Mobile Learning Lab

Classroom 2.0

I have been following classroom 2.0 on twitter for about 9 months now. They are one of the first people that I followed on my student teaching twitter and they always tweet great resource, especially during #edchat.

This is what I posted in the group on the site:

I think that we obviously need to adapt our teaching to the students that we are teaching. Young people are attached to their phones and their whole lives are on their phones. While I was a technology intern at a high school outside of Pittsburgh, they were on board with using personal devices as much as possible in the classroom. Not every single school is as supportive as this school. I think that using cell phones in school depends on the school culture and how it is educationally beneficial as well as if it is properly implemented. The school that I student taught at was not a school that I would want to use cellphones in the classroom a lot with. The high school students would take calls during teachers' classes and be on their phones all the time in other teachers' classes. The teachers never said anything and could not control it. I was lucky and was able to talk to them and set boundaries with repercussions before I started teaching. The worries of many are that the students aren't actually doing something productive because you can not see their screens, they are doing inappropriate things during class time and it is a distraction. I was able to do an activity with my students and their phones using google maps and they really liked it. While I was a technology intern the teachers and students liked using their personal devices and the students respected the limitations of using the phone in class. There also needs to be thought that not every student has a smart phone that is capable of accessing the internet. I think that if it is implemented appropriately, cell phones are a good thing to use in classrooms. There are many educationally friendly applications and web-based resources.

Survey-Poll Everywhere

For my survey, I asked people what their favorite season was. It was a survey that anyone would be able to take. I posted it to my facebook and twitter and I had 11 participants. 5 people said their favorite season was summer, 5 for fall and 1 for winter. 

I think that poll everywhere is a great tool to use in schools. I would use it to check comprehension as well as get feedback from students of things they are struggling with. It does not tell you who the text is from so students can feel comfortable sharing their opinions without their names. I know that it is something that many teachers are beginning to use and I think it is great! I do not think that it is something that should be used all the time, but maybe one of two times per unit.

PART D - Findings and Implications

Formative:  I think that my project was implemented as well as it could have been under the circumstances that I do not have a teaching job and have never had a teaching job.  I created a wikispace that I shared with world language teachers and my friends who went to school to be world language teachers. On the wikispace, I created individual pages for each resource. On each page there was a description of the resources, ways that it can be used in the world language classroom, an example of the resource being used and a start-up sheet. The start-up sheet was a “how to” use the resource for any content area teacher. I then created a survey that gave me feedback about the specific tools in regards to their friendliness as well as teachers’ opinions about language acquisition and the resources on the wikispace. I hopefully addressed a problem that I know many world language teachers face. I hope that I was able to give ideas for teachers to give more opportunities in safe environments for their students to speak in.

Summative: The survey helped me to get the opinions of the teachers. In regards to the resources, the teachers ranked Lingt Language, VoiceThread, Audio Dropbox and Conversations to be the most student-friendly. I agree with these rankings. The students do not have to email anything or send it like they would in resources like Vocaroo, everything goes to the teacher through the tool. The teachers ranked Conversation, Audio Dropbox, Lingt Language and VoiceThread the most teacher-friendly resources. I definitely agree because while I think VoiceThread is a good resource, it can be difficult for some to create a presentation. Tools like Voki and Blabberize do not allow the teacher to come up with too many creative ideas that are very rigorous. All of the participatnts would definitely use some of the resources in the classroom and they would also share the wikispace with their colleagues. All of the teachers agreed that the start-up sheets helped, which is something that gives me gratification because I may not be there to help teach them the resource, but I was able to help them to understand it better. 

It was also gratifying to see that the teachers agreed that the resource would increase oral proficiency and that the resources would help to extend the language use outside of the classroom. The teachers strongly agreed that the resources would help make students more comfortable speaking in the target language, better assess oral proficiency, monitor student growth and increase the rigor of the class. In regards to students, it is very important to me that they feel comfortable speaking in the target language. Not all classroom environment are "safe" and many teachers can be discouraging. After being a very comfortable speak in high school and the beginning of college, I had a professor like this and I eventually stopped speaking in class. I think it is something that many students struggle with, especially trying to speak in a near native accent. It was important that the teachers could assess oral competency, monitor student growth as well as increase oral proficiency.  

