Final EDU 585 Post

All good things must come to an end!

Going back through and rereading all of my blog posts for this class, I could definitely see some growth of understanding, and comfort level with ed tech increasing with each post!

In the beginning, I was a little unsure of what to expect, and I wondered if this class might be a challenge since I haven’t worked with too many ed tech tools. One thing I did understand from the start is that educational technologies MUST be driven by the instructional goal, and the technology is used to enhance that goal (and not driven by the technology alone).

After weeks of exploring ed tech tools and learning the value of them throughout this class, I have formed a main objective or goal for my future use of ed tech tools in the classroom:

Main objective: To create meaningful content and an authentic learning environment using technologies to support instructional goals.

To achieve this main objective, I have outlined specific tools I would like to use to help enhance my future students’ learning experiences, as well as outlined the specific objectives of those tools while using the ISTE student standards as a framework.

Tool: HyperDocs

Objective: To allow teachers to be able to work one-on-one with their students while the other students are learning through a HyperDoc lesson. The HyperDoc lessons will be engaging, meaningful, and relevant. They will in no way be used as “busy work” to keep other students occupied while the teacher gets significant one-on-one work done with another student. Not only can HyperDocs be another way to teach kids and another means to deliver content, but it can almost even act as another teacher to allow us to find that time to work with struggling students.

Also, HyperDocs is a valuable use of technology for the students, as it really allows students to be in charge of their own learning. Tasks can be outlined for the students to allow them to go through them at their own pace. This accountability can help drive students’ motivation to learn. With this accountability, a HyperDoc lesson can help fulfill the first ITSE standard for students of becoming an empowered learner.

HyperDocs can serve as additional information in conjunction with teacher-led lessons. A HyperDoc lesson can be used as a way to give students the opportunity to explore a topic first, and then the teacher can verbally explain it and get into the lesson. This gives students the chance to get a little sneak peek into a lesson before it is officially taught. They can form their own questions and wonderings ahead of time. I feel this can create a really meaningful learning experience, as not only is the teacher going in with some prior knowledge on the subject, but the students can as well.  For really important lessons, not only can the teacher teach them, but they can also use HyperDocs to really reinforce the content and points of the lessons that really need it.

Tool: Quizizz

Objective: Formative Assessment

I chose Quiziz for my formative assessment tool because overall it is just as beneficial to the student as it is to the teacher. Creating meaningful formative assessments within this tool is quite simple. The students can enjoy it and have their attention kept with the fun memes in between the quiz questions. After answering each question, students can see how they ranked in real-time with other participants. All of the graphics, sounds, and even fonts are all really pleasing. The pleasing layout and being able to see rankings in real-time can truly help to keep the students engaged, and they may not even realize they are being formatively assessed. For the teacher, the results of the quiz are reported in real-time, and with the results and overviews function, a teacher can really get a quick snapshot of students’ individual and overall strengths and weaknesses. This tool can help students to demonstrate their learning competency, just like stated in ITSE standard # 1 of the empowered learner.

Tool: Adobe Spark

Objective: A great tool to use for lessons plans when a teacher plans to be out. Quite often when a classroom teacher leaves sub plans, the lesson is not always delivered as the teacher intended, thus, becomes less meaningful. As educators, we strive to make each and every lesson meaningful. With Adobe Spark, the teacher can video record herself or audio record herself presenting a lesson and giving instructions. It can be tough for students to connect with a substitute; however, they may be able to make a connection with the lesson when the teacher is not there if they see her and/or hear her voice. Creating within Adobe Spark was effortless but can certainly be worth a lot for the students.

Adobe Spark would also be a fun way to make a video to introduce a new topic to gauge students’ interest before the teacher verbally starts to explain it. If a student goes into a new topic or lesson with some prior knowledge of it, it can help them to already feel connected to the new topic. When there is already a connection formed, this could help the student to stay interested and pay better attention to the lesson, aiding in creating a knowledge constructor as in ITSE standard for students #3.

Tool: EdPuzzle/PlayPosit

Objective: Quick way to add more meaning to a lesson in a pinch. Now a days, classrooms use technologies every day. The goal is to create a blended learning environment between teacher-lead lessons, as well as a good mix of ed tech. Tools like EdPuzzle and PlayPosit are a good way to quickly create lessons to help create that blended learning environment. With the benefits of using ed tech in the classroom, sometimes we need to be able to create something meaningful quickly since we may be creating many pieces. These two tools are useful for that quick creation to ensure ed tech is being used in the classroom.

