Unexpected Challenges Ahead... :)

It has been almost a year since I have updated my edu blog. What can I say? It has been my first year teaching and I have been trying so hard to do all of the things that I've set out to do my whole life since getting hired.

I have been lucky to have a dreamy first semester; one prep (AKA I only teach one type of class AKA PRAISE THE HEAVENS HALLELUJAH), an experienced/wonderful co-teacher, a small learning community with wonderful resources for students who have experienced trauma and/or difficulty in the education system thus far, a close group of colleagues, and small class sizes. As the days went by in September, I began to get scared and confused since I was hoping more and more students would show up, but alas, more left instead.

I began to realize that this lack of students would lead to some unfortunate decisions in my future at this dreamy job. I began to work extra hard and effectively to prepare for the likely cuts that were going to happen at the end of the year...however there was a different surprise in store...

We had to lay off teachers in the middle of year. The month of January was rough for myself and most of my colleagues as we were confused, stressed for the imminent semester as well as our own well-being. This is where this blog could get really negative, bitter and hopeless...but I'll continue on with the good news- I was not laid off but am switching positions instead.

I start my new position this Monday. It is in a new building. I will probably have 150 new students.  I will have all new colleagues. I will have new bosses. I will have a new curriculum.. I will have new printers. Do I know a lot? Nope! My stuff is in my car since I do not have a room yet! Will I be completely emotionally graceful with this change...heck no.

                                                               This is me on Monday

In response to the stress I am feeling I am going to write this blog again and center it on what works and does not work in terms of this different experience I will be having: entering another's classroom in the middle of the year on two weeks notice as a first year teacher.

I recognize that there are so many other teachers facing challenging experiences similar to and DEFINITELY more severe than this. I am hoping to use my own, however, to really evaluate myself as an effective and transformative educator in the midst of challenge and make this unexpected event a positive one. Hence the :) in my title.

Wizards, Mind-Reading and Techno, Oh My!

This year, I was lucky to attend the MACUL conference in Detroit, Michigan. MACUL stands for "Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning," however, at the conference I heard about many different technological tools and ways to incorporate them into the classroom. When looking at the MACUL program, I was overwhelmed by the amount of presentations, there were hundreds to choose from! So, I picked which presentations I would attend based on which names sounded the most exciting (very similar to the way I picked which teams would advance in my March Madness bracket). The words included in my title of this blogpost were what led me to go presentations- how can one say no to a seminar that includes the word "wizard" or "techno teaching?"

The second presentation that I attended was entitled "Mind-Reading with Technology Tools," so of course I was intrigued. The presenter, Andrea McKay, began by having everyone participate by making each attendee sign up for a website called peardeck.com. This site is a tool that teachers can use to get students to interact with powerpoint presentations on their computers, smart phones or iPads in ways that are similar to students interacting in a webinar. For instance, students can submit or choose responses that can instantly be shown in a graph to the class, so that they can see what their peers answered and the teacher can see who answers what on their screen. Students can also interact by drawing pictures or or placing points on maps. It is also important to note that students can look onto the powerpoint-esq presentation, slide for slide, on their device. This technology is pertinent to where I am currently student teaching in that it would help to make up for some of the technology that we lack, in that we do not currently have a projector to project slide shows or anything from our computers the class as a whole. With peardeck.com, I can show the whole class videos or information without a projector. One setback to this technology is that is costs money, but if I am in a similar predicament next year I spending the twelve dollars a month would be well worth it!

Andrea ended her presentation by using technology to read my good pal Elliots' mind. She talked about how she uses a certain video that showcases a man who could read any real person's mind (it actually has some secrets to it that I cannot share but you can watch below) to spark conversations with her students and them engaged in class. If you were the watch the video I took of her and Elliot, you can hear me hooting, hollering and laughing in the video as evidence of its excitement; I hope that I can use it one day to get my mathematics class started by getting them to begin to think about predictions and theories. My final thing I will say about this presentation is that I really enjoyed the Andrea presented. I loved how she was able to obtain her objectives and teach what she wanted to teach through use of humor and her personality. I learned and saw a little bit about the kind of teacher I hope to become from watching her present.

