Wicked Problem Project: Final Project Posting

The wicked problem project has been a great learning opportunity as it has taken uses of new technology and pedagogical methods and has combined them into a project that I am proud to have completed. My wicked problem project is on group collaboration in Prezi. In doing this project, we had to first identify a problem, and my recent experience as a college student at Michigan State University definitely affected the direction I decided to go. Section B deals with the application of TPACK, a pedagogical analysis on the interactions between technology, content, and pedagogy. Section C deals with the experiences we had implementing the project, and is in the form of a podcast. This course gave me my first experiences in podcasting myself, and I find it to be a very powerful tool that can quite easily be implemented in many areas of education. Section D deals with the implications and findings of the project itself. Where section C deals with experience in implementation, section D analyses those final findings. There is also a screencast of a Prezi presentation at the end of this post in which I give an overview of the entirety of my project and talk about its implementations and the experiences I had.

Wicked Problem Project: Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity


As a college student at Michigan State University, I always found that students disliked large group projects, and I included myself in that grouping. The nature of large group presentations often make them a difficult task to accomplish. Firstly, everyone has be on the same page, which means that meetings and communication are key. Problems arise because students obviously have different schedules making meeting up and getting work done as a team very difficult. More often than not, students end up splitting up assignments and having a designated tasks instead of working as a team together, which often times makes for a project with little conformity. Secondly, the creativity of large group assignments when they are presented is almost always lacking because the status quo is to use PowerPoint. While PowerPoint is a fantastic program in many respects, it is more of a program designed to present in a straight-forward manner. PowerPoint, in my opinion, doesn't foster creativity but instead takes away from it. Countless times in my college education was I assigned PowerPoint presentations as projects. These were always straight-forward presentations that took very little creativity on my part and I often felt like I could be presenting in some other type of software entirely. I have made movies in class before, but those were always difficult to make due to the time consuming nature of recording and editing a video. I wanted something simple yet complex. If there was a program out there that could 1. Be online and have collaborative features and 2. To be a more creative cousin of PowerPoint, I would love to see and use it.  In my CEP 810 class, I was introduced to a program called Prezi. The second that I saw it in action I was in awe. The creativity and openness of the software was great. It looked great, allowed for many types of embeddable media, had many collaborative features that allowed separate people to edit the same document simultaneously, and allowed for the creation of an engaging, informative, and creative presentation. 


In my Wicked Problem Project, I want to create a Prezi presentation on Prezi itself to show the features of the program through the program itself. This program will act as an easy to understand and follow tutorial on Prezi, what the program can do, and how you can be creative with it. There is plenty of education and Prezi literature online, including articles on the Prezi site itself. One story that I found is located here that is an interview with a well-renown Stanford professor about the creativity that Prezi allows for. I will also be using PreziU, which is the educational branch of Prezi, as a reference because it has collected plenty of articles and ways to use Prezi. I hope to be able to teach students and teachers alike the powers of Prezi as a presentation tool. Enhancing presentations through using a new tool is important, as is collaborative features in a program, and Prezi does both. Web 2.0 applications, which are very often free and keep all of your work online so collaboration is easier, is the way of the future.


Wicked Problem Project: Part B-Application of TPACK


I have decided to to do my Wicked Problem Project on Prezi, the online Web 2.0 presentation tool. I have found in my recent university stint, that collaboration and effective utilization of resources and manpower during group projects can be very difficult to achieve with the collection of different schedules and skill-sets of the members. More often than not, one or two students take the reigns of the projects and end up doing a larger percentage of the work. This makes for and unfair work environment as well as a weaker final product due to the work being handled often more quickly by a smaller minority of the group. The use of a cloud computing and collaborative software like prezi will make for a better product. The group planning stage of the initial assignment is important when addressing a new project, but once an idea and timeline is set, the use of Prezi will make for more efficient usage of group members time and resources. I will now be taking a look at the TPACK aspects of my Wicked Problem Project.

What is the TP knowledge for the solution?

From a technological perspective I will be using Jing and Prezi itself to teach the uses and effectiveness of Prezi as a tool in presentations and especially group projects. I will be implementing the uses of videos, screenshots, and other images to more effectively tutorialize the use of Prezi as a collaborative tool. I will also be presenting the final product in Jing. I hope that my video portions of my presentation will benefit the visual and auditory learner. This project emphasizes problem-based learning, and I hope to bring in a solution based on collaborative-based learning. The technology of Prezi will be used to present my presentation which is about Prezi in the first place, giving a very tutorial-like quality to my project. The Jing portion will serve as a tutorial on Prezi as well, benefiting those who learn best from seeing and hearing.

What is the TC knowledge for the solution?  

The use of Prezi to present on the benefits of using Prezi is a good way make a tutorial because it shows the features of the program and how they can best be used as a presentation tool. Prezi is a very powerful tool in presentation and collaboration. I will be using imbedded youtube videos that promote the use of Prezi over other presentation software. I will be making a Jing presentation that guides the user through the presentation.

What is the PC knowledge for the solution? 
 The usage of video and images makes the learning of Prezi more accessible to students. Seeing a program in action before you use it is a great way for a person to wrap their head around the possible uses. While playing with Prezi from the start, learning through exploration, is another way going about the problem, I find that learning about the tools at hand before you use a software keeps the mind more open and willing to explore the program once given a chance. 


Wicked Problem Project: Part C-Findings and Implications

http://archive.org/details/cep812pod

Wicked Problem Project: Part D-Findings and Implications




I am creating a presentation on Prezi, the online Presentation tool, and gearing the presentation towards teaching how to use Prezi to collaborate with other people and groups in making professional level presentations. Cloud computing has given the World the ability to collaborate and share information at a level never before seen. Taking advantage of those opportunities both in the classroom and in the workplace will be vital to keeping up with technological advances and paradigm shifts in whatever areas of concentration. Prezi is a great looking, streamlined presentation tool that acts as an idea web for brainstorming and a powerful presentation tool that can use audio/visual media as a method of information sharing and presenting. I have started showing people my simple Prezi presentation on the uses of Prezi and have gotten overall positive reviews so far. Some things that I have learned during the beginning stages of implementation during this project can be seen below.