Tool: Google Forms

Objective: Pre/Post formative assessment. I can use Google Forms to create a formative quiz that I can give to students prior to presenting a lesson, as well as after presenting a lesson. It can be the same quiz, with the same questions. This will help me to understand what the students know on a topic before I teach it to them, as well as let me know what they have learned from the topic after I have taught it to them. I can use this information to adjust my lesson, reteach a certain area, or know that the students are ready to move on. Compiling a quiz within Google Forms is very easy. There are not as many “bells and whistles” as say Quizizz, nor is it meant to really be as engaging and fun for the students. That’s okay, as the purpose of this is not really to entertain the students, it is for me to be able to assess to get results and use the results accordingly. When a teacher is able to understand where a student is at within a certain topic, this can help the teacher to then make the right next instructional steps for the students to help them become innovative designers and computational thinkers (ITSE standards for students #4 and #5). When a teacher successfully formatively assesses students, she can be sure she is not moving on too quickly for a student, to make sure they can in fact master a topic successfully.

Tool: Google Slides/Google Doc

Objective: For students to articulate their own understanding and ideas. For the teacher to get an idea of what the students know, as well as for the students to be able to collaborate on assignments.

My intended grade level to teach will be lower elementary, grades K-3. While using ed tech for these grades can prove to be easy for them in the sense of them watching videos, reading content, listening to audio, clicking on answers, or anything pretty basic like that, these younger grades may not be able to use ed tech in a deeper sense of creation like older students will be able to do. However, I did still want to choose a tool where students can still be able to somehow create within and be able to articulate their understanding of a topic. For this purpose of needing a tool where younger, less experienced students can create something in, I chose Google Docs and Google Slides. For a younger student to be able to communicate with me what they know, they can use a Google Doc as a “brain dump”. They can type words, use pictures, as well as voice record what they may know. This is simple enough for younger students but can still provide me with valuable information on what they know, in their own words. This also gives the students a chance to be the creator, as opposed to always just being the audience member, so to say. With Google Slides, students would be able to collaborate and work together building slides. This can be done with them even sitting across the room from each other! When students reach a level of being able to collaborate and work together creating within a tool, not only are they working as a digital citizen (ITSE standard #2), they are also working as creative communicators (#6) and global collaborators (#7) with each other!

In conclusion, I will strive to use these tools and many more when I have my own classroom. I will continue to explore tools that will help me to meet my instructional needs. I will incorporate blended learning using verbal lessons as well as ed tech. The technology I use will be there to support the learning goals!

APPSolutely the Last Time

APPSolutely the Last Time!

For this last time of exploring an app/tech tool, I decided to revisit a couple of tools I have used before. I do love the feature of including videos (like with EdPuzzle and PlayPosit). And I really enjoyed creating a slide deck presentation lesson with Google Slides. And I really liked creating quizzes, like within Google Forms and Quizziz. I wanted to see how I could kind of combine the functions of including quizzes, videos, and a slide deck. I wanted to see if I could make a slide deck more interactive for students. 

I started with a Google Slide presentation that I had already created for a few assignments ago. It just had simple slides with lesson points, and I had some animations included to attempt to make it more visually appealing. I wanted to see how I could create a quiz within Google Slides to add on to it. I watched a couple of YouTube tutorials on how to create quizzes within Google Slides. There really is not a quiz function. You have to get creative. 

Basically, to create quiz questions within Google Slides, you have to link slides together, which I had not done before. For example, for a multiple-choice question, next to each answer option I inserted a circle shape for the students to click on. To make it interactive when they click on an answer option shape, I had to insert a link that when they clicked on that option, it brought them to either a "correct" or "incorrect" slide. 

It did take a little while to create the questions and link each individual answer to another slide, and make sure all of the links went to the appropriate next question. It definitely was not as quick as Quizziz or Google Forms.

