Week 14: Waiting for Your Technology Guru?

Our Fierce Guard Dogs, Sunny & Frances

It is always an exciting time for me when I look at student blogs towards the end of the semester. I see amazing examples of work using technology. If you would take a moment to look over all that you and your peers have accomplished so far, I think, you too, will be both excited and amazed. You are approaching the point where you don't need a tech guru. . .you can do this all on your own. However, we are not finished yet.
Tonight, we will be learning how to use iMovie! You will be making public service announcements about our wonderful university. As I told you all last week, please remember to bring headphones and if you decided to use your camera to take some images or video of the campus, that would be great too. Ideally, we will complete the entire project this evening, but there will be time next week to work on them too.
There are a lot of assignments that are still in progress, the most important of which will be the writing of your final TaskStream Narratives. These will be written with the same color-coding as the NETS I collaborative narratives. To receive credit for the course, your narratives must be almost perfect (meaning I have changed almost all of your narratives to black!). Some of the other assignments are the Symbaloo Webmix/Portfolio that will be placed into TaskStream. Your two artifacts per NETS will be color-coded and labeled. If you do a good job with your NETS-T Mind Map, you should have a great graphic organizer to assist your writing. And don't forget your Journal 6-10 and Emerging Technology assignments. On a positive note, the next two weeks will be spent polishing up your blogs, TaskStream narratives, and Symbaloo portfolios!

This Week's Question: What is your current favorite thing to do when you aren't taking care of school work. . .

Week 13: Gaining Confidence?

My friend Mark on top of Cowels Mountain

Wow, we only have four class meetings left! Crazy, but true. Besides the final NETS narratives, we only have the Mind Map and iMovie assignments left. Of course, you still have to finish past work: your Journal 6-10 (PLN & Adaptive Technology), Cybersafety Collaborative Website, Emerging Technology Checklist, and completing your Symbaloo Webmix Portfolio (plus any past revisions). To that end, it's important that you look at your Edmodo notifications and/or progress to see what you need to revise. If you have any questions please check in with me either before or after class.
Today, I have to do a Web Tool Wednesday presentation for the San Diego Country Office of Education. It's from 3:30 - 4:30. I will probably hit traffic on the 15 N, so I may be a few minutes late in arriving. I'm sure you have plenty to work on. It would be a good time to help your peers with any questions they might have about your collaborative website. Yu can also begin to put more of your work on your blog if you haven't already (this is when you refer to your Emerging Technology Checklist). When I arrive, we can discuss the websites and what and how to complete your page. We will also begin the Mind Map assignment, revisit Symbaloo and TaskStream. If there is enough time, I will have you create the new Google Doc that will be the final NETS-t Narratives. Remember, this is the closest thing we will have to a "final exam," and you cannot receive credit for the course if the NETS Narratives are not in order.

This Week's Question: As we are working on a competency/mastery based type of course, where you do not receive credit for your work until you have reached mastery, I wonder what, if anything you have discovered about yourself as a learner? Did you find yourself looking at the assignments differently? Do you like this method or would you rather just submit your assignment, receive a grade, and move on?

Week 12: Flipping for Technology. . .

My daughter Zoe (left) and her friend Taylor in Mammoth

Hopefully, you all missed our class so much over Spring Break that you cannot wait to get going this evening. I'm sure than many of you decided to forgo any fun Spring Break activities to concentrate on technology, right? Well okay then. . . The Prezis should be completed and the assessment should be well on its way. . .I will ensure you all know how to get both of these on a blog page with the formatting adjusted to fit the width of your blog post. You will be presenting these to your peers in small, grade range groups. This is why it is so important that you are finished with your project. If you already published your assignment as a blog post instead of a page, you can either try to fix it or wait for my help. I believe that everyone is finally enrolled in my TaskStream container (except for one person), so I will show you all how to request feedback from me. After our presentations have been completed, we will move on to the cybersafety collaborative websites and the NETS-T Mind Map assignment. Of course, you have plenty of assignments in progress: Journal 7 (PLN), Journal 8 (Adaptive Technology), the other jornals, and some are still completing the Excel, Symbaloo and a variety of some older assignments. Considering that we only have four more meetings, please be mindful of your time and how much you will need to complete the rest of the course. And take full advantage of the extra help available before and after class.

This Week's Question: Do you see yourself integrating technology into your future classes? How do you see this happening?