Tiffany+Thomason

= = E2T2 Portfolio Page for //Tiffany Thomason//

Summary
I conducted my lesson during Tri 2. I chose to use Voice Thread for my students to record and evaluate their own oral presentations. Students were then able to share the video with a peer and conduct colloborative scoring.

I also had my students create glogs for our end of unit project. They chose a book and analyzed the setting, plot, characters, theme and glogged about them.

My unit was apart of my non-fiction unit. We used Current Event News sites to locate current event articles that they were interested in. They then blogged about the current event. This continued for the end of Tri 2 and the start of Tri 3.

Shared Lessons, Units, and Resources

 * ~ Daily Lessons ||~ Instructional Units ||~  ||
 * [[file:Voice Thread Lesson Narrative.docx]] || [[file:CE Blog Unit Narrative.docx]] ||  ||
 * [[file:Voice Thread Lesson.docx]] || [[file:CE Blog Unit Narrative.docx]] ||  ||
 * [[file:Book Talk Reflection.docx]] || [[file:Blog Grade.docx]] ||  ||
 * [[file:Booktalks.xls]] ||  ||   ||

Blog Entries
rss url="http://mrsthomason.blogspot.com/" link="true" number="20"

Student Work Samples
//Glogs from Tri 2 Current Event Blogs for Tri 2// //[|Aeslyn]// //[|Emily]// //[|Jeremiah]// //[|John]//

//Voice Thread from Tri 2// media type="file" key="Book talk-Cody.mov" width="300" height="300"

Current Event Blogs From Tri 2 and 3

[|Lindsay P]

[|Jaimin]

[|Aeslyn]

[|Emma]

Summative Narrative
E2T2 has been a very beneficial grant to participate in. Throughout the process I have had a lot of classroom success and frustrations. Without having gone through this process, I never would have made myself try as many new technology pieces as I did this year.

I learned that doing a technology lesson takes a lot of planning! To make sure that you are a step ahead of the kids you have to be very familiar with the technology you are asking them to use. I tried to do this through creating a teacher model. No matter how much planning I did, I still had to be prepared for things not to go right. When that happened the kids worked hard to figure it out the problems and help classmates. That was something that I couldn’t plan for, but loved how it came out in my students.

The students loved working with glogster, voice thread, and edublogger. I did the same lessons I have always done, just added the technology factor. I really think I was more excited about the lessons, because they were different than what I have done in the past. The students were engages and excited to do something different out of the classroom and in collaboration with their peers. Even with the problems we had on the journey, the end products and excitement made it all worthwhile.

I hope to encourage other teachers to use some of these programs with confidence. I think having so many classrooms that did E2T2 this year a trend has started in our building and I think technology in the classroom is an expectation for those teachers now. I hope to continue with what I did this year, as well as, adding to my research unit and having a classroom blog or facebook page.

Literature Review
I was dreading having to read a book and write about it. I was pleasantly surprised. //Reinventing Project-Based Learning// by Boss and Krauss was very easy to read and interesting! Everything I want in a book. This is a very user friendly text, which is hard to find in educational writing.

I found the true teacher stories the most useful. It helps me to know how teachers implement researched based strategies and projects into their classrooms. Because of these stories I tried googledocs and am looking into how to expand my students learning circle. I also found the Technology Focus boxes helpful. They were also great at giving examples of technology that could be used. Many of them also provided step by step guidance for the tool they were discussing. The appendixes in the back are super helpful. They have the NETS S where you can look quickly at the standards. The appendix also has a quick guide of net tools that give a short explanation of each. When I have a project in mind, it was very easy to turn to the back and look through the tools quickly to find a tool that would be appropriate. By using some of these projects you have the opportunity to, “Engage students in experiences that help them become better at making decisions, working in teams, and providing evidence of what they have learned (Boss and Krauss, 2007).”

My educational philosophy always revolves around what is best for students. The focus of this book is Project-Based Learning with technology. The book points out benefits of trying new things for students and teachers. It encourages you to create and become a part of different communities of learning. I love how they encourage you to work with your teaching peers and create collaborative projects. “By working together you and your colleagues can expect to produce something greater than the sum of your parts (Boss and Krauss, 2007).” I like the idea of teachers and students all working together to produce something great.

My only problem with the book is it makes everything sound so easy. It does talk about pitfalls, but I think it should talk about the struggles that implementing technology can bring. Nothing goes perfect the first time and it can be very frustrating, especially when you are in front of a class. I think it should also talk about what programs your computer has on it when they suggest technology. You can go to use a program and the computers you have available won’t run the program.

This book impacted my students because it encouraged me to try project-based learning using technology. My kids analyzed parts of a story by creating a glog. They learned about events around the world, by blogging about current events. They collaborated with a partner and evaluated their own oral presentations using voice thread and imovie. Now I need to bring my 7th grade team into the process and we can create a cross curricular project to impact our student’s learning.

Boss, S., & Krauss, J. (2007). //Reinventing Project-Based Learning//.

Eugene, OR: ISTE.