April Paustian's List: A. Paustian's Bookmarks

My shared bookmarks

This issue of Learning and Leading with Technology has several very interesting teaching ideas, including one article which deals with "Social Networking in the k-12 Set"

Teacher Lingo is self described as "An Educational Community to Connect Teachers at Every Level." It is a collection of blogs from teachers of all types and disciplines. I really think that this website suits NETS-T 5a because the site allows teachers to learn from each other and draw on one anothers' experiences without having to convene directly together. There is a search function on the site that allows the teacher to search for blog entries related to their interests. When I typed in technology, a myriad of blogs came up. One interesting entry that I viewed was from a PE teacher who discovered a way to integrate slow motion video technology into his unit on juggling. I never would have thought about using technology in a PE class, which is why this site is great because there are ideas for any subject matter a teacher could be interested in, based on the actual classroom experience of real teachers.

5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

Teachers 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. Teachers:

a. participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.

The library at Minor Elementary School has developed a web quest for teachers to use that teaches students a very important aspect of web etiquette and responsibility: how to Become a Safe "Surfer." Rather than just giving or telling students the rules on how to be safe in internet interactions, this webquest allows them to discover the answers for themselves. The library has compiled several pertinent websites with the rules we all want our students to learn about safe surfing. My favorite part was the section on the projects that students will complete. Students have several options on how to present the ten etiquette rules they discover: writing a letter about internet concerns to their parents, designing a poster or powerpoint for younger students about safe surfing, making a personal poster for the student's workspace to remind him or her about the rules. These are all good activities because they make the students think about the rules in a manner that requires them to explain the importance to someone else (or to remind themselves).

ISTE NETS for Teachers Standard:
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. Teachers:

c. promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.

In this article, various teachers from the Education World website give strategies for how to use basic technology in the classroom in order to enrich lesson plans. The first tool was the Internet, which is an important tool for teachers to command an understanding of because there is such a wealth of information there. One suggestion was that teachers can develop scavenger hunts for information so that teachers aren't just giving out info but teaching students how to find it for themselves. Other tools were such common things as word processing programs and Excel or PowerPoint. These are programs are meant to put together information into things like graphs, presentations, and papers. My favorite suggestion in the article for how to share knowledge was for the teacher to make herself available online in a chat room for a couple hours a week after school for "office hours." This would be particularly efficient when projects are due because it gives the students access to added guidance as they work.

NETS for Teachers Standard:
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning

Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society. Teachers:

c. communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats.

This article discusses a writing class which is, interestingly enough, called World of Warcraft: Narrative Forms in the Digital Classroom. Whereas many English classrooms rely almost exclusively on the text-based literary canon, the teachers of this class acknowledge that there are many ways that our society tells stories. Capitalizing on the popularity of video games and their importance to many students, these games become a tool in the classroom for understanding narrative technique and how it contrasts with other narrative forms. This course also integrates the medium of film, as many movies are based in books and many video games are based in movies. Assignments for this class include the traditional papers, but also make use of blogs and culminate in the creation of a videogame based on one of the literary texts they read. Students get to negotiate between all the mediums and learn what kind of writing is required for each one, as well as how all of the writing is interconnected. Although this was an introductory college English course, I can see video games integrated in a high school classroom in this manner to help students better understand storytelling methodology.

Nets for Teachers Standard:
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. Teachers:

a. design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

In this web article, Peter H. Reynolds explains his enthusiasm for ISTE's emphasis on creativity in the classroom through technology. In order to help teachers integrate this standard into their classrooms, Reynolds offers six tips to take the standard out of the realm of theory and into actual practice. His strongest recommendation is to use blank-page software in which the student have some control over the content that they experience. His next suggestion is to buy graphics tablets and pens to use with the computers so that students can input their artwork directly into the pc. His next three ideas, giving time and freedom, and making sure that students develop a mission in their work, and ensuring that students feel and express love, should be common practice in the classroom now, but Reynold's acknowledges that they are absolute essentials for creativity. His final suggestion is that teachers use strong leadership skills to take control of their classrooms and engineer a creative environment.
ISTE NETS for Teachers Standard and indicator: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments.
A. Teachers:promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.

This website is committed to saving writing in the digital age. As a society we are moving away from text-based writing and resorting to brief communications like emails or media messages like films and ads. This site gives ideas on how to maintain art forms like poetry in society and make it relevant to today's world.

This site is great because, like the other bookmarks that I have compiled, it has found websources that relate specifically to the NETS and their implementation in the classroom. There are many different options and lesson ideas.

This is a newsletter that I compiled with a fellow education student in which we introduce ourselves, our teaching philosophies, and our subject matter goals.

I work on this blog, adding reviews of various articles from the ISTE publication Learning and Leading with Technology and reviews of a couple of websites, including Diigo itself.