Technology Wiki

I am in the process of creating a wiki that will house information about technology tools and how they can be used at not only the Tech Center, but also any technical school. I began the school year by sending out a tool of the week to my teachers via email, but I wanted a way to showcase several tools in one place, so teachers could browse and find ideas that would pertain to where they were at that point in time. Also, emails get deleted, ignored, or lost, so I thought this would be a great way to present the information permanently! In the wiki, I give specific ideas for each program area to hopefully get thinking going for how a tool can be used. I know I didn't see how technology tools could be used here initially, so by providing concrete ideas, I hope to stimulate creativity. My longterm goal is for this to be a tool for my teachers and any career and technical education teachers to use as a resource. It's only in the beginning stages now, but I am very hopeful that it will be a useful tool in helping me integrate technology. I also see that it could be a collaborative effort across the building and across different schools. I would like other schools and educators to be contributors by reflecting on what has worked, what needed tweaked, and suggesting new tools and ideas.

I will post the link soon, so be on the lookout!

PBworks Summer Camp

I found out about this great and free opportunity on Free Technology for Teachers last week. Feeling a great need for some motivation, I quickly decided to give it a go. Not only is it free, but after successfully completing the four week course, you are eligible to be a PB Wiki Certified Educator, and you earn a free wiki. Not a bad deal for a great experience interacting with other like-minded educators. I think it will be interesting to learn more about how to effectively use a wiki in general and in a classroom with students. As you can see from my last post, which shamefully was in March, we experimented with a wiki and Jing screencasts, and it was a great experience, but I know we only scratched the surface of the powerful ways a wiki can be used.

My first thoughts on looking at the camp syllabus and the assignment of creating my on wiki is that I would like to create a space that is easily accessible and easily editable for the staff in my building that will house ways we are learning to integrate technology. I hope it will help to create a dialogue and a community that seems to be lacking at times. My thoughts on this emerging technology use in Vo-Tech 2.0 is that I need to create a community of learners within the building that see each other as co-teachers even if we have so many seemingly disjointed subject areas. I hope this helps bridge the gap. And as a bonus, I hope that it will entice some to give it a try in their classroom, too. But as I am learning, I think change in this building will be slow, and that's okay because we will start where it is safe and move out from there.

Jing and Wikispaces

The students in our Legal Studies Administration class and our Medical Studies Administration class have to take the Microsoft Office Specialist Certification test for Word. The teacher came to me and asked if I had any thoughts for how she could be a little more creative and use technology to get the students practicing the objectives and helping each other prepare for the test. After being thrilled about the invitation to plan and help, I went through many different ideas in my head that included the Flip camera she has recently purchased and her new Smartboard. I knew what I wanted to do was have the students create videos that we could put on a wiki that would be their review tool.

We finally decided on Jing, which is created by TechSmith, and is a free download for both Windows and Mac. Jing is a very simple to use tool that can create screenshots or screencasts and can then be saved as a Flash movie and emailed or uploaded.

Here was our basic plan:

1. Students worked in groups of two and were assigned an objective from the MOS Word Certification test.
2. Students researched and learned how to complete the objective.
3. Students wrote a step-by-step script that they used to record their screencast.
4. Students used Jing to record their screencasts using the scripts.
5. Students chose best version of screencast and uploaded to a page on a class wiki that contains the video and the script.

We found the students were actively engaged in every part of the process. Because they knew that their classmates from both classes would be reviewing the videos, they made sure their videos were top quality. Hopefully we will see an increase in the MOS pass rate as they use this as a study tool.

I am happy with the results of this project, especially because over the past two years, I really was not sure I would figure out a way to help in this classroom. After this experience, I see many, many possibilities. We already have another project that will begin in the next month that includes Mixbook. Vo-Tech 2.0 is on its way!

Portfolio Project- Update #2

And we mustn't forget that everything is a learning process! I may have gotten a little ahead of myself with the wiki-- in terms of putting it out there without any personal explanation of its purpose. But I was able to hold a very brief, informal training session with a few today that helped a bit. I need to remember that face-to-face meetings are beneficial, too! I think I get sucked into sitting in front of this computer screen, and I forget that others may not be so comfortable, savvy, or interested. So before I frustrate my pioneers, I am going to work a little more closely with them at the start, and then, once everyone is comfortable, we can take some time apart to reflect and brainstorm. We'll file this under lessons learned.

Portfolio Project- Update #1

Exciting news! I created a wiki on Wikispaces for the pioneers in my building who have agreed to work on implementing an online portfolio project with their students. So far, I have had one teacher create her account and post a reply to the discussion board. We are taking small steps, and I am trying not to get over-zealous and inundate them with too much, but at the very least I posted a Common Craft wiki video to give them some background on what a wiki is. I also hope this experience with a wiki will provide the impetus for implementing wikis with their students. I couldn't help but mention how this could be integrated in their curriculums and urged them to think towards that as we used the wiki to plan our projects. Right now, we are all using one space to plan, but I am guessing that as we progress, we will need to divide into smaller groups that are more specific to their subject areas. I hope that this will begin an evolution towards top-notch technology integration at the Tech Center!