Thing 6 - Communication
I have used Today's Meet in my classroom a couple of times this year. I really like it and so do my students. The first time I used Today's Meet in my classroom was on September 11th. I was teaching a lesson about September 11th and the terrorist attacks on the United States. My students are so young that they were not born when this horrible event took place. While I was showing a short vidoe about September 11th on my Promethean board, I had a Today's Meet open on my pc and all of my students had their own Chromebook and were logged on to Today's Meet. I was able to post questions to my students from my personal computer while the video was playing. Some of my questions were fact based and some of my questions were asking students about how they felt about what they were learning about September 11th. Students then started to post their feelings about September 11th as they learned so many more facts about the events that took place on September 11th. Students were so comfortable with Today's Meet I believe because it is so much like texting and posting comments like they do on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
I use Today's Meet for students to post questions from their study guide before a test. It is a great way for students to collaborate and help one another. Students work hard to find answers not just for themselves but also for their classmates because they enjoy "posting" and the sense of accomplishment when they post the correct answer. Meanwhile, I watch they posts on my Promethean board or on my pc. I respond if a question is incorrect or I will give hints if many students cannot find an answer to a particular question.
Unfortunately, I did not have an account which allowed me to save my Today's Meet for my classes longer than a month, so I was unable to post the chat. When I set my Today's Meet up, I open a chat for each of my classrooms. I make the log in simple for my student by using my last name and the hour. Here is an example: https://todaysmeet.com/steen1. Eventhough my chat was not saved past a month, I retyped some of the questions that I posted for my students to answer from the September 11th lesson.
I use Today's Meet for students to post questions from their study guide before a test. It is a great way for students to collaborate and help one another. Students work hard to find answers not just for themselves but also for their classmates because they enjoy "posting" and the sense of accomplishment when they post the correct answer. Meanwhile, I watch they posts on my Promethean board or on my pc. I respond if a question is incorrect or I will give hints if many students cannot find an answer to a particular question.
Unfortunately, I did not have an account which allowed me to save my Today's Meet for my classes longer than a month, so I was unable to post the chat. When I set my Today's Meet up, I open a chat for each of my classrooms. I make the log in simple for my student by using my last name and the hour. Here is an example: https://todaysmeet.com/steen1. Eventhough my chat was not saved past a month, I retyped some of the questions that I posted for my students to answer from the September 11th lesson.
Thing 7 - Productivity
Online-Convert
Our Yale Junior High 21 Things group met and worked on Thing 7 together. We all converted a Word document to an mp3 format (audio) with Online-Convert as the conversion tool of our choice. Each of us downloaded a document from our Google Drive. We had success with the conversion. We did have to make sure that the Google Document was downloaded to a Word document first before the conversion took place. Thanks to the assistance of our technology expert, Michele Macias, our group was successful.
I can see using Online-Convert to assist students with learning disabilities who have the accommodation to have their tests or quizzes read. Students could use a Chromebook and headphones to listen to the audio version of their tests or quizzes.
I can see using Online-Convert to assist students with learning disabilities who have the accommodation to have their tests or quizzes read. Students could use a Chromebook and headphones to listen to the audio version of their tests or quizzes.
unit7studyguide.mp3 | |
File Size: | 813 kb |
File Type: | mp3 |
Google Calendar
I already had a Google calendar, so I took a screen shot of the week for my digital portfolio.
URL Shortener - Goo.gl
Evernote
LiveBinders
I enjoyed browsing through the various, shared LiveBinders. It is very helpful to have all the valuable educational links in one location. I found a couple that I believe will be useful for my students for reseach projects. To be honest, I could have spent a couple of hours browsing, but I needed to finish my 7th Thing. To finish up, I published buttons on my Weebly site for helpful social studies LiveBinders for students.
Thing 8 - Digital Citizenship
Our school participated in Challenge Day which was a complete day geared toward anti-bullying. One of the focuses during Challenge Day was the fact that bullying can happen through social media on the Internet. Our school followed a school wide anti-bullying curriculum on Challenge Day. One area that we focused on as a school had to deal with Digital Etiquette. I believe both teachers and students need to be more aware of how to handle themselves online.
During our Challenge Day, students went from hour to hour with a new top being presented school wide. A couple of the hours dealt directly with social media being used to bully or promote bullying within a school. Our school used a variety of videos as well as skits to demonstrate and teach students how to properly conduct themselves online to help eliminate bullying.
During our Challenge Day, students went from hour to hour with a new top being presented school wide. A couple of the hours dealt directly with social media being used to bully or promote bullying within a school. Our school used a variety of videos as well as skits to demonstrate and teach students how to properly conduct themselves online to help eliminate bullying.
Helpful Links and Curriculum to Teach Anti-BullyingDigital Etiquette
On a final note about our Challenge Day activities, I shared images with the guest speaker of Challenge day, Chris. He and I shared some samples from my anti-bullying classroom lessons on Instagram to get the word out about anti-bullying. Many of the Yale Junior High students, their parents, and other people commented or like the photos on Instagram.
