A few weeks ago my professor began discussing PLNs with us. She showed us many ways to expand it, and Twitter chats was one of those ways. At first I was very intimidated by the thought of joining a Twitter chat with people who are already educators, but after jumping in I have come to actually love it. It seemed very overwhelming at first and I was really unsure of what to expect, but everyone in that chat was so helpful and nice that it made me feel as if I knew these people for years before.
Screenshot of my first twitter chat
I stayed with the twitter chat that I first tried because I really enjoyed it! The chat I joined was #txed . I joined this chat because it is full of educators from Texas. Texas is where I plan on teaching once I graduate from college, so I figured having a PLN built from down there is a great plus! The first week I joined the chat was very nerve-racking for me because I am a preservice teacher, I was worried my answers wouldn’t be good enough or that people would think I don’t know what i’m talking about. Turns out, people loved what I had to share! I also got tweets from the moderator of the chat which made me feel super confident.
Screenshot of my last twitter chat
I have been able to connect with so many awesome educators, and I have learned so much from everyone in these chats. I got to grow and expand my PLN while discussing the things I love, education, with people who share the same interest. I highly recommend that every educator should join a twitter chat at least once in their life time.
If you guys have joined any twitter chats that you think I should join let me know!! Hope you enjoyed this post and I hope to hear from you guys!
Inclusive education is something all teachers will experience nowadays. Inclusive education is when all students, regardless of any challenges/disabilities, they may have, are placed in age-appropriate general education classes that are in their own neighborhood schools to receive high quality instruction, interventions, and supports that enable them to meet success in the core curriculum. I evaluated each of the tools using the Triple E Evaluation Rubric and they each scored in the “green light” sections. In order to ensure inclusive practices, here are three tools i found that can be used in your classroom to make learning accessible to students with different needs.
The first tool is Ginger. Ginger offers several features that can help students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities with writing. It is also designed for speakers of languages other than English. Some of the options on this website include: Grammar checker that analyzes context to determine any errors or misspellings; Word prediction and sentence rephrasing tools that can be helpful for students learning how to construct sentences properly; TTS functionality so students can hear what they’ve written; and A personal trainer that provides practice sessions based on past mistakes made by the student.
A screencast of me using Ginger. (Grammar mistakes were made purposefully to show effectiveness)
When evaluating Ginger using the Triple E Evaluation tool, it scored highly at a 16/18. I think that Ginger is such an awesome tool that students of all ages can use in order to achieve their learning goals, and its score reflected that. With its many features, it allows students to focus on the assignment, enhance and extend their learning. I highly recommend all educators use this tool in the classroom for all students and even themselves.
The second tool I found was MathTalk. MathTalk a speech recognition software program for math that can help students with a range of disabilities. This is ideal for middle school – college students who need the extra help. Students can perform math problems by speaking into a microphone on their computer. The program works with Dragon NaturallySpeaking programs for voice-to-text functionality, making it ideal for students who have fine motor skill disabilities. Students with blindness or vision disabilities can use the integrated braille translator.
When using the Triple E Evaluation rubric, MathTalk scored a 17/18. This tool is a really awesome tool that older students can use to help them visualize and verbalize the math they are doing. The only reason I took one point off was because I felt it could only somewhat connect school and real life experiences. Other than that, I feel like students, especially with dyscalculia, could really flourish with a tool like this. I highly recommend that teachers/schools provide this program for students!!
The third tool I found was the Sip/Puff System. Sip-and-puff systems are used by students who have mobility disabilities, such as paralysis and fine motor skill disabilities.These systems allow for control of a computer, mobile device or some other technological application by the child moving the device with his or her mouth. Similar to a joystick, the child can move the controller in any direction and click on various navigational tools using either a sip or a puff. An on-screen keyboard allows the child to type using the same mouth movements. The Origin Instruments website says, ” If you can use a drinking straw you can use our Sip/Puff Switch.”
This tool was such a truly amazing tool! I love how far technology has come in order to give students with disabilities the same opportunities as all other students. This is why on the Triple E Evaluation tool I gave it a 18/18! It can literally help students with any assignment, inside or outside of school, and provides them with equal opportunity. I recommend this tool to all parents/teachers who have a child with a motor disability. When looking for a tool to help them move, type, and interact with ease, chose the Sip/Puff System!
The title of this blog may be a little intimidating, but I can promise you, finding fun and easy new ways to gamify your classroom is anything but scary! Im constantly exploring the world of EdTech and i’m loving it! I have picked out three awesome gamification tools, Class Dojo, PlayBrighter, and Quizizz, that any teacher could easily add to their lessons at any point in time! I rated each of these gamification tools on the Triple E Evaluation Rubrics and they all came out to be 13 points or above out of 18. When I say i actually loved each of these tools, i’m not kidding they are all so great!
