Hello December!!!

How is it December 1st already?  This year just flew by!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  I know I did and I certainly had a good Black Friday, aka spending too much money on clothes!

Last week one of my best friends had her baby boy.  I finally got to meet him this past weekend (he had to stay in the NICU for a week), and he is so adorable.  Here is a picture of him she sent all of us!

He is certainly one happy baby!

I look forward to seeing everyone Wednesday for dinner and our last class meeting!  It's been one crazy semester, but we all made it!

The Party is OVER...

and a complete success!

So this past week has been absolutely crazy!!!  My dad was still in the hospital with the doctors trying to find out what was wrong with him.  It seems he got a hospital born infection that they have no idea where it is in his body so he is on 6 weeks of IV antibiotics.  He was finally able to come home on Wednesday, which is why I had to miss class because I had to pick him up, but I'm loving all the great tool times on the archive!  These are certainly tools I can use in the classroom, or just in my life in general.  Thanks everyone for the great tools and for all the prayers for my dad!

The party was a great success!  Everyone told me it was a great time and that I totally outdid myself (which I know I did...especially since I have been actively planning this party for 2.5 years!!!).  I have a few pictures now, and my old college roommate took a ton of pictures because she's a photographer.  When she gets those to me, I'll make sure I share them.  I hope it should be soon because I really want to see them.  I totally didn't take any because I was so busy the whole night playing hostess with the mostess, but some friends have sent me a few!

Here are the centerpieces that were around on tables:

Here is the birthday boy looking mad that we were singing happy birthday to him.  He hates that kind of thing.  You can see the special shirt I got made for him.  It says Cheers and Beers to my 30 years!  And you can see my beer bottle cupcake cake:

And the last picture I have is of myself and 2 of my friends with my awesome beer six pack collage behind us that fell off the wall :-(.  You can kind of see the earrings and necklace my friend on the left made for us out of beer bottle caps!

So that's all I have for now.  Like I said, when I get the others I will make sure they get put up here because there was a lot of stuff that I made and did for this party that I want to show off! 

The Last Part of the Contract!

So this week I finished up my last bits of my personal contract, and essentially finishing up my remaining duties for 5001 (minus the last few blog posts of comments left for the semester)!!  I taught the undergrads how to use Smartboards and how to effectively use clickers in the classroom.  I had a good time with those students.  It's great to see how far they have come since I first met them, and I think they really enjoyed my lesson to them.  I hope they can use everything in the future!

Sad news, my dad was re-admitted to the hospital (on his birthday of all days!) because of a fever and what they are calling muscle spasms.  We now know he has a hospital born infection and they are treating with the IV antibiotics.  He was supposed to be released tomorrow, but that may be changing if they can't get his fevers under control.  I know a lot of you have been asking for an update, so here it is!  Please keep him in your prayers....he is miserable at the hospital and really wants to be home!

Other than that...it has been full blown party planning and prepping in my house.  My husband's birthday is Saturday and we've got like 60 people coming to the party!  Now I have to figure out how much food to make :-/  Here is a look at some more things I've made for the party....don't worry, my old college roommate is going to be taking pictures so I will share some with all of you!  I really hope everything comes together!!!!

Getting Closer

We have survived the first full week of November and it wasn't too bad!  It was a relatively easy week due to the teacher's convention, which I wish I had gone, and the lack of class.  I used the time to get some IDD work done, as well as work on some more crafts for my husband's 30th (2 weeks away...only half of the people have RSVP'ed, and I have a lot more to do!).  I finished making my own version of these beer bottle candles I saw on Etsy and I love them.  I think since I have extra wax leftover, they may be gifts for people, especially my friends who really like beer!

I also finished making a towel that has a beer mug on it.  Here it is:

I think it came out pretty nice!  Ok, I'm off to go do some work!  Until next week!

Hello November!

Well the week is over, and boy was it a long one!  It started with my dad's surgery, which went really well and he was actually discharged today.  He is home and resting and is much more comfortable than he was in the hospital.  We are all glad everything went well and thankful for all the prayers!

