I'll be honest, I normally hate introductory courses. I usually feel like I want to just get going already. 501 was different, though. I felt like so many of the projects were directly applicable to my work. However, there were challenges.
I recently changed positions from the Technology Coordinator at an Arizona school district to the K-12 Special Projects Facilitator at a software company, BoardDocs. In my new position, I still work directly with school districts. My office is located in a school district office and I spend almost all my time working with teachers and administrators (I'm just paid by a software company). However, the focus of my work shifted from educational technology to computer science education. While these topics are many times discussed in the same forums, they are actually distinct. They are distinct like educational technology is different than science or math or ELA. This didn't mean 501 would be a waste of time. I would simply approach it like many other educators do: with a focus on a single subject area. I've noticed in my classes that many of my peers are English, math, or science teachers who are majoring in EdTech because they want to improve their own classrooms and practice. In comparison, while I was a Tech Coordinator, I was viewing each class through the lense of helping all subject areas and grade levels improve through technology. It was challenging to make this shift. However, it was extremely rewarding because I was able to achieve more depth in my area.
My favorite artifact this semester was what I made for the Tech Trends assignment. The Tech Trend I focussed on was coding education. For the project I made a visual annotated bibliography where each citation refers to research on coding education (site: http://codingresearch.blogspot.com/). I like this artifact because it was something directly applicable to my work. In fact, since turning in the project, I have continued to add more resources to the site. I have proudly shared the site with colleagues and the coding education world.
One thing I have already started to apply to my work as a direct result of 501 is that I am now obsessed with research. Between the Annotated Bibliography, Tech Trends, and other assignments that required research, I have really become obsessed with backing statements up with research. Now, when I give presentations for work, I try to cite at least one source per slide to give credibility to what I'm saying. I was also recently invited to submit some of my own research as a chapter in a book about coding education. Research has become my best friend.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Sunday, December 6, 2015
EDTECH Definition Graphic
Creation
I have created many infographics before (here's one example) but I wanted to do something a little different this time. I usually use Piktochart because it is free, has great graphics, and is easy to use. I'm not thrilled with the results of my EdTech graphic for this assignment, but I spent so much time on it and thought it was unique, so I hope it's good enough. In order to create my graphic, I downloaded animated GIFs and opened them in Adobe Photoshop CC. I then found the GIF with the most amount of frames and copied it to a master copy. I expanded all the other GIFs to match the master frame count. After copying each GIF to the master copy I added the words and exported. If I had known how much time it was going to take, I would have made an infographic using Piktochart (and it would have looked better, too). Hopefully there are a few Harry Potter fans out there that will appreciate this!
Meaning
Ethics and the study of educational technology are the base of the definition, and therefore are presented first. Harry, Hermione, and Ron study out difficult problems to find solutions that work. Also, Dumbledore guides students to behave ethically.
The next section shows that educational technology should be done by effectively managing, creating, and using tech in the classroom. Technology should be managed as meticulously as the goblins at Gringotts managed their treasures. Creating technology for classroom use should lead to student exploration and opportunities like students at Hogwarts had in potions class. We should use the technology that we have always wanted to use like professor Mcgonagall did in battle.
Educators should use technology to optimize processes and resources. Processes should not be as complicated as regenerating Lord Voldemort. Also, even if we have a vault full of money like Harry, we should use our resources wisely and even use technology to enhance our spending power.
If done correctly, the implementation of effective educational technology should lead to learning and higher performance just like Ron and Hermione learned to levitate a feather and Harry was able to defeat Voldemort.
Image Sources:
Study
Ethical Practice
Managing
Creating
Using
Processes
Resources
Facilitating Learning
Performance
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
School Evaluation Summary
District Evaluation: link
Maturity Benchmarks Survey: link
Having gone through a needs assessment and district evaluation before, I did not expect to learn much from this exercise. However, the Maturity Benchmarks Survey was extremely revealing. I especially appreciated how each category differentiated behavior from resource/infrastructure. This survey made it clear that the next step was to implement a culture change. Behavior was the main limiting factor in many categories. Part of changing the district's culture is setting clear expectations. Therefore, I made the following infographics to illustrate student and teacher technology use expectations.
