TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION
“Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” – John Cotton Dana
Follow on twitter: @jleiker06 & on Delicious: JacquelineLeiker or email me at: [email protected]
Technology in the Classroom
Our classes are very excited about technology at Norway High School. Our courses follow all of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Classrooms. We learn in a Blended Learning Environment in which course material resides in an online Course Management System (CMS) using Moodle or iTunesU with edmodo (depending on the course) which allows students to learn anytime/anyplace. Our Classroom includes a YouTube channel where instructional videos for the blended learning environment as well as student work can be shared with the world. We use edmodo, Socrative, Quizlet, MailChimp, Weebly, iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, delicious, Twitter, Microsoft Office, Google Drive, voicethread, paper.li and several other web 2.0 tools to enhance our classroom.
Our classrooms strive to be strong advocates for more technology in the classroom and for using social networking to help further reach and communicate with teachers, students, parents and community members. You can find us on all the major social networking sites including LinkedIn. Our classrooms have been honored to receive the state runner up for Outstanding Technology Using Educator. Although not technology related, we also received the 2012-2013 Outstanding Person in Education and the 2014-2015 Norway High School Student Council Teacher of the Year (I couldn't teach without my amazing students so no award is mine - it is our classroom's award). |
Blubbr
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Starting with the 2014-2015 school year, Mrs. Leiker is creating her own 'Blubbrs' for videos used in classroom instruction. Blubbr allows for teachers to see whether students are paying attention to the videos they are asked to watch in the course. Students get a 'score' according to the correct answers and reaction time. Students can even play against each other and the teacher! See the examples at the left of Blubbrs Mrs. Leiker created this year.
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Quizlet & remind - A Winning Combination!
Our classroom shave their own Quizlet class to join with sets created for each test in addition to sets to help prepare for final exams. Students join the class at the beginning of the year which gives them easy access to study materials on their school provided iPads. Parents are also informed of the class and sets through remind and are encouraged to join the class as well.
Our classroom loves to communicate. We use remind with Quizlet to share study sets that can help busy students on the go or forgetful. In the example at the left, a remind101 message was sent to students and parents linking to a practice exam and Quizlet study set for the final exam. Every test assessment in the course included a text message/e-mail notification such as this one to all students and parents signed up for remind101.
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Digital Practice Exams on the iPads
YouTube in the Classroom
Students in Mrs. Leiker's Multimedia class use YouTube to produce multimedia shows for the world to see. Often these projects tie into a community relationship in order to make the learning authentic and the school/community bond strong. See the example at the right for a production created within the Multimedia class this year. Visit Mrs. Leiker's YouTube channel HERE for more examples of Multimedia projects created and solidifying a community bond (Anti-Bullying, Mock Accident, Graduation, Thursday Throwbacks & More!)
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Tech Integration & Applications Class & the Tech Help Desk
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New this year we were honored to be able to start a new course called Tech Integration and Applications which helped run the tech help desk, learn real world tech skills and assist in the 1:1 deployment. The course started their own YouTube channel called NVTech where instructional videos were created for students and staff of NVAS. Students also created online Portfolios and a screencasted final exam. See an example at the left or visit the NVTech YouTube page (see all videos at this link). Below you will find the TIA Final Examination Assessment done via TouchCast. Students were required to summarize their learning both as a YouTube video and an interactive TouchCast.
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Collaboration with Technology
New this year, our classroom began using more collaborative google docs. In one example the accounting class summarized every chapter in our iBook using Google Docs Presentation. Students collaborated on a chapter presentation of which we then had a class discussion. This not only helped them summarize the reading material but also gave them ownership in the class and with the material. Multimedia used collaborative google docs on numerous occasions to work together on the Knightly News, multimedia shows and more. Micro/Adv Micro classes also used collaborative google doc Presentations to summarize the advantages and disadvantages of numerous presentation platforms. Tech Integration and Applications class used Weebly collaboratively this year to create a new and improved Guidance page as well as an NV Tech Weebly page.
Accounting Collaborative Presentation Example
Multimedia Collaborative Doc
Accounting Collaborative Presentation Example
Multimedia Collaborative Doc
Social Media in the Classroom
Social media is revolutionizing education. Using edmodo allows teachers the ability to work in a social media-like environment safely. We use edmodo nearly daily in our classrooms. In addition to discussion forums, assignment submissions and quick polls, we also use edmodo for nightly study groups. As many as 67 responses have been made on a study group at night at home in Mrs. Leiker's classes! This is without assumption of extra credit or participation grades! The application of technology as a means of communication and a personal way to reach students is what is one of the greatest accomplishments in our classroom. Below you will see an example of a fourth grade classroom that received a digital citizenship lesson from resources used in our classroom and the excellent change in quality of posts (notice the posts below the visit vs. the posts above/after). Also included is one of the many accounting chats we had online this year. It should also be noted that without facebook, we could have never completed the Veteran's Day show (example above) since it was the fastest and most efficient way to obtain pictures from the community nor as easily or completely done the career project since students used facebook to contact professionals in a field they may be interested in. Twitter also allows a better student-teacher connection as can be shown in the example below.
Classroom Newsletters with Technology
Mrs. Leiker's classroom environment houses a weekly newsletter for both the students in the classroom and the teachers in the district. Check out the Mrs. Leiker's Tech Education Weekly here!
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The Knightly NewsStudents in Multimedia class began the first ever Knightly News publication. The Knightly News brings information to students, parents, teachers, administration, staff and community members about the school. Students use the program MailChimp to create the newsletters. Not only are the students required to do true Project Based Learning (PBL), they are required to publish their work to the world!
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#EdTech Specialist
Our classroom (teacher alone) now blogs for remind. The opinions on technology in the classroom that our classroom holds have enough merit to warrant a Web 2.0 tool company to ask her to write for them. Just one of the ways that our classroom demonstrates our use of technology in the classroom for today's learners and shows, by example, that students can publish work to the world which, in turn, makes them better learners and better prepared for the social media heavy world in which they live.
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Weebly Page Statistics & Online Presence
Our classroom Weebly web page helps to communicate all information related to the course to parents and students. Since updating to Weebly, the web presence of the classroom has more interactivity with what is truly going on in the classroom and provides an open door to all who want to know more information about our classroom. Statistics can be viewed about page visitors and when it has an increase in use. Our classroom Weebly haven't dropped below 49 hits per day and as you can see has as many as nearly 400 in one day! This is despite having far fewer students in class this year due to the school change. Notice all of the online information our classroom provides for students, parents and community members (including this portfolio) by checking out the various tabs at the top of this window. On the home page, notice how the remind101 notification system is now also scrolled on our website for easy access & even more improved communication.