One best thing

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http://images.apple.com/iphone/business/docs/DEP_Business_Guide_EN_Feb14.pdf

I chose the Apple TV Deployment guide. I chose it because I was considering buying Apple TV for my own enjoyment to watch tv and movies in. I didn’t even think about how it could be incorporated in the classroom. I knew about the AirDrop feature considering I’ve had an iPad for some time, but I never took into account the way it could be used to turn in assignments and projects. I remember thinking how cool it was to just send something to a drop box; now you don’t even need a hard copy. You can use simply one iPad to stream an entire class worth of notes and lessons into a projector or television. Then that same iPad, thanks to Apple TV and AirPlay/AirDrop, can collect and grade the imageassignments that come later.

 

Week 6 blog reflection: Doug-Off the Record

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Website: www.dougpete.wordpress.com

This semi-anonymous blog goes into detail about different things in the educational field today and how to handle them. Many of the posts consist of every day lesson plan type things rather than specifics. Things like: planning innovatively, flipping the classroom, collaboration, incorporating technology, etc.

One more recent blog post that intrigued me was one about how lesson plans are being influenced differently than they have ever been. For instance, I have already used blogs I have looked at this semester to influence my own lesson plans. The web makes collaboration so much easier. With that, we can make even better experiences for our young men and women.

Doug’s blog has a lot of resources for teachers of all levels and subjects. Since many of them are not too subject specific, there are a lot of things that apply to everyone n

Digital Storytelling: Adobe Slate

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https://standout.adobe.com/slate/

 

They Feel Your Pain

Slate by Adobe won me over as my new favorite app that I have used this semester. I can’t see myself using too many PowerPoints or Prezis after discovering this Adobe presentation app.  Slate is of course a free app that creates very sleek and clean looking presentations. They don’t require a significant amount of navigation as you can slide through an entire project like it is a webpage. You can add photos as full backgrounds or just for a small break from too much text.

For my Slate about bildungsromans, the photos made it very easy for me to present the novels I chose in a way that was pleasing to look at.

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Week 7: Blog Reflection

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Blog website: www.coolcatteacher.com

Author: Vicki Davis

The Cool Cat Teacher blog was probably the most in depth education blog of the ones I read this semester. It covered things such as app reviews, modern education theories, tips for tech in the classroom, etc. I used some of the things I got from this blog to do lesson plans for some of my other classes this summer.

The author switched over to WordPress and the format is much better from the BlogSpot format she had used previously. It’s just as clean and easy to navigate as any of the

The best article I got from it related to the mentality that we should be rewarding everyone, rather than just those who perform well. There was a good argument that not rewarding students when their strengths outweigh the other students can be a missed opportunity to instill a sense of pride in that student. In all, it’s evident that a balance is what’s important among rewarding the accomplishments of students.

I would recommend this blog for any teacher, in any grade, with any level of technological capability.

Week 6 Blog Reflection

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Author: Richard Byrne
Website: www.freetech4teachers.com

This blog covering educational technology had quite a few things that I can see helping me as an educator. It mainly covers ways to incorporate technology for collaboration and productivity, as well as occasionally covering apps and other sites for teachers and students alike.

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What I took away most from the blogs was the use of clouds, drives, and other databases that can help make technology an effective part of our classroom. As a language arts teacher, I can use Google Docs or Microsoft OneDrive for students to save work on. This can be effective for groups projects, making collaboration and organization easier for each group of students.

Despite seeing how well those features can help me, I didn’t see much more to brag about. For one, the layout of the page is much messier than some of the other blogs I have seen this semester. Also, there are too many examples of others using the websites suggestions rather than Byrne’s in depth coverage of the apps and other technologies. Even with its somewhat lackluster layout, the website shouldn’t be totally written off. There are teachers out there who would greatly benefit from this website’s resources.

My first screencast!

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www.educreations.com/lesson/view/packaged-play/32430204/?ref=link

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https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/educreations-interactive-whiteboard/id478617061?mt=8

Price: free (upgraded version for $11/month)

The Educreations app was the screencasting app that I chose for this assignment.  I have done language arts themes for every assignment so far; and while I enjoy doing language arts projects, I haven’t gotten to do anything relating to coaching over the last couple of years.  In the app description, it says that it would be a great app for diagramming sports plays; so that’s what I did!  I used a scenario where our football team would be adding in a new wrinkle to attack this week’s opponent.   I could see a lot of ways to do language arts lessons with this app.  For in-class assigned novels, you can use the videos as outlines for what happens in chapters or certain sections.  You can do grammar lessons by voicing over and correcting words/sentences with the red pen feature.

