Week 3- Creating an Animation

I chose to use Stykz in order to create my animation.  We were instructed to create an animation that had 10 or more steps of moves.  My animation has 20 frames to it, and is basically a girl shooting a basketball into the hoop.  I viewed four online tutorials from youtube when learning the basics of Stykz, and that was extremely helpful in understanding how to use the program.  This would be a great program to use inside the classroom.  The students would love it, and would have fun creating their own animations!

Personal & Team Logo

This week we were given the task of developing our personal and team logo.  We also had to think about personal branding, and how that will effect our logos.  I have decided to use my personal logo on another google site I'm creating for my school.  

Personal Logo:

Team Logo:

When do/should we start teaching students about self-branding?

You could start teaching students at an early elementary school level about self-branding.  A major part of self-branding is getting to know yourself.  Young students can learn more about themselves through self-discovery.  Through this process, they will begin the first process of personal branding!

What concepts about branding are important to teach?

That branding is more than just a logo.  It’s an idea formed by its intended audience based on a company’s culture, product, and service.  Personal branding is being able to effectively manage how others perceive you and what they think of you.  Personal branding should be authentic, and reflect who you truly are. 

Being consistent is vital to the success of your company and the website.  Taking hold of your personal and professional brand will help you distinguish yourself as an exceptional professional.

What strategies would you use to teach students about the concept of branding?

        Use the “Recycle, Reduce, Recover, and Reuse” Method, and get to know the real you through self-reflection. 

        Research what already works.  Look for commonalities, and stereotype yourself.  Sketch out as many different possibilities as you can.  Starting simple with black and white.  Be honest with yourself.  According to Marshall Goldsmith, there are 4 main steps to personal branding. 

1.     Define and formulate your personal ambition.  Think about who you are, and what you stand for.  What makes you the person that you truly are? 

2.     Define and formulate an authentic personal brand promise that you can use as the focal point of your behavior and actions. 

3.     Formulate your personal and balanced scorecard.  Develop and integrate a balanced action plan based on your personal ambition.  It’s about transforming your personal ambition into manageable objectives.

4.     Implement and cultivate your brand.  This means you will need to maintain your brand effectively. 

How can branding be used in an educational environment?

You can brainstorm words or phrases that describe who you are, and then have the students create a logo that portrays them.  This would be a great way to start the year, and get to know the people in your class, and to teach your classmates about the things that are important to you!

Alcantara, L. (2009). The art of self-branding. Retrieved from http://www.lealea.net/blog/comments/the-art-of-self-branding-part-two/

Goldsmith, M. (August 2007). Authentic personal branding. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2009/ca20090929_228578.htm

The Book of Kells - St. John

St. John
The Book of Kells

I choose to analyze the picture of St. John from the Book of Kells.  The Book of Kells is a beautiful manuscript containing the Four Gospels. It is Ireland's most precious medieval artifact, and is generally considered the finest surviving illuminated manuscript to have been produced in medieval Europe.  My first impression of this ancient work is how stunning it is.  The use of color and design are truly unique.  There are many uses of contrast when it comes to color.  The main color red looks great next to the bright yellows and blues.  Then, the white space in the middle really makes St. John stand out.  Repetition is used all over this design.  The + shape is repeated at the top, bottom, and on each side of this picture, as well as, the rectangles that also border the picture.  Alignment is also a key component that makes this picture striking to the eye.  All of the elements on this picture are visually connected.  Nothing is placed arbitrarily.  This helps create a clean look.  The artist does a great job of using proximity to create one body of art.  Everything on the page is placed in close proximity to one another.  This reduces visual clutter, and creates a strong visual masterpiece.    Through the use of color, geometric shapes, and symbolism, the artist helps one understand the importance of this piece of artwork.  

Action Research/Campus Supervised Internship Hours UPDATE!

Campus Supervised Internship Hours:

I have completed 108 Campus Supervised Internship hours so far.  I have been fortunate to have so many opportunities this past semester to work with my principal, asst. principal, and instructional specialist in various roles.  I was able to attend Jeff Anderson Writing Training, and use that information to create a power point presentation and provide our whole staff with training on the “Top Ten Things Every Writer Needs to Know”.  This experience taught me that it’s not so hard giving presentations to the staff.  This was something that I needed to know considering I was debating whether or not I wanted to interview for the campus instructional specialist position that would be opening at the end of the semester.  My principal asked me to be the campus moderator for the school website.  I attended the basic level training session for this new role.  I learned how to create different staff/grade level pages and how to create staff bios.  The website is looking better than ever now.  I am looking forward to continue with this role.  I was able to model advanced features of different Microsoft programs that our building utilizes to new teachers.  One of my favorite roles this past year was serving as our campus Professional Learning Community Technology Facilitator.  I facilitated the creating and writing of our campus technology goals with other members of our school.  There was one person per grade level on our team, as well as, a teacher from the special education department.  Through this PLC, we were able to raise awareness of different classroom friendly ways to use technology inside the classroom, and how to use the district provided mypisd.net program effectively on all grade level classrooms.  I also organized a mypisd.net training available to all the teachers in the building.  I also identified the online program Quest Garden as an extremely beneficial source for housing web quests.  I spoke to my principal, and she agreed that memberships could be purchased on each team.  This will be a great encouragement for others in the building to create engaging, student centered web quests to go along with the district curriculum.  This semester I also utilized online student testing system (MAP), to measure student growth from the beginning, middle, and end of the year in the areas of math, reading, language arts, and science.  Through this computer based testing, I was able to identify specific content areas that students needed immediate interventions in.  After analyzing the specific test score threads, I was then able to create fun tier II and tier III interventions for those students needing extra support.  I attended an ARD meeting at the end of the year for one of my student’s yearly reviews.   It was determined through this ARD annual review that my specific student had met all of his speech goals, and was no longer in need of speech services going forward.  Being able to take part in this process was very eye opening for me.  I also had the unique opportunity of taking part in the interview process in two different roles this year (as the interviewer and the interviewee).  I interviewed for our campus instructional specialist position.  I had forgotten how nerve wracking this experience can be.  I learned that I needed to do everything that I can to make the candidate feel comfortable when giving an interview.  I was offered the position, and was then able to take part in interviewing other candidates to replace my third grade position.  I will start in August as our campus instructional specialist.  This will bring about new opportunities to gain campus-supervised hours.  I’m glad that I was able to complete so many hours while still being in the classroom. 

