Creating a Digital Portfolio

I have to say that this was an enjoyable task for me. I really enjoy collecting and organizing information, and it's even more fun when it is collected online. It was fun to revisit the projects from previous courses, and realize that I had lots to share on my portfolio.

I created a new page on my existing blog, hoping that each page could have a different layout. This was not the case, so my sidebar gadgets are the same on my homepage and the portfolio page. This was a bit disappointing, but maybe with some tweaking I could figure out how to have different sidebars.

The first item on the portfolio was a flyer that I created for the Differentiated Instruction course. I wanted the document to be visible, and not linked so I converted the Word document to a PDF, and then took a screen shot of it so that I could upload the file as an image. :)

I then embedded the recording of the live broadcast from this course, followed by a Prezi that I created, as well as a Glog. The final item I embedded was a Voicethread about interactions in the classroom.

The sidebar is loaded with great information about me, and my digital work. The list of courses includes all posts for the respective courses. Those blog entries include various other projects and thoughts about technology in the classroom. The links included are self-explanatory, and my Twitter feed is next.

To finish out my Digital Portfolio I included links to various Google Documents that I have created for various courses. I felt that these documents were a great example of work that I've created for use in my classroom. Finally, my YouTube channel which contains videos created by me for this program, and my classroom.

I feel like this portfolio is a great representation of myself, my work, and my work ethic.

Self-Eval Digital Storytelling

I found this rubric here and modified it slightly to work with a project I completed for Digital Storytelling, which can be found here. This was one of my favorite projects, and while it seems very short, only one minute in length, the time spent on this project exceeded four to five hours.

I feel that I had a great grasp of all of the components listed in this rubric, and I feel strongly that the story is well told and the purpose was clearly stated. Final score on this assignment: 28/28

I hope you enjoy.

Category	4 Points	3 Points	2 Points	1 Point
1. Purpose of Story	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains a clear focus throughout.	Establishes a purpose early on and maintains focus for most of the presentation.	There are a few lapses in focus, but the purpose is fairly clear.	It is difficult to figure out the purpose of the presentation.
2. Point of View	The point of view is well developed and contributes to the overall meaning of the story.	The point of view is stated but does not connect with each part of the story, although an attempt is made to connect it to the overall meaning of the story.	The point of view is stated but no attempt is made to connect it to the overall meaning of the story.	The point of view is only hinted at, or is difficult to discern.
3. Clarity of Voice	Voice quality is clear and consistently audible throughout the presentation.	Voice quality is clear and consistently audible throughout the majority (85-95%) of the presentation.	Voice quality is clear and consistently audible through some (70-84%)of the presentation.	Voice quality needs more attention.
4. Pacing of Narrative	The pace (rhythm and voice punctuation) fits the story line and helps the audience really "get into" the story.	Occasionally speaks too fast or too slowly for the story line. The pacing (rhythm and voice punctuation) is relatively engaging for the audience.	Tries to use pacing (rhythm and voice punctuation), but it is often noticeable that the pacing does not fit the story line. Audience is not consistently engaged.	No attempt to match the pace of the storytelling to the story line or the audience.
5. Meaningful Audio Soundtrack	Music stirs a rich emotional response that matches the story line well. Images coordinated with the music.	Music stirs a rich emotional response that somewhat matches the story line. Images mostly coordinated with the music.	Music is ok, and not distracting, but it does not add much to the story. Not coordinated with images.	Music is distracting, inappropriate, OR was not used.
6. Economy of Story Detail	The story is told with exactly the right amount of detail throughout. It does not seem too short nor does it seem too long	The story composition is typically good, though it seems to drag somewhat OR need slightly more detail in one or two sections.	The story seems to need more editing. It is noticeably too long or too short in more than one section.	The story needs extensive editing. It is too long or too short to be interesting.
7. Grammar and Language Usage	Grammar and usage were correct (for the dialect chosen) and contributed to clarity, style and character development.	Grammar and usage were typically correct (for the dialect chosen) and errors did not detract from the story.	Grammar and usage were typically correct but errors detracted from story	Repeated errors in grammar and usage distracted greatly from the story.