Formative

Thus far the implementation of the program has gone smoothly for the most point. I needed to gain more experience with Prezi in general before I could really teach the technology as a collaborative tool, but once I sat down and explored the technology for 2 hours, I found my grasp of it was strong and teaching it would not be difficult. I created a short 5 minute presentation on Prezi and began showing it, first to my parents, and then to some friends at Michigan State University. 
  
Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice 

The problem of practice for me was the fact that collaborating on projects in my experience can be quite difficult coming from the perspective of a recently graduated college student. Working around peoples schedules and busy lives often leads to people missing group meetings, differences in workload, etc. After working in Prezi and learning the software well, I have discovered its real usefulness as a collaborative tool that could easily be used outside of the classroom to create professional presentations for inside the classroom. Collaboration can be done on Prezi in real time through chatting and real-time editing, which addresses my problems well. Contributors can be invited from anywhere and contribute as long as they have an internet connection. I taught these lessons in my presentation and people overwhelmingly supported the technology because of its ease of use and creativity. I noticed that of the 7 people I had take watch my Prezi presentation, 3 of them had already heard and even used the technology, which tells me that it is growing in popularity and usage. The zooming feature was of course well liked, as were some f the template features for those of them that took the time to start their own Prezi presentation.


 Approach How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?

I felt that my approach to the project was well done and thought out. I initially came up with the problem of collaborating online to benefit groups of busy people with busy schedules, and then thought about a possible solution from there. Prezi came to mind because I have seen a few presentations and they were remarkably well done and professional looking, and after talking with people about them I was told that it is relatively simple and easy to create them and collaborate with them. One thing that I would have done differently would have been to learn Prezi before I started the project to see if I could use and liked to use the technology. I choose Prezi quite quickly without doing any research and it worked out for me in this project, but next time a will do some more research on my tool of choice. I would also, when implementing the project by showing it to people, have made a short online Google form or something of that nature to both test what they know and get feedback on my presentation. I went about this in a very verbal manner just to really get an idea on how people feel about the technology, but gaining more documented information would have been very helpful.


Lessons

 
When it comes to teaching technology, tutorials need to be dumbed down as much as possible so that people at all skill levels can understand and implement the knowledge that they are learning. If someone only understands a fraction of vocabulary, technology jargon, or other such aspects, their understanding and eventual learning of the intended skill will suffer. This can be especially possible when TPACK is brought in to the equation. Understanding Pedagogy as it relates with technology and content is often not the easiest thing to do, which is why specificity should be a large concentration when integrating TPACK. I attempted to make my Prezi tutorial as easy to understand and follow as possible, as I was showing off a new technology. Most people in my age group have a great grasp on technology because  we grew up using it both in our educations and for pleasure. However, my mother, who does have a decently solid grasp of technology, does not possess the speed or skill that we do, and she said she understood and grasped the presentation well which made me happy.
 
Changes

I have done many presentations in the past and have found a good recipe in doing them that works for me. I choose a problem first and then a technology to fix that problem. I think that when it comes to technology, the opposite method where you first find a technology and then figure out a way to use that technology to solve a problem could also work as well, which I would definitely think about doing.


Final Presentation:


The link provided here will take you to the video of my final presentations.

CEP 811 Final Reflection

CEP 811 was overall a fantastic experience that really did teach me a lot about integrating technology nto education. I have become a huge fan of Web 2.0 applications as well as resourceful sites like MERLOT because of CEP 811. 

Some things that I learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology were the UDL principals as well as NET-S standards. These resources are fantastic in integrating technology in the classroom because they take so many aspects of education into account. The UDL principals really taught me about taking learning and other disabilities into account when creating a technology based lesson plan. I feel that often times I didn't take into account these types of students in my past, but the UDL principals really brought me into the mindset of thinking about these aspects of technology.

When it comes to integrating web-based technologies, WEb 2.0 applications really changed my entire outlook on the future of technology. Free applications like Google Docs, Prezi, and Bubble.us are changing the entire future of technology. Cloud computing is becoming the future of technology as internet speeds and access are everywhere. Being able to create, store, edit, and collaborate on a space like the internet that can be accessed from everywhere in the world is a desirable quality in education which is why we are seeing the shift right now. Resources like MERLOT are also fantastic because they provide a space for like-minded people to collaborate and share resources that are useful in education.

As far as my own personal goals go, I am well on my way to meeting and even exceeding them is some respects. One personal goal of mine is to learn web design and this course got into a little bit of it. I learned how to use Google Sites which is an absolutely fantastic resource. Another goal of mine is to learn how to create and edit videos. I learned how to screencast which was a great resource to learn. Learning how to do a PowerPoint in kiosk mode with interactive buttons was not a goal of mine, but in doing the assignment I really learned about an aspect of PP that I never knew existed.

One goal that I do have now that this course is finished is to start a blog about my experiences both teaching technology and my lifestyle in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where I will be moving this August. The new skills that I have learned will be extremely helpful in implementing my new blog. I plan on documenting my teaching experiences, especially when it comes to using new technologies. The school I will be at is a very technology-friendly environment. There will be a new iPad mobile lab, which I am very excited to start using. I also will be creating my own classroom website, hopefully from scratch, and this course definitely has given me a head start on doing that.

Mobile Learning Lab

I checked out the Podcasting and MP3 player sections of the exploration and I saw some ideas that I definitely liked. For example, using mp3 players as e-book readers would be a fantastic way to get those that aren't so into reading the ability to begin loving reading by listening instead. There was also a mention of guided notes, which I also think would be another great way for a teacher to give alternative pedagogical options when talking about students learning. Also, podcasts could provide an untapped resource when it comes to research papers or assignments. The amount of interviews and professional in-depth knowledge about basically everything and anything in podcasts is a resource worth showing to students and teaching them how to use that resource.

In my future classroom, I would really like to use iPads as an educational tool. I was talking to the technology director, and he is really think about ordering 30 iPads for use in the elementary school, something that excited me greatly. I would love to use the device as an e-reader as well as explore the multimedia tools that it comes with (2 HD Cameras, built-in apps). There are also a huge amount of app's written by random people in every conceivable category that are more than worth exploring. I do foresee the portability and fragility of the iPads maybe being a problem, but hopefully through education in the beginning accidents can be avoided.