The week ended with subbing, halloween at our friends' house after we went through 2.5 bags of candy for trick-or-treaters, watching the U.S. vs. New Zealand rugby match with my husband's rugby team, and finished with bringing my dad home.

This week we also got to meet Steve Rao who made me realize that I could program apps, especially since I've programmed other things in the past.  It was also nice to learn about code.org and their hour of code.  It really is something I know a lot of people would have loved when they were younger.  I showed it to my husband, and he spent an hour on the website just looking through everything.

Well...I'm glad this long week is over, that everything worked out well, and that I got to have a little fun in the process.  Here we go into November (when did that happen!?!) and towards the end of the semester (which will be here before we all know it!).

This was my easy week!

Welp, this was my easy week.  I was finally caught up or right where I needed to be for all of my classes!  And I got this week's IDD assignment write the first time around, woohoo!  Dana and I presented our IT History, which we seemed to get a lot of good feedback, and we introduced people to some new web 2.0 tools and I hope they enjoy using them as much as we did!

I created my PLN after discussed exactly what it was...and I got use Symbaloo to do it.  Forgot how great Symbaloo is.  It's been about a year since I have used it and it's crazy how many more important sites and great resources I have now that a year has gone by.  It's all those unconferences and pinteresting I do!

This weekend and leading into next week will be busy busy!  One of my best friends in getting married, and I'm in it!  We have the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner tonight and tomorrow is the wedding!  Wedding 5 of 6 attended this year is about to happen and it's wedding 3 or 3 I am in!  Whew, this was a busy year!

Monday my dad goes in for open heart surgery, so I'll be in Philly till Wednesday for him.  Keep him in your prayers!

Well I'm off to get some stuff done before tonight!  Hope you all have a great weekend and I'm excited about our guest speaker on Wednesday!

Finally getting a grasp on things!

So this week I finally felt like I was getting ahead of myself and able to catch my breath for the first time this whole semester...and it was just in time too!  This weekend was homecoming at UD and it was an awesome time to see some of my friends from college who I haven't seen in a year.  It was a lot of fun too!

With us having off this week, that meant that we had our IDD meeting, which again, eased my mine a bit and made me realize that we're moving to the easier part of the class (and the more straight forward part too).  I'm happy about this and happy to be getting to the more creative part of making the program!

When I was on Pinterest, I happened to see a pin from Richard Byrne that was about using an interactive program for the Constitution, which I think is really cool.  It would also be really useful in the US 1 classes I've been subbing in because they are all on this topic now.  It helps take topics today and explain them using the Constitution.  Pretty cool to me!

We're halfway done!

This week, like the others, was extremely busy!  Between classes, subbing, and working on the IDD project and IT History project, this week just didn't seem to end.  Well it finally did, and here we are moving into the next week.  8 weeks including this week left!  Woohoo!

The presentations this week were really good and very informative.  I learned a lot about both topics and I learned about a new web 2.0 tools to make timelines.  Tool time was also really helpful to advertise about ourselves and is a great addition to our portfolios.

We've been busy working with weebly to get it look perfect for our project.  While I find it extremely user friendly and WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get).  There are a few limitations to it we are finding (free accounts only get 5 pages) and sometimes moving things is not the easiest thing, but overall I think we're happy with how the website is shaping up and I'm excited to have used another website making page.

Alrighty, I leave you all to get back to work on my IDD project, and to maybe get some stuff done for my husband's 30th birthday party next month (it's a big beer tasting party!!!).

10 Weeks to Go...

But who's counting?  I know I am!  I am beginning to think taking on two graduate classes, especially two core courses is quite a bit of work.  I knew that going in, but it's finally starting to settle in.  This was my week to have a stress meltdown, but after I had it, I felt better and I feel like I'm finally starting to get a handle on everything I need to for IDD.

I really applaud Kellee, Elizabeth, and Faiza for being the first to go for their IT History project and it made me look at the chalkboard in a whole new light!  And gave me a few ideas for our project, which is the last to be presented!

