New Tech Standards & Requirements

"Standards-based education is the process of basic teaching, learning, and assessment that focuses on national, state, and local educational standards. Academic Content Standards are statements of what students are expected to know and be able to do at specified grade levels." Technology is one of the tools students have at their disposal as they engage in the learning process. Classrooms need to adjust to include these technologies into useful teaching strategies so students may reach the Oregon Educational Technology Standards. The new Oregon Educational Technology Standards were adopted in 2010, and they include:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication and Collaboration
• Research and Information Fluency
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making
• Digital Citizenship
• Technology Operations and Concepts

The three standards that are most significant to me are:

• Creativity and Innovation: Students will be able to demonstrate creative thinking and problem solving skills to develop different products and processes using digital technology.
• Communication and Collaboration: Students will use digital media and environments to communicate across a global community. They will also use digital media to work collaboratively to support their individual learning and contribute to other peoples' learning.
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students will use critical thinking skills to conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make intelligent decisions using the appropriate digital tools and resources.

Some strategies/activities I would implement at my grade levels (Kindergarten-Second Grade) to help accomplish my particular standards would be to:

• Help my students become familiar with different technological devices. For example, I would teach them what a computer is, what the different parts do, and how they can use it to learn.
• Describe to my students different ways technology is used in every day life. I would give them the opportunity to give me examples of when they see technology being used at their own homes.
• Include digital learning games in my classroom to give students a chance to try the products out themselves (Leap Frog, audio books, etc...)
• Try to set up different guest speakers via video chat that may help my students to achieve learning on a certain subject.

The grade levels I am interested in working with will be a little more difficult to implement strategies into because they are so young and are not required to use technology at school but giving them a basic knowledge of computers would be helpful nonetheless. Kids at that age are faced with many opportunities to use digital technology at home so finding a way to include these technologies at school should be a priority. That way, they are more prepared to use the technology when it becomes imperative to learning. A lack of resources, such as computers, for my age of students may be a challenge I face when trying to implement these strategies. Funding, or lack thereof, could also be quite a difficult hurdle to jump. Acquiring bits and pieces at a time may have to be good enough, at first. Also, getting a few digital learning options and using them during center time as a choice for the students would help them all get time to try out those different options out.

Here is a link to the Educational Technology Standards page on the Oregon Department of Education website:

http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=1880

Analyzing Student Data

I have worked with spreadsheets before. I took computers and advanced computers in high school, as well as a computer class in college. We covered spreadsheets, so I actually knew what I was doing a little better this week. Spreadsheets are a bit easier to grasp, I think. Of course, I have been having trouble embedding the file, as per usual, but I will get it! And, I did! Finally!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AuOvS6f3YzWidGZIczdVZV9sRTVObXpUVDRwMFVxbXc&output=html

Most of the kids saw quite a bit of growth between their PreTest scores and their PostTest scores. One student's score did go down, though. However, all the other students saw an increase of ten percent or higher. Many of the formative assessment percentages stayed quite similar for all three assessments. A lot of the students had nearly the same score for all their assessments, but there were a couple who did have one assessment with a noticeably better score. The assessment percentages probably did not change much because there were not many points possible on any of the assessments. As a result of these scores, I would continue to try to get the students to improve. I would possibly review some of the material the students were finding tricky, especially for the student who did not improve between their PreTest and PostTest.

Screenr DropBox

The purpose of my tutorial on Screenr DropBox is to show its uses, as well as tell you how you can download it for yourself. I am a little lost on how this is going to work, and I do not like recording my own voice, but here it goes.

http://screenr.com/zH9s

Personal Productivity Tools

TinyURL: A tool used to make long, ugly URLs shorter. When posting a URL to an email, blog, etc..., you can use this tool to shorten the URL and easily format it to be an active link.

DropBox: The DropBox feature stores and shares files between computers. The DropBox makes it easier to sync your work, home, and notebook computers. DropBox behaves like a remote online hard drive and removes the hassles of networking local computers and carrying flash drives.

Teamviewer: This tool is used to remotely access any computer from anywhere. Teamviewer can be used to diagnose an error, configure software, or transfer files from a remote computer. You can also use Teamviewer to provide training or demonstrate a process from a remote computer.

All of these tools can be used to increase a teacher or student's productivity and enhance their learning. The thing I like about these tools the most is that they are all incredible time savers. They make it so you do not have to waste precious time trying to get things done that can be done much quicker with the use of these applications. I also like the fact that you do not have to worry about staying with one computer, all the time. You can use all these tools to help make it so all of your files can be accessed from any computer, at any time. These tools are also easy to gain access to and become familiar with, and once you use these tools, you will wonder how you ever survived without them.

Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing

Web 2.0 is a web-based platform for applications and services. It lets your software and your files be accessed anytime and anywhere. Your software and files are now said to exist on servers "in the cloud". Cloud computing means using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data. When cloud computing, you use a network of remote servers rather than a local server. Now, you can access whatever you need and not have to depend on flash drives or being on only one computer.