I have been to one class on Forms that Napa Learns put on during a weeknight class earlier this year. I got the gist of how it works and I tried a few generic features, but never made form that I could use with my class. As a reading specialist with many different groups it takes some time to set up a test or quiz that I will only use once. It is fun for the kids and is great for a quick exit or check for understanding, but I already have so little time with my kids to get to the already prescribed and very expensive curriculum. I could see myself using it on one of my Technology Tuesday classes for end of unit work or pre-unit work on vocabulary, but I like other tools to reinforce vocabulary concepts. My job as a TOSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) Intervention was cut with the 7 million dollar budget cuts in the past few weeks and I have no idea where I will be going or what I will be teaching next year. I am going to keep these tools in my back pocket as the school year winds down and more and more of my classes are geared towards CAASSP testing prep.
I love using games and fun ways to get my students excited and motivated to learn and I could use some Google Forms to recall summative information as an accumulative reminder as to what the year of knowledge has brought to their learning. I like the idea of using these forms for conferences, quizzes, opinions and surveys or polls and quick short answers to check for writing skills, thoughts and knowledge around processing information such as writing a summary or retelling a story. It is fantastic for gathering data from parents and students to make my life easier with contact information. There are so many ways my teacher brain has changed in how I think about using these various tools. Something that I am going to use for my Touro Capstone is the Survey. Before I knew about Forms, I did a survey in the word processing and pencil format. I wish that these two classes were the first two classes of the year to gain knowledge and understanding as to how mini-cycles work and then I would have all year to play with digital tools throughout the heavy school units in the beginning of the school year and work on the Action Research plan closer to the Capstone. It seems like more of a natural progression to the program. But I digress... I am going to do the survey on Forms for my next culmination cycle to see where the students are now as the year ends. have actually found other reasons outside of the classroom in which Forms will come in very handy and I will be using them for the Washington, D.C. trip that I have been planning for June. I am having a meeting in April and this is giving me the reason to experiment and explore with some of the Add-Ons that I may not use at this grade level at this point in the year. I am excited to keep exploring and keep learning more and more when it comes to tech tools with my staff at meetings and other members of my technology learning community.
5 Comments
1. How can/Should social media be used to help you develop/collaborate/communicate as a professional? What are the critical issues to consider?
2. What would you do if you were to come across an inappropriate post made by one of your students outside of the school. Do you address the post and, if so, how? Whom do you involve in the conversations? What considerations must you make in determining your course of action? Social media is all the rage with 9/10 students using various forms of social media daily. 76% of students in high school have an account and are using Instagram and 45% are using Facebook already (Benmar, K 2015). Anything is possible when it come to technology and creating a culture around the use of technology, but it will take time and will need to have systems set in place with a unified goal mission statement. As a culture we have become addicted to technology that is within a foot of us at all times. The companies design it that way, so why not use it to connect with students that are always on their phones and use it for education instead of just cat memes and Hollywood? Technology has a use and a purpose to give abilities to communicate, collaborate professionally or academically and develop relationships with people that are near or far. The things to consider are that the technology has moved at such a rapid speed that the socially acceptable culture has not been properly trained or caught up to what those norms are. People have the ability to shoot off Tweets and social media messages when they are under the influence, angry or just plain uneducated statements whenever they want and is usually considered freedom of speech and does not set a great example for the youth in our country. Living in a time with such a litigious society makes many teachers fearful of introducing technology into the classroom because of parents and families that hold such tight restrictions on their families and have low incomes and do no have such money to spend on expensive devices and pay for wifi in their homes for homework or long term projects. I have been in a situation where I saw a post from my teenage god daughter where she was drinking from a keg and partying with friends, cussing, making rude comments and did not show her in her best light while she was in high school. Her mom is my best friend and as a friend knowing that the mom is not on Facebook or monitoring her in any way I felt obligated to let her know what was happening with her daughter online. I let the mom know that she should know her audience and who else might be seeing these posts that she is unaware of. She was shocked and embarrassed and said that she would talk to her. That day the daughter unfriended me and my girlfriend and I never talked about it again. Any time it came up my friend diverted the conversation to something else and would not discuss it. It did not ruin my relationship with the mom, but did clearly change the dynamics of what we could and would not discuss. I think that there needs to be more classes for parents on how to keep track of what our kids are doing on the internet and what kind of impact they are making in the world. Taking technology into the classrooms needs to be done with a systematic approach with components of digital citizenship and digital media awareness in place before it can truly be effective without major ramifications and personal liability. |
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