Professional Learning Plan

When I initially started taking CEP courses, I wanted to gain experience in some new resources that could help me on my way to becoming  teacher. These courses have definitely taught me a great deal about incorporating technology into the classroom. One great resource that I have become accustomed to using now is RSS feeds of my favorite blogs. I use Google Reader, and I check it every few days to read my favorite edutech blogs which help keep me in the loop and prepare for my new job in August. I have completely gone away from using Microsoft Office products and have instead switched over the Google Docs due to its extreme ease of use and the collaborative features that allows for easier group assignments, editing, and eventual grading for the teacher. These are just two small examples of some things that CEP has taught me over the past 4 months. I do, however, want to keep learning. In the field of technology, staying ahead of the curve means everything. Dedicating yourself to continue learning, whether that be by going to educational technology conferences, reading blogs through and RSS feed, or buying new gadgets, is important in such a dynamic field as technology. I built a computer when I was in 8th grade and considered myself an expert when it came to hardware specifications that year because the depth of my research into what to buy was so extensive. Yet now, around 7 years later, I have no idea what a company like Intel is talking about when they unleash their new processor or video card lines. Staying in the loop is the only way to keep up, and I feel I have a good handle on that partially because of these courses.

One goal that I definitely have for the future is becoming more proficient at audio/video technologies. I would like to become proficient enough at these technologies that I could tape a school play on three separate cameras and then edit footage together to create a polished final product. Having skills like these are helpful to both a career and to the institution I will be working at. I have some experience with filming and editing, but I would like to learn more. I will be having my students use these technologies on projects that I will be doing with them this upcoming semester that will teach both them and I how to better use these technologies for educational purposes. All students in this day and age should have a good base of knowledge on A/V technologies because they are becoming so prominent, so I would like to get better at them so I can in turn teach better about them.

Another goal that I have is to solidify my knowledge in web design. I can design a functioning website from scratch, but my design aesthetics and overall final products are underwhelming because I have had very little formal education in the subject area. I just bought a few books on DreamWeaver and Flash design that I will be exploring in the near future in an attempt to become proficient in these technologies. Being able to create a professional looking web page, whether it be for personal, public, or professional use is another very sought after skill in the workplace. Having web design as a tenant to offer prospective employers makes me look like a better candidate for employment. I am planning on living and working overseas for at least the next 10 years, so gaining the two skills mentioned above will make me a candidate hard to pass up. For someone like me that enjoys exploring the World, gaining A/V and web desing knowledge will help further my career greatly.

Group Leadership Project

Our groups final presentation, a screencast of a Google Presentation, is available on youtube at the following here.

Our group used Google Presentation to make a slideshow that featured mostly images that acted as a guide for the eventual screencast done by Elise. We organized our script in a Google Document and also did our storyboard as a Google Presentation, making our project quite Google-centric in its setup and eventual finished format. We used a screencast because as a group we figured that doing a tutorial through a screencast was the easiest and most informative method available for us to use without going to deeply into video. Screencasts are easy to produce and there are many free creators available on the internet, so the technology worked in our group very well.

I learned a lot about Google Sites during my development of the final part of this project. I had used Sites once or twice in the past for CEP 811, yet I was by no means fully proficient with the software. I challenged myself by making a few websites by myself and editing a few templates, and found that Sites was easy to use yet difficult to tutorialize because it is such a powerful and in-depth program compared to the other Google Docs. Since I had limited time in our presentation, I really had to search for features that would be useful for teachers as opposed to concentrating on doing a full tutorial of Sites itself. I really got to know my way around the program well due to that fact, and I learned some great things such as the Google Docs embedding feature and collaborative features that allows for others to edit a created web site as well. I would also say that overall our group communication was pretty good and it was a learning experience keeping in contact and communicating with all of the group members. Our group was well organized and everything went pretty smoothly.

If I had to do a similar project again, I don;t think that I would change that much. We used Google Presenter to do our presentation portion, which was great because of the collaborative features. Everyone could see what each other was doing, which was great for editing and creating the best possible product. Google products are especially great for that aspect. We also had a few chat discussions within the docs themselves, which is another feature that was incredibly cool because we could all follow along as work was being done.One thing that I would do differently is to change the main method of communication from email to something else. Email is a great method of communication but the organization of it isn't the greatest. Having a sort of discussion forum like the one on Angel (but not Angels) would be preferable. All in all the project went smoothly, I enjoyed working with my group members, and that translated into a good experience overall.

Online Teaching Experiences

I have yet to be in a classroom as an actual teacher at this point in my career. I will be starting a teaching job in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in August teaching elementary school computers at an international curriculum school, yet a main goal of mine is to be a high school history teacher at some point in the near future. History is my subject of choice to both learn and to teach, so I was looking at this list of online resources from a perspective of a history teacher. I found that one great resource to use in a history classroom would be online field-trips. Online field trips allow students to experience different parts of the world without ever having to leave the classroom. As technology keeps on getting better, the quality and interactions between virtual and real life will undoubtedly continue to be blurred, making for some unbelievable educational opportunities. All that a student will need is an internet connection and a computer, and an entire World of information in the state of audio, video, words, and other mediums is right at their fingertips.

A lot of virtual field trips and explorations are already available on the internet as was apparent by the online experience guide. I checked out some of the links and found that many great tours of both geographical and historical features were available free of charge. I then did a few Google searches of virtual tours of some famous sites in history and found that a vast percentage of them have virtual tours available. Gettysburg, Auschwitz, the Taj Mahal, and the Smithsonian all offer virtual tours of their museums and areas. There are now applications available online, like Google Earth and Google Street View, that allow users to basically visit portions of cities through some simple searching and mouse clicking. These types of programs and virtual tours have many many applications inside of the classroom. Students can learn a lot about the physical appearance of something that they may have read about many times but never actually seen. I visited Auschwitz when I was around 14 or 15 years old and it surprised me how serene and almost neighborhood-like Auschwitz was. I associated my knowledge of Auschwitz with what I assumed it was going to look like, giving me a perspective that the death camp was going to feel and look like an evil and vile place, but that was far from the case. Seeing it gave me an entirely new perspective. Visiting Auschwitz from the U.S on a class field trip would cost at least 2,000 dollars, which is beyond the reach of most schools and families. A computer can take you to Europe in seconds, and while the experience isn't exactly the same as being there, it is definitely the second best thing. Using virtual reality with students could be used as parts of projects, explorations, or any number of assignments.

