This course has easily been one of my favorites in my entire graduate program. I have learned about many useful tools that I can’t wait to host training on. Each tool that I came across this semester can be valuable to K12 teachers. My favorite assignment was creating the course site. I plan on it being the foundation for a training site that I can use for the professional development classes that I teach. Each week, the projects we had to complete had me excited to learn something new. Many classes can’t produce that type of emotion. This class has been very essential to my improvement as a trainer.
Project 1 We had to create a Lesson Plan for our first project. It was a good beginning project but it laid down the foundation for what the rest of the course would be like. I had never done a lesson plan before, but I found it very helpful to get things organized and planned first. Having this lesson plan would also be good to give someone to let them gauge how a potential course would be Project 2 For this project, I created a Google Form that would be used as a survey to assess a teacher’s Google Skills before they took my course. In the past, I have only used Google Forms to create an evaluation form that could give me feedback on how well my training had gone and what I could do to improve. The only needs assessment survey I had done before was when I was working in K12, I assisted in helping the Federal Programs department conduct one. The survey had to be given to the administrators, teachers, students, and parents to get their opinions on how the thought the previous school year had gone. The information gathered was then used to make adjustments to the budget and curriculum. Project 3 I created a Google Doc and Google Slide for this project. The Google Doc I created was one that was used as an assignment on my course site. The document gave editing rights to whoever I gave access to the link. The assignment I placed with the document was to add their own photo with a subheading. I also went into suggestion mode and left comments for my teammates to see. The Google Slide I created was based on the the Google Slide Add-on called Pear Deck. It was a step-by-step tutorial on how to install a Google App Add-on. Add-ons give the different Google Apps just a few more functions that they didn’t normally have. Project 4 I created a Podcast on my favorite Google Chrome extensions. Extensions, not to be confused with Add-ons are very similar in their functions. While add-ons are for the actual Google Apps, extensions are for Google Chrome. There are thousands of extensions, but I only covered a small handful of the ones I found to be most useful for education. Project 5 I created a video tutorial on Google Extensions and Google Slide Add-ons. The extension I covered was Screencastify. It allows you to record everything that you actually see on your screen. It is perfect for creating video tutorials. The add-on I demonstrated was the same one from Project 3, Pear Deck, Only this time I actually had a video tutorial instead of just the Google Slide presentation from Project 3. Project 6 I really like using EdPuzzle. For this project, I had to create a interactive video. EdPuzzle lets you take a video and add questions directly into the video for students to answer, effectively letting people learn and take assessments at nearly the same time. This is perfect for K12. I was very surprised that I had not heard of this before now. It is PERFECT for K-12. I do plan on sharing this with my friends that teach in K-12. Project 7 My favorite assignment this semester, the course site will eventually be the course site that I will use when I conduct my training. In addition to my job as Director of IT at Southwest MS Community College, I am also an adjunct instructor there as well. This is the main location that I teach my Google Apps in the Classroom course. I have also taught it at several other school districts as well. This will go a long way into making the course better, I can’t wait to use it full blown. Project 8 Padlet is a online forum type of software. Once you create a Padlet, you can give access to certain users or even make it public. Padlet lets those users post notes and a wide variety of file types to for all of the other users to see. This is easily one of my favorite collaboration tools. I liked Padlet so much, that last semester I used it as my tutorial site topic. Project 9 I had to create an online quiz with a software called Quizziz. I really enjoyed how easy it was to use. I really think teachers would enjoy this as an alternative to Google Forms. Another great feature that Quizziz has over the Google Forms is that from the dashboard, you can search for quizzes created from other users based on a wide variety of topics. I was very impressed with this one. RubiStar is the software that was used to create the rubrics. This was actually easier to create than the quiz with Quizziz. It featured a lot of pre-set categories which could really speed up the process if you are low on time. Project 10 Thinglink would rate as a tie with Padlet for being my favorite tool. With Thinglink, you can choose any graphic and make it interactive by adding buttons or links to other resources. There are so many options and potential uses, that I can’t wait to try it out again. I can see this being used on a website or even a Google Document with links that could go to other documents on YouTube videos. ScoopIt is a site that allows you to select your topic, and other articles from around the web will populate your page. It is a great way to for research on a subject that needs more recent information. Often, when searching for certain topics, you may pull information that is irrelevant and out of date. ScoopIt eliminates that completely. I do I think I had more strengths than weaknesses in the class due to my experience of 16 years as a technology coordinator in a K-12 environment. It made it easier to visually why certain tools needed to be used and which tools would work best. My weaknesses or drawbacks for me was that I was taking 3 courses this summer and starting a brand new job, so this summer has been a hard one mentally. I will be either using all of the tools or at least introducing them to my teacher friends. The only tool I probably won’t be using is RubiStar. For the Google Apps course that I teach, it was the one tool that doesn’t fit my course structure. All in all, I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot each week, and using Weebly as a site tool, has grown on me.
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For these particular assignments, I had to use several different types of tech tools. The only one that I was familiar with was Padlet. Padlet is a online collaboration tool that allows users to post notes, ideas, files, and even video into one location for group members to see. You can go view my padlet here. I actually created a tutorial site based on Padlet last semester. You can check it out here.
The Internet is a public communication area that many believe is protected by the First Amendment. Others believe that its contents should be moderated and the public protected from inappropriate content. What is your view on this controversial issue, particularly in light of the extensive use of the Internet in schools?
I do believe that the content on the Internet should be regulated. In all other forms of media, whether it be video, photos, or music there are regulations to protect potential younger viewers, so why not something as easily accessible as the Internet? There has been much discussion about whether distance education can provide students instruction that is equal in quality to traditional education. Do you think an equivalent experience is possible via distance delivery? Why or why not? In the past I would have said no, but after putting together several distance learning programs, and being enrolled in my online master's degree program, I've changed my opinion. I have learned a great amount and on the same level as I would have inside of a physical classroom. I believe the biggest issue with distance learning is time. I would almost prefer doing all online courses at this point because of the positive experiences I've had. The assignment for this week was to create a website for a class that we would be teaching. For ITD 645, I have based my class on the actual Google Apps in the Classroom course that I teach to various K-12 teachers across southern Mississippi. I felt that these assignments that I have been doing this summer would help me improve my teaching skills and methods. I really like using Weebly as website creation tool. It is very simple to use and has great features. I'm defnitely going to be using this website once this class is over as I can base the professional development courses I teach around it. The link to my site is: https://gsuiteclass.weebly.com/ This week, I worked on 3 projects that incorporated various e-learning tools: podcasts, Edpuzzle, and a story video. I can definitely seen a teacher using these tools to enhance learning in their classroom.
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