Teaching & Learning with Symbaloo

Symbaloo is a free, easy-to-use tool to organize and push out online content to students.  Symbaloo has been around since 2009, and provides an EDU version for educators.  Symbaloo gives educators the ability to curate the Internet via visual web links to enhance their classroom instruction or serve as a digital bulletin board for online teaching resources.

After creating an account, the first step is to create a webmix that allows the user to compile anything that has a web address into a visual link.  The creator of a webmix controls the links and can organize them in a visual grid of squares that are visually appealing and more intuitive to navigate since they can be titled, color coordinated, and given badges that make them easily identifiable.  In my experience, students and parents are sometimes overwhelmed with a webpage filled with links.  In comparison, the ability of Symbaloo to visually organize links makes online content easily accessible for both students and parents.  Parents, students, and other educators can visit my webmix as they would any other webpage.

Below are examples of the webmixes for my two classes of Civics and Global Studies.  I use it as a management system for the class schedule and all academic content.  Students and parents know that they only need to go to one place to access everything for the class.  If I need more space, I just add additional rows and columns.  After a unit of study, I'll replace the old links with the new.  It turns into the instructional online headquarters of my classes.  I suggest Symbaloo to any educator who has blended learning elements that they need to tie together and effectively manage.

7th Grade Civics:

 

8th Grade Civics:

Duties of a Technology Coordinator:

As instructional technology continues to emerge and change education, it's important to reflect on the individuals who take part in this process.  Technology coordinators play an important role to enable schools to successfully integrate technology.  However, just what does a technology coordinator do?  If one searches online job descriptions for technology coordinators, one encounters a varied and expansive list of duties and responsibilities.  To better understand this question for myself, I decided to interview the technology coordinator for my district.

Before meeting for the interview, I created a mind map that I felt encompassed the major responsibilities of a technology coordinator.  I used mindmeister, which is a web-based software program that can not only be used to create mind maps, but also collaborate with others in real time.  Embedded below is my pre-interview mind map on what I thought I knew about the many duties of my district's technology coordinator.
Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

The interview was enlightening and I was able to really understand the impressive, and likely overwhelming, duties of a technology coordinator.  The overall duties were largely distilled into six components:

1. Maintenance of district hardware, software, & network:
• A little over 900 total students & 62 full-time teachers
• 520  total students with devices (middle & high schools 1:1 with iPads & laptops)
• 1,500 total devices for the district
2. Procurement and planning for the future
3. Staff development & training
4. Management of district data & personnel 
5. Tech first responder (fixing anything & everything tech related)
6. Tech diplomacy (cultivating a culture of openness & innovation)

For a deeper understanding of these six components, I created a post interview mind map to better demonstrate the insights gleaned from the interview with my technology coordinator.  Furthermore, here is the link to the Google Doc that contains my notes from the interview.

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

When comparing the two mind maps, it's clear that the interview provided a far more nuanced understanding of the duties my technology coordinator is responsible for.  My initial concept was very much centered around the maintenance and procurement of district technology.  Of course, the reality is far more complex as evidenced by the two different mind maps.

The emphasis on staff development is a component that my technology coordinator really enjoys, but it's also something that requires more attention in order to effectively integrate technology throughout the district.  The day to day maintenance of technology is something that I found the from the interview that really consumes time that could be spend helping teachers improve their instruction.

Our district has hired a tech specialist to assist our coordinator with the maintenance of the technology and network.  This has allowed our tech coordinator to focus a bit more on tech integration and staff development, but more still needs to be done.  The possibility of hiring a specific tech integrationist would largely move our current tech coordinator into more of a director's role focused largely on district wide initiatives instead of working with teachers to successfully implement technology.

As far as words of wisdom, my technology coordinator had three really perceptive insights:

1. It's important to line up philosophically with district administration.  This is something that I feel could either cultivate or kill the ability to integrate technology within a district.
2. Be firm, but not dictatorial.  Whenever interacting with staff, it's important to compromise and develop plans that all parties are comfortable with.
3. If something fails, don't assume it's your fault.  It's always important to take an objective view of a problem and consider all of the possibilities in order to arrive at a solution.

Despite the intimidating list of duties that comes along with being a technology coordinator, the capacity to help lead education into the 21st century is undeniable.   However, the expansive duties of the position can at times distract from what is necessary to create any type of positive instructional metamorphosis within a district.  To achieve this goal, focus must be placed on the successful integration of technology into a district's curricula instead of simply procuring devices and increasing bandwidth.  Ultimately, districts must clearly delineate the role of technology coordinators to focus on staff development, or hire integrationists who can work specifically with teachers on improving instruction.

Teaching with Avatars & Thinking About the Future:

It's time to wipe off the layers of digital dust accumulating on this blog.  As I finish the Instructional Technology masters cohort at UNI, it's time to think about how I'll apply this to my current position as an educator.  In many ways, I have a hard time imagining myself outside the classroom, but I do enjoy helping fellow educators successfully integrate technology.  Many possibilities and opportunities certainly exist.

To better convey my thoughts my feelings, I created a talking avatar using Voki.  It's a bit limited (no beard option, which is disappointing) with the free version, and if you follow this link you'll find that there are many other options out there for creating avatars in the classroom.  Below is a link and an embedded video of the Voki examples I created.

Voki allows users to create talking avatars and link to them.  You can follow this link to the first Voki I made that discusses how I plan to integrate avatars into my own classroom

Also, Voki gives users the opportunity to embed avatars into a website such as a blog.  The embedded Voki below expresses my thoughts on my future as an educator.