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Thing 9 - Be Legal & Fair
Before I took the copyright quiz for Thing 9, I thought I knew quite a bit about plagiarism. However, I discovered I only knew the only minimal information about copyright laws. I was able to learn how the Fair Use Policy works concerning videos. I really enjoyed how Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University demonstrated how to legally use portions of famous Disney cartoons in A Fair(y) Use Tale to teach a lesson about the Fair Use Policy. I have included a link to the video on my Weebly page to show students and teach them about the Fair Use Policy. I feel more confident teaching my students how to properly use citations for written works as well as pictures and videos. If I had not learned all of this information about the Fair Use Policy, Public Domain, and copyright laws, I may have set my students up for illegally using various item found on the internet. I will be much more cautious before utilizing images and videos on my Weebly page as well as citing work and lessons that I find on the internet.
I found some helpful links on Stop the Pirates for students to use while researching in the Public Domain.
Freefoto
Pics4Learning
Public Domain Photos
Flickr Free Use Group
Public Domain Images
Creative Commons Public Domain Search Engine
I also was happy to discover that I can point my students in the right direction to legally copyright their own work by going to Creative Commons.
Finally, I discovered some helpful sites for checking possible plagiarized work through Plag Tracker and Paper Rater.
I used Plag Tracker with a project sheet I created for my social studies class. I had created the project sheet for a world religions project for my 7th grade social studies class. I knew there would not be any problems with the document since I created it myself, but I was interested to see how Plag Tracker workded. I logged in using my email and the password which was generated for me from Plag Tracker. The text I submitted was my own, so there weren't any issues with it being plagiarized.
I found some helpful links on Stop the Pirates for students to use while researching in the Public Domain.
Freefoto
Pics4Learning
Public Domain Photos
Flickr Free Use Group
Public Domain Images
Creative Commons Public Domain Search Engine
I also was happy to discover that I can point my students in the right direction to legally copyright their own work by going to Creative Commons.
Finally, I discovered some helpful sites for checking possible plagiarized work through Plag Tracker and Paper Rater.
I used Plag Tracker with a project sheet I created for my social studies class. I had created the project sheet for a world religions project for my 7th grade social studies class. I knew there would not be any problems with the document since I created it myself, but I was interested to see how Plag Tracker workded. I logged in using my email and the password which was generated for me from Plag Tracker. The text I submitted was my own, so there weren't any issues with it being plagiarized.
Mrs. Steen's 7th Grade Social Studies Class by Susan Steen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at ssteenypsd.weebly.com.
Thing 10 - Search Strategies
I evaluated e-Library Elementary and Kids InfoBit for the appropriateness, usability, content, and credibility of the pair of databases for use within the classroom. I believe both databases do support the best practices for generating and testing hypotheses. I believe students would choose the database that they like best based on of the site as well as easiness for navigation. Personally, I found e-Library Elementary easier to navigate through the site. Both databases produced valid information along with citations.
The database Culture Grams would be extremely helpful while studying the numerous countries of the Eastern Hemisphere which is a large part of the 7th grade social studies curriculum. The database is user friendly with a map of the world which students can click on for specific country information. On a personal note, I found the
Legal Forms Library to be very interesting and an excellent source for any major legal document needed for citizens in Michigan. Furthermore, Valenza's Bogus & Hoax PowerPoint would be an excellent tool to deepen students' understanding of how any person can post anything on line. So often, students believe that if something is on the internet then it is true. The first site I looked at was Dog Island. This site was made for pure enjoyment which the disclaimer(written very small at the bottom) stated. The site is quite silly since it suggests that you send your dog to an island to be set free and your dog will participate in ridiculous activities which are obviously not true. The second site I looked at was Save the Rennets. After a short time navigating this site, I noticed that it was linked to Dog Island which was a bogus site too. The same theme was repeated that stated sending rennets to an island to be safe from scientific slaughter. The site also talked about needing signatures on a petition to stop the killing of rennets, yet only a partial address was given to send the petition. Plus, the site stated you would receive vegetrian cheese. The site was quite odd. Currently, I teach 7th grade social studies. Frequently, I have my students complete research projects. The students struggle at this age how to search for the required information on line. I find students use too many words. I often times have students tell me that they cannot find anything. I try to explain to students how to refine their search by using key words. In addition, I have tried to explain the importance of evaluating the web sites that they are using. I really like the Web Site Evaluation tool Joyce Valenza created. I believe this will be an easy tool for students to reference and use to determine if the web sites they are using are reputable and valid.
Sometimes it may be necessary to search particular topics that have dual meanings and could lead to an inappropriate and shocking search result for students. I beleive it is important to direct younger students to use the kid-friendly search engines like KidzSearch.com or Safesearchkids.com. I also posted these safe search engines on my units of study tab in Weebly, so students will be able to easily access ways to safely search on their research projects. Free Citation Makers I searched on Google Scholar the topic "major world religions" and the search produced numerous sources. I found a book call World Religions Today and used the site BibMe to create the citation below. Esposito, J., & Fasching, D. (2002). World religions today. New York: Oxford University Press. |