Telling a story with my iPhone

I had been looking forward to this project for a long while now, because I'd finally have a reason to play around with iMovie on my iPhone. I've had the app for a long time, with great hopes of creating some cool stories, but I never got around to that.

I knew I wanted to use still images combined with voiceovers that I could record. This plan worked great with iMovie, and it was very easy to edit, rearrange, lengthen and shorten image times, and record my voice.

I started the project by gathering images. I snapped some photos of the supply room at school. I had pictures of my classroom on my phone already that I could use. I snagged some stuffed animals from the nursery for a photo. I used the Google Earth app on my phone to get the images of the church and school. For the lists, I used the "Reminders" app that comes with the iPhone.

After I got all the images organized in the order I wanted, I then I started with the voiceovers. I tried to "wing-it" but that led to frustration, as I could never quite get out what I wanted to say. So I wrote out the simple statements, and recorded them with ease. Upon completion of the story I shared the video file to my cameral roll, and from there I uploaded it to YouTube. I snagged the YouTube embed code from the site on my computer, otherwise everything was completed on the phone. I even composed my entire blog post on my phone, but as luck would have it, the app closed suddenly, and I lost the post. I moved to the computer after that.

This story is a brief one, but I am pleased with its simplicity and layout. I am lucky to have had a great educational career from kindergarten through my current educational program. I've been surrounded by positive educational role models, and I hope that my students can look to me as a great role model as well.

I hope you enjoy my story.

Interview: Cell Phones in the classroom

Cell phones are currently not a part of the educational setting that I am a part of. I don't have any connections to any middle-school or high-school teachers, as I'm not from the area in which I currently reside. I did reach out on Twitter as well as Facebook several times in hopes of finding someone to speak with, no luck. I looked over the provided list of educators that use cell phones in the classroom, but I wanted a more personal discussion for this assignment. So, I thought back to my undergraduate days, and tried to think of friends that were working on a degree in Secondary Education. Alas, I finally came up with someone, Mrs. Amanda Shaffer.

Amanda and I did not attend the same school, but we did work together at A.C. Moore in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. A.C. Moore is a wonderful craft store, as well as a great place for education majors to work. That employee discount always came in handy for school projects. :) Amanda was pursuing her Secondary Education degree in Mathematics while I was pursuing my Elementary degree. While we haven't seen one another face-to-face in more than eight years, we have been connected on Facebook for awhile.

Amanda Shaffer is a math teacher at Donegal High School in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. She's been teaching for eight years. I conducted this interview in a Facebook chat.

Me: How many of your students have a cellphone? Cell phone with data plan?

Amanda: "I would say 95% at least. It's rare to find a kid without one [a data plan] they all talk about texting and facebooking on their phones."

I unfortunately did not ask Mrs. Shaffer about the socio-economic background of the high school population at Donegal High school, but I was able to find school report card from last year. This report card shares test scores for eleventh graders last year, in which the economically disadvantaged students did not meet the target goal. This group of students makes up about 30% of the eleventh grade class. I also noticed that Donegal High School only had one subgroup based on race or ethnicity, this group includes eleven Latin/Hispanic students.

Next question:

Me: How do you view student cell-phone usage in the school setting, meaning....is it a big nuisance...or are you ok with it...?

Amanda: "It used to be a huge nuisance for me (I was nicknamed the cell phone nazi at my old school)...but now I'm pretty much ok with it.. I consider the hallway a "safezone" and won't take it from anyone that has it out even though I'm supposed to.
And in class, I only take it if it's interfering with anyone's learning."

Me: What changed?

Amanda: "Mainly I was just tired of fighting a fight I hadn't really thought about..and also, I got tired of being so hard on the kids about it, and nothing happening to them when I would take one. So I just thought, I'm only going to deal with it when it's a problem (which it rarely is) and I'm not going to just do things that the administration tells me to, and then doesn't back it up with discipline."

