Around my capstone, I feel as though I have had the opportunity to practice transliteracy this semester, in the process of completing my capstone project. The way we are presenting our learning across multiple mediums. I have now created a defense poster, many videos, a research paper, an executive summary and website that includes all of these elements and more. I am basically sending the same message in a large variety of ways. Completing all of these projects has helped me to see what transliteracy is, and how I can ensure that my students are able to access as well as create content in multiple ways.
Now to embedd it into my teaching so the students can become transliterate
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Is this really the final Blog? When I really sit back and reflect on how much I have learned and applied to my class from this program it's pretty amazing. It hasn't been just the things that have been explicitly taught throughout the classes but the way the program models what learning can be. I am having my students build Weebly pages. Add a page for each unit. This is where they will be posting their learning. Progress charts, summative and anything else we can think of. Oh yea and a blog page. Sound familiar.
I knew from the start that I wanted to focus on student clarity. That has just stuck with me as a foundational piece in anything we do, not just school and learning Science. My focused changed from concept maps and student clarity to using digital tools get assess and help them gain clarity. My audience and learning dictated were I ended up, but isn't that the learning that is organic and most powerful type of learning? Just going through the process and struggles of being a student has been invaluable. I am a better and more empathetic teacher for just that reason. Well as we come to the end I am feeling pretty good about getting things done. I am almost done with my video. I still need to change out 2 shots, but way more close to done than last class. I do worry about the quality compared to others I have seen. The video has been a struggle for me. I had a really hared time getting going then when I did, things started to come together. I feel pretty good about my poster, just hope I have the right content. Can't wait to get some fresh eyes on it for some feedback. Still need to finish up the website and now a final presentation. Good thing we have some time off this week. My biggest struggle hasn’t really been with the content these last couple of weeks but with life getting in the way. I usually plan good chunks of time to work on my assignments. Outside circumstances have carved into this time so I have fallen a bit behind. Having said that, I have started my executive summary. I have pulled from my webpage and my research paper for the content. I My biggest issue with this is I haven’t conducted my 2nd round of research to add to the final product. I hope to have some more pre and post test data as well as conducting another survey. As far as the video goes. I just have to put the time in to clean it up. I thought I was going to get some clips this weekend but that didn’t happen. Should I change it up and keep it simple with just images? I still think I have a pretty good idea of where I want to go with it. I still need to look into cutting the time down a bit. I am right now at 90 seconds and I still haven’t done the transitions, intro, and credits. Hopefully I will have the final rough cut done by Tuesday nights class. Thinking back on this journey and working with two different cohorts Touro’s value system is evident in how they run the program and foster the learning of the participants. I was skeptical about how an online class could foster collaboration and a sense of community but that hasn’t been the case. Because of the high standards of inter-professionalism the I feel the feedback I have gotten from the members of the cohort and the professors has been critical in my research and putting this all together in the Capstone. Being able to research and learn about what we feel is needed for us as teachers and our students really address the values of Intellectual inquiry, discovery, and passion for life-long learning, Student-centered education. This allowed me the freedom to let my driving question evolve as I was doing my research and identified a new need for my students and me as a teacher. I also really appreciate the diversity within the cohorts. There are all grade levels of teachers, different districts, different types of schools and students. We all came in with different levels of technology skills as well. I really think fresh, outside perspectives can really be critical feedback. My focus is on making a change within my classroom, more specifically with me becoming a better teacher for my students. Because of that, I have been sharing what I have learned with my colleagues and principle indirectly. In our PLCs as we develop lessons and units, I share what I am doing with these new tools and strategies for integrating technology. They become curious and want to learn them for their classes as well. It has led to a possible peer tutoring opportunity. My partner teacher likes the idea of building a webpage but is concerned she doesn’t have the tech skills or know how. So, after my kids build and become comfortable with Weebly they are going to go help the other classes get their sites up and running. So the teacher and students are learning together. Also, my principal did come in my science class as they were turning in their link to the Weebly site they are building. As far as formally sharing with my principle and staff my capstone, I don’t think I’ll do that. I think I am sharing by doing. I am really struggling with getting this capstone video started. Since we presented our storyboard I have been stuck on an introduction that is catchy. I am probably over thinking it and need to back off a bit and just getting something down on video. Usually, these kinds of ideas will come to me at random times like driving and then an idea came to me this morning (Sunday) watching my daughter's soccer game. In order to play you need a clear understanding of the rules, how to score, and the equipment needed to play but you don’t have to be clear on strategies to play. You just won’t be successful. And watching and hearing the frustration from losing all of their games is evident they aren’t clear on how to be successful. Maybe this can be my intro. Then the wheels start spinning. I am also thinking of using a travel analogy. How we use digital tools to help us get to our destinations. I was in Europe this summer and relied on technology like never before. I am also having a hard time with the overall content of the video. Right now I think I need to put in pictures even if that is to hold the spot of a future video. I think I need to just pick a lane and go with it. I must say this video has been more difficult than I thought. To be honest I haven’t put in the time creating it up to now. I have had so many things going on at work and home