Using a blog in the classroom

I plan on using a class blog to communicate with parents and students, post homework, due dates,class expectations and behavioral expectations. I love that it is paperless, easy to access, and takes away the "I lost the paper" excuse! Blogging will be an affective communication tool in my classroom! :)

Christie, Glogs

What a fun tool! Is there a 12-step program called "Glogger's Anonymous?" I might need to enroll! What a great way to get a message across to kids OR to have them show what they've learned in a creative way. This is a program I've starred in my "favorites," and the fact that it is free makes it even better!

Using Glogger to create posters on plagiarism and copyright laws was a great way to foster learning, and I know it will motivate/facilitate greater learning in students. ISTE Standard # 1, "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity," is definitely fulfilled using Glogger! Creating a masterpiece of information was so easy with this program; students will love how user-friendly it is! Those without artistic gifts (like me) will especially appreciate Glogger because you can easily click on a picture, move it around, and if you don't like it, simply click on the trash can. Backgrounds and different styles of print are available, along with endless choices of color. There are many special affects, too, including animation and the ability to add videos and audio clips. It is really fool-proof and fun, so both artistic and non-artistic students will enjoy using Glogger.

Glogger has really boosted my love for technology! I can feel myself getting nerdier by the minute, and I know I will use this in my classroom. I, myself, already have plans for 2 more Glogger posters as soon as I'm finished with my finals: One for my very supportive yet often neglected husband, and the other for "Parent Information Night" at Boise High, where I coach volleyball. Creating a glog will be a fun way to introduce some of our rules and expectations to our athletes and their families!

Christie, Professional Development

Learning is in my blood! I wish I would've realized that 30 years ago, but as a "non-traditional student," AKA: older student, I have come to appreciate every aspect of education... The questioning, the process of searching out answers, struggling, failing, succeeding, sharing information, and finally, raising more questions. An attitude of being a life-long learner is imperative for continued growth, and once the flame of being hungry-to-learn burns out, mind and spirit enter into the aging process of slowly fading and eventually dying.

For these reasons, among others, it is absolutely necessary that teachers are required to continue their own education. Lack of knowledge, apathy and burn-out are killers of creativity and learning, so it is important not only to stay current in new subjects and teaching techniques, but to also keep your passion and love-for-learning alive and fresh. My favorite teachers have always been those who have been open to learning themselves and are passionate about what they teach. Our profession demands this of us, and if we fail in this area, we fail ourselves and the students we are there to serve.

Technology is a perfect example of this... I have experienced educators who have refused to update their technological skills and use Blackboard. This school-wide network is so helpful and easy for teachers and students alike, but apathy and fear inhibit it's full use. Others are still using black-and-white powerpoints for lectures instead of the plethora of free teaching resources available for educators. Maybe they don't know about the possibilities, but continued professional development might keep them abreast of these resources.

Under ISTE standard 5, it is an educator's responsibility to "continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources." I plan on being the kind of teacher who is open to using all technological advances to enhance student learning and promote creativity, even as a P.E. teacher!

Christie, Webquest Reflection

Out of all of our assignments, the webquest assignment is my favorite. I loved the experience of taking a lesson and making a team adventure out of it, and I know students will reap many benefits from this type of assignment!

One of the main benefits students will receive is the benefit of working with others as a team. This opportunity affords students the chance to learn from teammates and other groups, and the model can be used in any subject area. Webquests invite students to not only learn a subject, but to work together, problem solve, delegate responsibility, create, hold one-another accountable, use technology to peer-teach and present, phewww... The list goes on! I am excited about the possibilities!

As if that were not enough, webquest lessons satisfy ISTE Standard 1, among others; student learning and creativity will be inspired through the use of webquests, and all the while students will be honing their basic computer skills.

As a teacher-in-training, I appreciated researching the subject I chose and discovering all the free resources out there... It is nice to know that one does not have to reinvent the wheel to be an affective teacher. Additionally, connecting with other educators from all over the world and getting different perspectives and ideas is a bonus to using webquests! I can hardly wait to get started, and I already have some ideas...