So, while the school system had a policy in place for cell phones, and punishment, Amanda received little support, and therefore relaxed her management style in the classroom.

Me: Would you say that other teachers feel the same way....as in they let things lie unless there is a problem?

Amanda: "No I think teachers are almost 50/50 on the issue..either they're very anti cell phones, or they don't care.
It also seems to correspond with age..younger teachers seem not to care as much about it."

Me: You said you rarely have misuse problems...why do you think that is?

Amanda: "Most of it is the rapport I have with most of my kids...a small part of it may be that i'm not creating an environment where it's a focus."

I love this insight! Mrs. Shaffer has created an environment in her classroom in which the student-teacher relationship is valued among teacher and students. As such, the mutual respect is apparent, and therefore cell-phone misusage is not a problem!

She goes on to say: "It all comes down to how you manage your class...if you have an excellent rapport and positive environment the kids usually don't try to pull stuff [cheating] like that on you."

Mrs. Shaffer does share that cellphones are constantly visible throughout the school, but this wasn't always the case. She states that just last year the school's cell-phone policy was one that assigned one day of in-school suspension if a phone was seen. She said that she didn't see one single phone that year. She said that cell phones are not a problem in her classroom, but the school as a whole does have a cell phone problem. The problems that arise school-wide include off campus bullying, theft, loss, and refusal to submit phones to teachers.

The current Student Code of Conduct states that cell phones should be turned off and put away during the day, unless they are being used in an academic fashion supervised by a teacher.

Me: Would you consider assigning a project in which students used their cell phones to create a video/presentation?

Amanda: "I would be fine with that..I actually had 2 students who knew how to rap, write this awesome rap about the class and then performed it. Everyone wanted to record it on their phones." "The most I let them do is listen to music, use their calculator apps and show me a relevant YouTube video..."

While this interview is not specifically about a project designed around the use of cell-phones, I feel Mrs. Shaffer shared great insight on practical ways to address the use of cell-phones in a typical classroom. Just like any other classroom issue, the best way to combat the problem starts on the first day of school, by creating an environment in which trust, respect, and safety is the number one priority. If these aspects of the teacher-student relationship are developed early on, then classroom problems will be minimal.

Thoughts on Live broadcasts

After completing our live broadcast I had planned to attend the Teachers Teaching Teachers broadcast via EdTechTalks, but due to a slight misunderstanding (pregnancy brain) I didn't catch the program. In my head I was sure the broadcast was scheduled to start at 8pm, so I logged on with my account only to watch 15 minutes of a 30 second loop of technical difficulties.... Later I discovered that the broadcast was scheduled to start at 9pm. Ooops!

Luckily, I've attended many live broadcasts throughout the years, and have genuinely enjoyed all of them. As part of this degree program I have participated in three live broadcasts or conversations, and the other broadcasts were hosted by Discovery Education.

For the purpose of this blog post I'll focus on the most recent live broadcast I attended which was Discovery's Fall Virtual Conference: Tech or Treat. This broadcast is one of two annual broadcasts (Fall and Spring) that lasts for 6 hours on a Saturday. Discovery always puts together a great group to share ideas, tools, and products for teachers to use in the classroom. It was actually one of these broadcasts that introduced me to the Instructional Media degree program. :)

Time to address the questions:

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the show format?


The strengths of this type of broadcast are numerous! The program used to broadcast is called WebEx, and it allows users to share their desktop screens, videos, multimedia projects, audio, and interact via chat messages. Being able to share images and video helps participants get a true picture of what is being discussed. The chat aspect allows participants to ask questions and interact with others that are learning. This discussion is always helpful as more ideas can be shared and explored while the presentation is taking place. In addition, live broadcasts allow users from all over the globe to attend a conference, and that's pretty darn awesome.