I am glad that I asked this question and I was surprised to see that the description of the resource was the most helpful component, followed by how to use the resource and then the start-up sheets and examples earned the same ranking. I know that I learn best by giving a description of the activity, what is expected and then seeing an example of it. I am sure that the description helped because the teachers were able to see what the resource was about briefly and then it intrigued them. They were probably more interested once they saw the ways to use it and then the start-up sheets and example helped to tie everything together. 

I think that if I were to complete the project again, I would try to figure out a project that would be more conducive to not having a job. I am not sure how realistic this is, so I would want to be more focused and specific with my project from the beginning. I think that my project did not gain specificity until Part C and I was not able to explain everything as clear as I would have liked to, especially in Part B.

I think that trying to help teachers was the best route for me since I do not have students to work with so if I were put into the same situation in my current situation, I would have done the same thing. I would want to address my problem and solution completely at teachers of not necessarily one content area. I would like to find a problem that many different content teachers have and figure out a solution that would help more teachers.

I think that there were many lessons learned. I think that the more specific and concrete you can be in your vision for the project and the steps along the way, the better the project will turn out. I think that I was able to find a variety or resources that shared some similarities, but I do not think that seven was too overwhelming of a number. I think that it was better to find fewer resources and go more in depth with them than finding many resources and being too brief. If I had 20 resources, I would be very overwhelmed as a teacher looking at them, especially if I wasn't familiar with any. The teachers were able to get a feel and understanding for the resources because of the examples, description, ways it can be implemented and the start-up sheets. I know that teachers do not have all the time in the world and they would not be able to sit down and look at 20 tools with all of the supplemental resources and be able to make sense of it all.

PART C - Implementation

Transcript of My Podcast: 

I first researched tools that could increase oral proficiency by giving students more opportunities to speak outside of the classroom. I wanted to try to re-create opportunities that would allow for the teacher to access the assignment and tools that would save the assignment so the teacher could review it and the student could reflect on it. During my research I found that the following tools would be suitable for the solution to my problem: VoiceThread, Lingt Language, Audio Dropbox, Conversations, Voki, Blabberize and Vocaroo 

I then decided that to implement my WPP, I would create a wikispace that would house all of the information about the resources. I shared the wikispace with world language teachers and friends who went to school to be a world language teacher. For each resource I wrote a brief description about the resources, gave some ideas on how world language teachers could use the resource in their classroom, created a start-up sheet which was a “how to use the resource” ,

(Screenshot of Start-Up Sheet)

gave an example, if it was possible, about how to use the resource in the world language classroom and gave links to any other helpful resources about the tool, if I found it suitable. I thought that creating a wikispace was a good idea because it would allow me to have a good foundation of tools to share and would give me a starting point to add more tools. 

(Screenshot of VoiceThread page on Wikispace)

I then created a survey on surveymonkey .I asked 10 questions about the wikispace, tools that I found and opinions of the components of language acquisition. I was very surprised to see that all 7 participants strongly agree that speaking was the weakest component of language acquisition  and 6/7 deemed it as the most important component.

There were also a few more surprises. It was difficult at times to create start-up sheets for all of the tools because tools like VoiceThread have many different components. I tried to create start-up sheets that would allow any content area teacher to be able to use the resource.  

There were also some things that I would revise.  While I thought that the survey was a good idea to get feedback and have the teachers rate the tools on their friendliness, I think that it would be beneficial to also have teachers fill out a google doc about their likes and dislikes in regards to specific tools. I would also ask them how they would use the tools in their classroom so I would be able to acquire more ideas. If a teacher had a strong opinion about a tool or a lot of experience with a tool, I would be made aware of it through the use of a google doc.

