Tech Play 4 - Content Objects

I choose Content Objects option over Information Literacy option because I thought content objects would be more useful for me and my students, and another reason I really enjoy researching different apps, websites, tools, games for my classes. This week I researched MIT's App Inventor web app. I consider this as drill and practice website. I teach computer science to my junior/seniors. I was looking for a web-based application that I can teach mobile app developing to my students. Thanks to this class, I researched and found this great website.

MIT App Inventor is a blocks-based programming tool that allows everyone, even novices, to start programming and build fully functional apps for Android devices. MIT App Inventor supports a worldwide community of nearly two million users representing 195 countries worldwide. The tool’s more than 85 thousand active weekly users have b

uilt more than 4.7 million android apps. The great thing about this app is its open source and cloud based, my all students can benefit from this for free.

I believe it is very useful not just in programming classes. History, Geography, Math, English and Spanish. Students will be able to increase their learning by creating apps that can aid them in solving problems. According to The New York Times. A nursing student at Indiana University created an app that would call an emergency number if someone fell. The program used the phone's accelerometer to sense a fall and if the person didn't get up in a short while or press the onscreen button, it would automatically make the call.

This content object support TPACK model, engage students to by creating a student-centered environment. Students use this tool to have a knowledge about how to use App Inventor as an design and programming tool to enhance their constructive learning in Computer programming.

Tech Play 3 - Creativity Tools

A creativity tool is anything that allows a student to create or produce something. For this week's assignment, I have explored a few of my favorite creativity tools that I use/will use in my classroom.

Explain Everything

The first app I explored is Explain Everything. It is an easy-to-use design tool that lets you and your students to annotate, animate, and narrate explanations and presentations. You can create dynamic interactive lessons, activities, assessments, and tutorials using Explain Everything's flexible and integrated design. This tool can be used to create digital content. That content can be uploaded to a variety of sites like Youtube etc.

Prezi

The second program I explored is Prezi. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software program. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. Years ago, I used Prezi a a couple of times to present information about a class I taught. I plan on spending more time getting familiar with the program so I can see if it would work as an alternative for PowerPoint presentations.

Timetoast

A simple timeline organizer that can be effectively used with multiple levels of students to organize their events and ideas. Timetoast is simple. You/your students create a profile for free and add events to make a timeline. Each event can include text, a photo, and a link. The result lets you see information as a sequence, offering insights on how things grow and change over time. I think students in Social Studies can use this tools more effectively to create timelines about past, present, future and share it on the web.

Animoto

Animoto is a cloud-based video creation service that produces video from photos, video clips, and music into video slideshows. With Animoto student can create a video, add music or voice, add pictures and text, and share it with a group of students or teacher. 

My students can use Animoto in my computer class to create book trailers, storytellings, mini videos about the class, and share it with class. The integration of Animoto in the classroom supports the TPACK model because Animoto supports the learning of content in a student-centered learning environment.

Creativity tools are great way to engage students in their learning process. It is student-centered, and students seem more interested when they do an activity by themselves. Students create, edit, produce and share what they have created.

Tech Play 2 - Eportfolio Tools

I researched and played some websites/wikis for this week's assignment. I explored Weebly, Google Sites, and Wikispace web services to host my e-portfolio. Since I never used Wikispace before, it seemed to me a little bit complicated. I had experience with Weebly and google sites before. Weebly has nicer templates than Google sites, its easy to use and build an e-portfolio. However, I chose Google sites to host my e-portfolio. The reason is that, I use google's email service for my ETEC courses, and have done blogs for my other ETEC courses on blogger. Another reason is that, the school which I am employed is using Google based email service for teachers and students like TAMUC does, and it will be easy and familiar for me to have my students to build their e-portfolios on Google site because of their gmail-based email accounts. Google sites let me embed my blogs easily in my e-portfolio. Another reason is that storage size, and flexibility. Google gives 15 GB of storage for free for all google services. You can integrate your google email with Youtube, Docs, Calendar, Picasa and other useful google products. That's why I chose Google to host my e-portfolio. And one more thing, there are thousands of gadgets on Google you can embed them to your site. Basicly, with Google Sites, you can do;

• Single-click page creation
• No HTML required
• Upload files and attachments
• Embed rich content (integrate other google products like videos, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, photo slideshows, calendar, etc)
• Customizable look and feel
• Dozens of pre-built templates
• Settings for accessing and sharing information

I think these affordances of Google sites would be best choice for me and for my students.

The link to the my e-portfolio site is https://sites.google.com/site/aktaseportfolio

When using this tool to have my students to create their e-portfolios wouldn't be a big problem. The reason is that, in my school students were given google based student email accounts. Also, each student is assigned a chromebook. Students are supposed to do a PBL(Project Based Learning) project, and create a website for their project. They are familiar with Google sites, because they used Google sites to create their websites before. However, Google has some disadvantages too, like you will not find stunning templates. If thats the case, my students are more than welcome to find alternative websites/wikis to create their e-portfolios which they comfortable with. There might be other websites/wikis better than Google sites, and I will continue my investigation to find the best one for me and for my students.