Maturity Benchmarks Survey: link
Having gone through a needs assessment and district evaluation before, I did not expect to learn much from this exercise. However, the Maturity Benchmarks Survey was extremely revealing. I especially appreciated how each category differentiated behavior from resource/infrastructure. This survey made it clear that the next step was to implement a culture change. Behavior was the main limiting factor in many categories. Part of changing the district's culture is setting clear expectations. Therefore, I made the following infographics to illustrate student and teacher technology use expectations.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Week 12: Interface and Component Design Discussion
App User
I plan to have users do the following with my app:- create a username (Start Screen)
- create classes (Start Screen)
- input students (Class Screen)
- input information about student performance (Interview Screen)
- print reports (Class Screen)
Screenshots for the Final Project app design:
User Interaction
Start Screen
There are multiple parts to the Start Screen. Users will interact with the Start Screen by creating a username on their first time using the app. The app will store the username so that login won't be required again. Note: everything below the Confirm Username button will be hidden until the button is pressed.
Once the Confirm Username button is pressed, the Your Classes section will appear. This section displays a Select Grade listpicker. After the user selects the grade, the appropriate classes will be shown (example text is shown in the screenshot).
At the bottom of the class list, an Add a new class button allows users to add classes (if the user has not input any classes, this is the only thing that will be displayed in the Your classes section).
When the user selects the Add a new class button, the appropriate section will become visible to input class information that will be added to the corresponding grade list. Note: the Your classes section will be hidden during this process.Class Screen
When a class is selected in the Start Screen, the Class Screen will open displaying the student information for the selected class. Information displayed will include student first name and last initial and the number of times that student has been interviewed. The user will be able to use the menu buttons to sort the list or randomly choose a student to interview. If the cog is pressed, the user will be able to edit class information (i.e. delete, add, or modify student information).Interview Screen
When a student is selected, the Interview Screen is opened. The user will select the Course, Stage, and Puzzle that the student is working on and will be presented with a prompt to ask. The user will then select Low, Medium, or High depending on the student's answer and the rubric level suggestions. When the user selects submit, the information will be added to the database and the user will be returned to the Class Screen.Component Designer
I like that many features are pre-built for us: listpickers, buttons, databases... It's nice to have these components available with very little work.
However, working with the component designer for this app was extremely frustrating. First of all, since this isn't an object oriented environment, instead of defining one student information block and repeating the design with different information, I had to make 40 individual student information blocks in the Class Screen. I guess this was too much for app inventor to handle because I spent the entire week trying to work on the app but AI2 kept crashing. I tried using an offline local server version of AI2 but it wasn't that good. I ended up exporting the project, creating a fresh AI2 account and importing it to continue working. This solution enabled me to continue my work (but it brought everything to a snail's pace). I also wish I had more control over the layout. I had to use arrangements as spacers because we are not able to control the margins, positioning, or padding. I feel like I could create each screen using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS in a fraction of the time it took me using the component designer.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
W11: App Design Proposal
My app is meant to help K-5 coding teachers assess their students' computational thinking growth. I'm hoping the app will allow teachers view appropriate interview prompts to ask students along with a rubric to grade their responses. If all goes well with this version of the app, I hope to have it developed for real-world use.
During one of my undergrad courses, I learned how to diagram programs and systems using UML. While working on this week’s App Design Proposal, I really wished I still remembered how to correctly complete component and sequence diagrams. I ended up getting on YouTube and watching a few videos on UML to try and refresh my memory. I am afraid my diagram are extremely incorrect. Despite this, I hope the diagrams are still readable for the purpose of this exercise.
Please find below the YouTube videos that I want to refresh my memory:
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