Professional Development

Spreadsheet Lesson Plan

I am excited about learning to use Excel! This was a great project and was especially relevant because I plan on using it immediately (this fall) when I am coaching high school volleyball. Creating individual spreadsheets will be a great way for the girls to keep track of their stats, and it will be a wonderful visual for showing either improvement or areas they need to work harder on. I also love the fact that you can enter a formula and the program does all the computing for you. I can't tell you the countless hours I've spent after matches and at tournaments crunching numbers on my tiny calculator so I can call stats into the newspaper!

In my future classroom, creating spreadsheets will be a fun, non-threatening way of tracking improvement in different skills, keeping records on nutrition, working on the components of fitness, etc... I love that the subject of Physical Education will crossover into Math, Health and Technology, and the continuity could provide unity between staff, students and subject matter. This excites me!!!

I feel like I did a good job on the spreadsheet, although I left out the "Chart or Gadget" component because I couldn't figure out how to integrate those into my plans. Other than that, I went down the ruberic and checked off the components as I went, so the list should be complete.
Using spreadsheets will definitely play a role in my classroom.

Technology in the Classroom Letter

Dear Parent,
Can this be true??? Has technology finally met up with Physical Education? The answer is a resounding "YES"!!! Technology has become an important part of daily life, and in order to keep up with the world and all of the technological advances, it is being integrated into all subject areas in our school. Technology will be a common thread running through all classes, and our students will benefit greatly from the consistency. Yes, technology has finally caught up with P.E.!

Your child will be using computers, cell phones, GPS systems, digital cameras, video equipment, and ipods during various activities. The students will be researching nutritional information, making team powerpoint presentations, geo-caching (treasure-hunting), going on photo scavenger hunts, etc... It should be a semester filled with fun and great learning opportunities for every interest!

For those of you concerned about the loss of time being physically active, not-to-worry! Our students will be just as active as they were in previous classes. All of the fore-mentioned activities that do not include movement will either be assigned as homework or will be used as a "rainy day" activity (When it is actually raining and/or the gym is unavailable). No more "Thumbs-up, Seven-up"... Our students will actually be doing something productive on those "down" days!

If you have any concerns, suggestions, ideas, interest in helping, or expertise you'd like to share, please contact me at susiechristie@u.boisestate.edu or 854-4950.

Volleyball Team PPT Reflection

I am very pleased with my volleyball PPT, and I know this is something my future students will love doing, too! Having kids create a powerpoint presentation about their teams will be a great team-building activity, will help them get to know their teammates, sharpen their technology skills, add a creative element to the sport, and it will be a lot of fun for the teams to show their powerpoint presentations to the class!

The ISTE standards that are covered in this lesson are standards 1, "Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity", and standard 3, "Model Digital-Age Work and Learning." I have come to love powerpoint because it gives you a lot of freedom to be creative. I love that this can be integrated into P.E. because it might give some students who do not enjoy team sports or physical activity a chance to participate and be a key member on a team. Also, it gives me a chance to model technological skills and reiterate the importance of technology.

I had originally planned on setting this powerpoint to music... I went to itunes and bought some songs, but the program would not allow me to copy them. I was bored with the sounds on my computer, so I resorted to doing the voices of all the athletes. I had a sore throat for over a week after recording the lions roar, and my dog ran out of my room in fear! :) I loved playing with the movement of the graphics, too, and I think the spinning ball added a lot to the presentation.This was a really fun powerpoint for me to make, and now that I have the skills and am over my "PPT anxiety," I can relax and enjoy the process of creating!

Christie, RSS feed reflection

I absolutely love the RSS feed site and believe knowing how to use this will really benefit me as a student and teacher; it is an awesome way to receive up-to-date info on topics relevant to what I am studying/will be teaching without having to wade through all the junk on the web. It is very easy to navigate, once it is set up, and I feel a certain amount of protection using it because I don't have to give out my e-mail address to receive information. Hopefully, this will lessen the risk of getting weird emails and/or viruses!

Just being able to use this resource shows my new-found ability to navigate and use the web, and the ISTE standards I cover involve modeling use of the web, working collaboratively with others through virtual environments, communicating relevant, updated information and using a variety of digital-age resources. More standards could be covered, especially if I have my students use this resource!

