533 Weekly Blog

So far things have been going relatively well with my data collection for my action research. However, one thing I have realized is it has not gone exactly how I had planned. I have had more kids out sick then I would have imagined so that has been my only hang-up. As far as 533 is concerned I am feeling very comfortable with basic html code. Getting my images to fit the correct size I want has been a big challenge. It is strange to me that things that are so easy in Microsoft word can now be so complex in html. For example I struggle getting things to line up straight on my resume. In Word this is a snap. Hopefully I can continue to get more comfortable with the html features. The "try it" page has been extremely helpful in figuring out the different codes. You will also notice that I added a different picture to my resume. The picture I choose was of Joseph Campbell. I choose this picture because a great deal of my educational philosophy is based on his ideas. In fact Joseph Campbell has a funny quote about computers. His quote is, "computers are like Old Testament Gods. Lots of rules and unforgiving of mistakes". I though of this and chuckled to myself as I was working on my html code. In regards to the midterm I am feeling comfortable and am optimistic that I will do well.

533 Weekly Blog

This last class was very interesting as I enjoyed seeing all of the different tags for html code. I have been busy this week working on getting my data collected for my action research paper. So far it is going well although since I am a special education teacher I have a smaller population to work with and many of my students have been absent so that part has been a little challenging. Anyway, back to 533 I feel my resume page is getting better. I really like the "try it" site as it has helped me play around with several different ideas. Also, of note I am attending a website design class this Friday at Cedarburg High School as part of my professional development. I am hopeful to get more instruction on creating even a better web-page resume. I also hope the we spend some time discussing how you go about getting a domain name to host our sites, and also how to choose a domain name and how to get the websites active on the Internet. Hopefully we will touch in this in this class as well as my class at Cedarburg. On a final note I enjoyed playing around with the pizza assignment. I also am still struggling a bit with downloading images on html. Anyway, in conclusion I am continuing to gain confidence in my ability with html code.

533 Blog Week 1

The html code is actually not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. In fact it is really very user friendly and once you get going it is actually very easy to follow. One thing that makes the html easier to follow is the fact that we had the "try it" site. This enabled me to play around with different ideas on what might work or look cool when designing my personal html page. Before I start sounding too upbeat I still don't feel as though I have mastered anything, but I would definitely feel comfortable creating a very simple web site. I do have some questions about how you would go about making the html code that we created live on the Internet? Hopefully we will cover this in class. Also, another thing that I found challenging was putting images up with html. I was unable to figure how to get the pictures down to smaller sizes. Also, problematic with the images was getting them centered. I could move them slightly in one direction but could not get them completely centered where I wanted them. Finally, although the html is very intuitive in how it writes I still found it very redundant at times. Thankfully you can cut and paste many of the same codes so it tended to cut down on some of the typing. I look forward to working more with html.

549 Week #5

This past class was the most confusing so far. Since the class I have been able to sort through some of my notes and seem to have a better handle on things. I am still a little confused about transferring the T scores and T area scores onto the normal curve. My understanding is that the T area is what you calculate using the the Distribution of t Chart. If this s not the case let me know as I am mistaken. If it helps the Z scores make much more sense to me then the T scores. Anyway, other then that most of what we are doing seems to make sense. The null and alternative hypothesis idea makes some sense now. The Null Hypothesis will always include an = sign when comparing two sets of data. The Alternative Hypothesis states that 1 group will be greater then the other. Finally, just a clarification on Directional verses Non Directional. In Directional you would use 1 Tail Test and are comparing 1 groups superiority over another. With Non Directional you would use a 2 Tailed Test and you be comparing weather or not two groups are equal or not.
On a different note I am getting ready to begin my Action Research as I received IRB approval. I am trying to keep in mind what type of statistics I will use once my data collection is complete.

549 Week #4

I finished completing the Standard Test Analysis assignment and want to make a few comments. First, I choose to research Cedarburgs WKCE scores. I was pleasantly surprised to see how high our districts WKCE scores were. I know that I teach in a very good district but it was reassuring when I saw how high the scores were. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how high Port Washington scores were as well. We recently bought a home in Port Washington and as a home owner it is reassuring to see such high scores for Port Washington as well. I know better then to judge a district based simply on its WKCE score but it was again reassuring. One of the things we have been using at CHS is MAPs testing. I think MAPS stands for Measure of Academic Progress (although I am not positive). Our students are tested in the fall and again in the spring. One of the interesting things about MAPS tests is it give us a measure of how much the student should improve from spring to fall based on their fall scores. It is also helpful in knowing about where the students should be preforming academically in the classroom. Finally, as a special education teacher MAPS scores are nice to occasionally bring to IEP meetings to use in conjunction with Standardized Tests like the Woodcock Johnson.