I said this as my Ah-Ha, but it was so awesome to see plickers in action.  I thought it was the coolest idea when I heard about this summer, and I totally want to give it a try!  Really makes a new idea for clickers!  Thanks Elsann!

Well I leave you all now...time to prepare for Yom Kippur

A Busy Week...

So last week was uneventful and this week was busy!  Started off with subbing, finished with the Jewish New Year, and had some IT History and IDD work in the middle!

The IDD meeting was actually good because it helped clear up some confusions I had on how to do the analysis portion we are working on next.  I'm glad we had that meeting and had a chance to meet others in the class.  That's what I miss most about online classes.

We worked on our IT History project and got to learn about a great timeline tool, Capzles.  I'm going to use it for my Time Capsule project as well, and I love it!  It's a great 2.0 tool with lots of ways to customize the information put on!  I'm excited to see the first group go on Wednesday and to also to do my tool time!

Other than that, we got a new TV...fancy 4K, Ultra HD.  It's pretty nice!

An uneventful week!

So this week we had no class, but I used the time to meet with Dana so we could work on our IT history project.  We started working on the timeline and organizing all our plan and materials to begin the project.  I'm excited to do this and present on the topic we chose!

Also spent the week working on our Needs and Goals statement for IDD, all while subbing for the first time this year.  That was great and I loved getting back into the classroom and with the department that I student taught with!  Missed some of my students too and it was great to see them.

Overall, this was a pretty boring week in my life, and not much happened.  The coming weeks will be more exciting.  Wow, can't believe that September is almost over...it just flew by!

Here is a link to the NJAET conference.  I wasn't able to go last year, and this year I too am not able to go (last of 3 weddings I'm in this year!), but I have heard it is a great conference to attend, and has a wealth of knowledge to gain from it.

And We're Rollin' Along...

So the first full week of classes are done, it's starting to feel like fall, and the sun is setting earlier.  It's almost officially fall, which is sad because that means summer is over.  I was so busy, I feel like I didn't get to enjoy it much (lots of weddings do that to ya!).

This week in class I got to work with Kahoot for Monica's Tool Time presentation.  Since it was my first time using this Personal Response System (I have used polleverywhere, Socrative, Smart Tools clicker program, etc.), it was nice to see something a bit more graphic.  While, it probably is a bit too juvenile for high schoolers or business workers, it is still a great website that allows formative assessment in real time.  I'm really glad I get to add another PRS to the list I have used, and I'm going to keep it in my back pocket!

I also had the opportunity to work with the undergrads taking their technology class.  It was nice to meet a lot of them and get to help them out.  I know for them, this is all very overwhelming, but I think being able to talk with me and listen to someone who has been there and come out the other side, calmed their nerves a bit.  I'm excited to get to teach them about Smartboards and Clickers/PRS.  I think they're going to really enjoy those technologies because they were two favorite after taking that same class with Dr. Harvey!

Speaking of Dr. Harvey...IDD has begun!  We're working on our problem statements, and while I was told I have good one, some students have suggested being more specific on mine.  Yes, there are parts that could be more specific, but I'm still unsure how specific we should be on them.  I guess I'll figure it all out when I post my final draft tomorrow!

Well that was this week...I'm going to leave you with a website I found when I was googling for timeline creators for our IT history project.  It seems to have a lot of articles on it for Instructional Technology, so I thought others would be interested!

I leave you to get ready to help my baby brother shop for engagement rings!  He's finally gonna propose to his girlfriend...we're all pretty excited!

First Grad Class: Completed!

So I successfully survived my first grad class, and left not feeling completely overwhelmed like I would with some undergrad classes.  I am a little worried about taking two graduate classes during my first semester, especially with one of those being Instructional Development and Design, but I figure if I organize my time wisely, I'll be ok!

I'm excited to being my masters program and to continue learning about Instructional Technology.  I had blast doing some of it undergrad when I got my teaching certificate, so I think I will continue to learn and enjoy the content!

Please excuse that my blog is a bit unfinished/updated.  I recently decided to add a bunch of my teaching portfolio to it because of an idea I saw at TEACHmeetNJ where another classmate made her blog into something that employers could look at.  So I am currently in the midst of posting all of that!  Slowly but surely, it will all be there!