Overall, I came out of the conference so inspired to not only be a person that uses technology, but a teacher that uses technology. At lunch in the middle of the day, I finally came around to creating tmy professional twitter account because I was excited to connect to those who utilize technology in creative ways like those I learned about throughout that wonderful #macul15 day!

A Lesson with Desmos: The TI-83 for the Next Generation

The lesson that I plan on integrating technology with is one in which the students will be exploring graphs of polynomials and how they relate to the different parts of polynomial functions. For instance, by finding the leading coefficient and degree of an expression of a polynomial function, one can predict the shape and behaviors of its graph. Students will be looking at different polynomials and finding patterns between their graphs and the parts of a polynomial. Instead of using the traditional graphing calculator, students will be be going to the back of the classroom to use the Desmos graphing devices on the computers to complete questions like those on the following handout: 

Desmos is a free online graphing device that has many of the same features of a Texas Instruments graphing calculator. Therefore, as a math teacher it is quite easy to integrate Desmos into classroom for many math concepts can be modeled via graphs and the act of graphing is essential for a deeper understanding of certain mathematical conceptual knowledge. For this particular lesson students will be using the graphing device to clearly see graphs and accomplish their learning objective: students will be able to identify a polynomial function graph based on the parts of a polynomial and vice versa. 

One of my main reasons for using Desmos over the typical Texas Instruments graphing calculator is that with Desmos, students can save their work, unlike the calculator. Overall the computer application is also easier for students to collaborate and investigate with for multiple students can see the visuals of the graph at once. This is really important for this particular lesson since students are asked to work in groups to see patterns that aren't easy to see individually or without discussion. Another characteristic that separates Desmos from the TI-83's available in our classroom are that program begins to create graphs as students type in numbers and variables. If you make a change to a number, the graph is quickly redrawn on the computer. This way, students can make these changes and the impact of the changes they make in real time; this gives them immediate feedback and of how the graph changes under certain circumstances which is pertinent to and enhances the objective I am trying to reach and overall a powerful way for students to learn math. 

What makes Desmos even more remarkable is that students can also download the application on their phones and tablets. This may be something that I consider having them do before implementing this lesson since it may help some students engage even more so he may be distracted by the computers or want to work alone. By having students download the application to their own devices, there is a chance they would play around with it during their time after school. This could really extend their learning to places outside of the classroom, which is one of my overall goals as a math educator specifically. 

Ben Gipin's "A Colorful Principal": A Blog Fit for a King...Or Rather a Principal

When sorting through the variety of Edublogs on the interwebs, I ended up choosing to write about Ben Gilpin’s blog for a few different reasons. The first being that his blog is very easy to navigate and sleek in that is very simple to look at. Many of the blogs that I paroozed that won blogging awards or were followed by thousands were overly flashy and had so many different links to other blogs or twitter, pictures, and other visual stimulation that I could not concentrate on its content. Another thing that caught my attention about this particular blog was that a principal was behind it. Thus far from what I have seen in the edublog realm has mostly been written and moderated by practicing school teachers.  Within each of his blog posts, Ben writes on a pretty general education topics and his writing often is sprinkled with very motivational concepts and quotes. For example, one of his most recent blog posts he writes down a variety of “what if” questions that ranged from what if “gifted students had the same supports as struggling students” and then “what if people didn’t gossip,” so his blog posts don’t strictly provide tips for teachers or discuss the pedagogical practices that research has shown to be effective. Instead, Ben’s personality shines through each post and his blog acts as place where he can both reflect on some of his personal thoughts about education, give his students, faculty, parents of students and community members a chance to get know him and remind those involved with the school in which he is charge of a glimpse of some of the current events and weekly schedule.