549 Week #3

So far much to my surprise I am enjoying the class. It has been a long time since I have had a math class but I am finding it a much better experience then I remembered. I like the fact that I am seeing a practical application for the class in terms of writing my action research paper. Oh, on a side note I am hung up in Full IRB so I am still awaiting the go ahead to begin collecting my data. However, like I said before I am enjoying the practical application of the class. Being a special education teacher I have sat in on countless IEP meetings and explained to parents how to interpret the results of different standardized test scores. I have always relied on my cheat sheets to explain the information and results to the parents. This last week when we started discussing Z scores and standard Deviations many of the things I used to explain made much more sense to me as I now understand how the scores are generated. This will greatly help me in interpreting future standardized test results. Just a question to make sure I understand the Skew concept. When there is a negative Skew that means that the majority of the data falls above the median. Following the reverse then when there is a positive Skew majority of the data falls below the median. Just double checking this concept.

549 Week #2

This past class was a good class for me. However, I must admit that I had trouble paying attention for some of the lecture. It was not that the material was not relevant or interesting, it is just that it makes for a long day to teach for 6 hours and then pay attention for another 4 hours. Anyway, I thought the explanation of finding standard deviation was well done. I particularly enjoyed having the time to plug in numbers on Excel. I found this very helpful and useful. Also, I was amazed at just what a powerful tool excel can be when used properly. To build off the Excel theme we worked in our group on Tuesday and noticed that there were some slight differences between Excel on the PC and Excel on the Mac. However, we worked together and worked out some of the differences. We also decided as a group to put our descriptive project on a google docs. We played around with Excel in google docs and we were able to get it to do what we wanted. Hopefully we will continue to have good luck with Excel in google docs. As for the upcoming benchmark we reviewed the sheet given to us at the end of class and we all are comfortable with the information on the sheet. Like I said earlier I felt the information presented was relevant and I am looking foreword to getting my own data and computing it for my project.

549 Week #1

This will be my first blog for 549. I wanted to talk just for a moment about CEDU 520. Everything is in now for that class and I am awaiting my IRB approval. Hopefully my current class 549 will assist me in interrupting the data I collect and also assist me in writing the data I collect in the correct format. I am a little apprehensive about being able to write and interpret the data that I collect. However, I am hopefully that this class will prepare for that. After completing our first session of 549 I am feeling better about statistics. I am one of those people who did not like math. It is not that math is beyond me but I was always the person in my college classes who would work too fast or miss a step and wind up getting the entire problem incorrect. So I am optimistic that my 549 class will be a much better experience. After the first session I felt that we moved at a perfect pace for me to grasp the concepts. The concept that I had he most trouble with prior to this class was differentiating between mean and medium. Now I know medium is the middle of all the data collected and mean is the average of all the data collected. Seems simple enough but I always used to mix the two concepts up in my head.

520 Blog #2

As I am now putting together my final IRB Packet I am feeling like I have a understanding of what needs to be done. This has been a very lengthy process and one that I would not want to do again but it has caused me to look at my craft of teaching in a different way. It is my hope that my IRB packet meets approval. Areas that I struggled most with were figuring out the proper assessments to use to measure my students progress. I was originally going to use Power Point as my formal assessment. However, I realized that it would be to difficult to show gains in student achievement. As a result I adjusted my Action Research to include Power Point as a means of review for tests. Even more then that I made Power Point a student driven review. It is my hope that a student driven teacher directed Power Point will increase my students achievement on their exams. Also, I am hopeful that my students will take more of an active role in the learning process. Hence the idea of the student driven review. So, as I have reflected on the IRB approval process it has definately been a challenge however, I feel optimistic that at this point I have a quality product. Even though the process has been challenging at times it has allowed me to reflect on my profession and attempt to make improvements to better my students achievement.

520 Blog #1

We spent today working as a group on our Power-Points for IRB. It was helpful going over our ideas as a group. Some questions that came up were pre and post test and when they would be necessary, also we discussed our deadlines, and finally how we would set up our assessments. We struggled through some of these issues as a group but were able to talk through them and bounce ideas off each other.
As far as my own Action Research is coming I am starting to feel a little better. My research question is "Dose the use of PowerPoint during instruction improve special education student test scores"? Currently I am still working on my assessments and how I will best tie them into my over all question. I am hopeful that I can start designing a pre and post tests and possibly work back words from that point. I am still struggling with how I will tie everything together. Also, I am still trying to figure out how I will go about collecting my data. As we get closer to the end 520 things are beginning to come together. I am hopeful that as I put the pieces of my Action Research together everything will fit together.

