ECOMP 7010: Final Project

Directions: You will choose one current, or emerging technology, or Internet resource, and incorporate it into a lesson using a constructivist approach. Your final project needs to include the following:

1. A brief statement of your goal for this lesson.
2. A description of your school setting as it relates to your lesson, including curriculum requirements, technology access, the number of students involved and anything about your students that would be relevant.
3. Three of the standards (state or national) the lesson will address.
4. A description of the existing lesson, or proposed lesson, that you’ll be infusing additional technology into, including goals, time frame, class groupings, technology used.
5. The questions you will pose to your students and the tasks you will ask them to do. This is the most important part of your project and will demonstrate your creativity and imagination.  You will reference the specific use of the technology or Internet resource, and how your students will do their information gathering, research and problem solving.  Include annotated links where needed to cite resources.
6. A sample project.  This will be created by you, and will serve as a model for your students.  The link to the project, or the attached document, must be included in your project.
7. Include at least 2 screen shots or other images. Annotated references should be listed at the end.

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Student Exemplars: 4 Ways to Link QR Codes

This American Life - Episode #207: Special Ed

Originally aired in 2002, this episode contains stories about people who were told that they're different. But what is 'different' really? Sometimes different can bring unique a perspective to a situation, sometimes different is difficult to understand, and sometimes different can be a complete mystery to all involved.

ECOMP 7010: VoiceThread Debate

Directions: You will be on a debate team and will argue, either pro or con, the statement: "Handheld Mobile Devices Should be Banned in Schools Say No to BYOD! (Bring Your Own Device)" We will use VoiceThread to conduct the debate. Each team will consist of a team captain who will provide the opening statement, 3 topic presenters, 3 rebuttal presenters, and a closing statement presenter. Statements are to be around 3 minutes in length and include specific examples to support your position, including quotations from sources when appropriate.

NOTE: Because I'm not the owner of this thread, I am unable to access the permissions for public viewing, so you may or may not be able to view the contents below, sorry!

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http://voicethread.com/share/3269668/

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My Quotation/Reference Sources

• Scholastic. (July 27, 2012). Left The Cell Phone Ban. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3751073
• Juggle.com Debates. (July 27, 2012). Debates: Education - Should cell phones be banned within schools? Retrieved from http://debates.juggle.com/should-cell-phones-be-banned-within-schools
• Media Shift. Watters, A. (Aug. 8, 2011). Why Schools Should Stop Banning Cell Phones, and Use Them for Learning. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/08/why-schools-should-stop-banning-cell-phones-and-use-them-for-learning241.html
• ISTE: International Society for Technology Education. (July 27, 2012). NETS for Students 2007 Profiles. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/nets-for-students/nets-for-students-2007-profiles.aspx
• Partnership for 21st Century Skills. (2007). Information, media and technology skills. Retrieved from http://route21.p21.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=8

ECOMP 7010: Cloud Computing

Directions: Investigate an example of cloud computing and gather the following information: cloud URL, service cost (if any), major features, assess with respect to the learning curve for teachers and/or students, and the potential uses for the classroom.

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Dropbox

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Website of application: www.dropbox.com

Free Version: A basic Dropbox account gives you 2 GB of cloud storage for free. You can upgrade to 100 GB of cloud storage at a cost of $9.99 per month, and 200 GB for $19.99 per month. *NOTE: Once you sign up, there is a “Get Free Space” section where you have several opportunities to increase your initial cloud storage space for free by completing tasks such as referring a friend, connecting to Facebook, following Dropbox on Twitter, etc.

Dropbox Web Portal

Features: Dropbox is a combination of cloud storage and file syncing and completes both tasks at the same time. First, they make it easy for you to take files and even whole folders and sync them up to the cloud. Once syncing to the cloud is complete, those same files and folders will be accessible from the web and any device you have also setup Dropbox on. Their web interface is accessible from all major web browser Apps, and is downloadable to both Windows and Mac OSX operating systems. Additionally, Dropbox provides support for several mobile devices including iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry.

Learning Curve: The demo movie on the Dropbox homepage looks like it came from the people at Common Craft and does a nice job of explaining what the service does and how. It takes just a few minutes to create an account at Dropbox.com, and the application download is just under 22 MB in size. Once setup is complete, creating folders within your Dropbox folder is no different than any other place on your computer and adding files is as easy as drag-&-drop.

