EEND676 Artifact #2 - Interactive Story Building

For this reflection, I am choosing to share the interactive story that we worked on early in the class.  This activity required us to work in collaborative teams to develop a brainstorming session and create an online interactive "If-then" story together.  My team chose to write a beach story and we used Google Slides to accomplish our task.


The activity began with an introduction to Applied Digital Skills, a site that has great resources and I plan on using it and sharing it with colleagues this upcoming year.  It amazes me everything that is out there for us to use freely!    We had to collaborate in a Google Document, then create a slide presentation, after working on it together digitally.  In this activity, I had to work with three other classmates who I didn't know at all.  It made me feel for my students who are uncomfortable being put in collaborative groupings with people they may not know well or like.  Using technology in this capacity helped me to use the device to communicate where I may have been hesitant to share verbally.  It was a great learning lesson!


My team created a great interactive story and I had a lot of fun doing it.  I see this as encompassing so many different components of collaborative work, especially to be used early in the school year!  First of all, it wasn't threatening since the brainstorming activity allowed for lots of ideas to be shared.  It was a random activity meant to be funny so anything was really allowed!!   Also, there was time for the team members to help each other with the activity and teaching each other was expected and accepted.  It was really an all around great way to teach and use collaboration in so many ways, leaving us all with a sense of accomplishment and connectedness.

EEND676 Artifact #1 - Collaborative Task

This artifact reflection will focus on the collaborative task activity we did in Module 7.  In this activity we were directed to change up an activity we previously used and make it more collaborative in nature.  This was to be done using a digital tool.  We also needed to develop a rubric for the assignment including a collaborative descriptor.   


I chose to use an activity focusing on the Southeast region of the United States where the students are asked to compare resources of the Southeast to previously studied regions of the country.  The collaborative component I chose to include was for the students to create a Twiddla, which is online whiteboard for project presentations.  This site allows for groups to upload pictures, either from the web or drawn freehand.  Generally, the previous assignment did not use an online component for presentation purposes.


Completing this project helped me to see the benefits of adding collaborative practices and products to an assignment.  This directly relates to the SAMR model of integrating technology to make lessons more effective and engaging. 

EEND676 Reflection

This course was designed to introduce teachers to collaborative web tools to use with students.  I found it perfectly suited to the summer so I had time to explore all the different programs that were shared.  I feel so motivated and prepared for the upcoming school year, with our school going 1:1 with Chromebooks this fall. 


Like with the EEND678 class, I felt one of the most valuable parts of the class was the different ways we collaborated as classmates!  Learning by doing is always a good thing!  One of the major shifts in education over the last few years has been the collaboration piece. This is very different from where I was as a teacher when I first started out back in 1993.  I did virtually no project based learning and the teaching was very traditional: Stand and Deliver.  It is so exciting to see how far we have come with the new methods currently available.  I love having so many options for incorporating collaborative thinking at every turn, not only using technology as a resource, but also just discussion strategies as well.


As I have shared in my artifact reflections, one of my favorite things from the class was the interactive writing piece we did early in the class.  To me, this was collaboration at its finest. using many different tools during this activity made me understand how tech can be used in lots of ways to fully engage every member of a group in a safe and accepting environment. 


I also appreciate all of the discussions we had as a class, both in class and online, and how the information and resources were delivered. 

EEND678 Reflection

This course was so helpful in preparation for integrating more technology this school year.  Our school is going 1:1 with Chromebooks this fall and I feel ready to tackle every issue that comes my way when it comes to developing plans and lessons that center around the SAMR model. 


One of the most valuable parts of the class was the different ways we collaborated as classmates!  Learning by doing!  I loved the device management slide deck that we created together and plan to use that as the school year begins and revisit it often.  There are some wonderful pieces of advice and they are displayed in an entertaining way.  I see using this as a collaborative platform in the classroom and look forward to letting kids explore new ways to use it for presentations.


The grant writing and Tech Tool Hunt were the two items I focused on for my artifact posts, but I also found great value in continuing to use Flipgrid.  I feel very comfortable with that program now and look forward to finding new and engaging ways for the kids to use this as well!


Finally, I enjoyed the project I worked with my team on creating the PBL.  I look forward to implementing these ideas this school year. This class gave me motivation to reach out and find different ways to sue things I already knew about and opened my eyes to how many tool are out there just waiting for me!!

EEND 678 Artifact #2 - Grant Writing

The grant writing activity was a great experience.  I worked with my coworkers on this project, a teammate in 4th grade and a second grade teacher in my school.  This project was for alternative seating in our classrooms.  The process was very easy working with the donorschoose site.  It was easy to create an account and the site walks you through the steps one by one.  The hardest part was deciding what to order to keep our program around the $600 mark.  The part of the process I didn't like so much was how much money your donors give that go to administrative costs as well as funding other projects that don't get donors.  With that said, our project was funded in just two days and we have an additional $150 on board to start another project with!  We are thrilled to have these items to start the school year with and look forward to more collaboration in the future.