them excited about the topic.

Customization for quizzes:

1. Time limit

2. Point value for each question.

3. Types of questions (multiple choice, true false, short answer, matching, fill in blank)

4. Edmodo automatically grades everything EXCEPT short answer and fill in the blank must be EXACTLY like the teacher typed it.

5. Preview quiz to see it from students perspective.

6. Give partial credit for short answer, MUST CLICK "CORRECT" first.

Screenshots

 

Sundae Survey

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6l2VNVe9cIyw21f

10-Final EME Post

              Data Collection tools, such as Survey Monkey or Google Forms, can be used in many ways as a teacher. I really liked the simplicity of both Survey Monkey and Google Forms in our classroom this semester. Voting on things such as “Best in Show” made it fun and easy to interact with other people in the classroom. I would like to implement this in my future classroom. Whenever we do science or history fair in a fourth grade class, we could use a Google Form to decide which project the students thought was best. Involving the students in picking the best project gets them excited and more motivated to do well on their project.

             The blogs this semester were so interesting to read! It is hard to pick only one favorite topic but I really loved reading about the ways in which each person plans to use certain tools in their future career. Our class is full of such a diverse population of creativity so I feel that these sections really opened my mind to new ideas that I can use in my future career. Some of the topics in this course were difficult to understand how they could be used in the classroom. But reading my classmates’ blogs about their ideas was really helpful in understanding the possible applications of each tool.

            The next technology-related skill I would like to learn is the smart board. I played with the smart board a little in the FSU Tech Sandbox and some of my high school teachers used it. There seems to be so many cool capabilities within the smart board and I would love to learn how to use one and possibly have one in my future classroom. Even using them for PowerPoint games seems to be better than just using a projector and a clicker. With the smart board, I could touch the screen like the actual Jeopardy game. I think this tool has tons of capabilities that could really enhance any classroom interaction.

            To achieve my future technology-related goals I will likely take more Lynda courses while at Florida State University. Reading about my classmates’ experiences with Lynda really convinced me to take advantage of these courses and resources. Another tool that I will use is google. More specifically, I can use the internet to find different seminars or lectures for professional development on technology-related topics. This course also taught me to take advantage of my co-workers and my schools librarian for help or guidance with certain technology-related tools. Asking for help and collaborating with others can greatly increase my knowledge with certain technology-related topics and tools.

9-The Flipped Classroom, Professional Development, and PowerPoint Information

"The Flipped Classroom"
This classroom describes a scenario/routine where the student learns the material at home through an online video of a lecture. Then the student comes to the classroom to complete assignments or work on activities with others. This concept is basically "flipping" the traditional classroom. In the traditional classroom, students sit in a room and listen to a lecture. After a lesson, students are typically given at-home-assignments or homework to complete. "The Flipped Classroom" is simply reversing this concept. Here is an example of a website containing educational videos for kids. http://www.turtlediary.com/videos.html

Web-based Resource for Professional Development
http://www.learningandthebrain.com/teacher-professional-development-conferences
This link guides you to a website containing upcoming conferences for teachers to attend for professional development. After looking at this website for a few minutes, I quickly realized how informative it is. There are many conferences listed and they each include the date, place, featured speaker, and a short description of what will be discussed at the conference. One conference that stuck out to me was The Science of Imagination: Cultivating Curiosity and Creativity in Our Schools. This conference will take place April 7th-9th in Orlando, FL. When I clicked on the event title, it brought me to multiple links about research on this particular topic. This can be extremely helpful for teacher professional development. This resource provides information that can help prepare for the conference before attending.

PowerPoint Interaction Assignment
This PowerPoint assignment was so much fun! The template that Nova and I found for Family Feud was so easy to use. We were able to create our very own game for our 4th grade science class in about an hour. After doing the PowerPoint for Information Dissemination I learned a lot of new skills that I was able to use when creating this PowerPoint Interaction game. I think it is really cool how I can create the navigation kiosk to control what comes next in the show. This provides so much creativity for creating PowerPoint games! This was definitely my favorite skill learned during this assignment. There really wasn't anything I disliked about this assignment!
In my future career as a school speech therapist, I can use these skills a lot. For example, when practicing certain speech sounds with a group of students, I can create a game through PowerPoint. I think one of the most important parts about speech therapy is building confidence to speak out loud to others. An interactive game could help encourage this. Students can earn points for the team by saying challenging words out loud. I look forward to creating games similar to this one in my future career.

8-Emerging Technologies, The Digital Divide, and PowerPoint

Emerging Technologies

After reading chapter 12, I think that personal learning environments hold the biggest promise for education. Giving students the opportunity to have their own goals and different techniques to accomplish them allows for a lot of growth. One of the biggest problems with today’s classrooms is the different levels within a grade level. As a student, I felt that I was held back from learning throughout elementary and middle school. Many students struggle with this. Some may be way behind the majority of the class and this can really affect their self-confidence and self-efficacy in school. This just leads to further retention. Personal learning environments embrace the diversity of the classroom and allow each student to work at their own pace. They create personal learning spaces adapted for individual learners. The technologies allow students to personalize their learning environment while still having the support and sanction of educational institutions.