It was easy to use and had enough features even for the lite version.The upgraded version is $11 per month.  From what I can see, the only feature that really makes me want the upgraded version is the ability to save videos to your camera roll. With the lite version you can still join groups, share assignments with others, and save drafts.  The only real problem was that for the life of me I could not embed the actual video into my blog post.  The link takes you right to my profile, though.

Tech Edge: iPads in the Classroom

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The first episode I viewed covered mainly language arts related apps, but also some history related things at the end. The first one mentioned was the Word Mover app. In the app, you can take a series of words from a famous passage, speech, or poem and move them around as you please. For instance, you can take the Gettysburg Address, shuffle the words up, and move them back into the original order; or in a twist, you can create something new using the original words. While this was certainly my favorite of the apps mentioned, it still doesn’t resonate for me as a future middle level or secondary language arts teacher. I have a hard time seeing 13-18 year old students getting any real use out of class time by playing around on any of the mentioned apps. For the middle level I can see something good coming out using Word Mover by creating new texts with the original, but not much outside of that.

Word Mover App: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-mover/id572997152?mt=8

The reading fluency episode had some ideas that I thought could stretch across several grade levels. The scholastic app that he explains at the beginning can be used for all ages and grades of students; it just depends on how you use it. He demonstrates how it can be used to time and log reading minutes for young readers; however, it could be easily used for high school aged students to help log study and reading time. Say a student wants to get in two hours of biology studying during the week. If he uses the timer, it will automatically help them keep up with their progress.

Scholastic Apps: http://www.scholastic.com/apps/#/src

This was my favorite of the episodes because it gave me a lot of ideas for my future classroom. As a student, I always look for ways to do projects and presentations in ways that are new and not overly done. The young ladies in this video showed a lot of apps that provide many formats for teachers and students both to use. The inspiration app had a lot of good charts and graphs for students to use for assignments, and for teachers to use when instructing. I feel that using different formats and modes of presentation are important in presenting material in interesting ways. There are two versions of the app, with the lite version costing $.99

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inspiration-maps-vpp/id510173686?mt=8

Comics in the Classroom

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App: Make Beliefs Comix
Price: Free ($4.99 version available)

Especially for the younger grades, comics can be a fun way to transition into a new lesson. For instance, the comic I made could be used as an intro to a speech class, or to introduce a unit on speeches for an English class. This app has quite a few fun characters to choose from. From a teacher standpoint, it seems a little bit cheesy to use. However, it can be a really fun way for students to spice up PowerPoint presentations and other projects.

It only offers 3 square comics, but you can obviously make more than one if needed.

My first Tellagami

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App: Tellagami
Link to app: Tellagami https://appsto.re/us/nK0iI.i
Price: Free ($4.99 for education version)

Tellagami is a mobile app that lets you create and share a quick animated video called a Gami.

My favorite way to apply this to my classroom would be as a mix up from the usual reading lecture notes off of the podium. For things like a poem or a famous speech, this would be a fun way to take the boredom out of just saying it aloud.

On my Tellagami, I explained the basics of an English sonnet, which is something I learned about when I was a junior in high school. I would ideally use it on a PowerPoint where I can introduce the lesson in a fun way. With the extended version of the app, I could make him narrate the poem, too.

The free app has some limits. For instance, it allows you to record your voice for it, but the paid version lets you type in what you want it to say. I think it might be weird to have this animated character have your own voice.

Word Clouds in the Classroom

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To show how world clouds can be used in the classroom, I used a poem I read in high school called “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. I remember that when we studied the poem, our teacher instructed us to go from stanza to stanza and choose words that were important, appeared frequently, or both. For this, I used the first stanza of the poem and punched it into the app.

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TagCloud was only 99 cents and I chose the app for a couple of reasons:
1) It was the first one that popped up.
2) It had more than a few good reviews.

There are many options that make this easy to use. For the poem, I just copied the first stanza and pasted it into the text box. It then gives you some options to filter what words and how many of them appear. It automatically excludes common English words like and, it, and the so that they don’t get featured as common words. You can, however, change that feature if you do want to see those words. It also automatically excludes numbers, even if they are written out such as “seven.” You can change this, too.

Once you are done, it allows you to just save it to your camera roll for easy sharing, messaging, or embedding.

I can really see this being used for English classes. For example, they can punch their essays into it to see which words they are overusing or underusing. I think poetry and other literature is a great use for this app. A lot of times, the words that pop up the most can show what kind of message authors want to get across.

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