The weaknesses of this format are the same with any type of presentation: technology. Sometimes the technology isn't always reliable. Sometimes users have incompatible versions of software, or lack necessary programs or equipment. This difficultly can be frustrating for many, and especially those who are not techie to begin with. Patience is a necessary component in using these broadcasts, usually the problems can be resolved with patience and a level head.

Would you participate in future shows of this nature?


Of course!! I love to learn, and these types of broadcasts about technology are both interesting and informative!

How could this type of webcast be incorporated into the classroom? And what would you use it for with students?


Teachers can use this medium in order to assess students' mastery of a standard or topic. Students could use live broadcasts to share opinions of a book or concept, and broadcasts could be saved, viewed and reviewed by others for critiques. This could also be used for a public speaking course, classroom "television" broadcast, or drama/acting.

Live Broadcasting with Ustream

What a cool experience! Planning started last weekend after we'd finished our assignments. We picked a date and time for our broadcast. We chose Wednesday evening because we thought we'd get it on air at the least hectic time of the week. So I used Facebook and Twitter to share the news:





I shared a friendly reminder on Wednesday prior to our broadcast:





And then, after many, many test runs we recorded this:



We had some issues with bandwidth at the beginning so we had to stop and restart, so our introduction is very brief. Also, the sound or microphone wasn't selected for the opening scene, so no audio there. Otherwise, I'm really pleased with the outcome.

I got some quick feedback via text message and Facebook, here's an example:



:)

Social Networking in Kindergarten

I chose to integrate social networking in my Kindergarten Language Arts class period today. My students don't use social networking on their own as they are not independent readers. I felt the most beneficial way to integrate social networking was to use our existing classroom FaceBook page to share our work with the parents. Since my students have been learning to identify individual phonemes, and the letters that correspond to each sound I planned a making words activity for today. During today's activity I had the students use and manipulate letter tiles in order to make words.

Here are the standards I addressed in the North Carolina Kindergarten Language Arts Standard Course of Study during this lesson:

1.02 Develop phonemic awareness and knowledge of alphabetic principle:
Demonstrate understanding that spoken language is a sequence of identifiable speech sounds.

Demonstrate understanding that the sequence of letters in the written word represents the sequence of sounds in the spoken word.

Demonstrate understanding of the sounds of letters and understanding that words begin and end alike (onsets and rimes).

1.03 Demonstrate decoding and word recognition strategies and skills:
Recognize and name upper and lower case letters of the alphabet.

Recognize some words by sight including a few common words, own name, and environmental print such as signs, labels, and trademarks.

Recognize most beginning consonant letter-sound associations in one syllable words.

At the conclusion of the lesson I expected students to be able to tap out a CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) word saying each sound separately, and use letter tiles to correctly spell the word. In order to show mastery for this concept students will be asked to read each word that was made during the lesson.

This type of lesson or activity is one that takes place numerous times throughout the year. As the year progresses, the words get more difficult, and students work through all the short vowel sounds. For this lesson we focused on words with the short a sound.

First off, students were asked to find and put the letters; a, b, d, g, h, and p on their desk. Then I said the first word, they repeated the word back to me, tapped the sounds they hear with their fingers, and finally built the word at their seat. Then the word was written on the board, and we moved on to the next word. We did this for a total of 10 words. At the conclusion of the activity, while the students were quietly cleaning up their materials I created a word cloud on www.abcya.com. I told the students that I would be putting the image on our class Facebook page, and that if their parents were on their they could discuss the words at home.

Here’s the word cloud:


And the FaceBook post:





I think I'd do this again with the class when we move on to the other short vowel sounds. I'm hoping to get some parent responses via Facebook. I'll let you know how it goes.

A request: LittleBirdTales

I wrote to LittleBirdTales, here's what I said:

Hello friends,

My name is Erin Wolfhope, and I am a Kindergarten teacher in Hildebran, North Carolina. I am a registered member of your site, eager to set up my student accounts. This site looks like a valuable resource for my students, and I can't want to share their work on your site.