521 Week 6 Blog

This has been good class for me. I feel good about my unit plan even though I have not taught the class yet. I am sure that once I begin teaching my unit plan I will need to make a few adjustments. However, I am sure that this is very normal. From the class I feel comfortable using all three of the Intel teaching strategies and even used two of them in my unit plan. This was probably the most practical part of the class for me. I like to spend time on things that I can use as opposed to talking about theories. The essential questions were probably the aspect of the class that was the hardest for me to grasp as they are very open-ended. However, as time went on and I got farther into my lesson I began to feel more comfortable with my essential question. I enjoyed listening to most every ones unit plans. This was time well spent as I was able to take different ideas that I found relevant. Plus it was just cool to see what everyone did. So in conclusion the class has been worthwhile and practical. I hope that my unit plan goes well when I teach it next fall. I am excited as I will likely be teaching the class in a room that will have an LGI projector. Enjoy your summers!!!

521 Week 5 Blog

Professional development seems to come up in every staff meeting. I have taught in three different school districts and professional development time always seems in short supply. However, I think it is the school districts responsibility to supply some time for professional development, I also feel that as an individual teacher it is important to seek out my own professional development opportunities on my own time. Many teachers complain that they don't get enough or any professional development time yet never seek it out on their own time. To me this is a bit of a double standard.
I feel it is very important for teachers to have professional development time in school. However, not all professional development time is used efficiently. I have been teaching now for 10 years and have have seen great use of time for staff development and terrible use of time. The best use of time seems to come when there are tangible result from the professional development time. Examples of this include technology training, new IEP/Special education Laws, and new updates on Autism and other disabilities that are effecting the student population. However, I have been through professional development training where nothing tangible occurs and most people leave feeling that their time could have been better spent doing other things. It is the responsibility of the school administrators to see that professional development time is used efficiently, but it is the teachers responsibility to see that it continues outside the of school time.

521 Week 4 Blog

This past week I have been thinking more about self directed learning and how I can incorporate it into my classroom. I guess as I have thought more about the topic I have discovered that it is really an important concept in education. In fact it really should be the goal of education to be self directed. What good does it really do if as soon as our students walk out the door they stop learning and have no further interest. As you know now from reading my blogs I am a special education teacher. As in the past when I began reflecting on self directed learning I began to feel frustrated as to how I could possibly incorporate this into my classroom. After considerable reflection I came back to a core belief of mine. I believe that all children have interests. As a educator it is my job to look a little deeper and figure out what interests and motivates my students and begin to use them to my advantage. Most of the students I have don't have very much success in the regular education environment. However, this is not to say they can't be successful in school or that they have no interests. I am in the unique spot where I am able to get to know my students better and can use my knowledge about them as individuals to help better my classroom teaching strategies as they relate to self directed learning. It is the goal of our self advocacy classes that our students know themselves and in the process discover where their passions and interests lie. So, it is my hope to better the process of self directed learning and attempt to implement it to a greater extent in my Self Advocacy next year.

521 Week 3 Blog

So far I have had to rethink some of my thoughts on student centered learning. My first inclination was to assume that it would be too difficult to attempt with my students. It is very challenging to attempt students centered learning with regular education students let alone special education students. However, this is not to say that this can't be done. It is possible to successfully implement student centered learning it just has to be extremely well laid out and organized for my student population. I also need to be OK with trying multiple student centered learning projects and have the expectations that they may not work out perfectly each time I attempt them. I think that I need to attempt some of these tasks in very small intervals. That is to say I will try out these ideas gradually and build on some of the successes. I feel the most challenging aspect of the student centered learning concept will by the prior knowledge that my students have. Therefore it makes sense for me to tinker with some basic student centered projects later in the year once I have a grasp of where my students are preforming. It is my hope that I can take some small steps and work towards a more student centered learning environment in my classroom.

521 Week 2 Blog

I have several digital divide issues facing my classroom. First, is the fact that the school I teach at blocks many sites including WIKI pages. I understand the reason that many sites are blocked in my district. While I am sure that I could follow the proper channels and get it unblocked it still represents an additional obstacle that must be dealt with every time I create a wiki page or use another site that is blocked. However, I feel that by possibility joining the technology committee I can bring to lite the advantages a wiki could bring. This is something I am looking into for next year. Google Docs is another example of a site that is blocked in my district that would be very helpful in creating our special education classes as well as our finals schedules for our students. I am currently working with the special education department head to see if we can get google docs started for next year. This seems promising as it would be limited to staff. We are using Moodle as a district so that is exciting and this class is a good opportunity for me to get a head start on Moodle.
Beside the challenges of blocked site comes the challenges of Internet supervision for my special education students. This is a challenge that I look forward to assisting them with in their responsible internet searches. So often my students will go to google do a search and end up citing wikipedia. They will site that as their only source. So I look forward to using the internet with them and helping them to improve their searches and to come out with credible web sites.