One type of resource that I could see as being problematic for students would be educational online gaming. In my experience with gaming, especially at the primary and secondary levels of education, students can easily get addicted to games to an extent that it begins to hamper their other classroom activities. While online learning games can be a good thing, I think that overall the possibilities of problems it presents wouldn't be worth implementing them in a classroom unless the software was excellently designed and organized.

Wicked Problem Project: Part D - Findings and Implications

I am creating a presentation on Prezi, the online Presentation tool, and gearing the presentation towards teaching how to use Prezi to collaborate with other people and groups in making professional level presentations. Cloud computing has given the World the ability to collaborate and share information at a level never before seen. Taking advantage of those opportunities both in the classroom and in the workplace will be vital to keeping up with technological advances and paradigm shifts in whatever areas of concentration. Prezi is a great looking, streamlined presentation tool that acts as an idea web for brainstorming and a powerful presentation tool that can use audio/visual media as a method of information sharing and presenting. Some things that I have learned during the beginning stages of implementation during this project can be seen below.

Formative

Thus far the implementation of the program has gone smoothly for the most point. I needed to gain more experience with Prezi in general before I could really teach the technology as a collaborative tool, but once I sat down and explored the technology for 2 hours, I found my grasp of it was strong and teaching it would not be difficult. 
  
Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice 

The problem of practice for me was the fact that collaborating on projects in my experience can be quite difficult coming from the perspective of a recently graduated college student. Working around peoples schedules and busy lives often leads to people missing group meetings, differences in workload, etc. After working in Prezi and learning the software well, I have discovered its real usefulness as a collaborative tool that could easily be used outside of the classroom to create professional presentations for inside the classroom. Collaboration can be done on Prezi in real time through chatting and real-time editing, which addresses my problems well. Contributors can be invited from anywhere and contribute as long as they have an internet connection.  


 Approach How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?

I felt that my approach to the project was well done and thought out. I initially came up with the problem of collaborating online to benefit groups of busy people with busy schedules, and then thought about a possible solution from there. Prezi came to mind because I have seen a few presentations and they were remarkably well done and professional looking, and after talking with people about them I was told that it is relatively simple and easy to create them and collaborate with them. One thing that I would have done differently would have been to learn Prezi before I started the project to see if I could use and liked to use the technology. I choose Prezi quite quickly without doing any research and it worked out for me in this project, but next time a will do some more research on my tool of choice.





  Lessons

 
When it comes to teaching technology, tutorials need to be dumbed down as much as possible so that people at all skill levels can understand and implement the knowledge that they are learning. If someone only understands a fraction of vocabulary, technology jargon, or other such aspects, their understanding and eventual learning of the intended skill will suffer. This can be especially possible when TPACK is brought in to the equation. Understanding Pedagogy as it relates with technology and content is often not the easiest thing to do, which is why specificity should be a large concentration when integrating TPACK.
 
Changes

I have done many presentations in the past and have found a good recipe in doing them that works for me. I choose a problem first and then a technology to fix that problem. I think that when it comes to technology, the opposite method where you first find a technology and then figure out a way to use that technology to solve a problem could also work as well, which I would definitely think about doing.

Group Leadership Project: Part B - Storyboard and Script

The link for the Google presentation, which was submitted on 4/15 on Angel, can be found at:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1cVFOZOwLBNOv1-aUZGVssLaKn08zo6e6sPx5KE8LgoY/edit#slide=id.gd290852_0_59

We decided to do our storybook on Google Presenter, with a fairly straightforward format that was easily duplicated and repeated throughout the entirety of the Presenter document. The final project will be presented in a Google Presenter doc as well, but a more polished and artistic version will be used to better tutorialize the software that we decided to focus on which was Google Docs and Google Sites. I did the last section regarding Google Sites. Google Sites is a relatively advanced and in-depth on-line web editor, so I had to pick and choose carefully what data to include in the short 2:30 that I have for my part of the presentation. I choose to focus on templates and just a few of the editing features in the program, as it is far too vast to describe fully in 2:30. I wanted to give teachers a good idea of how they can use a program like Google Sites instead of how to use it generally. The final product will be a Recorded Google Presentation on Jing (or another similar program) that will be read aloud by Elise.

Web-Conferencing

For our brainstorming session, we used Vyew online web conferencing software. The software is free to use (ad supported). It works great. We all used our microphones and had a detailed discussion of Web 2.0 applications, and eventually decided to do our group presentation on Google apps. We used Vyew to upload the rubrics for the project so we could all review them, and we some sample projects were also uploaded so we looked at those too and got a good idea of where we wanted to go. Elise took notes using Vyews built in note taking tools, which are easy to use. The best thing is that our session is saved, so when we go back and meet tonight all of our notes, timeline details, and uploaded data will be there waiting for us. The only thing that did not work well was that sometimes our conversation would not flow well due to accidental interruptions, which would sometimes lead to both parties involved waiting for the other to talk for extended periods of time. I would like to see a hand raising tool like in adobe connect, so everyone is cued up that wants to say something to prevent interruptions which will happen in groups of 4. In a classroom, I could see Vyew being a great tool for use in a classroom. For group projects, students could easily meet online and do some planning and work away from school using the application. Provided all students owned a computer, it could be a great tool for group projects. Also, if students needed to miss extended school time due to natural disasters, school damage, or other unforeseen circumstances, a teacher could conduct short lesson plans from home to keep the curriculum moving forward. Vyew is a great application, and I would and will be using it again.

