Week 9 - Fitness

Age Restrictions- Interactive tools are a great way to capture students imagination and energy. However, our first priority is following the rules that relate to our students. While I would use the 8th grade classes to produce the electronic posters with Glogster I would not do so with the sixth graders. I would have to look at similar programs ahead of time, since that's not an option. I would probably have students look up similar information on the web and then perhaps have them hand tool their posters. This is a prime example of why we need to look at the parameters of the tools we use prior to the day of use. Ethically it would not be appropriate for me to use the program with students under 13. I have used information and programs in the past which, under a dry run for myself worked like a charm, but when applied with students it faultered/failed/crashed and burned. In these instances I had to scrap the day and go to the next step and then revisit the plan when I worked out the kinks. Although, this may be frustating it helps me to learn how to monitor, adjust and plan more carefully. Scenario 6: Course Management Overload Ms. Carlson is excited to use Edmodo, a course management system similar to Moodle with her students. Although Edmodo isn’t officially supported by the tech department like Moodle is, she is excited to use it because she finds it much more intuitive to use and she likes the interface better than Moodle. Ms. Carlson is vigilant about the privacy settings, has informed her principal and parents of her instructional goals and objectives. Her students jump on board and post to the discussion at record numbers. Ms. Carlson is pleased to see such motivated dialogue on a novel that had previously felt like pulling teeth. Two weeks into the unit, she receives a parent complaint. The complaint is as follows: Dear Ms. Carlson, Mr. Miller, Mr. Hamilton and Ms. McIntyre, Although my son is a motivated and active participant in all of your classes, I am concerned that the school does not seem to have a unified course management system. He is using Moodle in Math, Edmodo in English, Schoology in Science, and Kidblog in Social Studies. Furthermore, all of these sites require different logins and passwords. As a parent, I am having a difficult time keeping this all straight and am requesting that the school discuss this issue and figure out a more streamlined approach. Thank you for your consideration, A supportive but confused parent This is a situation I could see as happening at any time. We have so may different passwords and criteria to get in and out of our "necessary" programs each day to just log in for student information. I think so many of these programs are so interesting and motivating, but too much of a good thing can be bad. When students are able to interact in a non-verbal manner we often engage those that are not overly zealous to participate orally. I find this very motivating and a positive tool in the classroom. In out own building we had so many different ways for parents to see their students work and each of us had a handout/syllabus. Now we have a much nicer and easier way for students and parents to stay connected with our teacher web pages and online calendars. We aren't all using the same programs but we are much more in line with each other than we were even two years ago. I would speak to the parent and try to have them understand/see the way the variety of tools works and why we use them for different classes.