Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative assessment is a way of assessing students' understanding and knowledge about a particular subject. Worksheets, brainstorming, using manipulatives to show how a student solved a problem are a few ways to execute a formative assessment. A summative assessment is about asking questions and only wanting one answer. The most obvious type of summative assessment is any standardized test. Unit tests are also summative because you test a specific number of units that you have discussed in class. You give students questions, and you grade based on whether the student responded with the correct answer or not.

Formative= look for understanding

Summative= Test/grade on specific answers

A technology tool that a teacher can have students use as a formative assessment is blogger. The purpose of our class being given specific prompts to respond to allow our professor an opportunity to go through each post to see if we are understanding and learning what we need to be. We can convey confusion, excitement and many other feelings simply by how we react in our blogs.

For a summative assessment, I, as a teacher, may require my class to make Prezis about the 13 original U.S. colonies. I may have them work in groups and work on one colony per group. The key thing that would make this assignment summative is a rubric. If I issue a rubric ahead of time to the class and demand that they follow it, I will grade based on how well they followed it. The Prezi may indeed allow for some formative assessment, but the act of grading according to a rubric makes the assignment a summative assessment in the end.

Professional Organizations

http://www.screenr.com/nYd8

Professional Organizations are useful resources for any and all people entering any type of profession to build professional relationships. They serve as a bridge between students and professionals. Professional Organizations allow for communications amongst many people within the same profession to share concerns, thoughts, ideas, advice, etc. For me, personally, I will strongly consider joining NSEA (Nebraska State Education Association). I believe that this organization would serve as a great resource when I begin my teaching journey. I picked this particular organization for two reason: 1. It's in Nebraska and I feel that I will start my teaching career in Nebraska and 2. I have access to the organization already in college. One of my current professors, Bill Lopez, is a sponsor for a UNL base of the organization, so I already have access to this organization. As a student, I can become involved with the organization for an annual $60 fee, but with that fee, I will have access to money saving opportunities. The organization provides discounted traveling fees as well as retail and insurance discounts. There's also a money management program that this organization offers its members, which would benefit me greatly due to my lack of control in my spending habits.

Digital Divide

Lesson Plan

The digital divide is the rift between people who have access to the internet and those who don't. I feel that because of the way technology is dramatically improving everyday, the digital divide is beginning to decrease. The stress that the school system puts on teachers to include technology within the classroom is, in my opinion, a big reason as to why the divide is narrowing. People are beginning to use advanced technology at really early ages as opposed to what was happening just 20 years ago. When I was growing up in a small, rural town, technology was a luxury, but anymore, seemingly everyone has access to technology (especially the internet).

As I begin to start my teaching career, incorporating technology into my lesson plans won't be a surprise, it will be an expectation. Technology allows teachers the opportunity to help students learn how to discover things on their own. Instead of a student asking some random question and we, as teachers, may not be able to tell them immediately, we will have taught them how to find the answers to all of their potential questions on their own. There's going to be a learning curve, but everything in life does. The availability that we teachers can provide technology for our students is going to play a huge role on how our students perceive and are able to work with the new technology advances we experience on a daily basis.

Mind Mapping

Nebraska History Mind Map

Bloom's Taxonomy, I feel, is exactly what a mind map is presenting. A mind map indicates a specific idea or topic and Bloom's Taxonomy is all about the learning process of that idea or topic. Bloom's Taxonomy is about complete understanding of an idea and a mind map shows all concepts or ideas of a main, central idea, so when going through the steps of Bloom's Taxonomy, the learner would be able to completely understand everything represented on a mind map about that particular idea.

Both, mind mapping and Bloom's Taxonomy, can be used when dealing with instructional technology. A mind map can give a person a visual representation of what is being discussed as well as all aspects of that idea, so with instructional technology, a mind map may display various technological tools that could be used within a classroom setting. Bloom's Taxonomy can certainly be used in instructional technology. If a person, such as myself, does not have much experience with technology, we as learners need to go through the steps of Bloom's Taxonomy so we can appropriately and efficiently used multiple forms of technology within our future classroom.

