Becoming Connected

By Jamie Guillaume

October 2013 is Connected Educators month, a celebration of online communities of practice and networks in education.   With September quickly ending, this is a great time to introduce this project being promoted by the Department of Education that is designed to help educators learn about online communities that share  the common goal of improving teacher and leader effectiveness as well as enhancing student learning.

There are many different avenues that allow teachers to be connected, but one network all Indiana Teachers need to become familiar with is the the Learning Connection (LC).  The primary reason is because this essential tool serves as the state’s platform to house academic standards, student growth model data, curriculum resources, and learning communities, just to name a few.  

            When you first go to the Learning Connection: learning connection.doe.in.gov, you are presented with information accessible to anyone, and very importantly the academic standards.  This is an easy way to access all of the standards for each grade level and subject matter. If you click on “Academic Standards,” you will first be taken to a page that gives background information regarding both the common core and the Indiana academic standards.  If you click on the tab that reads, “Standard Search, “ You will be given a  pulldown menu that allows you to pull down your subject matter and grade level in order to locate your standards.  Using this method ensures you are accessing the correct, and most up to date standards.

            Another important aspect of the learning connection, connects you with other educators of your interests and fields, called communities.  From the LC page,  you first must login.    After logging in, go to the tab at the top that reads, “Contacts and Communities.” Here you will see a list of the  communities in which you belong.  To find a community of your subject matter to belong to, click on the link, “Find Community.”  Here you will type in a  keyword search such as reading, math, science, high ability, learning disabilities, etc.  This will guide you to a list of communities which means a group of people who share resources and information on a particular topic.  Once you are a  member of a community, you will begin receiving emails with resources, information on possible workshops, and so forth.  This is a great way to become connected!

            Of course teachers are now working on writing Student Learning Objections (SLO’s) and the Learning Connection can be a huge help with this process.  When writing these objectives, a teacher always has a handful of students that fall on the line between high and middle or middle and low.  How do you decide?  When logged in to LC, if you go to “My Classes,” all of your classes you are currently teaching will appear.  Click on the class for which you are writing your SLO.  A list of students will appear on the right.  Click on the student you are questioning and look at their testing history.  This gives you a better picture of how this student has progressed over the last few years and aid in your decision.  

            Being a connected learner is becoming more and more pertinent for 21st Century Educators.   There is a wealth of information, resources, learning communities, etc available for educators.  It is difficult to try to decide what to use or follow and what to disregard. After all, there are only so many hours in a day.  I highly recommend starting with the Learning Connection.  It is specifically designed for Indiana Educators by the Department of Education.  

The Many Features of MBC     

By Phil Zellers       
 
        Most of us are becoming more and more familiar with the many uses of My Big Campus (MBC) as a learning tool.  Over the course of the last couple of years, I have been learning more about just how beneficial of a tool MBC really is.  In the beginning, it does take time to set up your classes and become familiar with all of the features, but it is time well spent.  Features such as being able to house your content in group pages to grading quizzes and tests for you will save time in the long run.  Here is an outline of some of the features MBC has to offer: (Some of which I’m sure many of you are already using and some of which may be new to those already familiar with MBC)

 ·         Digitally organize your content: You can create groups (for each class you teach) to serve as an online home base for your content.  Once you create a group you can develop folders within that group’s page to store all your content (articles, assignments made in Word documents, pdf scans, pictures, video clips from youtube, etc.).  It is always there to refer back to or for students who are absent to view.  Students can download this content to their own laptop and won’t even need the internet to access it later when they get home (good idea for those without internet at home).

·         Go paperless and save time: Creating a quiz, test, or assignment through MBC is easy and can save a lot of time.  MBC will grade multiple choice, T/F, and fill in the blank questions for you.  You can also export your Examview tests to MBC.  If your students need to send a Microsoft Office (Word, Power Point, Excel, etc.) file for an assignment, there is now a feature for that too.  They can just upload a file to the assignment you have created in Schoolwork and submit it to you.  So, you can deliver your content to your students, have them submit assignments, and take tests and quizzes without ever having to visit the copy machines (unless it is to scan something and send to yourself as a PDF so it can be uploaded to MBC).

·         Host discussions: There is a discussion feature within your group’s page.  You can set the topic and guide the discussion however you like.  It provides a safe place for students within that group to engage with one another to deepen their understanding of a topic.

·         Gather data: This is a feature I just learned about recently.  There is a lot of potential for gathering quality, student data.  MBC offers a “Live Reports” feature for any quiz or test you create.  It will put students’ scores in green, yellow, or red according to how well they did on that assessment (makes for a quick way to create intervention lists).  It also gives you question statistics to show you what percent of the class selected each possible answer (allows you to see what may need to be retaught).  I plan to start creating quick, mid class checks for understanding or exit slip quizzes to gather data to see where my classes are.  Along with giving you good information, this could help meet RISE indicators 1.1 Utilize Assessment Data to Plan, 1.3 Track Student Data and Analyze Progress, and 2.4 Check for Understanding and Modify Instruction.

As always, please contact one of the eLearning coaches if you need help using any of the features MBC has to offer.  We will be more than happy to help! 

 

 

 

Apple Keynotes- My personal geek World Series

By Kris Walsh

For most people, there are important events that they look forward to, Superbowl, The World Series, Sales, hunting seasons… As many of you know, I am a big geek and my occasions that I look forward to are not the same as many others. My occasions are E3, where new video games and consoles are announced, and Apple Keynotes, where new Apple products are presented and released. Today was one of those days, so I begged Phil to allow me to steal his turn to blog so I can blog about one of my favorite geeky days of the year. Reluctantly, he let me have his turn.