521 Week I Blog

This past week I have begun thinking about what I might want to do my unit plan on. Working in special education I am faced with a slightly different set of challenges. The greatest challenge is that most of my students in a class are all on different levels when it comes to academics. However, I do teach an economics class and as I have thought about it more I will likely narrow it down to a unit related to my economics class. I try to make my special education economics class as practical as possible for my students. So I am in the process of narrowing down what unit I want to create. I have also played around with the idea of doing my unit on self advocacy. However, I am finding it difficult to work in my material. At any rate I will make my decision and then go with it.
I also want to comment just briefly on the essential questions. I like the idea of the essential questions as they relate to creating and planning my unit plan. It is a neat idea to work almost backwards and it provides an excellent starting point. This is a great tool in working with special education students as they are very much "big picture" type students. So I think the idea of essential questions will help in all my units not just the one I am creating for the class.

This past week was an interesting class for me.  I have always enjoyed the Civil War and really enjoyed looking at the site that Ken Burns had produced where you can make your own movies. This is something that I will have a definite use for in my classroom.  I work with a US History teacher and plan on using the Ken Burns site to create an introduction to our Civil War unit.  I also found it very helpful looking at the past final presentations.  It was nice to see what other people have done and what there projects look like.  Also, I have enjoyed working on my final project for the class.  It is something that  have wanted to do for a long time and this was just the excuse I needed.  It is kind of funny just how powerful story telling can be.  While creating the presentation and writing the script I was amazed that some of the same feelings that I had while experiencing the event came right back to me as I worked on the story.  As far as class room use for my digital story I plan on possibly sharing it with some of my students.  However, more importantly I would likely use it to help my students create their own stories.  Like the article I read the other week I really like the idea of having my students possibly create a digital story. 

531 Week 4 Reflection

This past week in class was a little different then I expected.  First, thanks for the pizza, that was really nice to have before class.  Anyway, to comment on what I thought was different was the idea of the Pod Casts.  Prior to class I thought I would have no use for them.  However, now that I see how easy they are they set up and to use I definitely see a use for them.  Specifically I can see using Pod Casts when I might be gone as a great way of communicating with the sub and my students.  Another great use comes when I travel.   This is a great way to record some of my knowledge and memories gained while traveling.  I can envision recording voices, people, and my own personal thoughts and comments on things.  I was actually really impressed and think of the Pod Cast as my own personal tape recorder.  On a personal note I love to fish and this s a great way for me to remember coordinates on the water as well as specific patterns that fish may be hitting on.  Just a really cool tool.  

I also wanted to comment briefly on my final project for 531.  So far it is going well but I am still struggling with garage band and trying to sync my pictures with the music and to overlap them with the voice.  Anyway, will keep plugging away at it.

531 Week 3 Reflection

There were several things that I wanted to comment on from last week.  First, I thought that it was good to see all the groups digital stories.  I was able to get some new ideas for my own personal story.  It was also nice to discuss each digital story as a class and get the groups feedback.  The next thing that I wanted to comment about was Joggle.  At first I spent a great deal of time spinning my wheels with the site.  Nothing seemed to make sense.  I spent several hours trying to upload a PowerPoint with no success.  However, once I started uploading pictures into Flicker I found it very easy to upload my pictures from flicker to joggle.  Once I had some pictures uploaded I was then able to play around with creating a slide show.  At this point I became much more comfortable and enjoyed playing around on the site. I am not sure how much I would use joggle in my classroom, but it is very nice to have an additional resource available. I am still most comfortable with Power Point but have gotten more comfortable with other sites.  One thing that I did not figure out was how to do the voice over on joggle.  I will check with people in class this week and see if anyone else had the same trouble.

Digital Story Telling

I plan to use digital story telling in my classroom in the following way.  First, I teach Social Studies and one of the things that I struggle with is to bring in some type of new emotion into my classroom.  So many times simply reading books tends to keep my students emotionally detached from the material we are covering.  I have struggled to try and give my students some type of real life connection to what we are studying.  By relating our material to real life situations I can hopefully inspire some type of emotion.  If I can tap into some of their emotions they will likely go on and ask questions about the material.  By asking these questions I hope they can then begin to think critically about the subject matter.  Using digital story telling is a tool that I can use to try and get my students interested in the material.  Digital story telling is a medium they are likely not exposed to.  I really like the idea that sound plays such a large role in many of the digital stories.  It seems students are constantly bombarded with talking and a story with simply told by sound will likely cause them to stop and take notice.  I am unsure which digital stories I will use at this point, but I saw several that interest me.  