Some other things I really like about it is that you can easily share information with others, it is easy to organize info., and you can just skim headlines and choose the whole articles you want to read, saving lots of time. The Google Reader RSS site will be of great use for me as a teacher, and I have already enjoyed the benefits of using it! :)

Christie, ruberic reflection

The RubiStar site for rubric creation is an awesome resource, and I will continue to use it once I am teaching. The template can accommodate any subject, the site is really user-friendly, and it was very easy to create and customize my first rubric.
The ISTE Standards I satisfied in my rubric creation were standard 1c, "Promote student reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative process," and standard 2d, "Provide students with multiple and varied formative and summative assessments aligned with content and technology standards and use resulting data to inform learning and teaching."
The idea of having a rubric is very different... "Back-in-the-day," we didn't have rubrics. In fact, this is a new vocabulary word for me! But I love having a rubric to follow, and I usually do well in classes that provide them! It tells the teacher's expectations straight off, and it leaves the student to decide what grade he/she will work for. It puts the responsibility of grades on the student, where it should be, and takes that responsibility off of the teacher. The teacher still has to teach, but the student has to complete what is assigned. I think this is a really valuable tool for communicating with parents, too. It is very cut and dry, and it is a tangible way of showing what a kid is/is not doing.

Christie, Geo-caching plan

I had fun creating this lesson plan! I have had a couple of experiences geo-caching, and both were so much fun that I know students will not only learn a lot and get exercise, but they will also enjoy it!

Technologically speaking, I hope the students learn to use a GPS and start to connect technology with exercise. I think technology has been dubbed the "bad guy" in terms of childhood obesity, along with television viewing, but I hope to show them that technology can be used in creative ways to support healthy lifestyles. Besides that, through this lesson my students will practice following written instructions, working as a team, and with all the running through the park they will get plenty of aerobic exercise!

The electronic form is AWESOME and includes everything... Who the lesson is for, the objective, detailed description of the activity, how long it should take, standards met, etc... When I was subbing, I wish the teachers I subbed for would've used this form because it gives you everything you need to teach a lesson! I have this in "delicious" and plan to use it for my plans.

The ISTE standards I meet in this lesson are standards 2 ( Designing and developing digital-age learning experience and assessments) and 3 (Modeling digital-age work and learning).

The only thing I would do differently in this lesson is adding cell phones for picture taking... Kids love pictures, and it would be awesome for them to each receive a team picture holding their cache (Great idea, Christine!). This would also reinforce the connection of technology and activity!

Assistive Technology reflection

I felt like this was a really useful assignment, and I loved exploring websites that could possibly help my future students! The possibilities seem limitless, and my only complaint is not having enough time to look at everything available.

Because of my past experience working in the schools, I know special needs kids are integrated into "normal" classroom settings, including Physical Education; some of the sites I found could enable students to participate more fully in a typical P.E. class. Abilityhub.com was one of my favorite sites because it had great resources for every impairment you could imagine, including quick links to order from. Physical aids were included at this site, as well as great software.

Another site I really appreciate is the "Adaptive Technologies" site. It was written by someone who, himself, is physically disabled, and the site is easy to navigate and includes some incredible resources for those with physical and/or mental disabilities. One impressive item I found there was something that enables folks without use of their legs to stand upright and play, instead of having to sit in a wheel chair. There were also voice-command units that allowed for freedom of movement.

Technology is amazing, and the use of it is enabling people with limits to experience what others take for granted. From software that allows quadraplegics to "hit" a tennis ball to hardware that enables deaf people to hear, it was an eye-opening experience seeing what was available!

Back to school powerpoint reflection

There is always room for improvement on anything I've ever done, but my back to school powerpoint makes me smile! Part of my joy lies in the fact that this is the 1st powerpoint I didn't struggle with... I remembered how to use animations, sounds and graphics, so I didn't have to spend my time searching for those things!

I learned a few new tricks, including taking pictures on my PC and animating the bronco symbol. I also really worked on making the sounds I chose match the feeling of the slide. In my previous powerpoint, I just chose a sound and assigned it to a slide. That worked okay individually, but once the slides were put together, the presentation didn't have a good "flow," and it detracted from what I was trying to convey. My back to school powerpoint flows, and the sounds enhance each individual slide and the show as a whole.