During my daily facebook stalking I noticed a friend had liked lynda.com.  I remembered them from back when I did my first degree and people were using them to supplement the information myself and the other TA gave about Avid (a video editing program...I prefer Final Cut now).  However, I went over to the website and they now have a whole section about education, especially some things on design and development.  Thought it might come in handy for those of us taking IDD this semester.  Take a look!

Alrighty, I'm off to get ready for one of my best friends' baby shower!  See you all on Wednesday!

November TPACK

This month has not been much different from the previous months.  I have not seen much technology actually used in the classroom (other than the projector), but I did learn about some of the technology in the school and the district.  I got this information from the ladies in charge of technology in the school.  They were very insightful as to how the technology could be used so well in class (although they think the school has a lot of technology, especially in the form of power point and videos), as well as suggestions for new teachers.  They believe that technology needs to be incorporated correctly into the classroom lessons for it to be effective.  They also told me to embrace the technology movement because that would give me an advantage over the more veteran teachers.  I found their information insightful and surprising (I had no idea the school had smartboards in the library, so they do exist there!).

With the use of technology we do have, it's nice to see how Mr. Altagracia (as well as myself when I was teaching) utilized it when teaching lessons.  The students love videos and little games.  So both Mr. A and myself try to incorporate lots of videos to demonstrate the lesson we were going over that day.  Many of the students will ask questions pertaining to the lesson as the video goes along, and that's when I know the students are beginning to understand the content knowledge.  I think at this time it's great to see the pedagogy I have been learning, the content knowledge I know, and the technology all work together to create a good experience for the students, one where they are able to learn more!  Through this class and my fieldwork experience, I have been able to truly see how technology can be implemented properly in a classroom, even if it's not the fancy kind of technology.

How to use Quizlet

October TPACK Reflection

This month I still haven't seen much technology in my fieldwork classroom.  Just the usual use of the projector and computer.  I however, found some activities that can mimic technology use to get the students excited.  I did fake tweets and Fakebook profiles with my students during their lessons.  For the twitter assignment, I taught them about American Imperialism, the purchase of Alaska, and the annexation of Hawaii.  When we were done, I told the students we were going to write up some fake tweets about how it felt to be in Hawaii at the time of the annexation.  I told them to take a important person from that time (Hawaiian sugar grower, American sugar grower, President McKinley, President Cleveland, Sanford Dole, Ambassador Stevens, Queen Liluokulani, etc.) and then write a tweet about Hawaii.  I showed them to examples, and they had a good time with it!

The fakebook profile I did after teaching them about the Filipino Rebellion after the Spanish-American War.  I gave them a blank profile template with either Filipino Rebel or U.S. Soldier at the top and had them fill out the important information, such as biography, status, recent activities, likes, dislikes, time line, etc.  I did this on in a group setting because after seeing some of the lesser creative students struggle through the twitter activity, I figured if they grouped up they would have two heads working on it.  The students had a good time.

I think while using these is not as good or as fun as using the same thing with technology, it still does a good job of working with what I have and trying to utilize the TPACK idea.  It certainly combines the pedagogy, the content knowledge, and the technology (to a certain point).  I hope that others can use what I did in my fieldwork class as inspiration if they see little technology in their classrooms as well.  I was inspired to do this assignment because of the group presentations we had in spring semester of Dr. Harvey's tech class.  My group did twitter and another did fakebook so it inspired me to use it in real life, but in paper form to work around the school's rules.

Flipping the Classroom

Here is my first try at Flipping the Classroom.  I enjoyed making this video and do see it's benefits in a social studies classroom, especially when it's a lesson like I will be doing on Thursday.  It allows the students more time to work cooperatively and spend less time listening to me!