The Digital Divide
The Digital Divide describes the students who have computers and other technology at home and those who do not. This can be a great challenge in the classroom. Technology is always talked about as being so great and the future of the classroom but this can cause many problems for students who do not have access at home. Growing up, I always had a home computer and when I graduated high school I was given my own laptop. This made it easier for my parents to contact my teacher and check my grades multiple times throughout the week. I think this made a huge difference in my school experience. As a teacher, it is important to recognize that not every student or parent will have these opportunities. To make sure that these students do not fall behind in digital literacy, I will give them adequate time to use computers and technology throughout the school year. The Digital Divide makes it even more crucial for teachers to integrate technology in the classroom every chance they get.

PowerPoint
The PowerPoint for Information Dissemination assignment was a lot of fun. Before working on this assignment, I thought I knew all there was to know about PowerPoint presentations. I quickly learned that I was wrong. PowerPoint has so many features to help make an amazing presentation. The new skill I learned was how to record a presentation show with audio. At first, I thought this would be really difficult but it ended up being super easy. I think this could be really helpful for presentations given at a distance. If the speaker is unable to attend, he/she can simply record the show with their voice and send it to the conference or meeting. In my future career, I know I will use PowerPoint.

The only thing I did not like about this assignment was the master slide tool. It was really hard for me to figure out. I still do not fully understand the point of having a master slide. But hopefully I can continue to practice and talk to my instructor about what the advantages of a master slide are. I really liked using a template online, I had no idea there were that many free options! I will definitely be using those in the future.

As a speech therapist, I might not use it every day to teach my students like a teacher would, but I will use it in other ways. I can use it to present my techniques to my colleagues or parents. One really cool application would be to record the child’s voice and speech pronunciations. Throughout the PowerPoint, the listener (parent or colleague) could listen to the different speech sounds the child has improved on. Speech therapy takes a lot of work and sometimes the accomplishments are too small to notice. But making a PowerPoint show could help accent the accomplishments and show what the child has worked on throughout the therapy sessions.

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QZv57tzBGjbUvfaIhDU0VdurGHMuNpCyoCd2zfwEmKI/embed?start=true&loop=true&delayms=3000" frameborder="0" width="272" height="182" allowfullscreen="true" mozallowfullscreen="true" webkitallowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

7- PowerPoint, Adaptive Technologies, Web Page Design

              PowerPoint can be a very useful tool to support student learning in a particular lesson. At the first level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, knowledge, I would present my student’s with a slide on terms and key information they need to recall before the new lesson. The second level, comprehension, has to do with translating information. In the PowerPoint I could include a short video clip that demonstrates the definitions and key terms being used in context. Application is the third level and it can be applied in the PowerPoint through multiple slides containing specific examples of the subject. The analysis level is used to differentiate things. As the teacher, I would include a PowerPoint slide asking the students to explain the difference between two similar, yet different, components. The PowerPoint can also contain multiple articles from various sources that allows the students to synthesize and relate all of the information together. At the end of the PowerPoint I would have a section for evaluation. This would give my students the opportunity to gather all of their thoughts on the subject and then reflect on it. Higher-order questioning would be important to evaluate how well the students comprehend the material.

Adaptive technologies are used to support diverse learners. Students who have physical disabilities and cannot use a mouse, type, or read can use different output or input devices to allow them to operate a computer. An input device they can use voice recognition software instead of typing. An output device that can be used is a braille printer. Students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities can use spell check programs to help them write papers. The textbook mentions text-to-speech programs which provides auditory feedback to what they have written. This can be extremely useful for students with a visual impairment. I have not used any of these technologies and I do not know anyone personally who has used them. I hope that sometime in the near future I can see, in person, how these adaptive technologies are used and how they enhance every students learning. There are some challenges that could come with using adaptive technologies, but the positive effects they have on learning are worth the challenges. Some challenges I perceive happening include lack of time, financial support to provide the expensive technologies, and making the student user feel comfortable using them.

              While working on the Web Page Design assignment, I learned how to change font size, font color, and header pictures. But the overall best skill I learned was how to add a questionnaire. I loved being able to add this to connect with parents and get feedback about chaperones for the field trip. Sending papers home can usually be complicated, especially with students who may misplace or lose their papers before their parents see them. This weebly feature seems to be so useful in communicating with parents and I think I would definitely use it in my future career. A web page seems to be extremely simple to operate and update and is the perfect way to connect the physical classroom with the home classroom. I really liked the format of weebly and all of the different customization tools that it contains. There really wasn’t anything I didn’t like about this assignment. It’s my favorite one so far! Check it out! http://savanaheme2040.weebly.com/

(2) ILP "Design" - Edmodo

https://www.edmodo.com/home#
Edmodo Group Code: kyiw8e
1st grade science
SC.1.E.5.1 Observe and discuss that there are more stars in the sky than anyone can easily count and that they are not scattered evenly in the sky.

Before this class, I had never heard of Edmodo. It took a bit of playing around with the website to fully understand how it works. But soon after creating my classroom, I was quickly able to post quizzes, notes, and pictures to my students and parents. Being able to communicate with both students and parents is probably my favorite feature of Edmodo. I think it can help connect with parents who live busy lives and do not have time to observe the physical classroom or go through a ton of paperwork.