Week 10: If You're Happy and You Know It!

Week ten has arrived!  Energized from what I'm sure was a very relaxing spring break, we begin our march toward the end of the semester. I spent a good part of Sunday morning giving everyone feedback on the collaborative NETS narratives.  Overall, I would say that the quality was high.  There were a few groups who would have benefited from stronger peer feedback and a stronger grasp of the method for writing the narratives.  When an instructor gives you samples, it is a great idea to look them over.  From my feedback, I expect you to utilize the threaded comment feature of Google Docs.  If I left you a comment, please complete your edit and leave your own comment as to what was corrected.  If you have a question, the discussion box could also be utilized for this.  Again, the samples would serve you well if you need to see a good model.

In progress: Journals 6-10 (due April 16), The PLN assignment (due April 3), the Excel Crossword assignment. . .remind me to discuss conditional formatting, which is different in Office 10.  Also, your sheet of clues will have to be hand-typed since you are creating it yourself. Also, you will submit the spreadsheet with the clues filled-in.  You are not creating a template! (due this Wed, March 28) and the Emerging Technology Checklist (not due until the last day of class, May 7)

This week:  I will ensure that you can request feedback on TaskStream. We will register for a Symbaloo account and I will show you how to add tiles for NETS I to your webmix.  The completed webmix will have links/tiles to all of your artifacts for TPE 14, including your narratives in GoogleDocs. You will also become Symbaloo certified, which will include a badge you can put on your blog!  "What is Symbaloo?" you ask.  Think of it as a mix between iGoogle and Diigo. . .It's a way to house resources, links, and other types of web content, like RSS feeds on one visually interesting page. . . once created, you can also embed a "webmix" into your blogs.  Sounds awesome, right? The amazing folks at Symbaloo have generously offered to get you certified for free!
Here are the steps:

1. Click Here to sign-up for the certification program.  (I will give you the code in class)
2. Click Here to access the certification website.
3. Follow the tutorials by row, check out the webinar assignment & take the webinar quiz.
4. Repeat the process until you complete the four tutorials.
5. Take the final exam.
6. Wait for your confirmation email that you have been certified (it could take a week). . .
7. Forward the confirmation email to me: jheil65@gmail.com
8. Celebrate your new skill by sharing with friends and family!!

I will go over the requirements for Journal 8/Adaptive Technology, which is two assignments in one.  Lastly, I will introduce the CyberSafety Collaborative Website Assignment.  We will be using a new tool called Weebly to create the website.  Weebly is user-friendly and visually awesome.  I think you will not only enjoy the tool, but you will learn a lot about cybersafety in the process.

Next Week:  I will be out of town.  You will be given the week to work on the multitude of assignments that should be on your to do lists. I recommend that you use this time to meet with your cybersafety group and work on the website.  This meeting could be face-to-face in the lab or it could be virtually online.

This Week's Question: Do you believe a high school exit exam should be required to graduate from high school?  Why or Why not?  Explain.

Week 8: Half-Way to Being a Guru (or, For the Love of the PLN)

I am amazed that we are already half-way through the semester.  I can only imagine the sadness you must all feel knowing that you only have 8 week left of this class (cue sad music). Okay, maybe you aren't so sad, but I hope that you are least learning a few things that you can use in your life and your future classroom.
Speaking of learning, you are going to show your Prezi NETS-S Performance Indicator presentations to a small group of peers tonight!  Ensure that you have your Prezi and GoogleDoc assessment complete and either on a blog page or ready first thing.  If you were one of the many who missed last week, please talk to a peer to catch up on what it is you need for class tonight.
After the presentations, I want to check in with where you are on the TaskStream narratives.  If for some odd reason you haven't purchased your TaskStream subscription and self-enrolled in the CSUSM Local TPE, you need to do so by tomorrow, as Dr. Hayden will be putting everyone in our 422 container (how I will grade your portfolios).
Two Good TaskStream Collaborate Samples: One, Two
New Material:  I will go over the Emerging Technology Checklist.  This is a checklist for you to ensure that you are getting everything you create on your blogs, as well as give a brief description and a connection to a NETS-T standard (Remind me to introduce Box.net if I haven't already to make it easy to embed some of your work on the blog).  I will also go over the requirements for the PLN assignment (journal 7), and discuss the Excel assignment.  The Excel assignment is something you will complete by watching video tutorials, so make sure you understand what to submit it Cougar Courses (e.g. read the instructions please).

This Week's Question: If money were not an issue, where would you spend your Spring Break?  Paris, Sidney, Buenos Aires, Hawaii? What would you do?  Now, what are you actually going to do?

Week 7: Getting Redi to Prezi

As you can never step into the same stream twice, I am frequently reminded that I never teach the same class twice.  Why is that you might ask?  It's because I teach 30 students in a class, not a class of 30 students.  This is an important difference.  If I don't see each of you as individuals with different strengths and abilities who happen to be in the same room at the same time each week, then I may not see you at all.  This is why every lesson you teach in the future should be predicated on the learners in your class.  There is no such thing as a perfect lesson in a vacuum.  A great lesson in one in which the students are engaged and learning. . .something you cannot know until you do it.  Why am I writing all of this?  It is to say that I think I need to slow down a bit for this class.  I want to ensure that you can get the most out each assignment.  With that said, this evening I want to revisit your Prezi presentations and perhaps talk about some tips and tricks to make it fun and interesting.  We will also learn how to use Google Forms to create an assessment for your presentation.
The rest of the evening will be dedicated to understanding the NETS narratives and how to write them collaboratively using Google Docs.  If you are in class early, I would really appreciate it if you could sincerely try and write your half of NETS I collaboration.  This will be a strong paragraph, color-coded, on either the newsletter or the blog.  Refer back to the instructions if you have any questions.

Journals 6-10 are posted and released on Cougar Courses.  The format is the same as Journals 1-5, with some new content.  Journal 7 & 8 are double-assignments. . .This means that they will count twice: Journal 7 is the PLN assignment and Journal 8 is the Adaptive Technology assignment.  I will discuss both in a future class.  You are more than welcome to write Journal 6 and 9 if you are bored this weekend ;-)



This Week's Question: What feeds your spirit?? Watch the following video and then respond!