School Technology Review

Now that I have been in Atlantic City High School for two weeks, I have become aware of all of their technology.  There is really no updated technology like we are learning about in this class.  There are no smartboards, clickers, iPads, etc.  This school runs on the old school style of teaching:  projectors, blackboards, and whiteboards.  The school report card actually gave me no stats on amount of technology in the school or a ratio of computers to students.  This would have been very helpful in writing this report, but since I've been there, and I have pretty much seen that the only computers are in computer labs (minus if the classroom has any computers, which my teacher's does).  It is sort of upsetting that there is no real technology because I feel it inhibits some of the possibilities that can be used in a social studies classroom.

My cooperating teacher agrees with me that there are so many things he (and I) could do, but there is not enough technology in the school to be able to.  We were discussing how he feels like he's not sure if his students are understanding the content, and he wishes he had the use of clickers that he had when he was in Pleasantville.  He said he at least then knew in real time if the students were comprehending the content and was able to change his plans based on those results.  Now he finds that the students aren't understanding when he's getting their tests and quizzes back and by that point it's too late.  I also think there should be more technology for the students.  Maybe rolling computer carts with laptops because then I could implement some of the fun online history activities I have found since participating in this class and the conferences.  Simply having two computers that students can use and my teacher's laptop does not help.  For example, they were using a National Geographic interactive game/lesson on John Smith and only one student could play the interactive games at a time because my teacher's laptop was the one that was hooked up to the projector.  The students were fighting over the chance to play the game on the one computer.

Overall, I think the school is seriously lacking in technology.  Especially in a district that is building brand new schools (or renovating existing ones) that are full of current technology and they don't put any in their high school.  I don't know if it's because they feel the technology will not be use properly, that it could be harmed, or that the teachers will not have a use for it, but I think they should seriously reconsider it.  I can think of a million ways the technology would benefit the classroom in.  I'm starting to wonder if it has to do with the fact that the school is so strict on the use of electronic devices.  I wonder if they believe that if they let the students use these types of devices, they will think they can use their own personal devices.  Whatever the reason is, I think they should reconsider it, especially as the younger students using this technology move up to the high school because they will be lacking something that has helped them learn since they were young.

Classroom diagram:

Pictures of the classroom and technology:

September TPACK Reflection

This month introduced me to the idea of TPACK.  It was discussed a bit during the unconferences I went to, but not really explained.  Now that I understand what TPACK is, I can see it becoming a bigger part of my education career.  I am beginning to understand how to put all three concepts (content knowledge, pedagogy, and technical knowledge) together to create lessons that incorporate all three and teach students in the process.  In my fieldwork I am able to see how the use of no technology may actually hinder students learning better.  I have so many ideas of what I want to do with my fieldwork students, but don't have the technology at my fingertips to use to make those ideas come to life.  I am realizing that simply a laptop and projector isn't as fun as a smartboard would be for them.  I also see that Prezi captivates them more than a standard powerpoint.  I like learning all these new technologies because I can use them alongside the pedagogy and content knowledge I have learned/am learning/will learn this semester to help move me into a successful student teaching experience (one where there is more technology hopefully).

After going over smartboards again this month, I feel extremely confident that I can utilize them in my future classroom.  I actually even more want to.  Especially after finding some really fun lessons on the smart exchange.  Like Prezi, the smartboard is a time consuming venture, but it's great that there are so many people who put their work up for others to use.  It's great that there is a good community we have been introduced to, to exchange ideas with and utilize some of the principles of the newer evaluation models.  Also going over the smartboards again helped me see how integrate the TPACK framework and made it a bit more real world for me.  It made it more relatable and I liked that.  It inspired me to think about smartboards differently and with TPACK in the forefront of my mind.

TEACHMEETNJ Reflection

On August 22, 2013, I attended TEACHMEETNJ at Stockton.  This was another experience with an unconference and it was an interesting one.  This one already had the topics decided ahead of time, but you only had 20 minutes in each session and then you would vote for a longer session later in the afternoon.  I liked how organized this event was, but I would have preferred longer session times and just done without the really long one at the end of the event.  Overall, I did learn some new things which I hope to benefit from in the future.