While I have high praise for your work here, I have a suggestion or request for story sharing. I know that upon completion of a story the story can be shared via email, which is great! I also discovered that once the stories meet the guidelines to be public an embed code is available, for easy sharing. So, either way stories can be shared, while limited for private stories, and very easily shareable for public stories.

So here's my question, can you alter the sharing methods so that private stories can be shared more easily. This could be an embed code, a link to facebook, or a link to twitter. Alternatively you could add an additional sharing setting, and share with classmates. This could be a classroom gallery in which others could log into the gallery and see the stories the class has created.

Thanks in advance, and thanks for the great resource.

Erin Wolfhope


I'll post if/when I get a response. :)

Web 2.0 Specialists I Admire

So the first person I thought of when it comes to Web 2.0 in the classroom was Traci Blazosky. I attended a Discovery Virtual Conference several years ago and she was a presenter, and she "wowed" me. She shared tools like Glogster, Voki, Blabberize, and Camtasia. She had integrated glogs into a Google Earth tour, and I was amazed. I had always had a love of technology in the classroom, but she displayed some amazing ways to make it happen in a primary classroom. Traci taught me that younger students are capable of creating some great work, and that technology integration is not impossible with young students. After attending the virtual conference I incorporated some of the things she shared into my classroom. She had an awesome wiki site with links to various Web 2.0 tools, and while she's no longer teaching first grade the site is still online.

My next human filter works next door to me. Brandy Casey has been teaching for 8 years, and during her years of teaching her access to technology has changed vastly. She's now got a projector, smartboard, document camera, and an iPad, all of which she uses daily. While I don't share a lot of the cool Web 2.0 resources I find with all of my co-workers, I do share them with her. She is a great for personal discussion of possibilities, and I value her opinion greatly. She's becoming more and more of a technological guru, and she's loving it! We learn a lot from one another, and I'm grateful to have someone close to me to discuss websites and their potential benefits for the classroom.

My final human filter is an individual I have followed on Twitter for some time now. His name is Steven Anderson or @web20classroom. He's a great resource for ideas, research, resources, innovation, and professional development. While I've never attended a conference where he's presented, I have learned a great deal from him via Twitter. He along with other Twitter friends introduced me to the idea of "back-channelling" and I've "attended" several conferences by reading the back channels that occur on twitter.

There are many others I learn from on a daily basis, but these three people have taught me a lot, and while they may not know it, they have been very influential when it comes to my teaching and my classroom.

MapSkip, LittleBirdTales, and CarrotSticks

Site Evaluations:

By far, the most time consuming portion of this project was finding Web 2.0 sites that I wanted to evaluate for future use in my classroom. I spent a long while checking out the http://www.go2web20.net/ site. There are tons of resources on here, and I finally narrowed my choices down to three.

First up is, MapSkip. I made an account at this site as a teacher, and while the site isn't wildly popular (only about 3500 registered users), it looks like a valuable resource for students and teachers to share stories about different places on the map. I'd love to use this site with my students to share stories about field trips. Mapskip allows you to upload photos, sounds, and YouTube clips, along with the written story. This sight looks promising, and I'd love to see more users check it out. In my opinion, MapSkip is a solid Web2.0 app for classroom use. It gets 34 out of 36 points, and you can find the breakdown here.

Next up, my take on LittleBirdTales. This is an awesome site for youngsters that want to tell a story. This site allows individuals to upload personal artwork, or draw your artwork in the app itself. Text or recorded voice is added for each page of the masterpiece. Once finished students can share their stories via email. If tales are set classified as "public" anyone has access to an embed code, this option is not available for "private" stories. This storytelling platform could be used across the curriculum, which makes it a valuable tool. It's easy to use, and teachers can set up and maintain student accounts. The only downfall is the sharing aspect. LittleBirdTales gets 32 out of 36 and here's the breakdown.