I also really like the color scheme... The blues and greens are pleasant to look at, and the waves of color give it a layed-back, beachy feeling. I think the appearance would make people who might be nervous on back-to-school night feel more at ease!

Content-wise, I followed the ruberic closely and checked off requirements as I went, so everything should be covered. Even though P.E. doesn't seem like it would have much in common with technology, all 3 class "highlights" involve using some form of it, which provides evidence of the role technology will play in my classroom.

Internet Safety/Class rules reflection

The ISTE Standards I met on this powerpoint are numbers 3 and 4. Number 3 states that teachers "Model Digital-Age Work and Learning", and specifically, I met letter C by communicating "relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats." In number 4, "Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility", I accomplished letter A by advocating, modeling, and teaching safe, legal and ethical uses of digital information and technology. My knowledge of technology is demonstrated by the fact I can create an interesting, informative powerpoint! :)
I was really happy with my internet safety and classroom rules powerpoint until I saw Michael's... Mine was okay, but his is a masterpiece! He used many fun, custom pictures in his, and his letter animations were amazing. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of improving my work.

I presented all the required information, and more, but it didn't have much flair. I had a lot of fun with colors and word art this time, which is defintely a big improvement over my 1st cyber dangers powerpoint, but it still seems lackluster. I need to be much more adventurous with using animation, sound, and pictures other than standard clip art. Right now I demonstrate moderate knowledge of powerpoint, but I want my presentations to show expert knowledge of the program and inspire the students who will be viewing them. After all, if we expect excellence from our students we need to model it!

If I was a student watching my powerpoint presentation, I would think it was nice, but it wouldn't be memorable or engaging. So in the future, I will try to use more unusual features of powerpoint to capture the attention of my kids and present information in a more effective manner.

Susie's reflection

I absolutely loved learning how to create my back to school newsletter in Word. I had never done anything like that before, so the whole newsletter was a testimony to my growing skills in technology!
I learned so much on that project... The first really useful thing I learned was how to access Word, and then I learned how to choose a page layout and create borders for it. I had a ball choosing the font and colors to be used, but my favorite thing was learning to use WordArt and clip art. I learned how to insert lines and boxes, too, but it wasn't as exciting as finding clip art and using WordArt.
What I really liked in my newsletter was the "Class expectations" box. It was very simple and well-spaced, but it contained all the information needed. I also liked how the "Parent Corner" turned out; that, too, was really clear and concise and easily readable.
The next time I do a newsletter, though, I will not use a box with single-spaced lines in bold lettering. It came out looking very crowded and business-like, and it really didn't match the casual style I used in the rest of the newsletter. I think I will use the "less-is-more" philosophy when I create my next newsletter, but I will be more adventurous with color!
http://www.spokentext.net/members/susiechristie/Susies_newsletter_reflection.mp3

Welcome!

Dear Parents of incredible Kids,
I cannot tell you how happy I am to have your child in my Physical Education class. Their bright, eager faces reflect an enthusiasm for P.E. that I am excited to see, and I know we will have fun in the process!
Technology has invaded the classroom and is now making an appearance in Physical Education! This is an important addition as we strive to keep up with new ways of teaching and learning, improving education for our students who are "digital learners."
We will be combining various physical activities with technology this semester, so students will have the opportunity to use digital cameras for a scavenger hunt, ipods for daily practices, video equipment for games, and computers for researching and making Powerpoint presentations. It will be a busy semester!
We will also be using something called the "Sports Education Model" (S.E.M.) in class. Using this model, students will not only be learning new volleyball skills and playing games, but they will also be keeping records on team stats, organizing a tournament, preparing an end-of-season celebration, and preparing a brief Powerpoint presentation on their team, including their "team philosophy" and team pictures. As you can see, S.E.M. integrates physical activity, organizational skills, creativity, and technological skills.
I will be walking the students through each step of this process, but they will be expected to complete some work outside of class. I have included a schedule of due dates at the bottom of this e-mail... Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.
Susie Christie
854-4950

Assignment: Due Date:
Choose team name, colors, submit roster 3/1/10
Team philosophy 3/3/10
Team poster 3/8/10
Powerpoint presentation 3/22/10

Yippee!

hit there! It worked! great