Action Research Project Status:

I have been able to accomplish a great deal of my action research project by the end of this semester.  My action research question/wondering is to examine the effectiveness and motivation related to using traditional paper-based reading fluency and comprehension interventions to technology enhanced reading fluency and comprehension interventions.  The first step that I completed was surveying my tier III students to gain more information on if they were more interested in paper-based interventions or technology enhanced interventions.  I was able to analyze their assessment data from the beginning and middle of the year to identify specific learning targets that they would need extra support in.  I identified current research on using technology-enhanced applications specifically in the areas of reading fluency and comprehension.   I began utilizing the application Timed Reading in my tier II and tier III instructional groups.   At the end of the year, I analyzed and compared those students MAP scores in reading from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.  I also had the student complete end of the year surveys on how motivated they were to take part in an instructional intervention group using technology versus paper-based resources.  Part of my project is to present my findings to another teacher, and have her use technology enhanced applications in her tier II and III reading groups next fall.  I’m looking forward in continuing my action research project.  The goal of my project is to incorporate technology enhanced lessons into the tier II and tier III reading instruction groups, as well as, increase student motivation during these extra learning times.  

Week 5 - The Search for 3D Solids

These past 3 weeks have been great!  I have been so blessed to work with a group of ladies so hard working.  We all each had our strengths,  and were able to use them to create a fantastic final product.  We utilized Facebook and google docs to communicate and share ideas.  These tools were vital to the success of our project.  Feel free to take a peek at our final video introduction to the 3rd grade unit on identifying and classifying 3D solids!

Having trouble viewing the video on this blogger page?  Click Below to watch our video from You Tube.
The Search for 3D Solids - you tube version

Below is a link to our shared Google Drive where you can locate all of our assignment documents, communication logs, video scripts, video audio, and video project.
Google Drive - Team Project

Below is a link to my personal Google Site where I have all of my assignments from this class and previous Ed Tech Courses.
Hannah Maness - Google Site

EDLD 5363 Web Conference Reflections

Web Conferences Attended:
June 4, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.
June 10, 2013 at 5:00 p.m.
June 28, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

Web Conference #1 - June 4, 2013 at 5:30 p.m.
This was the first web conference for our new class.  Dr. A reminded everyone to always read the weekly overviews, and to make sure that the assignment documents had May, 2013 at the bottom of the page to ensure that they were the correct documents.  Dr. A discussed that in this course we would have a team video assignment, and to get your team members as soon as possible.  At that very moment, I went to our class Facebook page and began the search for a team.  Within seconds I had my team formed.  I would be working with Nikki Looper and Wendy Hickman (the best teammates ever, I might add)!  Dr. A announced that we would need to read the 7 changes in the Announcement section on Blackboard, and that the first 2 readings this wee would be the most important.
We learned some specifics about this week 1 assignment about creating your own personal digital story.  We would be allowed to use still images, and we didn't have to speak but it would probably make more sense if you did.  I already knew that I would use iMovie for my personal digital story.  I hadn't used this program yet, and I knew it was already on my computer.  We were also supposed to post this video to our google site and blog.  Dr. A informed that we were to copy our video script into the discussion board this first week.  She discussed that scoopit.com is a great resource for digital learning and multimedia.  We were also instructed to give our IAs the links to our websites and blogs so that they can utilize them for grading purposes.  Dr. A also announced that our week 5 assignment would be graded and posted in TK20.

Web Conference #2 - June 10, 2013 at 5:00 p.m.
In this week's web conference we discussed the weekly assignment.  We were to write "how to" scripts  for screencasts on how to use audacity and iMovie.  We would submit these to our google site and blog.  For Audacity we were to create a 1 minute quick start on how to use the video editing software.  I was looking forward to getting started on this week's assignment, and learning something new considering I had never used Audacity before.  This week's web conference was short yet informative.

Web Conference #30 June 28, 2013 at 10:00 a.m.

This week's web conference started out with different students speaking about their experience at the ISTE conference.  Carla spoke first about going to ISTE, and how she learned a great deal about BYOD, and how to utilize it in her own school.

Abernathy spoke more about ISTE as well.  There seemed to be a great deal of exciting stories from this conference.  Wish I lived closer so that I could have attended.  

Dr. A said that she would put a link in week 4 and 5 so that we can post in the discussion board at the end of week 5.  The purpose of the discussion is to review eachother’s work.  Put our final google site link in BB with our video attached by week 5.  At the end of week 5 make sure that you post everything to your google site.   Make sure your link your google shared group drive to your personal google site.

Dr. A spoke about how finding new ways to collaborate is fun, and that is what this group project is all about.    Spoke about how using google docs is a great way to communicate and share information with groups.

We were reminded to post your reflection about the 3 times that you attended the web conferences in our blogs.

Students shared the links to their google sites, so that others can see examples.

Attending these web conferences can take time out of your day, but are usually full of great information that you can use to help get jump started on your weekly assignment.  I attended at least 1 web conference per week, and have found this to be extremely helpful in getting assignments completed.