While I would revise this part of my Wicked Problem Project, I do think that there were some things that went well.  I think that creating a wikispace was a good idea. The wikispace helped me to better organize the information for myself as well as the teachers. It allowed the teachers to easily navigate through the pages and it is compatible with embedding, adding links and pictures.  The wikispace allowed me to better organize the information for myself as well as the teachers. The teachers knew what to expect: a description, ways to use the tool in the world language classroom, an example (if applicable and possible) and a start-up sheet that teaches the basics about how to use the resource for any teacher.

I think that the project would have been better for me if I had a teaching job and my own classroom. While it was good to be exposed to and to learn about many resources that I could share, I think I would have benefited more if I could have seen some of these tools to put into action with students. I would also be able to experiment with the resources with my colleagues and share the sources with them. It would have been more meaningful to implement the resources with actual students and see how it helped their confidence in the target language as well as oral proficiency. 

Link to podcast: https://www.msu.edu/~slifersa/partcwpp.mp3

Link to wikispace: http://senoritatecnologia.wikispaces.com/

Link to survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/L35QVD3

Recording and Editing Lab

To implement my project, I created a wikispace that housed information about the resources that I used as well as start-up sheets. I then shared the wikispace with my friends who went to school to be language teachers as well as language teachers that I knew. I then had the teachers take a survey. This is the link to my podcast:  https://www.msu.edu/~slifersa/implementation.mp3

I had trouble in session 1 to have my podcast come up on my itunes. I subscribed and tried all the tips that my professor gave me and I was still not able to hear my podcasts. For some reason information from 2 random blog posts come up.  I am not sure why this is happening. 

I also have my feedburner in my blog to enhance to RSS feed. The screen shot shows that it is my feedburner. 

Part B - Storyboard and Script

Our group has been working together very well and progressing nicely. Our topic is flipping the classroom and we chose to complete a tutorial about using WatchKnowLearn.org. We have each completed our individual research portions of the project and we created our Popplet.  Heidi worked on the Common Core and Classroom, Jamin did the Introduction, How to Add a Video and the Vision/ Conclusion and I worked on the Editors Tools and How to Review, Approve and Assign Videos to Appropriate Categories. Below is a snapshot of our Popplet that we created. 

We chose to use Google Docs to create our script. We were about to create an outline that includes what we would like Jamin to say when she records the audio narration. The Google Doc is a work and progress, but it is done for the most part and we just need to finish our final individual editing. This is the link to our Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HsWh4yPYhdSIAsaBHHIjQGgwoacD6QglyP1svBtqkmA/edit. Below is a screen shot of the script for one of my portions of the project. 

Originally we decided that each of us would record our individual parts. We realized that this would be a lot harder than we thought. We weren’t sure how we would merge all of the Jing videos together. We decided that it would be easier and flow better if one person recoreded the entire presentation. We broke up the last part into individual sections. Heidi did the final edit of the Popplet/script and was able to color coordinate the Popplet so it looks a lot nicer. I am responsible for creating the presentation. I will be creating it using Prezi and my due date is December 1^st.  Jamin will record over the Prezi, using Jing, and will record the entire presentation. 

Data Visualization Lab

I really enjoyed browsing and looking at the resources on Karl Gude’s wikispace.  This is definitely a website that is worth bookmarking because I know that it will continue to grow! I thought that it was set up really nice and was organized well by specific categories. It was nice that he was able to make such specific categories and give some of the capabilities many of the tools. I was able to look at sharing tools such as Cincopa, Portfolio tools such as Wix and Dropmocks and other tools such as Celtx, Dipity and Tagxedo. It was good to be able to explore more sharing tools because we are currently sharing everything on the internet with the push of a button. I also liked to be able to explore different portfolio tools because there was a group in my 811 class that did their presentation about online portfolios. I especially liked Wix because I felt that there were many templates for students to use so they did not have to spend time editing the colors and fonts on their portfolio, but were still able to keep part of themselves on the site. I thought that Celtx was a great website for creating storyboard and being able to create scripts and edit them. The site was very information and provided a lot of background about the use of the tool, its “story” as well an embedded feed of people who tweet about them. I think that it is more appealing because it has cloud features. I also liked Taxgedo. I have seen Wordle used before in a few classrooms for things such as a vocabulary wall or the names of all the students, but I have not seen Tagxedo before or heard of it.  I thought it was really cool that you would be able to put your world cloud on items such as t-shirts and mugs. Many of the tools that he had on the lab were ones that I have used or seen before such as Prezi, Glogster, Jing, Flickr and Picasa.  It was comforting to see that there were many tools and apps on the Wikispace that we have talked about in the certificate classes because this allows me to see that the content and tools that we are learning about is relevant since I do not have my own classroom.

