New Tech Standards and Requirements

The three OETS standards that are the most significant to me are:

1. Creativity and Innovation
2. Communication and Collaboration
3. Technology Operations and Concepts

Creativity and innovation are significant concepts an any classroom and teaching social sciences is not different.  It is important for me as a teacher to be innovative in the ways that I use technology to teach my students.  It has been well documented the budget cutbacks that many school districts are presently experiencing across the country. This means it is pertinent to come up with creative ways to utilize the technology that is available.  The are various free news applications available that can be used in the classroom.  Teaching social sciences, news apps can be extremely valuable in keeping students connected to current events that can be related directly to the curriculum.

Communication and collaboration is extremely valuable in the classroom.  The things that I find most useful are social networking tools.  Facebook in particular can be of value.  There are many reliable pages that are available through Facebook that can be handy, easily accessible tools for me to use in my classroom.  Blogs are also extremely useful and I will be using class blogs in my teaching.  Blogs provide an important outside the class resource for students to have access to their teacher and curriculum. 

I think that technology operations and concepts kind of tie everything together.  Students are learning more about a greater expanse of technology than teachers are.  Technology evolves and students evolve with it.  This demands that teachers stay on top of changes in technology.  This requires more than just learning about technology.  It requires that I continually learn how to USE new technologies and come up with creative ways to incorporate them into the classroom.

There are two challenges that I feel are obstacles in implementing technology in the classroom.  The first is finances.  Money will always be an issue.  Schools cannot afford to buy every new technology that is available.  The solution in my mind is creativity.  I cannot control the finances of a school district.  I cannot make them wealthy.  But I can control the way my classroom utilizes the technology we have available.  It comes back to creativity and innovation.  I have to find ways to use what is available to me and do so successfully.  The second challenge is becoming complacent in the knowledge of technology.  Teachers cannot become complacent and feel they know enough about technology (or think they don't need any more).  The moment this complacency occurs technology has passed you by.  Students will always be exposed to new technology and will adapt to new technologies.  It is vital to adapt with them.  

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

I have used spreadsheets for school and business, yet I found this assignment to be educational.  I was not familiar with creating a spreadsheet with Google Docs.  All of my experience has been with Excel.  I admit that I enjoyed using Google Docs to create this spreadsheet and found it to be a little more user friendly than Excel.  I have included a link to my spreadsheet here.

I think this can be a very handy tool in analyzing student growth in the classroom.  It allows you to clearly see where progress is or is not occurring.  As a teacher I would be pleased overall with the results this spreadsheet shows.  Everyone passed the test and all but one student showed improvement from pre-test to post-test. The average test score improved from 46% to 91%.  However, I see room for improvement.  The student who did not show improvement dropped a grade level from A to B from pre-test to post-test.  I would probably examine why this occurred.  Also, initially I was concerned that there were two students that scored Cs on the post-test.  That concern quickly faded when I noticed their pre-test scores were two of the lowest and were not passing scores.  That is incredible progress.  I can clearly see how spreadsheets can be useful for analyzing data for a teacher.

ScreenR

The purpose of this screencast is to be a brief tutorial on the basic uses of Teamviewer.  I'm not in anyway an expert on Teamviewer, but I believe this screencast provides a basic look at the simple functionality of the tool.

Personal Productivity Tools

TinyURL is exactly what the name says.  It takes a long, difficult url and shrinks it down to be much more manageable.  A long url with over 80 characters can be shrunk down to a more manageable 20 characters.  This can help teachers and students with personal productivity and learning by cleaning things up.  Teachers and students do not need to use up so much space to include an extremely long url.  It makes them short, brief, and clear.  No more jumbled up characters needed to create a link. 

Dropbox is essentially an online hard drive.  You can store information that can be accessed remotely by various computers.  This allows students and teachers to access information from various locations.  It eliminates the need for students and teachers to carry around flash drives.  In particular it is handy for students to use to access information when not present in the classroom. 

Teamviewer is a tool that provides remote access from computer to computer.  It allows computers to be linked together from anywhere.  This can help teachers and students with personal productivity and learning by giving teachers and students access to each other outside of the classroom.  As a student needs individual help teachers can connect remotely and view what is on the student's computer to give help.  This expands the classroom further than the walls of the school can reach. 

What is Cloud Computing and Web 2.0?

Cloud Computing and Web 2.0 are services that allow people to access information from various places instead of just from a local computer.  It allows users to store different kinds of information via the internet instead of on computer.  It also allows collaboration and participation by various users via the internet.  Interaction can be achieved through the use of Cloud Computing and Web 2.0.  Users can access and edit information at the same time instead of just reading information from a one way source on the internet.  Ultimately, they provide interaction and collaboration over the internet with participants in various locations using a variety of computing devices. 