The first website I wanna discuss with you guys is Class Dojo. This awesome little site is a school communication platform that teachers, students, and families can use every day to build a tight-knit community by sharing what’s being learned in the classroom through photos, videos, and messages. Together as a community you can come together and provide an awesome education experience for every student. The website is super easy to navigate and super fun to use. Below is a screencast one me navigating this awesome website.
A Screencast I created to show you guys how to navigate Class Dojo!
When rating this tool on the Triple E Evaluation Rubric, I gave it a 16 out of 18 points! If that doesn’t prove how awesome of a tool this is for every classroom, I don’t know what will. The first area that I gave Class Dojo lower than two points was because it can only somewhat provide higher-level thinking skills because it has very limited lessons on the actual site. The second area i scored it lower than two points was because I felt it could only somewhat provide students with opportunities outside of the classroom. Since this is a website is mostly for classroom use, I felt that there were really no outside opportunities. Other than those two points, I highly recommend that all teacher at least try this tool in their classroom.
The second website I want to share with you guys is PlayBrighter. I will admit when I first saw it, I was a little skeptic on how easy it would be to use. After playing around and making my own classroom I started loving it ! It is such a cool tool to use in class as a way to assess your students. Your students will love it too because it is just answering questions about whatever topic you choose through a game-play. Below is a screencast of me going through this website and playing one of the games that would be offered to the students.
A Screencast I created to show you guys how to use PlayBrighter!
When I rated PlayBrighter on the Triple E Evaluation Rubric, it scored a 13 out of 18. It is lower than the rest of the tools but it is still in the “green light” section which means it is an exceptional tool to incorporate in the classroom. The section that it scored the lowest in was the “extend the learning goals” section. There was really no ways to create opportunities for learning using this website outside of the classroom. Other than that this website was a lot of fun to play around with myself, so I know that students of all ages could enjoy PlayBrighter!
The third and final tool I want to discuss on this blog post is Quizizz. This website is very similar to Kahoot, but I feel that this website had more of an education purpose and allows students to take the quizzes alone and on their own pace. I took the time to create my own account and make a short quiz. It is super easy to navigate and can be used for any age group k-12! This site also comes with pre-made quizzes that you can also assign your students. Below is my screencast of me navigating through my account and quiz!
A Screencast of me walking you through the Quizizz website and quiz I made!
When I rated Quizizz on the Triple E Evaluation Rubric, it scored a 16 out of 18! That really shows how much I loved this tool and that I would absolutely use it in my classroom. The only place it scored low in was the “enhancement of the learning goals” section because I felt that it could only somewhat create extra supports and cause higher-level thinking. Besides those two points, I feel like this is such a useful tool that every teacher should incorporate in their classrooms.
This week, I explored the huge world of content creation tools! There are many categories you can choose from (mind-mapping, screen capture, infographics, presentations, storytelling) but I decided to look at sites from the story telling, mind-mapping, and presentation category. There is a plethora of sites educators can use in order to create an awesome visual for students. For each website I reviewed, I used the Triple E Framework to evaluate each of them. Overall, the three websites I used scored in the “Green Light” section, which means they were all exceptional and i recommend them all to you !
The first artifact I made was through the Prezi website. It was a really cool way to showcase the information that I had and can be a useful tool for educators. When looking at the Triple E framework evaluation, I scored Prezi at a 14 out of 18. Prezi is a cool piece of tech that could you could use to present information to the class or that students could use to showcase their knowledge on the information you taught them. Something that I scored Prezi slightly lower on was the engagement in learning section. I think that because it is a little more detail oriented of a website, younger students may have problems staying focused. Other than that I highly recommend Prezi!
The second artifact I made was a mind map about how to manage stress. I made this cool little mind map using the website MindMup. With this website, you can take a topic and make little subtopics and expand them in to detail. I think this is a cool tech device that can again be used by teachers and students. On the Triple E Framework evaluation I gave MindMup a 15 out of 18 score. What scored slightly lower on this website was the extending the learning goals section. I feel that MindMup can be a great tool in the classroom, but i’m not sure on how it can be used to extend their learning outside of the classroom. I also think this should be used by older students (4th-12th) , because it has a lot of buttons that need to be used to make a mind map.
A mind map I created on MindMup about how to manage stress!
The third artifact I created was was a little social story using the website StoryBird. This website was honestly my favorite one to use and mess around with. I created a short story about sharing that could be used to teach students in younger age groups. On the Triple E Framework evaluation, I gave StoryBird a 16 out of 18 which shows how awesome it really is. It really never scored too low in any of the sections, just one here or there but nothing that makes this website any less cool than it is. I 100% recommend educators use this in their classrooms some how!