Week 4 Reflection

In reflecting on the class there are two things that really stand out to me. First, I would really like to learn more about social networking. I probably won't use Facebook or Myspace, but I feel other forms of social networking can be a very powerful tool in the future. Specifically in terms of professional and staff development as it relates to the education profession. I was amazed that nobody I work with had even heard of Thinkfinity. This proves to me they need for more social networking among colleges.
The second idea I want to reflect on is the idea of internet safety. I really liked the lesson that we came up with in my small group. As a special education teacher I get asked very frequently about the safety of the internet. Not so much at school but at home. I have had several parents ask me about what they can do to provide a safe environment at home for their children. Since part of this course is taking an active role in my school technology I am curious what if any handouts we give to parents as it relates to internet safety at home. If we want to use technology in the classroom we must also make sure that parents and students feel comfortable having the technology in their homes as well. We can't police what goes on at home, but if we can educate parents on how to keep their home computers safe we will likely go a long way in promoting technology in our classrooms.

Reflection #3

This past week we spent the majority of the class talking about internet safety. I work at a school where majority of sites that could pose a threat are blocked. However, this got me thinking about the students that I work with and their safety. Even though most sites are filtered that could be problematic I felt it important to talk with my students about potential hazards on the internet. I only spoke with one class about the issue of internet safety but found that even though they are very computer savoy they were not well versed on internet safety. I found my students very willing to talk about the internet. It seemed that almost all of them either knew someone directly or indirectly that had had a major issue involving the internet (I am including cyberbulling as an issue).
After tonights group meeting I am considering doing the "thinkfinity" lesson that we created. I feel it could be very valuable in helping my students make safe choices on the internet. If nothing else it is definitely worth discussing with them.

Reflection #2

This past week we worked on several different things that I want to comment on. First, I want to talk a little bit about the web site evaluation worksheet. We just got done working in our group and I wanted to write while some of my ideas were still fresh. I want to comment on how at first I was unsure of how this assignment might be relevant. However, as we got more into the assignment I realized that what I was doing can be very relevant. It caused me to stop and ask myself a few basic questions. Often times when either myself or my students are searching the web I often times ask myself is this a credible source. The evaluation sheet that we came up with should help take some of the guesswork out of that process. Also, I plan to share the evaluation sheet with several of my colleagues at Cedarburg. It is my hope that they may add something or offer some constructive criticism.
The next thing I wanted to discuss were the quiz web sites that we looked at in class. Although the site that we had became sort of a joke it may actually have a purpose. It is user friendly and I could possibly make some basic quizes for my students. I would do these quizes as more of a pre-test then anything else. This would allow me to asses some of thier basic skills possibly at the begining of a school year or at the the start of a new unit. For my American Institutions class I currently use the U.S. citizenship test. However, I might be able to take a few of the questions off the test and use them in a quiz to see where we are at prior to the start of the class.

Thinkfinity

We spent most of Thursday going over a web-site called Thinkfinity.   This was one of the most useful class periods we have had so far in the course of the program.  I found several cool ideas that I plan on using in my classroom.  I currently teach an American Institutions class and we are going over a brief history of the Presidents.  I plan to incorporate the Presidential commercials into my lessons.   However, I am still brainstorming as to exactly what that might look like.  I was also able to share some of the sites shared in our class with math teachers at Cedarburg High School.  Specifically, the mathematics animated site.  So it is cool that some of the information that I am sharing I can pass on to other teachers I work with.  

I also would like to comment on how I was able to use the advanced google search.  I used it for personal gain looking for a possible place to fish in Canada.  Prior to class I was looking for resorts on a large lake in Canada called Lake St. Joseph.  According to a regular google search there was only one resort on the entire lake.  Anyway, after class I decided to do an advanced search to see if there were any other resorts on the lake.  To my surprise an additional resort came up that looks cool.   

I have also spent a little more time on Thinkfinity just seeing some of the different ideas for lesson plans and getting a feel for the layout of the site.  Some of the interactive sites are really cool.  National Geographic had some cool stuff and there was also a cool lesson that deals with tracking an around the world sea voyage (seeing as this is something I personally would love to do I spent most of my time on this interactive site).  I am starting to narrow my focus for next weeks lesson plan.  My biggest decision is what class I want to create the lesson for.