these past 2 weeks that I haven’t not only put in the time but the thought. And when I do my I seem to be spinning my wheels getting nowhere. I am hoping on our day off Friday to be able to invest a good chunk of time on the video. My journey began when I realized the future of education needed to keep up with the ever changing world. This meant how we teach and how kids learn. Technology is going to play a huge role in the future of education. The students live in and communicate in a digital world. It would not be fair to the students not to use technology or use it in limited ways. My effectiveness as a teacher would be limited if I wasn’t committed to learning and implementing technology through models like the TPACK. Getting to know the TPACK model has made me realize that there is no substitute for great teaching, getting to know your students or content knowledge. Technology is the piece in the TPACK model that is ever changing. I was using technology in the classroom pretty much every day but this program has shown me how to use it to foster creativity and getting to the "sweet spot on the TPAC". Prior to this program I was using it more as a tool and management system. Now I am blogging and vlogging with the kids not only about what they learned but giving feedback to each other during the learning process. Students are more clear on what the need to learn and how to get help to learn. Taking and trying these new tools with the students has been a good way to model growth mindset and the learning process. We have even created a youtube channel with a tech tips station that the student's screencast tips as we come across new technology. Investigating the videos about the brain, technology to foster 21st-century learning, reading the Flat World and the other studies have given me a deeper understanding of why it isn't a choice to shift education but an immediate need to do so. Since I have never created a storyboard before it seemed overwhelming just thinking of the process. To be honest I never really thought about planning something out that way. Once I took a look at some of the websites on the Icare and the templates I could see the value. Then watching the suggested videos I could see how it really all fit together. It is definitely helping me break it down to manageable pieces.
I am still struggling with my script. I have the overall ideas but trying to put words to it right now isn’t happening. Maybe in the middle of the night, it will come. Trying to tie the journey together since it has not been a straight path but one with some twists and turns has been a bit of a struggle. Putting the webpage together has helped me bring it all together and now to try and sell it in a 2-minute video is a little daunting to me right now. I decided to use iMovie as my main editing tool. I have used it before but wouldn’t call myself an expert by any means so the learning curve will still be a little bit of a struggle. I may also use Adobe Spark, Screencast-o-Matic as well, maybe a combination of the two tools to create my video. I like how I can save those as videos then load them into iMovie to edit, add music, transitions, and other features. Seems pretty seamless in stitching together videos and pictures. I liked how one of the videos I watched had background music and voiceover. One thing I do know how to do on Imovie control the volumes of multiple noises. Always trying to bring things back to the class I could see having my students go through this process as well, for a number of different situations. After looking at the other sites I settled on Canva to make my logo because it was user friendly, and free. They do have additional purchase options, but it is definitely possible to use only free features and still create a nice looking logo. To me it seemed to have plenty of templates and Ideas to get you started and the flexibility to make it your own. When I first looked at Canva as a program for infographics I really didn’t like it. Now I do. I think it was a matter of giving it enough time to play around with and understanding how it was organized. The Logo templates were pretty easily managed. One problem, a good one maybe, is there are so many to choose from. It seemed that way with most of the programs I looked at though. I also like how you can change the color of the art work. Besides having so many options, I searched Magnifying glass, you could change color to match the color scheme of your logo. My hurdles weren’t so much with the program but trying to get a logo that says what I want to say. I am not an artistic person so I don’t have an eye for art and graphic design. I am the one that all of the tricks work on. Once I narrowed it down to a concept. I looked for logos that fit that need. I wanted to somehow link digital tools and clarity and started to see the equal sign in some of the designs. I also was thinking about a magnifying glass or a pathway. At first I thought my students were in the audience because they are ultimately who this is for, right? After looking at the different capstone websites and going through the three semesters I realize students are not my audience they are the purpose.
The main audience for the capstone anyone Who may be looking For ways to help with Student clarity in the ever-changing digital and Educational world. After learning clarity had such a high effect size on student learning I wanted to know how. How can we get students more clear on learning objectives, character for success, and a way to monitor progress towards these goals? I feel I have had some success using digital platforms so I would want to share that with colleagues, new teacher candidates, and even scholars in the education world like Hattie or Michael McDowell themselves Napa Learns are also part of my audience as they have committed resources for me to pursue this research After looking over some websites in the other cohorts, it looks like the learn more page is a snapshot into the research that I have done. Links to my research paper, lessons, how to’s and assessments all land on this page. Also, I will need to include a summary of the work that has been done throughout the program. Maybe an infographic of the data from the research, an image of Hattie’s effect size scale. Samples of student work, maybe some pictures or screenshots may be good here as well. I will also have some kind of visual of the programs are used like flip grid, screencast-O-Matic, Google forms to name a few. After going through the linking process and looking at several of the capstone websites I can start to see how the pages are laid out and what is needed on each of the pages. Presentation is also really important and now I see the application of all those tricks on form and color of logos and info graphics we are learning in 703. I am starting to get a little nervous about the amount of stuff that needs to be cleaned up and put on the website, let alone what still needs to be created. |
AuthorJeff Albertazzi Archives
November 2018
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