Zach Paul's ePortfolio
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Symbaloo is a bookmarking tool that I use to keep track of all of my favorite apps and websites. My students can just click on the app (tile) to go directly to the website instead of typing it in. This is efficient because my students will not have to copy and paste a link to go to the site. Symbaloo is effective because it helps with my students' organization. Students will know that they can find all of the resources from class on Symbaloo, and it also allows parents to know where to go. Symbaloo also allows me to be more organized as a teacher. I can group tiles based on different units, and I can even create multiple pages if I want one specifically for students or other teachers. I could have my students create their own Symbaloo of their personal favorite websites. This would be in replacement of the standard bookmark method and I could even assign students to click on a tile for homework, rather than writing the entire URL on the whiteboard.
Cyberbullying Awareness Powtoon
In order to make this video about digital citizenship, I used Powtoon. Powtoon is a site that allows you to make animated videos and presentations. There are different images and sounds that can be added to bring a comic to life. Powtoon can be used for presentations as instruction, but could also be used for a student project. Students could create a video and add a voice-over of themselves talking.I like all the different characters and images that are on Powtoon, because I don't have to search around the internet myself for them. Also I do not need to worry about copyright issues, because the images come directly from Powtoon. I wanted to include a video in my Powtoon, but unfortunately that feature is unavailable because I do not have a premium subscription. Overall, there were many useful features, so it wasn't too limiting.
Powtoon has templates to use, which makes it efficient. If I wanted, I could create my own storyboard, but instead I just copied and edited a preexisting template. This way I am able to save time and money due to the free features on Powtoon. Powtoon is very engaging because it takes boring text and animates it on the screen. I can use this video to help teach my students about a topic that they probably have already heard lectures on. I created my video about cyberbullying, because I want to make sure my students know how important of an issue it is. Hopefully this video will show the students that cyberbullying is a serious topic, but it addresses the topic in a lighthearted way to keep their interest. There are many other resources that I could have used to present this information, but I think Powtoon is the most useful to keep students interested.
Smore is a website that allows you to make a digital newsletter. I will create a weekly newsletter to show what we did in class that week, and to give some reminders about the upcoming week. This is an example of the newsletter that I created for open house and the first week of school. Smore is effective because it allows me to upload the newsletter online, rather than email it to parents. The parents can just click on the newsletter to open it, and share it with other family members or friends who want to see what their child is doing in school. I personally prefer paper handouts, so I would probably create the newsletter online and then still print out a copy for my students to take home. This gives the students a physical copy to look at, but also ensures that the newsletter can be found online in case the paper copy is lost. Smore is very easy to use and looks very professional, so I believe it is engaging for both students and parents. This resource helps me stay organized as a teacher, and makes sure that my communication with parents in consistent.
Piktochart is an online infographic maker. You pick a template and then alter the text and images to create an infographic. Infographics are like online posters that can be used to display information. For this project, I created an infographic about technology rules for my classroom. My classroom rules include responsible practices for my students, but also a form of classroom management. If anyone has questions about my expectations, I can simply refer them to the infographic, and the students can even save a copy on their own device. I also see the value of Piktochart for a student assignment. Students could do a research project and put their information into an infographic. This would be a nice way to incorporate technology into a task that we would already be doing in class anyways.
Piktochart is engaging because it uses bright colors and has attractive images to capture the students' attention. I also included a meme to add humor and help keep my students interested in learning the rules. Piktochart is also effective because I could have made a simple poster instead. I like that Piktochart is online, so it can be edited if we need to add or change any rules. This is also useful because I can send the infographic to any parents who might have concerns about my classroom management. In a way, this is also enhancing because parents and students can view the infographic multiple times on their own devices. The traditional method would be to print out handouts, but these often end up lost or thrown away. This way, I do not have to worry about making copies because any who wants to can view the rules.
Hour of Code Certificate
To earn this certificate, I completed an hour of code by playing educational games that used coding. The game that I played was the Angry Birds Maze. The objective of the game was to get the angry bird to the evil pig at the end. In order to move the bird, I had to use block coding. I dragged puzzle pieces of code and dropped them into an algorithm for the computer to read. The types of coding increased in difficulty as the levels went on, but I was also able to complete more advanced features. The Hour of Code is a movement that is being used in schools across the globe to teach students basic coding skills. By using simple games to teach coding, students are more engaged and are able to learn computer science skills that are becoming more important in our society. By completing an hour of code myself, I am demonstrating my commitment to learning about computer science, so I can teach it to my students one day.
The technology I used for this project is Storify. Storify connects to social media sites, and allows you to create an online blog by saving your favorite posts and messages from other users. This is also a type of online forum, because you can share your blog and leave comments on other people's blogs. For this Storify, I used Twitter to organize different ideas surrounding the #elemchat. I can use this to collaborate with other educators who share similar passions to me. I like that you can notify users if you include one of their tweets in your Storify blog. Storify is also helpful if you don't want to clog up your feed by following too many users. The filters help eliminate useless information and spam that is not relevant to you. Storify can be used as a form of social media account, because you still get access to new posts and updates.
Storify is efficient because it connects directly to the social media site. Instead of going from user to user, you can filter results by certain keywords or hashtags. This is useful for organization, because you can store all of your ideas about a topic in one place. I also like how you can become engaged in a professional development community with other educators. By saving and commenting on posts, you are able to share ideas that you like. Storify is also enhancing because there is no other source that I know of where you can take posts from a variety of media sources and save them all in one place. For this example, I focused on Twitter, but I could easily combine ideas from Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram. This is one of my favorite technology resources that we have used so far, because I am always looking for ways to organize my teaching ideas.