Thing 12 Reflection

     This has been a very good learning experience for me. As I mentioned in my opening communication, I am behind the curve when it comes to technology. I have learned important information for my classroom and my family.


     Setting up a blog is something I will use personally and in my classroom. It is a great way to have students communicate about what they are reading. It makes the process more high interest and it teaches them a cool tool as well.


     I loved the photo portion of my learning. I worked on creating a photo book for the first time. It was a very exciting experience. Students are so visual and this learning will help me enhance visual learning in my classroom.


     Digital citizenship is such an important concept, and I really enjoyed working on the digital citizenship project with the seniors and the seventh grade class. I learned a lot about how to pair students in a meaningful way for learning. It is also exciting that the thinglink projects are available as a resource for middle school teachers in our building.
     The last section I worked on was digital portfolios and this is something I plan to work on next year. I love  thinking about plans for the next year at the end of the school year. It helps mediate all the paperwork and end of year blahs.
     One thing that seemed very complicated to me was what had to be done to actually submit the work. If this could be simplified, it would help. Also without Jen Daly's help, I would not have been successful. Her patience and willingness to answer questions was a big investment in me and my students. I hope we will be able to work together next year as well.


    

Thing 31 Digital Portfolios

I am interested in starting electronic portfolios next year so most of my work for this topic is reading about how they work and the advantages.


Portfolios are a great way for students to track their growth. As a school we are reflecting on our grading policies with an eye to give students as many opportunities as possible to grow and improve. This means students will have more opportunities for retakes on quizzes and tests and a greater expectation for revision in writing. Electronic portfolios would be another important piece to support that initiative.


Another important emphasis in our school is connecting with parents. Electronic portfolios would allow parents to not only know about the assignments given, but they will be able to read their children's work and the feedback provided by the teacher. This will give them a platform for discussion about school work with their children and an opportunity to communicate more clearly with their child's teacher.


My plan is to lay out the assignments for the year over the summer. Then I will create the rubrics for each piece. I will also work to adjust my grading emphasis to include twenty percent of the grade for growth and improvement. Portfolios will be an important tool to support my classroom objectives and my school-wide objectives.

Thing 17 Digital Citizenship

This topic is of particular interest to me because I have six children, and I really need to be more knowledgeable.
Digital literacy, digital footprint, and digital citizenship were part of a project where my seniors completed a thinglink presentation on one of the above topics. These projects were designed for  a seventh and eighth grade audience. On the day of the presentations,  seventh grade students joined the class and evaluated the projects. These projects were then made available to the seventh and eighth grade teachers to use with their classes when they were teaching digitial safety. This was a very successful project. Seniors stepped up their game and produced higher quality work because there was an authentic audience. The seventh graders behaved better and focused more because they had a real role in this learning experience, and they didn't want to look foolish in front of the upper classmen.

Thing 2 Photo Fun

These ideas about how to use photos and especially social media photos to enhance the classroom are very engaging for students. I love sharing book titles through photos.

 I learned how to create a book with photos and text. Teaching these skills to my students will greatly improve the visual quality of their work. It will help them prepare more professional presentations and encourage them to see how valuable certain aspects of social media can be in the academic arena.

Here is a picture from the photo book that I created using Shutterfly. I learned how to use Shutterfly for this assignment.

Thing 1: Blogging

My name is Bonnie Caton, and I teach eleventh and twelfth grade students English at Monroe High School. Honestly, I am participating in this program because I am behind the curve in using technology in my classroom. I really want to grow and improve in this area for the good of my students. In this lesson I have learned the different purposes of blogs, and how I can integrate them into my classroom. I appreciate the support of my colleague Jen Daly. Without her support, I would not have had the courage to give this a try.