Digital Citizenship

I chose to focus on a couple of key aspects of digital citizenship from the article we were given about citizenship. In the classroom, I can easily discuss these characteristics of digital citizenship by tying them to each child's citizenship within there own community. We could discuss the roles they play in their immediate community and tie those roles into their digital community. I can stress the importance of security inside the digital community by comparing it to situations in the physical life, such as personal information they do not openly share. If they wouldn't want to share information aloud to peers, they should know not to share information online with their digital community. We, as teacher, need to be responsible for discussing and modeling how to use digital media in proper and productive ways. We need to be sure that our students understand the usefulness of digital communities but we also need to be sure they do not abuse their privileges of being in a digital community. We all the advancements and dependencies our society has with technology, it is vital that we incorporate it into the classroom, but it is also extremely vital that we use the tools we are given appropriately.

Univeral Design for Learning

Pablo the Penguin

Stories created on bookbuilder.org qualify as UDL sources because of the features the internet site offers. With all UDL's, we are trying to connect as much material as we possibly can to all of the students in the classroom. This is easier said then done. In all classrooms, there are all types of diversity, so with things like this internet site we used to create our own story, we try to reach out to those different diversities. There's an audio feature that would be useful for people visually impaired, there is also a feature that allows the creator to translate his/her work into another language which would be awesome if you, as a teacher, were trying to help some ELL students within the classroom. The pictures are good for beginning readers of all diversities because it allows them to match what is being read to what is going on in the story. With all of the features of the story building website, it doesn't matter what subject is being discussed because there are many ways of adapting the reading to suit multiple needs that a classroom may have

Social Media

Social media is any internet site that allows interaction amongst peoples all around the world. Social media has made a huge impact on the entire world during the past few years. The impact of social media has impacted schools throughout the years. I know, being a student myself, that peers around me are constantly using sources of social media constantly throughout the school days. Because of this observation, I believe that it is important to embrace rather than shun sources of social media. TappedIn is an example of a social networking site that I believe can be vital as a teacher. It is always great to have people working with you who have experiences and advice to give, but with TappedIn, we are exposed to educational professionals from all around the world to get advice from. If I, the teacher, were determined to incorporate an activity into the classroom about a specific topic, I could go onto TappedIn and ask other education professionals for help and advice. Resources are endless with tools like TappedIn. All social networking sites can be used as learning tools when used correctly. I feel that the biggest issue that schools have with social networking sites is that when they discourage them, that discouragement encourages students to use the media even more. Instead of shunning all social networking sites, schools need to be smarter about it. Schools should encourage social networking sites, but encourage using the sites for a purpose. I believe that their are times that no student should be on a social networking site, but it is my (the teacher's) job to establish those moments. Social media is a huge part of the world today, and will continue to be, so instead of acting like it is a bad thing, we need to embrace it and use it to our advantages as teachers.

What makes instructional materials found online "good"?

Material found online needs to allows be evaluated before a teacher presents the material to his/her classroom. When looking for good material online, we must first ask ourselves about the credibility of the material. Where did the material come from? Does the material make sense? Is the material appropriate for the classroom? These are just a few questions to ask oneself about the material being evaluated. Teachers must always be aware when using websites like wikipedia because the validity of the material is always in question. Any random person can go on that website and make any changes he or she desires, so wikipedia, which is not necessarily a bad website, should be reconsidered when looking up material. Wikipedia can have valuable resources (books, articles, websites) that may be great for a presentation. An example of a reliable website is the Library of Congress. I am personally using this website for my social studies' class project in which I am trying to find primary resources. The Library of Congress is a great resource because random people can't go on and rewrite anything they want. Lastly, instructional materials found online can vary in importance in regards to validity. If a teacher is looking for a class activity to try in class, it wouldn't be as important as to where the activity came from as opposed to someone writing a research paper. In the end, we always need to be aware of the importance of validity surrounding our online research.

Article Blog Post on the Chronicle of Higher Education

While strolling through the website, I stumbled upon an article entitled, "Education Gap is Growing Between Rich and Poor, Recent Study Shows." Knowing that this would impact me as a future teacher I decided to read the article. The article discusses the study that shows the education gap. Throughout the years, the achievement gap between African American students and white students has actually decreased, but the gap between rich and poor students has increased by 50% since the 1980s. I will need to be cautious of this study because I will need to know how to handle the kids in my class. I will be able to understand that the social economic status that students come from effect them as a student. Knowing this will allow to to understand certain students who need the extra push and motivation to do well.