For this style of a quiz, the students can take it, but there is not a way for it to be graded, so it is just more for practice for the students as opposed to the teacher being able to evaluate results. I then decided to take a Google Forms quiz that I had already created on the same topic, and embed that into one of the slides. That way there COULD be a quiz in there where the teacher could analyze the results on the back end. However, I found that I could not actually embed the quiz directly into one of the slides. I could still include the link, but would prefer to have it embedded, as it is just more visually appealing and has a better flow.

Overall, I really do enjoy creating within Google Slides. While there may be limitations within Google Slides itself, there of course is always the options of including "outside" tools within the slides. 

Here is the final product:

Tech, Apps, and Tools: Oh My!

Tech, Apps, and Tools: Oh My!

And so we trek on with the ed tech tools and app journey!

This week, I chose to explore Canva to help me deliver content for future lessons. I have used it once before in another grad class I took a couple of semesters ago, but barely touched upon it. At the time, we were prompted to use it as an ice-breaker-type activity to create a quick visual, but barely got into any of its features or capabilities. For this semester, it has been brought up a couple of times in class, so I decided to try it out again and dig just a little deeper. 

Long story short: I tried it to create a little lesson on the water cycle. I wan't "wowed" by it, but wasn't really disappointed with it. I might keep it in mind for future lessons, but it was not my favorite. 

It seems Canva is geared more towards graphics and detailed visual aids. It would be really good for making promotions for businesses or events. I can see using this to create posters, flyers, or promotional/event/business pages. I had to dig through the endless tutorials to find one that was geared towards the presentation aspect of it, comparable to Power Point or Google Slides. Compared to the last two tools I chose to create within, EdPuzzle and Play Posit (where they were both SO easy to create within, and I could create a lesson within one sitting), I found that it took a handful of sittings to create an equally meaningful lesson within Canva. 

Creating within it, I found that there seem to be a gazillion template options, but again, most seemed to be geared toward business or marketing promotion. There are a lot of template options and customization, almost too many to the point that it was almost overwhelming. It is extremely visual-centered. Almost too much. Adding slides was pretty standard. Since I have enjoyed creating within Google Slides, and I enjoyed the animation feature within Google Slides, I searched within Canva for an animation feature. I could not find an animation feature. I did, however, find a "stickers" option where I could add fun little graphics that had a little animation to them. Upon digging a little deeper I did see that there is an animation feature with the paid version. In fact, there seems to be a TON more options in the paid version. Even some very simple images and even many fonts are only available in the paid version. 

Compared to Google Slides, I have found that there are way more free options for Google Slides compared to Canva. I was surprised at how many basic-ish fonts were even only available with the paid version of Canva. Also, within Canva, I found that there were many aspects of it that I had to Google on how to use them where as in Google Slides, it was much more self-explainable. Another odd thing: I could not find an underline option for the text! I even tried different fonts to see if they brought up the underline tool, but it did not. 

As far as videos, these past couple of weeks I had been used to creating within EdPuzzle and Play Posit, where they had plenty of already created videos to choose from. However, Canva does not. They do have background videos of scenery and whatnot, but not already created videos from other users. Of course, you can still add a YouTube video and alike, but I even found the "add video" feature hard to find. It seemed as if the tab to add a video was almost hidden. You had to scroll all the way down on the left menu side, and even so it was not nearly as straight forward as Google Slides. The embed and video option is hidden at the bottom, under a "more" button. Not sure why this option is so hidden... (take note that he "videos" option seen in the below screenshot is only for those background videos I mentioned).

Speaking of background videos, I did find that in the end I did enjoy adding a background video of rain (ya know, for the water cycle) and being able to overlay some text over the video...

Also, comparing to the most recent tech tools I've used (EdPuzzle and Play Posit), I searched for an audio notes tool within Canva, but did not find one. 

As far as adding images, I do recall another classmate mentioning how she had some issues trying to add images within Canva. In my limited experience with Canva recently, I found that I was able to add images I found from the web just fine (just a simple "copy and paste" worked fine for me). 

All in all, for my personal experience and needs, I would rate Canva a 7/10. It was not a very quick initial experience for me. I certainly prefer Google Slides over Canva. However, for any poster or flyer needs, I would consider using Canva.

Click HERE for my Canva presentaion. (Sorry, would normally embed, but could not find an "embed" option in Canva, and while trying to embed I accidentally erased my whole blog post. Thank goodness for Ctrl-Z!!!).