New Tech Standards & Requirements

Oregon Educational Technology Standards

There are 6 standards that define technological literacy.  In this posting I will only discuss a few of them and how they could be used in the classroom.  To keep it simple, I will be discussing the first three of the six standards; Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, and Research and Information Fluency.  Although these are only half of the OETS, here is a link to view the basics of all 6 standards; OETS. 

I feel that many of these standards can be met with some fun learning activities.  Some activities can even meet multiple standards.  Take for example Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, and Research and Information Fluency, students could work together on a Google Forms survey from their home that could get information from students and/or parents within the classroom and/or outside of their classroom.  Students within a group could work individually from home while contributing collectively to a group project such as this survey.   Connections could also be made with schools from other parts of the country and or world, where students could publish on blogs what the students have been doing in class.  They could see other schools’ work and they could show off their own work that they have completed.  This will also allow them to get new ideas from peers outside of their classrooms.  Using blogs and Google Docs are just a couple of ways students can use technology to meet these standards.  It does not take only one activity to meet one standard!  One activity can implement 2,3,4,5 or all 6 standards!!!!!

There are a few things that are going to make this difficult to accomplish.  The most difficult being that not all students have access to computers at home.  How can we require students to complete something on the computer if they do not have one at home?  This could be one of the most difficult hurdles to accomplish.  We need to open our students' eyes and show them they can find places and time to use a computer.  Can we take students on a field trip to the city or county library, which has lots of computers for them to use?  Is there a YMCA or Girls and Boys Club that provides students with a computer they could use at the club?  These are also ideas that could help get students out of their houses where they are playing video games and into a library or an athletic club.  

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

      The spreadsheet within Google Docs is very similar to Microsoft Excel and it took me only a few minutes to get accustomed to using this spreadsheet within Google Docs.  I did come into a few road blocks every once in a while.  My first way to try and find my way through a few of the road blocks was to search around and use trial and error, but if I could not solve my problems with trial and error then Google Help made it easy to find the answers to my questions.  Many of my answers are rounded because I did not want so many decimal places.  For good looks, I usually rounded to the nearest one but in some cases I had the the spreadsheet round to the nearest 2 decimals.  If I was not interested in looks I would have the spreadsheet round to the nearest 2 decimals in almost all cases.  Being able to have that choice is just another positive about using Google Docs.

     So what do we see in these test scores?  Well the students will be able to see how much they learned from the pre-test to the post-test.  The average test scores show us that the students are performing well on the tests as a class.  One student performed much better, maybe he was not trying during the pre-test?  Another student performed worse in the post-test, maybe he had some lucky guess in the pre-test?  We can also see that some more work needs to be put in for the Formatives.

     I found that being able to use a spreadsheet on Google Docs will be very helpful for a few reasons.  The most important reason is that I could easily access the spreadsheet at home if I wanted to grade some classwork from home and enter the scores from any computer with an internet connection.  A parent, coworker, or administrator could also have access to view the improvements the class has made.  All they would have to do is simply click on this link http://tinyurl.com/week4data

   Or, I could simply embed the information on the web using a classroom blog.  Of course if I made this information public I would take the students names off of the data and charts.  I would instead try to enter student ID numbers.


It's also possible to only enter in the individual charts if that is all I wanted people to see.

Screenr-TinyURL/Dropbox

Here's a quick little video of how to use TinyURL with Dropbox.  We can make pictures, videos, and files viewable to friends and family all around the world.  The links however are usually very long and easy to forget.  With TinyURL we are able to make a link that is very easy to remember and very short to put in emails and blogs.

Personal Productivity Tools

TinyURL, DropBox, and Teamviewer are three great tools that can be utilized in a classroom.  Each have their own functions that can benefit teachers and students.  I will go on to describe each one individually.  At the end of each description I have inserted a video I found helpful on how to use each tool.