Instructional Technology Tools in the Classroom

Tools such as Wiki and Google Sites allow collaborative learning to take place inside the classroom. With these tools, every student within the class has the opportunity to view, edit, delete or add an kind of information they deem appropriate. These tools allow multiple students to work with one document, but it gives them all the chance to participate in the learning process. An example a teacher could do to incorporate one of these tools into the classroom maybe to create a classroom website. Once the instructor has created the website, he/she could assign different groups of students to work on separate parts/pages of the website. Doing this allows all students to partake in the construction of the website, but it also allows them to read and edit their peers' materials.

RSS and Diigo give the class and/or individual students an opportunity to be exposed to multiple sources at once instead of finding all of the sources individually. These types of tools could be extremely helpful if your students were working on a research project. The tools would allow the students to save all their best sources and information so they can easily access it. Both of these tools allow students to be organized, so they don't have to keep searching through multiple websites for bits of information they deem essential.

Possible Corrections to Video

First off, when we initially shot footage for our Youtube video, we were only able to capture 8 or 9 minutes worth of footage due to our battery power. Needless to say, we were not able to re-shoot shots that may not have been perfect. For future projects, I will plan ahead to be sure to have the necessary materials and also be sure that the materials are working appropriately. Although during this particular Youtube project we were fortunate enough to have enough "good" material, it would have been a lot better if we had more material to choose from when bringing our video to the final product.

Some ideas for future instructional videos one could do may include: How to include all students inside the classroom, making them feel accepted and wanted, How to include physical activities inside the classroom setting, How to get get your class involved with the community outside of school. I feel that all these ideas will eventually be part of my teaching experiences, so I feel that all of my stated ideas are appropriate for me as a future educator. Resources I would need may include community members and fellow teachers. I feel that advise from people with experience is extremely crucial for going as a teacher. Other people can give you, the teacher, new ideas, new ways to go about doing an activity you've already tried, guidance and support.

Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

When speaking of Copyright, we mean the legal action of taking someone's property (I.e. words, ideas, music, etc.) and using it for one's own purpose. When people speak of Copyright material, they acknowledge that the material they used was not theirs and that they, the person using the Copyright material, took the legal actions to lawfully use material.

Fair use, on the other hand, does not require permission from the source that produced the material. When talking about Fair Use, we mean using brief statements for special occasions such as a news report, teaching, criticism, etc. Fair Use, differing from Copyright, does not require the permission to use certain materials.

Creative Commons was the final thing we discussed. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that encourages sharing different types of work. Ordinary people can find different works and include them in any type of project that they may need without worrying about paying someone to use the materials. It's a way of sharing free material to everybody who may be in need of it.

Overall, all three of these concepts will shape the way I use research and resources in my content area. The first way it will help me is legally. I will be aware of the material I use in different projects. Whether it's including music or pictures, I know that getting a Copyright is vital because I can't steal other people's material and ideas and use them for my own purposes without a copyright. On the other hand, I know that I am able to use the Fair Use strategy without worry and I have Creative Commons to fall back on for free materials for me to use. In the future, when working on projects, I will just need to think clearly about how and where I found my material and also did I obtain my material rightfully and legally. These three concepts make a lot of sense to me because I know that I would not want people taking my material and ideas and pawning them off as their own. Fortunately, with Creative Commons, everyone has a place with material that is free for them to use without worrying about a Copyright or anything.

Collaborative Learning

Steven Johnson has some very good ideas about where good ideas come from. During his video presentation, he emphasized the word hunch. Everybody has a hunch sooner or later in life about all types of topics, but his ideas of developing good ideas from hunches made a lot of sense. Not one person in the world thinks exactly the same way that another does, but it's because of this that we are able to get hunches to develop new ideas about different things. I've been in multiple classroom settings where a teacher would direct us to problem solve a specific problem and then have us work in small groups with our peers and collaborate our differing ideas to come up with the best solution to the given problem. As a future teacher, I feel that this tactic is very beneficial within the classroom setting because it allows all students within the classroom an opportunity to actively participate to problem solve and to share their ideas. It also allows students to learn how to work efficiently and effectively within group settings.

All in all, group work within the classroom is a vital part of the learning process in my opinion. I believe initially working independently at first is also a crucial step in the learning process. Students should be given the opportunity to problem solve on their own initially and then come together in small groups to share ideas, doing so would lead to further ideas based upon what group members discuss. It provides the opportunities for individuals to see problems in a different light. Collaborative learning allows students to teach other students in a way and I believe that this belief is a positive learning experience for all parties involved.