Some additional features include:

Dropbox on the iPad

• Dropbox will notify you whenever a file or folder has been added, removed, or modified when syncing to the cloud.
• You have the ability to share a folder within your Dropbox with other Dropbox users through an email invite.
• Within your Dropbox there is a ‘Public’ folder provided. Place a file or folder in this location, then right-click on the item to have Dropbox generate a public link that you can then share with users regardless if they are Dropbox users or not. This link gives them access to the file/folder and this item only. The rest of your Dropbox contents remain private and secure.

Potential Uses in the Classroom: 

• This is an easy and free option that will allow teachers to achieve the “Save in 3’s” recommendation for file storage (1 on your computer, 1 on an external device, 1 in the cloud).
• If you don’t have a laptop and wish you could access files from both your school and home computers then Dropbox says, “Problem solved.”
• If you were to pair Dropbox with the add-on DROPitTOme, then you now have access to a public file drop that students could use to turn in their assignments and they will immediately be sync’d to the cloud, downloaded to your computer, and accessible from your mobile device. I believe this service has huge potential for the classroom, allowing teachers to forgo passing around a pen drive or external hard drive except for large multimedia projects. Teachers could add a link to their DROPitTOme portal on their website, then students could turn in homework while at school or from home, as long as they have Internet access.

ECOMP 7010: QR Codes

Directions: Provide an example of something that inspires you to connect it to QR Codes. Then, describe how you would use the QR code in this situation. Finally, create your own QR Code and upload it along with a description of how you would use it in the classroom.

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From The Noun Project

1. Inspiration:  Slide #13 - QR codes in airports


2. How I would use the QR Code: When I saw slide 13 I thought about how helpful a QR code could be if it could relay information to a traveler audibly and in their language. Enter QR Voice, which allows you to connect short phrases to the QR code so that when scanned will speak the phrase. The site is not a translator, so if you want the code to say something in Spanish, for example, you would need to provide the Spanish translation. However, selecting Spanish as the language will have the phrase spoken with a Spanish accent and attempts to use proper inflection. The site lists 40 language accents to choose from, and can accomodate up to 96 characters (if my counting is correct). I see this tool playing a valuable role in foreign language classes to help students connect vocabulary and phrases in written form with how they sound when spoken. Having these codes up in important places could also help ELL students who are working on their English language skills.

3. My QR Code: http://my.qrvoice.net/SC98Gm

ECOMP7010: Google Reader & RSS Feeds

Google Tools in the Classroom

Directions: Post an entry with one RSS website that you would recommend and examples of three feeds at that site. 

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FreeTech4Teachers

Source URL: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/freetech4teachers/cGEY

Story Recommendations:

Say Goodbye to iGoogle and Hello to Symbaloo

It is disappointing when a service we get to know and used to using is discontinued by the provider; iGoogle is one such example. Thankfully, Richard Byrne’s blog is an excellent resource for finding alternative resources and services. iGoogle is a popular organizational tool used by both my teachers and students in the 1to1 laptop program, so Richard’s blog post will be a valuable communique to forward to them.

Welcome to Online Textbooks

Guest blogger Cristina Conciatori, a Biology and Chemistry teacher in New York, talks about the the debate between traditional and digital textbooks and how you can make the transition to digital a little bit easier.

21 Must-Read RSS Feeds

Blogger Richard Byrne shares his RSS feed list that he checks on a regular basis and uses as a source for his own blog topics. Richard divides the list into feeds that focus on education topics and those that deal with technology integration.

ECOMP 7010: Google Lit Trips

Google Tools in the Classroom

Directions: Think about a Google Lit Trip that you would create for YOUR students and report on it.

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1. A Google Lit Trip that inspired me:
My Brother Sam Is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier & Christopher Collier

2. The book that I would write a Lit Trip for is: Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, by Jean Lee Latham.

3. Besides sending my students to the locations…there are a lot of possibilities for extensions and other innovations. Students could do research on the various tools that Nat Bowditch uses in the story, investigating whether or not they are still used today and if not, what tool(s) have replaced them. After reading each chapter, students could go to a WallWisher page and brainstorm different titles for the chapter and explain how that came up with them. Students could also select a character from the book and create a Historical Facebook profile page, where in addition to entering in biographical data they would have to determine what social groups they would belong to, who would be in their ‘friend’ list, and several examples of posts we might see on their Facebook wall.