What My Future Holds:

Teaching with UDL

To further my understanding of teaching with UDL (Universal Design for Learning), I chose to create a lesson using the CAST Lesson Builder within the CAST UDL Exchange.  CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) seeks to guide educators to incorporate UDL into their curriculum to provide students with greater opportunities to learn in an environment that is more flexible and accommodating for all learners.

Below are screenshots of the project I created using the CAST Lesson Builder that I posted to the CAST UDL Exchange.  I'm currently teaching a unit on war and society so I wanted to create something that I could implement in the classroom.  Here is the link to the project in the CAST UDL Exchange, but you'll need to create an account to view it.  The project framework provides flexibility to instructors to integrate technology that makes the learning objectives more accessible to different types of learners.  Furthermore, within the screenshots, the author's reflections provide my thoughts on how I perceive the project adhering to UDL philosophy.

Common Core Standards were built into the lesson builder.  To view the connections to the standards, follow the link above to the lesson in the CAST UDL Exchange.

Here is the link to the NPR story on Just War Doctrine since the project is presented as screenshots.

Becoming An Effective 21st Century Educator

Used with permission from iCLIPART

How do educators effectively teach students in the 21st Century?  The seemingly omnipresent nature of technology in society provides unique challenges and opportunities for educators.  Preparing students to overcome these challenges and take advantage of these opportunities represents a wicked problem.  Effectively teaching the next generation has always been a wicked problem for every society.  However, the 21st Century, and the changing nature of technology, creates the newest iteration of this wicked problem.

Used with permission from tpack.org via Wiki Commons

Strategies exist to help educators deal with this wicked problem of effectively teaching in the 21st Century.  TPACK is one such strategy to help educators plan for and engage today's technologically inclined learners.  Watch this video for a quick explanation of TPACK.  The whole purpose of TPACK is to provide educators with a framework to effectively teach for the 21st Century.  Ideally, educators should try to exist within the center of the TPACK framework where technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge intersect with each other.  In order to be an effective 21st Century teacher, one must successfully wield technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge so they coalesce to create engaging instruction.    

However, as with any educational framework, the struggle comes when trying to practically apply TPACK in the everyday classroom.  One way to help apply TPACK to the classroom is to look at it through the "Four Cs".  The "Four Cs" are the skills of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.  These are incredibly important skills in today's world where change occurs faster due to the free flow of information.  Teachers can create lessons and units that use the "Four Cs" in their content area.  This focus can help guide pedagogy for teachers as they devise ways to develop lessons and units that require the "Four Cs" skill set.  Once a pedagogy ins in place that focuses on apply the "Four Cs", technology more readily be utilized to facilitate lessons and units that help students learn the skills that are necessary for succeeding in the 21st Century.  The video below shows examples of how the "Four Cs" can help drive the application of TPACK in the classroom.

Ultimately, TPACK is only useful if it helps educators teach more effectively.  Educators need to spend time unpacking TPACK and how it can help create a more engaging 21st Century educational experience.  In order to find solutions to the wicked problem of educating students in the 21st Century, educators must become more than just masters of content and pedagogy.  Educators must learn to embrace technology so they can more effectively engage students and create that instructional synthesis that is at the heart of the TPACK framework.  To help achieve this synthesis, and to keep current on how TPACK is being applied to today's classrooms, follow #TPACK on Twitter.

Google Earth in the Classroom

Google Earth is just one of those tools that makes you go wow.  I suppose since I teach geography I'm naturally disposed to love Google Earth, and the fact that ever since I was a kid I loved to study maps while in the car on family vacations.  However, Google Earth, beyond just being fun, is an extremely powerful tool for the classroom.  It essentially allows the teacher to take the students anywhere in the world.  It goes beyond just being a virtual field trip, Google Earth has features that allow teachers to deepen and enhance the content within their lessons, units, and curriculum.

Additionally, Google Earth can be incorporated across content areas.  One could imagine how it could easily be implemented into a social studies based curriculum.  Other content areas can use Google Earth as well.  I have created a number of video tutorials to demonstrate the basics of Google Earth and explaining how to use it in social studies, language arts/reading, and science.  These are meant to provide examples of how to use Google Earth and hopefully spark ideas of how to incorporate it as an additional tool for teachers to enhance and deepen instruction.


Google Earth Basics:

http://www.screencast.com/t/QkzNJ0dyVK3

Google Earth Social Studies:

http://www.screencast.com/t/J8AELvdonL

Google Earth Language Arts/Reading:

http://www.screencast.com/t/oJxu9Gst4

Google Earth Science:

http://www.screencast.com/t/7OpZPXXm1xa3

Reflections on VoiceThread

VoiceThread is an online service that allows one to create an instructional video that people can view.  However, VoiceThread allows one to not only incorporate video, but also text based files, narration, and other forms of media.  This seems to be a very powerful tool, because a teacher can essentially create an entire lesson that includes video, text-based files, and audio narration.  Students could then go to VoiceThread and view a particular lesson.  

Even more exciting, is that VoiceThread would allow students to comment and interact with that lesson. As long as students register with Voice Thread, they could provide a written, auditory, or video response using a webcam.  My impression is that VoiceThread essentially allows you to move the classroom to the web.  Of course, VoiceThread is probably best used in conjunction with a traditional classroom environment.  VoiceThread is also free as long as your video postings remain below seventy-five megabytes.   

I could imagine using VoiceThread in my own classroom.  I always provide students with a class syllabus at the beginning of the school year.  Instead of printing copies, I could create a VoiceThread that all students need to view and comment on.  I could provide both video/auditory commentary and incorporate my usual handout as pdf within the VoiceThread.  The possibilites are exciting, and I look forward to finding ways to use VoiceThread to enhance my classes and student learning.