Today was the fall Apple keynote presentation. This is where the new versions of the iphone were released, along with a showing of the new features in ios7, the latest version of the operating system that runs the iphone, ipod touch, and ipad.

As expected, Apple released information regarding the new iphones, the 5s and the 5c.

The 5s is the new top of the line phone. It comes in these prices with 2 year contract- $199-16GB, $299-32GB, $399-64GB. It comes in 3 colors- space gray, silver and gold. It will be available on September 20th. This new iPhone contains some new technology. A fingerprint scanner in the home button that can be used to unlock the phone and to authenticate for purchases of apps or other content, so no passwords needed. In addition it has a new processor and upgraded camera.

The 5C replaces the 5 and is basically a more colorful version of the 5. It has all of the same specs and capabilities of the 5, but is wrapped in a seamless plastic shell that comes in several colors- green, white, blue, pink and yellow. While not as powerful as the 5S it is about half the price- $99-16GB, $199-32GB.

The 4S is now free with contract and the 4 and 5 have both been discontinued.

ios7 will be supported on iPhone 4 and up, iPad 2 and up (including mini), and 5th gen ipod touch. It will be a free update and will be released on September 18th. The most noticeable difference is the color and feel of the os as a whole has changed.

• The camera app has several improvements and allows content to be grouped by time and location when photos were taken. It includes filters like instagram right in the camera app. It also has burst mode (5s only) where you can take up to 10 frames a second and it helps you pick out the best frames to use as photos. Great for action shots! You can also take slow motion video.

• New and improved Notification Center and Control panel. Swipe down from any screen to see your notifications, swipe up to access many commonly used controls

• iTunes Radio is a new service that comes along with the update that is similar to Pandora

• Siri can now search Twitter and Wikipedia

• All 5 of the iWork apps are free for new device purchases (Pages, Numbers, Keynote, iPhoto, iMovie)

• There are many new behind the scenes features that can make managing multiple iPads much easier for businesses and schools

• Many 3rd party apps are being redesigned to include new features of ios7. Look out for app store updates for many other apps soon… wait, you won’t have to, ios7 will automatically take care of your updates for you. No more red numbers begging you to update!
  
  

I wanted to take this chance to review how to lock someone into a certain app.

This is a very helpful tool in the classroom and with young children who you want to have control over what they are viewing. I would be glad to help you with doing this if it is something that you are interested in. Here are some directions should you want to try on your own. This will not work on a first generation ipad. (You can skip this section if you already know how to do this.)

1. In settings, go to general, scroll almost all the way to the bottom and select accessibility. Halfway down that menu you will see something labeled guided access. Make sure that it is marked yes. You will have to select a 4 digit password.

2. Open the app that you want the student to use.

3. Click the home button 3 times and a frame comes up. To start guided access, click start in the upper right corner.

4. The student can use the app but not exit out and get into anything else.

5. When finished with the app, click 3 times again, enter the 4 digit code that you entered back in settings menu, and click end. The ipad will function normally again.

Advanced- If you are having a student use a website, when you do your first triple click to start the guided access and before you click start, circle the navigation bar at the top of the page. This will keep students from entering other web addresses, going back or setting up a new page.

I hope that you enjoyed this update about the new ios features coming our way. Most of the education focused improvements are behind the scenes, but I look forward to seeing what developers can do with the new tools that they have been given. Let us know if we can assist you in making this transition!

Every tech tool in every classroom...not so much
By Jamie Guillaume
  
    Even though it is still the beginning of the school year, at some point you probably have already experienced feelings of being overwhelmed.  Not only are teachers busy planning lessons, creating assessments, and accomplishing countless other tasks, but now you are hearing about lots of new classroom technology.  Although I am a firm believer that technology can enhance learning in the classroom, I also understand that not every tool, idea or program presented is going to be appropriate or even helpful in every classroom.
       When presented with classroom management or teaching techniques, teachers have to evaluate if the method is appropriate for their classroom environment and if the technique will enhance student learning.  Even though tech tools are typically flashier and more difficult to figure out, the process of determining if the tool is for you should be the same and you should ask yourself… Will this tool make a project my kids do more engaging?  Will it enhance student learning?  Will it make my job as a teacher easier, once in place?  If the answer to these questions is “no,” then the tech tool, idea or program is not for you and that is okay.  Not every tool needs to be implemented in every classroom; that would just be chaotic. However similar to adopting teaching models, sometimes the answer is “yes” and you dive in.    However for most of us the answer is, “yes, but I do not know where to begin.”  This is where the eLearning Team would love to help….. shoot us an email, yank us in your room from the hallway, or stop by our room.   
        When I first began going to technology workshops last summer my thought process was, how can I use this tool?  My mind would try to create a project or a lesson for the tool.  However what I eventually learned was to not create something new for the tool but ask myself, can this tool make what teachers are already doing better?  I remember a presenter explaining that when a carpenter gets a new hammer, they do not walk around and look for something to hammer but they use that hammer to make a job easier or better.  The same is true with technology in the classroom.  You should not learn a tool and create a way to use it but determine if the tool fits into your curriculum and if it can be used to enhance learning and engagement in your classroom.