The last site I chose to analyze is CarrotSticks. This site is a simple site focussing on mathematical computation practice. Students can compete individually or with other students in their class, or around the world. This site has a free edition, which allows students to practice addition. There are several options for subscriptions, as well as an educators subscription. The very cool thing about the educator subscription is that it is free, and any students added to the account has full access to the site during school hours! I have never seen such an account, but I think it's such a smart idea! This site doesn't score well on our rubric because it does not allow for any type of sharing, and it is limited to mathematical problem solving. It still looks to be a valuable tool for classroom use, and it does get students working or competing together, but that's the extent of the collaboration. CarrotSticks gets 21 out of 36. Check out the breakdown here.

Licensing my Work

Well creating a Creative Commons license is a very simple process. It was so simple that I didn't link my license right away. Thoughts ran through my head like, "That was way to easy," and "Is that the license I want?" Well, after some time, and thought I decided to keep my original license and link it on the site. I chose a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license for text only. I did not create a license for other media, as I have occasionally share personal images, and I would not want those licensed for use by others.

Here are my thoughts on my choice:

1. Attribution- If someone wants to share my thoughts, I'm surprised and honored, but would like to be credited for whatever noteworthy thing I've stated. I don't mind being shared with others, but if I take the time to share my thoughts online, I feel that those thoughts should remain mine.

2. Non-commercial- Since I've shared my thoughts freely, I feel that my thought should continue to be free. No one needs to sell my ideas or thoughts, just share them. I don't know that anyone could sell my work, but that's another topic altogether. My thoughts, I share freely, so I hope others will too.

3.No Derivatives- This is the area of the license I thought about the most. I came to the final conclusion that I wouldn't want my work altered and then credited back to me. I don't mind my thoughts being shared, but I don't want to be misrepresented by the thoughts and opinions of others being credited to me accidentally.

You can find a link to my Creative Commons license on the right side-bar. :)

Welcome to my blog!!

Hey guys, it's Erin! I've had this blog for awhile, it was created to share photos/stories of our summer a couple years ago. We had our niece and nephew from Pennsylvania spend a couple weeks with us in North Carolina, so I shared fun events on the blog for family members to keep up with. Currently this blog is serving as a host for graduate school work, but it will continue to be a hub for personal information as we've got a little one on the way! :)

As I mentioned, I'm Erin. I teach kindergarten Language Arts, and Second Grade math, and then K-2 Science, Social Studies, and Health on a rotation. This is my fourth year teaching in this set up. It's taken a lot of collaboration and organization with my co-workers, but luckily we settled into our strengths rather quickly so that the workload is split and works beautifully.

My experience with Wilkes has been a wonderful one. I knew I wanted to pursue a Masters degree, and I knew I wanted it to be in an area that I was interested in. This program has been a wonderful fit, and although I "forced" my husband to complete this degree with me, I think he's enjoyed it as well!! This is our eighth course, two more next semester and we're done!

My current role as an educator is my passion. I teach in a Title I school with some great kids. We deal with a lot of issues at school, that aren't easy, and many of my kindergarten students have experienced things in their lives that I could never dream of. So, I welcome them into my classroom. I change them out of their dirty clothes, send home food with them, listen as they talk about visiting their father in jail, wipe their tears, and talk to them as they defend their parents lack of involvement. Of course this isn't every student, it's the minority, but those students are expected to learn just like the ones that are wearing clean socks, got plenty of sleep, and ate recently, so I do my best to level the playing field while they are in my care.

I get to teach kindergarten. The age when they come to me as scary, scary beings, and transform into little people that can read and write. This transformation is amazing, and I love seeing it every year, even though my August kindergartners are very intimidating! ;)

In addition to teaching, I have been pegged as the "techie" person at school, so I do a bit tech support, and I've done some professional development activities as requested by my principal. I love sharing techie ideas and tools with co-workers, and I love even more when the tell me they used something I taught them.

I'm looking forward to getting into the bulk of this course, even though I'm a bit intimidated...