Aloha!

We did it! I can't believe we are finished. It was a little sad to say goodbye last night. I was thinking wow I've never felt so close to a class that was completely online.  When I think about the final assignment I was first completely confused. I couldn't even read through the whole assignment. After going through it with my group members it made a lot more sense. Our group worked really well together. We communicated frequently and shared ideas with each other. Everyone contributed their own piece of expertise to make our project amazing. Thank you everyone for all your hard work and sharing all your amazing ideas. I've learned so much! I can't wait to start using the new tools next school year.

Take a Deep Breath and Relax...

It's been a whirl wind of 6 weeks. It feels like just yesterday we were online in our first BBC session. It's kind of bitter sweet. I'm excited to have a break, relax, and enjoy my summer before Fall semester but I'm also going to miss learning about all these tools and constantly challenging my mind every week. Group projects are fun and challenging at times but I'm always amazed with our end result. It's incredible what three brains can accomplish without ever meeting in person!
 
I can't believe the amount of tech tools I've learned about in such a short amount of time! I never thought about using Pinterest as a way to present information instead of just looking up stuff for my classroom and recipes. I have my new tech tools list that I'm excited to use next school year. I want incorporate them into my teaching practices and teach my students how to use some of them as well. Learning about all of these tools has even made me think about changing my masters project. Now I feel like I have so much to work with and learn more about! Some of the tools I'm looking at are Edmodo, Padlet,  Popplet, Bitstrip, Mixbit, Powtoon, Exit Ticket, and Class Dojo/Class Charts. I need to pick a few and then decide how I want to use it in my masters project to present next year. My goal is to have this some what figured out before Fall semester begins. We'll see how that goes. For now it's time to take a deep breath and relax.

Progress...

This class has been a bit challenging in that it has been hard to keep up with everything each week. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about all the new tech tools and have even started my own google doc titled "new tech tools for my classroom". I've seen so many great tools that I want to use with my students that I'm afraid I will forget them.  All of my groups have been great communicators and hard workers. If anything I was the poor communicator because I was traveling  and had inconsistent internet. While working on assignments we always said we wished we had an example to see so we knew if we were on the right track. I guess that shows how much we rely on examples. Google hangouts, Google docs, and email were what worked well for all my groups. Class meetings were all productive except I really enjoyed making screencasts so I wish we could have done them for all the spotlights. I liked being able to go back and watch them. I felt like it was a better presentation than what BBC could give us. The screen share just had so many problems and interfered with the presentations. The last thing is that there are so many places to comment and post and find information it's hard to keep everything straight between google+, wiki spaces, and google docs. I have definitely gained an overwhelming amount of knowledge in this class. It has really pushed my learning curve and made me realize how many tools are out there. I feel like my confidence has increased with using new tools. I now just jump right into them instead of being hesitant. Now I never question whether or not I can use the tool I just go ahead and try it. I know eventually I will figure it out.

Gamification

After learning about gamification I've realized that I use it all the time! In my classroom I'm always turning lessons into games. It really does help motivate the students and engage them into the lesson. It gives them a reason to listen and pay attention. It makes it more fun for them to learn and even more fun for me to teach. Whenever we review for tests I usually set up a Jeopardy type game and give the students a chance to earn bonus points. They absolutely love it. They don't even realize they are learning. I use technology games to to help my students learn math facts and even though reading programs. My students can earn badges every time they score 100% on their comprehension quizzes. Gamification is used every where. It's a fantastic way to motivate kids to learn. The kids these days also use technology so much that incorporating gamification with technology into school work will increase engagement for kids.

This is a great video by RSA Animate on what motivates us.

Cool Tech Tools!

This last week I've learned about a number of tools I can use in my classroom. A few that I think will be most useful to me or I think I will make an attempt to try are Padlet, Mixbit, Screencast o matic, and Powtoons. I've realized that it takes time to learn how to use an online tool. I need to use it multiple times before it becomes easy to use. Sometimes I don't spend enough time on something and then I don't really give it chance. I've decided to set aside some time to explore and let myself play with tools to help me in my classroom. I've also realized that there's so much out there to use. I really need to take time to ask and search for technology tools I can use with my students. I think they would enjoy using more technology in class. The hardest part is just getting the computers and the maintenance. I have 8 computers in my room for 27 students so I can put them in groups to switch off working. However, when one computer is down it really gets frustrating when it can't get fixed right away. This is all a part of technology and the only way to make it better is by educating myself more so I can fix things and use more tools in my class.  I wonder what technology will look like in the classroom in 20 years. There's so much to learn!

This is a video I found on technology in a future classroom. It looks so cool!!  :-)

Week 2 Reflection

This last week as been a extremely hectic. I missed last weeks session because we were on a plane and I feel completely out of the loop. I'm traveling out of the country so that already makes it hard for me to juggle things. I was also having some major internet issues and confused the spotlight assignment with the group assignment. I was getting really frustrated and started to not get much sleep. Then I realized that I need to just take everything one step at a time. I can only do so much and sleep is very important. Juggling two summer school classes and being out of the country for two weeks is definitely a challenge. However, I made the decision to travel so I know I can do it. When I'm able to sit down and complete my work I have really enjoyed learning about new tools in the new amazing places that I'm visiting. This is exactly what I needed to do so that I can use these tools in my classroom next school year. When I am finished I will feel very excited with how much I have done this summer. This is a picture of me trying to finish up one of my assignments before we get on our flight to Italy.

My thoughts for this class

I'm excited to take this class and learn about different tools I can use with my students. There's a lot of tools that I'm unfamiliar with so it will be fun and challenging to learn how to use them all. I just used Powtoon for the first time to make my introduction video and it was really fun. It was first time I have ever made a video like that. Just using text, characters, and some background music. I would like to use it again and try to be more creative. It's really a different way of making a video. 

During our first class meeting I thought it was very informational and fun to hear from all of our classmates. The wiki spaces is helpful to get all of our class information.  I'm interested in what kind of group projects we will have to do. I'm nervous about being able to keep up with all the work. I will be out of the country for 2 of the weeks during class so I hope I can get reliable Internet and keep up with all the assignments.