Wicked Problem Project: Part B - Application of TPACK

I have decided to to do my Wicked Problem Project on Prezi, the online Web 2.0 presentation tool. I have found in my recent university stint, that collaboration and effective utilization of resources and manpower during group projects can be very difficult to achieve with the collection of different schedules and skill-sets of the members. More often than not, one or two students take the reigns of the projects and end up doing a larger percentage of the work. This makes for and unfair work environment as well as a weaker final product due to the work being handled often more quickly by a smaller minority of the group. The use of a cloud computing and collaborative software like prezi will make for a better product. The group planning stage of the initial assignment is important when addressing a new project, but once an idea and timeline is set, the use of Prezi will make for more efficient usage of group members time and resources. I will now be taking a look at the TPACK aspects of my Wicked Problem Project.

What is the TP knowledge for the solution?

From a technological perspective I will be using Jing and Prezi itself to teach the uses and effectiveness of Prezi as a tool in presentations and especially group projects. I will be implementing the uses of videos, screenshots, and other images to more effectively tutorialize the use of Prezi as a collaborative tool. I will also be presenting the final product in Jing. I hope that my video portions of my presentation will benefit the visual and auditory learner. This project emphasizes problem-based learning, and I hope to bring in a solution based on collaborative-based learning. The technology of Prezi will be used to present my presentation which is about Prezi in the first place, giving a very tutorial-like quality to my project. The Jing portion will serve as a tutorial on Prezi as well, benefiting those who learn best from seeing and hearing.

What is the TC knowledge for the solution?  

The use of Prezi to present on the benefits of using Prezi is a good way make a tutorial because it shows the features of the program and how they can best be used as a presentation tool. Prezi is a very powerful tool in presentation and collaboration. I will be using imbedded youtube videos that promote the use of Prezi over other presentation software. I will be making a Jing presentation that guides the user through the presentation.

What is the PC knowledge for the solution?
 The usage of video and images makes the learning of Prezi more accessible to students. Seeing a program in action before you use it is a great way for a person to wrap their head around the possible uses. While playing with Prezi from the start, learning through exploration, is another way going about the problem, I find that learning about the tools at hand before you use a software keeps the mind more open and willing to explore the program once given a chance.

 

Group Leadership Project: Part A - Brainstorm & Web-Conferencing Blog Post

Our group, consisting of Amy Palmer, Liz Klein, and Elise Feichtner, decided to do our brainstorming session using the Vyew online web conferencing software (www.vyew.com). My evaluation of the software was that it was extremely effective and quite simple to use as well. My full review is after the posted screenshots and links to our Vyew conference which saved for us to go back to and add to, another great feature of the software!

The link to our conference is located here: http://vyew.com/room#/907910/Part_A_Group_Leadership__Brainstorming_Session 

Vyew does not support a recording feature, so screenshots taken of our brainstorming meeting can be seen here (Thanks to Amy for taking these!):

As should be apparent, we choose to focus of collaboration using Google Software. We all choose an  app that we will be reviewing and giving tutorials on for their usefulness in the classroom and their collaborative potential.I will be focusing on Google Sites, Googles WISYWIG html editor and publisher.

On to the questions regarding the Vyew software.

What web conferencing tool did your group use? 

We used the Vyew online conferencing software, which is a free to use (albeit ad-supported) conferencing software.  Vyew allows for chat, voice, or video web conferencing as well as white-boarding, screen-sharing, and file-posting.

What were the advantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

This software has so many advantages for our group. One advantage was the ease of posting content like our angel rubrics and other word documents. We all needed to look at certain pages together, and this software allowed for the posting of these important documents in seconds, in a nice page display format that is simple to navigate. Another nice feature was obviously the Voice-over-IP feature that we used. All of turned our microphones on so we could talk to one another. This was a lot simpler than perhaps chatting in text would have been. This allowed for more bouncing around of ideas, which eventually led to us finding a topic that we all agreed on. The note-taking aspect of Vyew was also a nifty feature. Elise volunteered and took notes on what we were saying and deciding on. These notes could easily be saved and referenced and gone back to review later. It put our ideas in writing. The fact that the room we used is saved indefinitely on the Vyew servers is my FAVORITE feature about the program. When we go back and have our second meeting on Wednesday night, all of our stuff from the first meeting will already be there, which is a huge time saver. We never got around to using the webcam chat, the whiteboard, or the screen share features, but I could see these features being great in other settings such as directing a tutorial on new office software. Oh, and did I mention this software is free! Overall a fantastic Web 2.0 application.

What were the disadvantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project? 

One main disadvantage to Vyew was the that we could not record our presentation in a video. This hampered us on this project a little bit because it was one of the suggested requirements. Screenshots though do the program justice in my opinion. We all know what we said in the session and have notes on our progress and our presentation is saved, so not having a recording feature was more of an annoyance than anything. Another thing I would like to see would be a sort of hand raising tool. Sometimes, 3 of us would start talking all at once and the awkwardness of not knowing each other would result in a lot of silent moments waiting for each other to go first. A simple cuing button would help Vyew a lot.

UDL Notes

I designed a lesson plan that was a research and presentation project centering around insects. The lesson is designed for students in grades 1 or 2. The initial lesson plan was more designed for teachers to look at as opposed to students. These UDL principals are a fantastic idea when analyzing assignments and projects for students. They make sure that every student regardless of intelligence or background has the opportunity to succeed and excel at a lesson plan. I will be editing my lesson plan to include some of these guidelines in the future.

http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=642055&newcontribution=1

1. Provide options for perception
1.1 Customize the display of information	Barrier: The lesson design is simple 12 point font on a white background.
1.2 Provide alternatives for auditory information	Barrier: No auditory information is provided
1.3 Provide alternatives for visual information	Barrier: No video or picture links are provided. I plan on including these when I edit this lesson plan
2. Provide options for language and symbols
2.1 Define vocabulary and symbols	Feature: Big ideas are presented in single or 2 word phrases
2.2 Clarify syntax and structure
2.3 Decode text or mathematical notation	Feature: This lesson plan's language and symbolism is straight forward
2.4 Promote cross-linguistic understanding	Barrier: No translations available for deaf or ESL students
2.5 Illustrate key concepts non-linguistically
3. Provide options for comprehension
3.1 Provide or activate background knowledge	Barrier: No background info is given with the lesson plan
3.2 Highlight critical features, big ideas, and relationships	Barrier: No critical features or big ideas are especially highlighted
3.3 Guide information processing	Feature: The lesson plan is well organized
3.4 Support memory and transfer

II. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression	Your notes
4. Provide options for physical action
4.1 Provide varied ways to respond	Barrier: No options are given in the project. Perhaps some sort of options for students would be beneficial.
4.2 Provide varied ways to interact with materials
4.3 Integrate assistive technologies	Barrier: This is a straight forward text document. Assistive technologies could easily be implemented.
5. Provide options for expressive skills and fluency
5.1 Allow choices of media for communication	Barrier: There is solely text based document. Adding some images and videos will be helpful.
5.2 Provide appropriate tools for composition and problem solving	Feature: All tools are provided with the lesson plan
5.3 Provide ways to scaffold practice and performance
6. Provide options for executive functions
6.1 Guide effective goal setting	Barrier: No grading rubric or other goal-oriented attributes are given.
6.2 Support planning and strategy development	Barrier: Catch phrases are not provided
6.3 Facilitate managing information and resources
6.4 Enhance capacity for monitoring progress

III. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement	Your notes
7. Provide options for recruiting interest
7.1 Increase individual choice and autonomy	Feature: Students will be presenting their work in front of class, making autonomy and success desirable
7.2 Enhance relevance, value and authenticity	Feature: Students are allowed to choose their own path and presentation points
7.3 Reduce threats and distractions
8. Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
8.1 Heighten salience of goals and objectives	Feature: Goal is partially stated, could use a bit of improvement
8.2 Vary levels of challenge and support	Feature: The student can make this more difficult and in depth or less so
8.3 Foster collaboration and communication
8.4 Increase mastery-oriented feedback	Barrier: This project concentrates on solo-work. Some group work, or at least help, could be included
9. Provide options for self-regulation
9.1 Guide personal goal-setting and expectations	Barrier: Little goal-setting and timelines are given, a must to a project of this size
9.2 Scaffold coping skills and strategies
9.3 Develop self-assessment and reflection

Wicked Problem Project Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity

Since I have no real teaching experience of any sort at this point in my life, I have no other perspective to look at a project like this than through the eyes of a student. I was just hired for an elementary school computers teaching position starting this August, yet I just graduated from MSU undergraduate not even four months ago. I have not had the time or experience to undergo the paradigm shift that inevitably happens when a student becomes a teacher. I look at my viewpoint as a student as a positive aspect going into this project. I have a fantastic grasp of student to student interaction. I have noticed that in a group work setting for classes, getting things done can be difficult. I have embarked on many a group project adventure and more often than not working around everyone's schedule is a difficult if not impossible task. Inevitably, some people get stuck with doing more work while others remain in the background going along for the ride, so to speak. Technology has become a part of daily, or even hourly, life for the modern college student. We are connected 24/7 with our laptops, iPhones, and gaming systems. My generation is the face of the technology revolution. Yet I don't think that the usage of technology in education has achieved the sort of popularity that social interaction via technology has. Web 2.0 technologies and social media networks will become the future of technology in education, but they haven't yet gathered a mass following by students or teachers. My project will aim to increase awareness of the collaborative possibilities that are presented by Web 2.0 applications by outlining, summarizing, and promoting their usage in a classroom setting.

I firmly believe that many teachers have not fully embraced Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom, which is why the usage of these programs is nearly non-existent in College, at least in my experience. The majority of my technological exploration in College was using the archaic Angel system (It's not all bad! but it is severely lacking in many aspects such as its forums design and overall layout just to name 2) to respond to questions or submit classwork. I have found, especially after taking CEP 810, that there is a world of free applications on the internet that allow for access from anywhere and collaborative contact with group members that are more tailored to specific purposes (presentations, tutorials, etc). My project will aim to present some of these applications and their usages and how they can benefit students and teachers. The best way to have these apps gain popularity is through teachers emphasizing their use, which will be one concentration of this presentation. I will also hope to show students how much easier collaborative projects could be by using these applications. I hope to have a great tutorial in place as my final WPP presentation. I then hope to introduce my future elementary students to these technologies at an early age so they can see the possibilities Web 2.0 possesses for the future of educational technology.

MERLOT Exploration

I just registered for MERLOT, and found it overwhelming how many resources, applications, and educational software there was available. Everything is peer reviewed and commented on, making it easier to find the most useful resources for your particular area or subject of interest. One subject area that I have found myself more and more fascinated with are Web 2.0 applications. These applications are the future of computing due to their cloud computing compatibility, ease of collaboration over time zones and nations, and ease of storage and accessibility. I found an extremely useful resource on MERLOT that was given a distinguished award by them. It is a collection of Web 2.0 technologies on a page entitled Web 2.0 Technologies: Cool Tools for School. App's are broken up into categories and given small review snippets on how they work. I explored these lists for a while, and they are HUGE! With so many resources in one place, this website is sure to become a Web 2.0 bible for me once I start my job this August. My following review is based on this website.

The url is: http://cooltoolsforschools.wikispaces.com/

The MERLOT page is at: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=353806

Quality of Content

 This site has a tremendous amount of content that is well organized and constantly updated due to the fact that it is a wiki site with many contributors. It has apps for every conceivable subject area for thousands of different uses. The focus is on educational Web 2.0 applications, so the uses for education are far-reaching. Any kind of teacher at nearly any grade level could find some use for some of these applications. The presentation applications are very precisely detailed to their possible uses. The writing app's are great for students trying to improve their writing or getting their writing reviewed and edited by educators and professionals. I could go on and on, but this site has too many resources to write about.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool

 Teachers could use this resource to design completely new lesson plans that revolve around these very powerful Web 2.0 technologies. Whether it be presentations, collaborative projects, or homework assignments, the sky is the limit to what can be done with all of these great tools. Students could also use this site to find different applications and approaches to doing a project, like perhaps doing a Prezi presentation instead of a powerpoint presentation, or creating interactive maps for geography and history classes. A teacher could give the kids a very open-ended project and give it to the student the url to this website and have them learn these tools themselves to create a totally new type of project.