            

Overall I found Ben’s blog to interesting in that he used it in a unique way that seems often overlooked; many students and teachers do not get the chance to interact with the school principal, even though his level of involvement effects how both parents and students view the school and the education that occurs there. Ben’s blog made me think about how I may use my blog as a means of making connections with my school community. At the end of each of his posts, Ben shares links to a videos that he has been into for that week. These videos encompass all of his interests and many are put there because they are comical and brighten his day. The videos that Ben post allow his readers to see how Ben thinks and brighten the reader’s day as well. I like the idea of having a space both positive and informative where people of the school community can be informed of what is going on and of who has power when it comes to the education of students within that community. I wrote a comment on Ben’s “What if..” post where I wrote “What if all school principals had an accessible blog?” and described how awesome I think his blog, and the idea of a principal having a blog is. 

Can Prezi be Pretty and Pretty Helpful in the Classroom? How my Perspective of Prezi Has Changed

For my Technology in Education class, I had to present on a technology tool that has been effective in a variety of classrooms for a variety of teachers. The tool in which I was assigned was Prezi.  Coming into this project, I did not have a good impression of Prezi. When filling out the survey for what tech tool I wanted to present, I saw the list and said to myself “I definitely do not want to present on Prezi,” however after realizing I had not heard of the other tools I decided that it could be slightly “easier” (I know this way of thinking is silly but we are over-worked Masters students after all) to present on a tool that I had some basic knowledge of. When we split up the work-load between the members of our group, one of the tasks that I was given was to find examples of how teachers use Prezi. Before really researching the tool I had counted it out as something not useful for me since I am not usually one to present with a PowerPoint, which I thought Prezi was very similar to, and from the Prezis I have seen, they are disorienting and over extravagant. However, after doing research and looking at Prezi examples my entire schema of Prezi was changed.

Firstly, there was so much creativity and imagery involved in the Prezis that I viewed. I found Prezi to be very visually stimulating. As a person who often does not stay very engaged when listening to information, the wonderful example Prezis that I found online made the material easier to enjoy. It was also informative to see the different examples that spanned across the disciplines. Overall from this project my knowledge of a tool, one in which I did not have much faith in, turned out to be something that I may learn from as a student and also may use in my classroom. I now see that I must research technological tools and actually engage with the tool to determine their purpose in my classroom, both with my students and as a teacher organizing my classroom, before ruling out its use. 

So for those of you who were like me who had unfortunate and negative experiences with Prezi, I encourage you to google something along the lines of “phenomenal Prezi presentations,” so that you can see just how far the capabilities of this tool extend if it is done well and with a lot of intent. For instance here is one of the Prezintations that turned me- 

https://prezi.com/veychlhwrdgz/putting-time-in-perspective/

The Prezi above on events in time, is one example in which a PowerPoint of another presentation tool would have not been useful. In order to discuss large increments of time, a large amount of slides would be necessary. However, Prezi allows one to see these large increments of time from a different perspective. I think when it comes to all tech tools, having an open perspective like the one that Prezi allows, is important for our education practices when it comes to choosing what tech we want to use in our classrooms. 

Technology at Ypsilanti High School: A Gap between Presence and Usage

Coming into Ypsilanti Community High School which I knew was a "high needs school," I assumed that their would be a lack of resources, especially technologically While this lack of resources definitely exists, there are actually  many technologies available within the walls of the school. For instance within my mentor teacher's classroom we have 18 Macintosh computers and a set of fifty graphing calculators for students to use within its walls. As far as the overall technology in the classroom there is a teacher laptop, a projector, an audio device for the projector, a dongle to hook up the teacher laptop to the projector, a DVD/VCR player. While technological equipment is requested by teachers for their classroom the summer before the school year, the lack of enough and of organized technological specialists prevents many of these requests from being handled, For instance, many of the teachers were not even  issued the laptops that the district provides them with until two weeks after the year began-so  teachers were not able to record grades online or submit attendance electronically. While the school does have internet, it only works for about an hour and not very well in the basement where the STEMM academy is located. Even though teachers have complained about the internet servers, there has not been any changes made.  For about a month the computers in the back of the classroom weren't working as well. This limited some of the different types of lessons and activities that we could do in our classroom. In fact, my mentor teacher hardly uses the technology that eventually became available. I began to wonder about some of the reasons, other than having an overbook tech specialist, that might have helped to make this true.