Google Forms Project

The purpose of my group's activity was to provide a brief explanation as to the features and uses of shared Google Presentations. My group used Google Presentations to create a brief slide show illustrating features of the program. 

Slide show:
https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ac6RK1gIM99lZHNybWh2dF81NjdkYmNjcHdkZA

Survey
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgwEJuJVSN-edHNfeWZiLUJGVEExb0Z5SUNZN2Zqc2c#gid=0

 I did not actively participate in this project as I have been trying to catch up in my classes.  I was recovering from flood damage during the first week and a half.  The members of my group prepared a wonderful presentation and survey.  As I did the research for the project I was surprised at how easy shared Google Presentations are to collaborate on.  The presentations were manageable and were easy to navigate.  As I read emails from my group I was able to see that even when small problems arose they were quickly worked through with group help. 

Video Reflections

There were two things that really stuck out to me from the videos we watched in the welcome activity.  First, from the Shift Happens video I was very interested in the comparison between the mobile devices many people carry around and the computer at MIT in 1965.  The comparison was drawn that the mobile device that fits in our pockets is a thousand times more powerful than the computer that filled up an entire building at MIT in 1965.  This comparison is extremely dramatic and opened my eyes to another realization:  Not only are many of us carrying this powerful instrument around with us, but the students I want to teach at the high school level can probably operate it better than I can.  It is necessary for me as an educator to learn and adapt as technology advances so that I can take advantage of important technological tools that can be used in education.

The second item came from the Tech Impact on Educators video.  It was noted in the video that the world is smaller and is happening in real time.  Technology allows students to observe these happenings in real time.  I plan on being a social studies teacher and this requires the study of what is occurring in our world right now.  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and other various sites, allow students to observe and participate in a real time, shrinking world.  This interaction and observation can serve as a vital tool in education.

Blogging in Education

I view blogs as a wonderful tool to use as an educator.  One of the aspects I find useful is access it gives students to the teacher, classmates, and classroom without being present in the classroom.  Students are provided greater access through blogs to quality information and social interaction when they are not actively present in the classroom.  This would allow me as the teacher to post instructions, assignments, or study guides to a blog where the students would have access at anytime.  It also allows me as the teacher to encourage blogging between students.  This promotes conversation outside of the classroom in a social networking setting where students can engage in conversation and collaboration in addition to regular classroom interaction. 

I also look at blogging as tool for me personally to use as a teaching journal.  I can document teaching experiences, lesson plans, and insights that I personally go through.  This can be a reflective tool for myself, but also a tool for peers who are interested in following my blog.  This type of blogging can promote engaging discussion between educators over tips and techniques that were or were not successful in the classroom. 

The most important use I see blogging providing is an additional source for students outside the classroom to gain access to additional learning.  I believe that students respond well to the use of social media in their schooling.  Because social media is embedded in our culture - especially in the culture of our youth - this kind of tool is significant in providing quality education.  

MY BIO

I am a native Oregonian.  I was born and raised in southern Oregon in an extremely large family.  I was the seventh born of nine children to wonderful parents.  There were always big shoes to fill as we all attended the same elementary, middle, and high school.  As you can imagine, any family get together is an extremely loud affair - and that is how we prefer it.

I initially pursued my college education at Brigham Young University.  I took a two year hiatus from college to go on two year volunteer religious mission for my church.  I spent two years living in northern Virginia and the Washington D.C. area.  As a passionate American history buff, it was such an amazing place to live.  After two years I returned to Brigham Young University where I attempted to walk on to the football program.  Injury brought my college football career to an end and I returned to Oregon.  I married my wonderful wife and we continued our education together.  We both graduated at the same time, with different degrees, from different Universities - her from Oregon Institute of Technology and me from Eastern Oregon University - but on the same day.  We have a two year old son who is the greatest blessing in our life.  He is a terror and a sweetheart and we love every minute of it.

I have several hobbies that mostly stem from sports.  I love athletics and being active.  When I could no longer play college football I had the opportunity to play semi-pro football for several years.  I'm always on the lookout for a pickup game of basketball.  From time to time I moonlight in slow-pitch softball leagues during the summer months.  I just love getting out and being active.  

My passion for teaching stems from a desire to provide a service that becomes an inseparable part of the consumer.  Education is one of the few items that can never be taken away from an individual.  I wish to be a part of delivering this service to the consumer.  My desire is to teach high school and middle school students.  I feel that my skill set is best served working with these age groups.  I look forward to what this adventure brings.