Ease of Use

This site is very easy to use. The organization is very simplistic and straight-forward. If you want your kids to do something with music, click on the music link for a list of Web 2.0 app's relating to music. The write-ups for the app's are well done and give a brief yet informative description of what the program can do and the audience that it would be useful for. It is obviously a very flexible resource.

Personal Introduction

My first screencast! Just a little introduction to who I am and what I do for CEP 812. Check it out:

Screencast

Personal Growth Plan Reflection

My Personal Growth Plan centered around learning Web 2.0 applications better, and I feel that this course has really helped me to do that. I have gained extensive knowledge of blogs, RSS, ning, twitter, and many other types of online software that I will definitely be implementing in the classroom is some way, shape, or form. When it comes to integrating technology in the classroom, I have learned plenty of methods in which I could use to further students skills with technology. Firstly, through doing our group project online with collaborative web 2.0 software, I have learned how to plan, create, and edit presentations without direct communication due to geographic location difference. I think these skills will benefit me in communication with classroom teachers when I do start my job in communicating and designing lesson plans that most benefit the students technology skills and their classroom learning. I have also learned plenty of interesting software that my students could use in creating projects such as prezi and blogger. I will be employing these types of software to both keep my classes organized and having students create through these mediums.

I feel as though angel is a great platform to teach this course through because at its core Angel is somewhat of a Web 2.0 application, which a large portion of this class focused on. Using the internet for most of our portfolio projects, whether that be social media, web 2.0 apps, or flickr, really emphasized the shift in technology towards web and cloud based computing and shifted my focus of teaching towards using these technologies to benefit students. I think that the RSS blog post was a great project because it incorporated blogs, rss feeds, screenshots, and other types of technology to create. This forced me to learn many new types of technology all at once, something that I really appreciated as in quickly caught me up to the demands of this course. Any assignment that used blogger was great because everything was posted online in a shareable area that all of our classmates could observe and enjoy. I also thought the forum communication on Angel is a great method of communication and it helps students educate and learn from other students, which reenforces our own knowledge that we already learned. The adobe presentations were also a great forum to ask questions, share knowledge, and communicate with one another. The main thing that I have taken away from this course in the capabilities of technology today in the realms of communication and collaboration. There are so many resources online to publish ideas, read opinions, and peer-review other professionals work.

I feel that I have gone above and beyond my expectations for myself in many regards. I have learned a great deal about Web 2.0 applications and their abilities in learning technology. The student presentations also really expanded my knowledge in specific areas such as tablet learning and technology for those with disabilities. I think those projects were a great capstone to everything we have learned in this course because they went outside of the learning in this class and really showed all of the areas of technology that are out there. Overall, I thought this was a great course because I really did learn a lot in the realm of technology in education.

Learning Style

My learning style after reviewing the session 5 post on learning styles would be a good mix of most of the styles. I am a very good verbal learner who can usually listen and then regurgitate information quickly, and remember it quite well with very little review. I do like learning sequentially overall so I can keep information organized in my head better and use groupings to make connections, somewhat similar to the global learning style. I am a decent active and visual learned, but tend to be more of a thinker than and actor when it comes to learning, which is why I enjoy classes in humanities, history, and political theory over those in math and sciences. I find that I also excel, when it comes to multiple intelligences, in interpersonal intelligence which comes from my constant lifelong interactions between people of different cultures and backgrounds. I also find that my verbal/linguistic intelligence level is quite high as I have very little trouble with writing, public speaking, or generally expressing my opinions and thoughts verbally. I don't consider myself a poet or a wordsmith of any type, but I generally grasp verbal and linguistic skills.

When it comes to teaching, I have very little experience in the classroom so when I do start my first job this coming August I hope to use a combination of all types of teaching styles to benefit every type of child in the classroom. Everyone learns differently, and creating a curriculum where every type of student can succeed and excel at some aspect is very important in an elementary school environment.

I thought this course worked well in relation to my learning style. I am good at reading, following instructions, and exploring things like twitter and RSS Readers on my own. This class gave you a good amount of instruction and freedom to chose one of many types of software and applications that most appeal to us in our current work situations.

As for focus, I think that in a classroom teachers should always focus on implementing many types of teaching methods so as to best reward all types of learning styles of the student in the classroom. Lessons should switch up there focus between group and alone work, lecture and active learning, and writing and artistic representation. It is impossible, like the assignment says, to incorporate every kind of teaching method to stiumulate every type of learning style in every lesson, but switching up teaching methods from lesson to lesson will have a similar effect without the chaos that would definitely occur if too many teaching styles were applied.

Creative Commons

Creative commons is a great resource for finding free content to use any way you please. Many different types of licenses are available for images depending on the persons specific way they would want it to be used. Commercial and personal licenses are available, but it seems to me that nearly all of them could be used in an educational setting. With creative commons, you can also license audio, video, and even programming code. Another feature of licensing is that a person can allow the modification or no modification to their work. Here is the a photo that I found on flicker.

This picture has a non-commercial, non-derives license, meaning that it can't be used for commercial purposes or edited in any way. The citation for the image would be like this:

Klaus Henkel, DSC_6985.jpg, February 11, 2012 via flicker, Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NonDerivs


Creative commons images, audio, video, or programming code could be used for so many things at an educational institution. Some ideas could be using images in a class learning adobe photoshop for image editing, building a powerpoint presentation using creative commons images, or just showing students images in relation to the class curriculum. The sky is really the limit when it comes to doing things with the creative commons. It also can teach students valuable lessons in citing sources and not plagiarizing work, something that needs to be consistently worked on throughout the education process.


I uploaded an image to flickr and shared it under a non commercial non derivs license. The link to that image is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/76954815@N05/6902407849/in/photostream

 

RSS Page Refelection: Google Reader

I choose Google Reader as my RSS Reader because I consistently use many google features (google docs, gmail, google calendar) and I think it is more organized to keep an added RSS reading feature under the same account. Google Reader is very simple to use. I added the four necessary feeds, and used google to find four more sites to add, 3 of which are blogs and one of which is a web page. Here are some screen shots of what my RSS Page looks like:

I found the features very simple to use. Adding feeds could either be done through the original page or blog, or else through the Readers Add Feed option, where a url was put in and the Reader automatically found the feed and added it to your reading list.