I figured that some of the discrepancy between having the technology and actually using it is due to a lack of comfort with using itf or teaching and learning. Even teachers who are using technology and report a high degree of comfort with technology probably tend to use it in fairly rigid ways that mostly cater to themselves and planning for their lessons since having students learn with technology brings about a variety of complications.  While students frequently do use computers in the classroom, use is often limited using them for Google searching and as a factual resources rather than as multimedia tools or digital content to design and create products Often, learning with technology is teacher-centered rather than student-centered since teaching with technology is not always offered to teachers as a course.

While many teachers still feel uncomfortable using technology in their teaching practice, it is also likely that teachers feel new technologies are unproven in the classroom. Though there has been a great deal of research on the efficacy of technology tools for teaching and learning, many of these studies may not translate well to the reality of the classroom. This also seems to be the case in my own school where when I asked about the technology specialist, the teachers there replied that young people like myself were the specialists. I found there to be some disconnect in this way of thinking since I am still a learning teacher-I may have a better grasp of using some technologies but it is difficult for me to know how to use they effectively in the classroom since I have not been in a classroom for long!

David Theune: Transforming the Way Education Connects to Places Outside the Classroom.

After a long day of student teaching, I can't say that I was very excited to attend my bi-weekly night class about technology and education. However, the moment David Theune, an English teacher from Western Michigan, walked into the classroom I was interested in what he had to say. Perhaps it was his really neat red glasses or his colorful outfit that grabbed my attention but I think more my intrigue was due to his excitement to be there. Instead of merely presenting on some tools and ideas that could be helpful in our classrooms, he presented tools and ideas that he was very interested about and worked in his classroom since his students were interested as well.  

One thing that stood out to me about David's practices were how involved he got his students with people, places and subjects that were outside of the classroom. For instance, he explained how he often gets the student's families involved with his classroom. He explained how he made his classroom open for parents to visit. I think that this idea is one way that one can break the barrier between the school and the home-connecting these two important parts of a students life is one way in which we as educators can make the idea of school and the subjects within it more palatable to students. Getting to know student's guardians is one way to be a more socially aware teacher as well. Feedback that one gets from parents who watch them teach could be really informative for their practice and certainly helpful in helping a teacher get to know more about their students. David also talked about an activity where he had students write pieces that they were going to share with their parents and families. He informed the students that they were going to be sharing their work with people from their homes which Theune then described as a way to push students and motivate them to do well since someone whom they cared about, and someone other than their teacher would be involved in the learning process. On his blog, Theune describes a "service-learning project" that the students completed after finishing a novel. This interested me for I had taken a lot of wonderful "service-learning" classes in my undergraduate studies. In his post he wrote about the knowledge that the students got out of it and how the experience forced his students to get "real experience of working and listening to adults and empathy to community members." I had not thought about having 'service-learning" units in my classroom before looking at his blog, and seeing a personal account of it working in Theune's class made me all the more excited to think creatively about a way to implement a similar activity in a mathematics class. 

David is a colorful man whose personality and passion stood out as he presented to my class. I immediately began following his twitter in hopes of learning more about some of the other projects and ideas that he had for the classroom. I think Theune is able to bring his students out of the classroom in a way that does not always require technology which is important to consider for schools that may not have technological resources. However, in terms of his own personal technology use, David's blog and twitter have inspired me to create my own professional accounts so that I can explore the edublogger world and begin to put my own thoughts out there in cyberspace as well.