TinyURL:  How often have you found a news article, picture, or video online that you have told your friends about?  And, when your friends ask you where to find it you have to describe where to find it because the link was just too long.  I feel like this happens to me almost every day.  For example, here is the URL to a jacket I like.  If I was telling a friend about where to find this jacket I could not tell them this URL http://store.liverpoolfc.tv/products/mens/menstops/red-fantic-jacket/pid-35473.  If I wanted to make it easy, I’d just have to go to the TinyURL website.  In just a few seconds I could transform this URL http://store.liverpoolfc.tv/products/mens/menstops/red-fantic-jacket/pid-35473 to http://tinyurl.com/favjacket.  I could easily remember that URL and my friends could easily remember it as well.  This can help in the classroom as well.  Instead of having the students copy down a long url for a news article or video to read/watch at home, they could just copy down a quick and easy url that I created on tinyurl.com.  This small easy url also can make a blog look better by not having an extremely long url taking up most of the post.  Instead, just a small quick and easy url could be shared in the blog post.

Dropbox: Dropbox is an online storage device.  To put it simply, whatever you save in a Dropbox folder, you can retrieve from any other computer, tablet, or smartphone.  This is very helpful in many ways.  One way it helped me over the summer was when I went travelling.  I had a bunch of travel guide information saved as pdf files.  I could not view pdf files on my iPad.  With Dropbox, I was able to open the file on my iPad and view the pdf files that I had saved on my computer.  This can be helpful for students who are working on a writing assignment at home and need extra time at school to work on it.  This works vice versa as well, if they start an assignment at school and need time at home to finish it.  If they save it into their Dropbox, when they get to school it can easily be retrieved.  Also, if you save a file into your Dropbox but then your computer crashes, then your Dropbox has a saved copy of that file.  Students no longer have the excuse of losing their work due to a computer crash.  Students could also have a group Dropbox account, they could individually work on group assignments that could be saved into a group folder from many different computers.  Or, the group could all share a folder that they put assignments into that they have worked on.


Teamviewer:  Teamviewer allows someone else from a different location to access another person’s computer.  It allows them to see the other person’s screen, open folders and files, open web browsers, or show what someone is doing wrong when working on a particular project.  For example, maybe a student is having problems creating an animation within PowerPoint, that student could call his/her friend for help.  Those students could log into Teamviewer and the other student could help and show the other what he/she was doing wrong.  Or, maybe a couple students need to work on the PowerPoint presentation together but cannot make it to each other’s house to work together.  They can simply log onto Teamviewer and work on the project together.

The possibilities to use these tools together are also viable.  A student could show another student how to share folders in Dropbox through Teamviewer.  Students could use easy Tinyurls to share photos, videos, music, or assignments.  As time passes, updates to these tools will be available, people will draw up new ideas how to use these tools, and these tools will evolve to make the process of sharing, transporting work, helping and working with each other much easier and more efficient.

What is Cloud Computing and Web2.0?

There are many ways one could go about trying to define Cloud Computing and Web 2.0.  The easiest way I can define it is in one word which most people are all familiar with, Facebook.  Facebook is one of the most common tools of Cloud Computing.  You didn’t go to the store, purchase Facebook on a disc, get in your car, drive home, and then insert the disc into your computer.  To get Facebook you simply opened a web browser (ie Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.).  Most of the time, you are using Cloud Computing and Web2.0 whenever you have to “log in” to something or whenever you are “streaming” or “uploading/downloading” something.  G-mail, Hotmail, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, and Youtube are probably some of the most known Cloud Computing and Web2.0 applications.  In Cloud Computing, you do not have to go to the store to purchase the update of any of these applications.  Cloud Computing and Web2.0 applications make it so we can access any information we put “into the cloud” from any other computer or web device from around the world.  I can upload pictures onto Facebook or Flickr and if I lose those pictures on my computer, all I have to do is go onto Facebook or Flickr to retrieve those pictures.  Cloud Computing and Web2.0 is still very young, we are constantly seeing the emergence of new Cloud Computing and Web2.0 applications.

