Technology of Choice: 30 Boxes

Practical Applications of “30 Boxes” in the classroom

            30 boxes is an online calendar program that allows you to keep your work and social life organized all on the same calendar.  30 Boxes gives you the ability to add friends and set certain events to private so that you can keep more personal events to yourself.  When you add friends and put them into groups, those people will then be able to see all of the events related to that group.  For example, your 4^th period English class will be able to see all events and assignments for their specific class, however they will not be able to see the schedule for your 5^th period English class.   30 Boxes gives you the ability to put everything from the first day of school to drinks with friends all in one place.

As it is shown this tool is very valuable for teachers in the new technological age we live in. Even though 30 boxes really is not a tool that will enhance a student’s knowledge in the classroom it is more to help keep them organized and up to date on assignments and tests. It is very easy for both teachers and students to operate. It is free and you just need to make a login, which requires an email and password. You just click on the boxes and input various events and can specifically put due dates or times for events. Example: you can post when a reading assignment need to be completed or you can post when people are giving their oral presentations.

            There is so much that teachers can do with this program that can benefit them in the classroom. We are interested in maybe coaching in High School. With this source you can post practices, games, and events to help out your players and coaches.

            Having the use of 30 Boxes allows teachers to be constantly connected to students and their parents. The ability for everyone to be informed is paramount. Instead of worry about if an assignment is due, or when a test is, or what lesson plan is next the accessibility of 30 Boxes allows for there to be no issues or surprises to all these individuals. As a student the fact that I can always be prepared and know what is coming up and what is due is an awesome tool. As a teacher, being able to connect and also send out updates with 30 Boxes is very helpful. For parents, the idea that they can monitor and also see what their children should be working on or working towards is very important and very helpful.

By Matt, Rob, and Ryan

  

Personal Learning Network (PLN) Module and Assignment

A PLN is a personal learning network. They are very valuable resources for communicating among students or fellow teachers. Students can use them to transport documents, view specific documents and reach out to various sites that provide educational opportunities, and transfer documents and works for others to view. The personal learning network that I was interested in is twitter. This PLN absolutely fascinates me with the potential it has in the classroom. Hoping to become a future history teacher, I see twitter as an avenue to enhance students’ knowledge and excitement in the curriculum. PLN are very valuable for teachers. In an age in education where budget cuts are limiting the tools that teachers need to teach their students, PLN’s provide interesting paths for students to enhance their knowledge in a subject area. Also teachers can provide much more insight in using these tools. For instance, Diigo allows students and teachers to share documents and possibly primary sources that would either be too hard to find or cost too much to make a copy for every single student. PLN’s have provided so much to the field of education.

A very valuable PLN is the RSS feed. It allows for a person who has created a Blog to stream information and news that pertains to a particular website that one is interested in. On my educational blog I have RSS feeds to KPBS, History.net, and the New York Times. As a future History teacher these three RSS feeds provide a large amount of sources and information that will cover any standard for California Social Science. I picked the world news RSS feed from the New York Times which will allow me to present current events to my students. The KPBS education RSS feed keeps me up to date on local news. The History.net RSS feed allows for news in the History field which would be easy to relate in any of my classes.

Twitter can also be a very valuable source. You can follow famous people, historians, and historical reviews or magazines. On top of this you receive information and links to pictures, articles, and video feeds. I am following many of my fellow classmates on twitter. But I also follow the KPBS twitter, the National Parks Service twitter, and the History Channel twitter. They all provide wonderful insight on a daily basis.

On Diigo I follow two of my classmates Ryan Otterson and Rob James. They provide a ton of sources that we shared on our Diigo library about “Ipads in the classroom” and the implementation of Ipads as a technology in education. Diigo is a valuable source because teacher can create groups online for their classes and give their students access to various arrangements of sources. I found on the Diigo website a source that talked about languages that are becoming endangered. I found this to be very interesting.

I went on the ITSE site and entered their digital discussion forum known as Ning. I looked at a blog post from Suzie Boss who talks about bringing “technological innovation” into the classroom. She included an interview via Skype which was very interesting to see. She wanted to express “initiatives that encourage creativity, problem solving, and grassroots innovation”. I thought this was a very informative PLN and allows teachers to access forums and blogs on technology in the classroom.  

I felt that looking at all of these PLN’s was very enlightening. I have learned a lot in this class that I didn’t know. I thought Twitter was just for following sports teams. I never knew it had an application in modern education. My favorite PLNs would have to be the RSS feed, Blogs, and Twitter. These are easy to use applications and I see myself using them a lot in the classroom. I didn’t really like Diigo because I just see students getting lost in the website. It is a great PLN I just don’t think I will use it in my classroom. I could post the documents on an internet blog and get the same effect form the students.

Links to:

My internet Blog where you can see my RSS feeds:  http://rowla008.blogspot.com/

My Diigo Library: http://www.diigo.com/user/matthew4444

My Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/#!/Padrefan4life

The Blog I looked at on Ning: http://iste2012.org/profiles/blogs/making-innovation-teachable?xg_source=activity

ITSE Article Response VIII "Celebrate Your Mobile Devices"

Mader, J and Ben Smith. (2011/2012). Celebrate your mobile devices. Learning and Leading. 30(12-1) Retrieved on http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20111201#pg38.  