The first session I went to was App-onomy, Finding ipad apps to fit your curriculum, which I found to be very good considering I only got 20 minutes worth of it.  This was one session I would have preferred to be longer to begin with.  I feel like too often teachers pick apps simply because it is somewhat close to the lesson they are teaching, but tend to ignore the fact that it may not fit into the curriculum.  I also was finding it hard to find apps that fit into the curriculum we were using for making lesson plans at Stockton.  I found the suggestions of apps that fit into the different levels of Bloom's to be very helpful!  We're constantly being told to utilize the higher levels of Bloom's and being able to find apps that fit into those levels will help me to achieve doing that while bringing in some technology.  I liked the suggestions for apps in the different content areas and the information on how to figure out if the app fits into your curriculum.  Again, I wish this could have been a longer session or picked for the afternoon one because I feel like I could have gotten so much more out of this, but I did get a lot!

The second session I went to was about Professional Development and how to make it more fun for the teachers.  I enjoyed this presenter a lot and liked her use of Prezi because it made a boring topic really cool!  Having never gone to PD, it was interesting to learn what is liked and hated about it from other teachers.  I liked how she showed examples of how to amp up the PD so that teachers enjoy it.  I really liked when she showed her school districts' video for the beginning of the year and how they teased that something big was gonna happen.  Her district seems to really be invested in the teachers and their PD!

The third session I went to was the creating a website using Wordpress.  I have wanted to use wordpress in the past, and even for me who had done some website work, I found it overwhelming.  This session made it not feel that way anymore.  I clearly am still on blogger, but now I know how to implement a wordpress website and use it when I am teaching in the classroom.  He showed us some really cool tricks on how to only allow certain students to see things, only allow parents to see things, how to make things private, etc.  This was another session I wish could have been longer and gone more in depth because I feel like I could have learned a lot!  I truly think websites are a great resource for teachers to get information to their students, the parents, and the rest of the school.  In today's world, everyone has a webpage and I think learning how to make a very useful one will benefit me when I begin in the classroom.

The fourth session I went to was Pinterest, the professional goldmine.  I LOVE pinterest...I would even say I am addicted to it!  I had looked on it for some inspiration for lessons I was making in intro semester, but I felt like I came up so short for my content area and my grade level.  Most things are aimed at elementary and math and science.  Janice Malone really showed us a goldmine of things for every grade level and every subject.  She was very knowledgeable about which websites to use and I even followed her and constantly get all her new pins.  She had some really great ones for inspiring the students.  I wish her session was longer too because then I would have been able to get more info on where to find the best pins for my content area and grade leve.

The fifth session I went to was Google Tools, which was good too!  I liked learning about some things Google offered that I didnt know.  I learned about google forms, chromebooks, utilizing google drive and a bunch of other google things in the classroom.  I am amazed at how easy google has made my life and I would love to be able to do that for my students.  I never really thought about using some of these things in a classroom, but during this presentation, it began to make perfect sense to me!

The sixth session I went to was another Pinterest one, because as I said, I love it!  This one was very different from the previous one.  What I liked about this one was they showed us specific people to follow and why.  They also had a list of people to follow based on your content area.  I went and found those people and have been getting new pins from them every day!  This one turned into a longer session, and I went to it.  I probably should have picked a different one, but it was nice to think of different ways to use pinterest.  Like I never thought to have the students use it to share and save their ideas with their groups members.  However, I'm not sure many schools would be happy about that, but maybe in the future.

The seventh session I went to was all about google forms.  I now LOVE the idea of google forms.  I like that I can create this form and it will do all the work for me!  I also like that I can make it look pretty and interesting to my students.  I also think the students would be more willing to do a test, quiz, do now, or exit card on the computer than with their hands.  Plus it allows me to take all the answers with me simply on google drive so I can access it from my phone, computer, wherever!  This will allow me to do work without having to take all the papers!  Plus this will save the environment too!

Overall I did enjoy my sessions at TEACHMEETNJ.  I wish they were longer, but I got a lot out of them.  A lot of the sessions aimed on helping to create that harmony between technology, content knowledge, and pedagogy and helped me see it can be done.  It helped me see that there are things out there to use that will fall into my curriculum, help me assess my students at a higher level, that are in my content area, and that will be technologically appropriate!