Google Forms Project

The purpose of this project was to do some research and discover one of the many great tools Google has to offer.  My group was given the task of researching Google Forms.  I only have one way to describe it, AWESOME.  There are so many fun things we could use this for in the classroom.  The obvious being quizzes and surveys for the students to perform at home or in the classroom.  We could also use Google Forms for spelling tests, reading diaries/questions, etc.
It took a little bit of trial and error to learn some of it, but not as long as you would think.  It really is simple once you make a few mistakes you learn from them right away.  If not, then Google provides a lot of information through Help.  There are LOTS of videos and information on the internet as well to help you with any questions as well.
I "got the ball rolling" with our survey about technology in the classroom.  I started the document and got the survey's first couple questions down.  In our presentation, I added the 4th and 5th slides.  I found some great resources for help online that I included in our "Resources" slide.  I also gave my opinion about Google Forms in the Reflection slide.  Overall, this was an easy and very helpful group exercise.  I am really enjoying learning the new technology available to us in this class.

Before taking the survey, take your time to view our simple and helpful presentation about Google Forms.


When finished with the survey, feel free to take your time and do our SURVEY!!!

Social Media Revolution and Education

WOW!!!

That was the first word that came to my mind when hearing some of the statistics in the video Shift Happens- Social Media Revolution.  To think that Facebook would be the 3rd largest country in the world is astonishing to me.  With over 60 million status updates on Facebook daily, there is no denying that technology has taken over our lives.  Like it is stated in Vision 2011- Tech Impact on Education, "We no longer have the luxury to choose whether or not we want to participate in a digital life."  It would be unfair to our students to not accept that this change is happening and not use the new technology at our fingertips to help prepare our students for the future.  In order for the education system and the quality of education we provide students to continue to grow, educators need to embrace the new technology available and utilize it to its full potential.  

"Research: Blogging in Education"

    There are many ways to use blogging in a classroom.  Many of these ways are new to me and when I read about them it was like a light bulb going off in my head.  I could have used blogging for so many things in my teaching experiences in Korea.  Things like classroom management and maintaining student portfolios are two of the most significant ways I see blogging being helpful in the classroom.
    Using a blog is not only helpful for students, but it is also helpful for the parents.  The blog will keep parents up to date on what is happening in the classroom.  Parents will be able to find out what their students' are currently studying, what assignments the students should be working on and when they need to be finished.  With the blog, a teacher will never have to hear the excuse, "I didn't know that was due," or, "You never told us we had to do that."
    The blog will also help show the students and parents what kind of progress the student has made through the year.  There is no better way than being able to look at the math or writing the student was doing at the beginning of the school year and seeing the progress that student has made by seeing their work they have completed at the end of the year.  The work the students keep online is much easier to keep organized than keeping a file in a cabinet on every student.  This is, after all, the age where more and more things are becoming digitized.  Blogs make it easy for students to have a portfolio of all of their academic work through their life.

Personal Biography

Hello!!!!!

   My name is Scott and I'm excited and nervous at the same time to get this adventure started!  First, I'm going to tell you my life story.
    I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.  I grew up in a town just north of Seattle, Washington called Marysville.  After high school, I left Marysville and went to college in Pullman, Washington, home of the COUGS!!!!  In college, I majored in Criminal Justice and Sociology.  College was great and after graduation I thought I would get into the field of Law Enforcement.  Well, I quickly realized I was not interested in pursuing a career in that field.  So, I started working in a special education classroom in Colorado.  I loved my job but I still wanted to do new and exciting things.
    So, I left to Korea to teach English and do some travelling.  I only was going to teach for a year and then do some travelling before coming back to America.  Well, 5 years later here I am.  I filled my passport with stamps all over Southeast Asia and some of Europe and decided it was finally time to come home.  Now, I'm teaching in a special education transition classroom in Portland.  I truly love my job.  It is sickening that on Sunday night I get excited to go to work on Monday.  Hopefully, one day I will be able to work in a resource classroom in a high school.
    If there were only two things for you to remember me by, they would be travelling and soccer.  Soccer is passion.  I have played it since the age of 4 and I have played it year round since the age of 11.  If I go longer than a few months without touching a soccer ball or seeing a soccer game, I will become depressed and lost.  Most Saturday mornings I will be up at 5am to watch soccer games on TV and on my computer.  Ultimately, I hope to coach the soccer team at a school I eventually find a teaching job at.
  This was just a little about me.  If you'd like to know more about me, ask me about places I've been, or see some of the pictures I've taken while travelling, then feel free to ask.