For the lab I created a visualization using Dipity. I created a timeline for the main events of the Spanish War of Independence. This is something that is relevant to my content area because it is the war that gave Spain its independence from Napoleon and the French and it is depicted in many paintings by Spanish artists such as Goya.  

I wish that I would have had known about this when I was student teaching! I created a timeline for the 6^th grade students in relation of the ancient civilizations that we learned about in our Spanish with the ones they were learning about in their World Cultures class. This really helped the students to compare the time periods and it helped them to see the overlaps in the empires. I really liked how you are about to add things such as photos and because it was help the students to better visualize the events.  I think that this is a fantastic tool for creating timelines. When I think of timelines, I am easily bored and I think of really old pictures in a textbook. My ah-ha moment was when I was able to create a meaningful connection between the growing up online reading and digital nation videos and Dipity. We need to cater to our students and the way that they are currently learning. When I saw the teacher drawing the triangle on the board and the students being bored, it reminded me of looking at boring timelines in history textbooks. The interactive timelines allow the students to become more engaged with the material and the supplemental things such as pictures, videos and documents. 
Here is the link to my timeline: http://www.dipity.com/sslifer/Spanish-War-of-Independence/?s=t

PART B - Application of TPACK

TPACK was inspired by Lee Shulman's TPACK. MSU's Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler added the technology component to create a more meaningful learning experience. For a successful TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) framework, an understanding of content and creativity is necessary. The teachers are the designers of technology, content and pedagogy. For this portion of the Wicked Problem Plan I will apply the framework of TPACK to the solution for my problem.

In terms of the Technology and Pedagogy, the resources that I have chosen are supportive in a teaching environment. Many of the resources can create authentic, personalized speaking moments for students as well conversations. In tools such as VoiceThread, Conversations 2.0 and Lingt Language, conversation between teacher and student can be simulated. In VoiceThread, conversation can occur between teacher and student as well as student and student. The technology also allows the users to be interactive. Students who use Voki are able to record multiple characters with multiple voices. In VoiceThread users are able to comment on each other’s responses and ideas.

In terms of Technology and Content, these resources make the problem more intellectually accessible. These tools are easily accessible. VoiceThread and Blabberize have applications that students can download for free on their smartphone. Students can also call in responses on VoiceThread. The students will be able to increase the rigor by speaking outside of class and increase amount they are speaking. They are able to increase their oral proficiency and fluency by speaking more in the target language in meaningful environments. By using a wikispace and creating start-up sheets, the teachers are able to access all the materials. Eventually I will be able to model how to use the tool when I create tutorials with Jing after the course is over.

In terms of Pedagogy and Content, the resources allow the students to access higher order thinking skills. Students are able to be creative with some of the resources such as Voki and Blabberize. The students are able to create short films in Voki and are able to “speak” through the pictures on Blabberize. They are able to analyze and evaluate how to respond in resources such as Lingt Language, VoiceThread and Conversations 2.0. In Lingt Language the teacher can input videos, mp3 files, pictures, voice narration and text. The teacher can make it so the students answer in text or voice narration. In VoiceThread the teacher can have the students respond to the presentation or they could have them respond based on their classmates’ responses. In Conversations the teacher can ask the student questions and the students are able to give personalized responses based on the questions.

Overall, I think that my solution to my WPP is suitable for the TPACK framework.