Introducing the Tech Center Technology Wiki!

Yesterday the Tech Center Technology wiki that I mentioned earlier made its debut at the Tech Center. It will always be a work in progress, but it has enough information to be useful to any technical and career education teacher. Check it out and forward it along to those who may find it useful. My hope is that one day it becomes a collaborative effort from many different schools, so we can continue learning from each other and exploring new worlds!

Tech Center Technology Wiki

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kassarar/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

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!

Glogster

I first heard about Glogster last year, and I have been looking forward to getting a class to try it out. I presented student samples at our professional development session in August, and I finally was able to design a project for our Early Childhood students. The longterm goal of this project is that it will be accessible by the preschool parents once we get our preschool wiki up and running. It turned out the be a great experience for the students as well as the teachers, who are now really excited at witnessing the power of technology like this in the hands of their students.

Glogster is a free, web-based program that is used to create "glogs" or the equivalent of a digital poster. This innovative tool can contain video, sound, pictures, and text. It allows the students to be creative with backgrounds, colors, fonts, and graphics, and it can be about any topic, so it is perfect for a diverse school like the Tech Center! Plus, there is now an educational side, so a teacher can create a main account and student accounts that are all visible from the teacher login. And most importantly, it is easy to manage and safe to use.

The Early Childhood students just finished learning about two important play centers: sensory and block building, and rather than testing them through a traditional assessment, we decided to create a peformance-based assessment using Glogster. The students worked in pairs to choose their topic and complete their final products that consisted of:

1. One video, created using the Flip camera, explaining and demonstrating a developmentally appropriate practice in either block building or sensory play. The audience was the parents of our preschool children. The topic was how they could use block or sensory activities at home with their child to promote cognitive, social-emotional, and physical growth. This video was no longer than one minute in length.


2. Three pictures from the picture bank provided of preschoolers and student teachers in sensory and block buildling play activities. The pictures were to have a caption that described what was happening in the picture, how the activity was developmentally appropriate, and how the activity fostered cognitive, physical and social-emotional development and growth.


3. Recordings of the caption for each picture using http://www.vocaroo.com/.


4. A list of specific ideas for block building or sensory play at home.

We gave the students the freedom to pace themselves and work on the project in any order they wanted. The level of learning, engagement, and creativity was amazing because the students knew they had a real audience, the preschool parents, and because they were put in charge of the learning process. The project covered many 21st century skills, and the students stayed focused and engaged for the entire 2.5 hour classtime. The best part is that a project like this can be transferred to any classroom in any school.

Take a look at few examples:

Sensory Play

Block Building

Happy Glogging!

Timeliner XE Updated

Today was a great day at the Tech Center! Early Childhood students really produced stellar work on their timelines for child development. The students chose a “birthday” for a child in the year 2004 and then charted that child's developmental milestones through age 6. They added categories to help distinguish between the types of development. After they were finished, they printed them out and mounted them on construction paper, so they can be displayed and used as review tools.
I am going to try to be more specific with my teachers and with my posts when it comes to using this in a technical school classroom. I send an email each week with a tool or strategy, and I thought that maybe giving specific examples would help them visualize using it in their classroom. So here it goes!

Here’s what was great about this assignment:

1. The students had to think critically to determine at what date the child would be experiencing a specific developmental milestone.
2. The students had to categorize the types of milestones.
3. The students are able to visually understand how a child grows and develops—through the timeline and through adding images.
4. It only took about 1 hour!

Here’s how I think other programs here at the Tech Center can easily use this powerful program:

1. Nursing students can track a disease’s progression or the steps in patient care procedures.
2. Culinary students can map out the steps in a difficult recipe or create a timeline for a catering event to stay organized.
3. Construction, Welding, and HVAC students can create a sequence for any steps in building/fixing anything.
4. Public Safety students can create the timeline of a crime scene or an accident to understand the progression of events, or they can create a sequence for procedure of a traffic stop.
5. Landscaping/Turf students can create a timeline of plants that grow best during each month or can create a sequence for growing/caring for plants or creating landscape designs.
6. Auto Body students can create a timeline or a sequence for the steps in repairing damage.
7. Auto Service and Outdoor Power Equipment students can create a sequence for any repair work done in the shop.
8. Legal/Medical students can create timelines and sequences for any office procedures.
9. Electronics students can create sequences for building circuits or any other item.
10. Cosmetology students can create a timeline for managing clients effectively to get their procedure done in the allotted amount of time or can create a sequence for any procedure.
    

Timeliner XE

I remember when I first came to the Tech Center three years ago. Most people didn't understand what technology could really be used at a technical school. When I would have computers reimaged, the technicians would almost automatically tell me that I didn't need any special instructional software pushed because that's what they were used to. Sadly, I started to agree with everyone; I couldn't see past those thoughts to envision what could really be done.

One program that I was pretty sure we would never use here is Timeliner XE. I couldn't fathom what on earth a technical school could use a timeliner program for. Luckily, I have been able to grow past those blind viewpoints to see the possibilities of the program. What is nice about Timeliner is the ability to create not only chronological timelines, but also sequences that can be enhanced with images and videos. Since our students learn process after process for tasks in their trades and programs, Timeliner has become a number one option to create sequences to learn and review the steps they need know. Even the timeline side of the program is going to be put to use in Early Childhood as they study child growth and development. Dental Assisting has already worked on arranging images and labeling the steps in amalgams with pictures that they took using their intraoral camera. See the image above for a sample of their work!

After these successes, I'm sure that many other instructors will be interested in trying this out in their classroom. I can see a use for it in Culinary Arts for steps in any task in the kitchen and bake shop. The trades classrooms could use it for reviewing steps in any of the processes that they put to use in building our Foundation House. The Practical Nursing students could use both sides of the program-- to create timelines for diseases/illnesses and sequences for caring for patients. Landscape Design could use it for the sequence and timeline for plant growth. And so much more, all across the building!

I spent quite a bit of time over the previous three school years feeling frustrated because I just was not sure what I could do here to help the teachers. For what reason, I won't question, but the veil has been lifted. I see endless possibilities for our teachers to improve and enhance instruction with technology that is available in our division. It is my hope that we can become pioneers in someway. I have to believe there are other technical schools out there who have been told or just believe there isn't a place for instructional technology in their curricula. It is my hope to take our division's newly implemented plan for PLCs in each building and expand ours to include teachers from other technical schools. There is so much out there that we can learn from each other, and it will all benefit the students!

Starting Fresh

After a great summer break, Vo-Tech 2.0 is roaring and already running! Our teachers come back at the beginning of August, which is different from the regular schools' teachers, which is a great way for me to find substantial time to plan with them before the school year starts. There are many great things in store for our building this year, and I am excited about implementing them. In order to achieve the goals I have in mind, I am making them public. Hold me accountable, people!

1. Create a school technology wiki to be used to collaborate across the building so teachers can see how technology is being used and how it can be used in their classrooms. FYI: the PBWorks Summer Camp is highly beneficial. Definitely recommended!
2. Meet with each program each quarter to plan for ways to use technology in their learning plans.
3. Expand online portfolio project to include more programs and possibly two different platforms to allow for student choice.
4. Promote Notebook 10 software, Smartboards, and Airliners.
5. Train teachers on Google SketchUp as an option for creating visual plans for projects.
6. Implement the Preschool Wiki project with ECE.
7. Hold optional training sessions that correlate with the Technology Tool of the Week.

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.