Tech Play 1 - Blogs

1.

Image courtesy: principalspage.com

According to Merriam-webster, blog is defined as a Web site that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer; also: the contents of such a site”. blogbasics.com defined blog as “A blog is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions. A blog is your own website that you are going to update on an ongoing basis. Blog is a short form for the word weblog and the two words are used interchangeably.” 

A glog is short for graphics blog, glog is the name used to describe a publicly accessible graphical blog. A person or organization's glog is actually an interactive multimedia image that looks similar to a poster, but readers of a glog are able to interact with the content. Glogster is a prime example of a glog. A vlog is a video log. The term can also refer to a blog made up entirely of video blog posts. Vlog posts are created by creating a video of yourself or an event, uploading it to the Internet and publishing it within a post on your blog. Youtube and Vimeo are the examples of a vlog.

All three of these logs are different from typical webpage because they organized by date. With websites, you have more control of your site's files/layout, because you have control your codes directly. Another difference is about how content published. With blogs,glogs, vlogs, it has builtin function in the dashboard to publish content easily with a single button click. But for website, you have to use a FTP software to publish your content. A discussion board is an online bulletin boards where people with similar interests can discuss and debate various topics, and it can be multiple authors, while a blog usually consist of one author’s thoughts.

The affordance of the blog is the ability to distribute your ideas to world at any time easily.

Image Courtesy: blogmarketingbook.com

I researched and played with different blogs (Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr). The common features are all three blog services are free to start. If you want to register as domain, as separate website of course you have to pay domain registration fee. Other than that, blogger gives you 1 GB of space, Wordpress gives 3GB, and Tumblr gives Unlimited space(wow). Blogger provides 20-30 different themes, Wordpress provides 210 themes, however Tumblr provides around 1,000 themes. Blogger has very limited custom plugins, Wordpress has 20,000 free custom plugins, Tubmlr has very limited custom plugins. With Blogger and Wordpress, you can schedule your postings, but you can't do that with Tumblr.

Blog Platforms Comparison	Blogger	Wordpress	Tumblr
Cost	Free	Free	Free
Custom Plugins	Very Limited	20000	Very Limited
Storage	1 GB	3 GB	Unlimited
Themes	20-30	1500	~1,000
Scheduled Posting	Yes	Yes	No

However, I chose to use Blogger. The reason is that my previous coursework was on blogger. I used blogger for my other ETEC courses, and when I build my portfolio, I wanted to have all my work on the same system. If I were to choose one other than Blogger, I would definitely choose Wordpress, because of its ease and flexibility.

2.

Content

Image Courtesy: http://web-wizardz.com

In my school, I am also coaching school's robotics teams, and for Robotics competition, they have to have a journal called “Engineering Notebook”. Students show this notebook to judges to prove that team worked on the design and engineering processes to build their robot. However, we thought about that, and decided to use blogs instead of keeping a notebook that is written and drawn by hand.

Students in teams used blog(wordpress) to make their team presentation about the robot. Students updated the blog everyday, with pictures and videos, and other students contributed the engineering notebook blog via comments. I believe that students in robotics team creating and managing a blog where they examine the procedures applied in the building of the robot, it falls under “creating, applying, and understanding” levels of Blooms Revised Taxonomy.

Pedagogy

Image Courtesy: hannahemmanuele.net

I think using blogs in my robotics team would best fall under constructivism. Students use blog to keep a log of the ideas, their 3D designs, design ideas, fundraising ideas, advertisement, safety measures, building processes, meeting notes. The robotics blog is learner controlled, and students apply new knowledge through their experiences. The blog shows students what they have learned and how they applied this to their learning process.

Technology

Image Courtesy: optimaldesignco.com/

The one of the affordances of a blog is that it saves time for students to make a record of what they do to design, build, program, and test their robot over a period of time. It would be hard to write all these steps, draw all the designs and sketches by hand. Also it is easy to edit, if there is any mistake in the blog, it is easy to fix. Also it allows us to include photos, videos from our regular daily meetings. It is also allowing us to advertise our robotics team to the other people, and get feedback, contribution, suggestions from them via comments features on the blog easily.

3.
Blogs can be used in the classes other than using it as a digital record. Blogs can be used to promote the robotics team to others outside of the class, for example parents, students in the school, sponsors, admins, and public. Blogs can also be used to make how-to guides for other students, parents, teachers. for example creating a step-by-step instruction guidebook on how a specific design works for the robot, or how to program a robot to do a certain task. Students can also use blog to share their future ideas about the robot, and can get comments, feedback from other people to improve their ideas more.

4.

Image Courtesy: yourvibeteam.com

Building robot is long process. Robotics room is usually technology rich, and we don't have enough students in the room(due to space). The biggest obstacle would be time that creating-maintaning a blog. Building a robot takes a lot of effort to design and build, and it took time away from other works.

Even so, blogging the design and build processes can help if the students need to fix the robot later. It also allows students in the robotics team to be able to visit the blog, and know what other students ideas and thinking.