I posted a comment on a blog that I found called The Thinking Stick, a blog written by an overseas educator that features great original content and links to happenings in the educational technology world as well as ideas for educators. It relates very well with my new position teaching overseas in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, as an elementary computers teacher. I posted a comment on this story:  It is a plan for a 1 to 1 student to laptop program in any school district, and I liked his ideas. Here is a screenshot of my post on that blog:

The blog post emphasized the usage of laptops for students in grades 6-12. Each student would be given a macbook pro that would be used at school and at home to do schoolwork, explore, etc. I liked the fact that he emphasized an open interface (no real limiting software to what can be installed) so the students had options to how they wanted to go about doing a project and were not limited to a small number of programs. This increases technology skills and outside the box thinking, something that is important for today's children.

RSS feeds are great because they are constantly updating, with new information being received by the hour that is often extremely pertinent to education and teaching with technology in our case. Every time I log in I have 10-20 posts that I find would benefit me as a future computers teacher, and I stop and read about them. I find that no matter what days I use Google Reader, I am still getting new updates. I am following around 10 feeds, so if 1 blog (which I notice usually don't update as often as websites) doesn't have a new post that day, I just go to another one that does.

I have been reading many posts and have already amassed a few ideas for when I start teaching next year. 2 blogs that I am following, 2 Cents Worth and the previously mentioned The Walking Stick, have great ideas with an international education background, something that will apply to me at my new job. I follow another RSS feed dealing with P.E, because I will be teaching a section or 2 of P.E every week. The site is found here, and is a great resource to find drills, activities, and games in relation to teaching P.E. I feel as though I have just touched the surface of all of the great resources out there that could help and make me a better educator.

I will use RSS feeds with Google Reader during my teaching to continue to read and learn to make myself a better educator by maintaining my own learning while teaching. Keeping up with technology is difficult because of the speed at which it moves, but having a tool like RSS can keep you in the loop and up to date on the most important technological advances in specific and applicable areas. Personally, I have been using Firefox's live RSS feeds to find the latest information on my favorite sports teams, world news developments, and travel tips. I find that it is a great resources for personal enjoyment as well as professional development.

GTD: Getting Things Done

I have been using processes like GTD to organize things I have to do for work, school, and others for a long time, but in a method that I devised myself that works well for me. I use google docs as my collection and organization utility. I love the fact that google docs can be accessed anywhere at any time as long as an internet connection is available, which tends to be most of the time for me these days anyways. Every so often, especially when I am getting overwhelmed, I will collect my thoughts by collecting everything I have to do and making a google doc out of it. I will then look through my collection of tasks and organize them based on importance, due date, etc by processing the information. I then will organize the information into tiers based on my analysis of them and set a rough timetable of my future actions to most efficiently use my time to get these things done. Then, I do what I need to to get these individual, and now thoroughly organized tasks, completed based on the timetable that I made.

I find that I often become very anxious when I do not organize my thoughts and tasks. This anxiousness leads me to become less productive because concentration becomes difficult on the task at hand as I begin bothering myself with what else needs to be done. Having a place to organize my thoughts, like in google docs, and then act on the tasks at hand and actually have a visual representation of things getting done, serves to calm my nerves, keep down stress, and make me sleep better at night. I used to be highly unorganized in high school and the beginning of college, but I realized that once I became organized, school, work, and life overall became easier and more enjoyable, which is why I continue to use my own method of GTD.

Participation in Social Networking

Social Networking allows social connections that may have lasted in person for only minutes of even seconds go a long way professionally or personally. Professionally speaking, social networking can be very beneficial in both getting hired originally and maintaining professional relationships that can promote the flow and exchange of ideas, especially in a subject as diverse and dynamic as education. Tools like linkedin are a great way to get your name out there initially and begin a job search. Tools like twitter, facebook, google+, and newer utilities like edmondo can be extremely beneficial for the transfer of ideas and resources that can help a teacher with integration of technology as well as teaching in general.

Personally, as someone that grew up overseas, I know that social networking has allowed me to keep up with my classmates that have graduated and spread throughout the globe attending university and just now starting to enter the job market. It is amazing being able to look at a simple web page and know what is going on in someones life that I may have not talked to for 1 or 2 years, and I really appreciate the opportunity to do that as do many of my friends that grew up with similar lifestyles. If I am ever traveling, I will often look at my facebook friends group to see if anyone lives where I am going at that moment to perhaps stay with them for a night or two to save money not staying in a hotel. I have some friends that specialize in computer troubleshooting, car troubles, or whatever else, that I can post a message on their profile and will receive help within days of hours. I know that students, having been one just 1 month ago, use these tools exceedingly as they become more and more useful and popular in communication and connection making. Social networking allows us another social sphere besides reality where we can present ourselves, our ideas, and our discoveries to distinct groups of contacts.

The difference between blogs and traditional web pages

There exist many differences between blogs and traditional web pages that derive from their purposes, the ways in which they work, and the way they are hosted online. Traditional web pages are used as a medium for basically any type of information that can be posted on the internet. They can be created through web editing programs, flash, or any number of types of different software. They can incorporate an enormous amount of features that are basically endless as well. However, creating and updating them can be difficult, which makes them somewhat static in many respects. Blogs are very simple to both create (I made this blog in 5 minutes), and to update (as soon as I press enter, this post can be viewed by the entirety of the internet). Creating and hosting them is also free and is done through a hosting service, like blogger, that allows you to create many different blogs and organize them how you like. Blogs are very good for group collaboration as well, as the creator has options on who can author and comment on posts. People with similar interests can create a community online through blogging, reading each others blogs, and commenting on others blogs, which makes them highly dynamic and interactive. Blogs basically offer anyone, even those with limited technological understanding, the option to publish opinions and ideas on the internet in a very simple to use environment. Traditional web pages are more open and free to operate in, yet creating and editing them takes some knowledge on the subject.