In searching for ways to incorporate technology, you may come across SAMR, Triple E Framework, or my group and I’s favorite , TPACK. TPACK stands for “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge”, it is a framework to understand and describe the kinds of knowledge needed for effective pedagogical practice in a tech-enhanced classroom environment. There are three main points (Content, Pedagogy, Technology) that over lap and make different instruction methods. The four different methods created:
PCK : Combines content and pedagogy to allow students to meet skills and content objectives. This is a good strategy but it is outdated.
TCK : Combines technology and content and decides if the subject matter is better illuminated by the use of the chosen technology. This is a more modern strategy but it is very limited.
TPK: Combines technology and pedagogy and decides which technological tool is best for the chosen teaching strategy. This strategy does make for an exciting class but sometimes can cause the class to be disconnected.
TPCK: This combines all three areas and creates a great 21st century classroom that is focused on essential learning, and applying good learning theory that is supported by technology. I like to call this the gold star strategy cause it has the best out come in majority of classrooms.
A visual I drew to help you guys visualize TPACK!
The reason I love the TPACK model is because it really breaks down how to add technology in the classroom effectively and shows you what happens if you have one thing and not the other. TPACK is combining how teachers teach, how technology is used, and what teachers know in order to create this awesome way to incorporate technology in your classroom with out student being disconnected or limited. The video below really helped me fully understand what TPACK was, and how to implement it in to a classroom.
If you need or want to look more in to TPACK, I recommend you check out the Yokota 21-Transforming Education Website. It provided me with many great visuals and really helped me understand the concept of TPACK. It has graphic organizers and videos linked so you can further your knowledge on the subject of TPACK.
An awesome pyramid full of tech tool to use in the classroom provided by Yokota.A visual showing strategies used to reach student achievement provided by Yokota.A video you can watch and activity you can do on the Yokota Website.
This week , I participated in the RoCo #pstpln Challenge on Twitter. This tag introduced me to so many new tips and tricks and people! On Monday, we introduced ourselves to our new twitter with an introduction post, then we were to tweet out something about teaching that we learned or observed. Tuesday we had to tweet our PLN a question that we wanted an answer to. Wednesday we had to join a twitter educational chat. Thursday, we all shared an article that we thought had good educational purpose with our PLN. Then on Friday, we needed to tag five educators or educational pages so our followers can follow them !
Here I was given a shoutout from Dr. Sam Fecich on Follow Friday !This is a great article I found that I shared with my followers on Thursday. This Was my introduction tweet to my Twitter Education chat I joined. #txedA question that was asked on the #txed Twitter chat.
Overall, I loved participating in this challenge! The most fun part of the challenge was the twitter chat we had to join. This really was my favorite part of the challenge. I got to see so many awesome responses to different educational questions. We were asked questions that really made me think. I had to reach deep in my brain to everything I have been taught about education. I not only shared my great ideas but I got to see so many new ideas that other people actually use in their classroom. I had so many “ah ha” moments when people were answering questions with new tips and tricks I’ve never heard of. Honestly I was skeptical about doing the twitter chat because I didn’t think it would be fun, when in actuality I met some amazing people and had so much fun answering and responding in the chat.
When searching for a new blogging site, you really need to take the time to look through each and every site you find and see which works best for what you are going to being putting on it and which fits your personality the best. We were given 3 different blog websites to chose from and review. The three websites were: WordPress, EduBlog, and Blogger. As you may notice by reading this blog, I chose WordPress, but i am going to discuss each one a little bit and expand on why I felt WordPress was the Blogging site for me!
I’ll start off with EduBlog. I created an account and started to play around with EduBlog a little bit and i honestly wasn’t a huge fan. I wanted to make it work because i knew that later on I could have my students blog with me on that site but it just didn’t feel right and I didn’t want to force anything. It didn’t have many design choices that i liked and it seemed a bit complicated to navigate. That is why I didn’t go with EduBlog. Below are pictures of the website and its settings!
This is the heading with a default design!
This is the settings where you would create blogs and pages!
The next site I looked at was Blogger. This website just from logging in didn’t interest me. Nothing drew me to the website on the homepage and it didn’t seem like it would be any better than EduBlog. I made an account and tried to make a blog and it just wasn’t as easy as I hoped. The setting area was pretty boring and it didn’t seem to have much of a creativity factor. Lets just say that blogger was short lived for me ! Below is a picture of the dashboard after creating an account!
Lastly, the beloved WordPress. Honestly, I love this website! it really drew me in with all the different designs you can have and all the different ways you can really make your blogs your own. As soon as I logged in, I was changing the font and changing the background color and changing the header photo and it just all came together so smoothly. I know i’m going to continue to use WordPress because of how fun, easy and smooth everything runs on this site! If you’ve used any of the other sites and you love those, i’m happy you made them work for you unlike me! Below is all the beautiful things i’ve done with my WordPress blog!!
Alyssa's Education Blog 