NECC Day 2 - Monday, Second and third sessions

My second session for the day was Spreadsheets: A Dynamic Path to Understanding Math with Wendy Petti. This was a BYOL session that I had to sign up for earlier and this presenter chose to contact those attending earlier in the month to get some information on who was coming to the session and what level she could start out with, which I thought was good planning on her part. So we actually started at a more intermediate level, which was a nice change of pace. Petti had created a series of Excel spreadsheet math activities to use and each of us got one of the electronic packets to work with during the session.

Here are a few things I learned from this session:
- You can create hyperlinks between Excel worksheets in addition to having the sheets listed on the bottom of your workbook.
- Pretti encourages the use of graphs as a hands on activity before turning to using graphs on a spreadsheet (This actually makes a lot of sense as the students will get a clear idea of how to create graphs before the program does it for them).
- In an ideal world, students are going to use spreadsheets to analyze data and solve problems they would encounter in real life
- if you want to find the sum of a positive and negative number, you can actually use negative numbers in a sum formula. I didn't know you could use negative numbers!
- If you just want to show an equal sign, use a single quote sign and the equal in the cell (“=) and it won’t be part of a formula.
- Good Tip: When you make templates, just go ahead and change font and size to be bigger, so it’s easier to see

The next session I went to was Strategies for Using Blogs and Wikis with Special Education Students with Lara Long, from Fairfax County Schools. For me, this session focused more on strategies to use with Special Education students, then the strategies for how to use blogs and wikis with Special Education students, which is what I was really looking for. Being the tech specialist that I am, I wanted to see specific examples of Special Education students using blogs and wikis and the good and bad stuff the presenter had run into when implementing this with students. So it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but I did walk away with some good ideas:
- For organization and planning purposes, use a graphic organizer to build the wiki
definiton, with examples
- Vocabulary and definitions are good things to use on a wiki and have the students work on them using the wiki and then students can get access from anywhere and it's an ongoing activity, that can be used with the community, and gives students practice time with reading and writing skills. Thinking more about this idea, I bet I could even have students add pictures and narration to the wiki and make it more interactive.
- Wikis can be used to teach special ed students functional life skills, example: A Community Travel and Field Trips wiki, which gives them something they’ve got knowledge about and have experienced

Some of what they’ve used to create wikis are: Portable word processors such as the Alphasmart Neo’s, which can then just be transfered into MS Word, adapted keyboards, such as Intellikeys, auditory word processors, word prediction software, and graphic organizer software. She also recommended www.readplease.com which is something they tell parents to download at home for student use.

After that I headed to the ITRT Pavilion, (thanks Tekkieteacher for this advice) for a session on Engaging students through active technology integrators and projects, which then ended up being cancelled. I did, however, get to see a quick demo on the Activboards and how they're new Inspired software can be used on any computer, without an activboard, just any old interactive whiteboard will do (this being a good thing since my school is a Smartboard/airliner school) and seeing some great ideas!

Wiki, Wiki...This Summer!

I am going to be participating in a summer PDS series on wikis provided by PBWorks.com, formally PBWiki, called "PBWorks Summer Camp"! I think I found this on Twitter last week and I took a look and immediately signed up. It's a FREE (we all know how I like free learning tools!), completely online summer PDS on how to use wikis in the classroom. It runs from June 22 - July 21 and every week I will have assignments to complete, webinars to participate in, and homework!

I have two reasons for doing participating in this: 1) While, I have learned about wikis before, I haven't really used them with a group of students and 2) There was some discussion earlier this year about the geography classes at my school wanting to use wikis, however, we all decided we weren't quite ready for that step. So I want to prepared to use them next year. Hopefully, through some of the assignments I have to do, I can start creating some ideas and lessons to get us ready for this!

The only hard part will be trying to complete assignments while I'm at NECC! If sounds like something you would be interested in, there's still time to register!

Teacher Plus Technology

Here's an update from one of my earlier posts about my wiki for my newsletters: I'm just about done with putting all of my current information on it! I'm calling the wiki Teacher Plus Technology, as I may use it for more than just my newsletters in the future. Here's the url for those interested: http://teacherplustechnology.wikispaces.com. If you would like to be a contributor, email me!

Great Idea!

I was talking with two of my classmates from grad school tonight, Amie and Jen, and they came up with a great idea! I should take all of my old website wednesday newsletters and put them into a wiki to share with everyone! I love this idea. Not only can I have a viable place to hold them, I can now sort them into categories for the different subjects I've covered. In addition to this, it would be another resource for my grad school portfolio-that's due before I graduate in May. I'm so excited-I want to get started now... :) I'll post my new wiki (and the other one I joined today for SOL review) soon. Geesh, that's a lot of wikis for me, especially since I knew so little only a few weeks ago. If I could choose a song for this mood, it would definitely be "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters. Gotta go!

Help Wanted

I received an email from my district today which made me realize it's time to start preparing the teachers in my building for SOL reviews. In the state of Virginia, the SOL's or Standards of Learning are the state-mandated tests that are given every May. This email talked about a session for ITRT's and how we can start preparing teachers with extra resources. I think it's a great idea and wondered what I could contribute to the group. Being a second year ITRT, I didn't really realize what I needed to prepare last year, therefore I don't have many resources that I created myself.

While thinking this over, I wondered how blogs could be used as an SOL review resource. Are they even good for this sort of thing? I suppose teachers could put websites that include study guides on their blogs, but could the process of writing on their own blog help students? What about a wiki? What ideas do you have?

Wiki Thoughts

After reading chapters 4, 6, and 9 in Richardson's book, I've had several thoughts come to mind about wikis. The first being one that I think most educators would think about-"How do you trust what people put on them?" This is something I know that my county and me personally have thought about, especially with wikipedia. I've followed suit with most ITRT's and have said that it can be used as a secondary source only and that students need to double check the facts that they've found on it. But is this undermining what wikipedia is all about?

My second thought about wikis is about teacher use. I've surprised by how simple they are to use and that most teachers- digital immigrant or not - could use these very easily for their classes. Why shouldn't they? It's almost as easy as putting a wiki together as it is any other group project-the only difference is the broader audience.

I think I now have some good ideas to use in my building.

It's a Wiki World

I've been wanting to create a blog for a long time now and I am very happy with the ideas that I am coming up with and the resources I am finding to share on my blog. This past week, my classes started in on wikis. Wikis are a more collaborative version of a blog, in which a group or an organization can come together and share their thoughts and ideas, instead of just an individual. While I've heard of wikis before, I've never had the opportunity to really be a part of one before. I feel slightly hesitant about having one of my own.

My group picked vocational education for our advocacy wiki. I like what we have done and I'm learning a lot more about wikis through this. I tend to wonder though, what other kinds of things wikis can be used for. I've heard of some teachers using it for their schools as a source for sharing resources, but what else could they be used for in education? In your personal life?

Here's a site I've found that describes wikis in more detail: What is a Wiki?