            A huge problem we have today is there are so many restrictions from budget cuts that limit teachers from getting the tools they need to teach science and math. Pretty much, Mader and Smith want public schools to allow students to use their phones to download applications that will help them in their math and science classes. They feel that the students will be able to master measurements and promote deeper analysis of data that they would not be available in the classroom. They give the website that helps teachers and students buy or download these apps onto their phones. They list a lot of valuable apps that measure: angles, depth, acceleration, time, frequency, decibel strength, and luminosity.

            I think this would be great to use in the classroom. Many of these resources and apps are applicable in other classes as well. Not just science and math courses. Students can use the magnetic compass app to find direction and get a better understanding of geography. Also students may need a calculator to calculate the time difference between specific dates. Obviously this will be very valuable in science and math classrooms but it is applicable for other subject areas.

            I feel this article fulfills ISTE NETS Standard 3 in that they apply digital tools to gather, evaluate information. Ipads are so applicable and easy to use, students can use and take them anywhere and explore a lot of media. There are countless numbers of apps that can pinpoint and enhance students’ knowledge in any subject area. I think this will become a very valuable source in the classroom of the future.   

    

ITSE Atricle VII "Students Read Around the Planet"

Lim, J. (2011). Students read around the planet. Learning and Leading. 36(12-1), 36-37. Retrieved on http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/20111201#pg38.  

            This article is absolutely amazing. Some elementary schools around the United States have used web 2.0 technologies to link with other classes around the world. They use technologies such as videoconferencing to read with other classes. The classrooms can link with document cams and read with kids all around the world. It allows for a joint learning opportunity and is very valuable in this age that we live in.

            I really think this is a very valuable technology that has tons of applications in the classroom of the future. Students are able to teach their sister school about culture or what they learn from an American education and in turn learn about education strategies from other institutions around the world. The use of the videoconferencing learning has been a success in the classroom. Initially starting with 200 classes in 2002 they have since grown to 1,950 classes in five countries, four Canadian provinces, and 33 states in the US. Teachers love this technology because it widens the students’ knowledge of geography and become familiar with other cultures around the world.

            I feel this article fulfills ISTE NETS Standard 3 in that they apply digital tools to gather, evaluate information. Videoconferencing is so applicable and easy to use, students can use and take them anywhere and explore a lot of media. There are countless techniques that can pinpoint and enhance students’ knowledge in any subject area.     

           

           

EDUC 422 Article Response VI "Unlock literacy with ipads"

Harmon, J. (2012). Unlock literacy with ipads. Learning and Leading. 30(7), 30-31. Retrieved on http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-june-july-2012.aspx#pg1.

This was an interesting article from a teacher who has introduced an ipad to her high school classroom. She was given 24 ipads as part of a study in 2010 to see how it affected her student’s educational experience. She has a lot of students that read two levels below their grade level. The students are engaged with the Ipads and actually improved their reading skills. She went through a trial and error finding the most valuable apps for the ipad that were educational. She lists a lot of valuable apps that help us future teachers who may use ipads in our classroom. These apps include “ibooks”, “words with friends”, and “wordflick”.

This is a very valuable article because I am very interested in using technology like ipads and other web2.0 devices in my classroom. I like how I can refer to this article and look at apps that are valuable in the classroom. Just how simple the ipad is to use makes it very easy for students to use as an educational tool. I like how in her study she was able to see improvement in her student’s skills in reading and become more and more successful. I like how students like the ipad more than computers because they are portable and don’t take as long to start up.

I feel this article fulfills ISTE NETS Standard 3 in that they apply digital tools to gather, evaluate information. Ipads are so applicable and easy to use, students can use and take them anywhere and explore a lot of media. There are countless numbers of apps that can pinpoint and enhance students’ knowledge in any subject area.

EDUC 422 ITSE Article Response V “Teach your Budding Scientists to be Gamers”

Barko, T., T. Sadler. (2011) Teach your budding scientists to be gamers. Learning and Leading. 38(11), 38-39. http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-november-2011.aspx

This article brings up some very important points on technology in the classroom and how skills learned from gaming may help science students get professions in the scientific field in the future. Mission Biotech creates games that allow students to interact with pending scientific scenarios that are prevalent in science today. Students can interact with scenarios with anything in the environment. This includes looking at West Nile Virus and SARS. This is a great system because it allows students to become acclimated to what Scientists do on a day to day basis. Even teachers have gotten hooked to the gaming and are happy to use it in their classroom.

This seems like a very valuable resource for science teachers to use in their classroom. Teachers can use the games created by Mission Biotech to create a unique learning environment for their students. The game does have some drawbacks. Teachers have run into some technological problems when using the games in the classroom. Mission Biotech just needs to trouble shoot these technological problems so teachers can implement them in the classroom.

 I don’t think I would use this in the classroom since I am going to teach social science. It is a pretty valuable resource though. I feel this article best represents the ISTE NETS Standard 1 “Creativity and Innovation”. The video game allows the students to use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues. Also teachers can use existing information in the field to develop innovative products and processes.

This is so cool...