Summary of Learning

I decided to use the tool Emaze to create a presentation based on what I have learned from my class Principles of Instructional technologies. Emaze is a great tool to make presentations with! I chose it because I liked the layout of it and the way that it is visually appealing to an audience. It was very easy to use and helped me keep my presentation organized. There were also many options to make it my own while using a premade format.

The biggest thing I will take away from this class will most likely be all the tools that we learned about. There are so many ways to use these tools in a classroom. These tools will benefit students as long as they are introduced to them and are shown how to use them. Technology is constantly growing and it is only getting bigger. A lot of schools are trying to incorporate technology more so by taking this class and learning about different ways to make technology useful to students, I can guide them in the right direction. I will also take away the blended learning concept and always keep in mind that it is okay to give students some freedom.

Because I am studying to be an art teacher, it is going to be hard for me to incorporate technology into my classroom. By using the cool tools, I have had the time to think about what I can do to make sure that my classroom can have some technology in it. The easiest way for me to use these tools is to use them for reflections on art projects, and art critiques. I may also have my older students use the tools if I decide to make them research an artist. There are many ways I can continue to brainstorm how I can use technology. After this class, I know how important technology in a classroom is.

Overall, I really benefited from this class and plan to take this knowledge to a new level in my art classroom. Below I have embedded a summary of what I learned in this class!

Major Project

Hey guys! I decided to learn how to make origami for my Major Project! I made a separate blog for this project so feel free to check it out!

Major Project

Triangle, Square, Circle

This is my responce regarding a presentation by David Jakes on developing digital spaces for learning.

Student Created Ebooks

Ebooks are starting to become more and more beneficial to both students and teachers in a classroom. They are not only saving the school money, but they are more interactive for students and when used in the right way they can motivate students to want to read and write.

I recently read an article and watched a presentation by Jon Smith about a teacher's positive experience with the use of ebooks and how much it motivated his students. Before, I never realized that ebooks would improve writing skills of students because when I hear ebooks, I think about reading. But it is way more than that. When reading this article, the app Book Creator was mentioned and is a perfect example that shows how we as teachers can make writing more fun. We can have them create their own books with this app, which allows them to add pictures, video, audio and can be published. This will have a great effect on students because they will have fun learning how to properly write and will be doing it with something that makes it fun. This will also have a positive effect on teachers because the students will be excited to learn and will give their teacher their attention.

I also feel that there are a lot of benefits for students and teachers because there will be more motivated to write and teach. the students will want to write because it's exciting and the teachers will be more motivated because the students will be more excited.

This will be hard for me to use in my classroom because I will be in an art classroom. If I did want
to though, I would be able to use the Book Creator app and have my students research an artist. Instead of having them write a boring paper, I could allow them to make their essay into a book form which would allow them to show more creativity. I will just have to consider how I can make this experience a positive and beneficial one for them though.

Jon Smith definitely opened my eyes and helped me understand what ebooks can do for a classroom. I think the thing that stood out to me the most from what he said was his project "The World Is My Audience."He made a huge impact on the students he had by publishing their books. This gave the students a lot of confidence and probably made them feel good about themselves. Not only did he help these kids create a huge accomplishment, but he improved their reading and writing skills in a new unique way.

Popplet: A poppin way to create concept maps

Popplet is a great way for your students to create concept maps! This tool is perfect for middle school and up. It is very easy to use and easy to stay organized. You can add pictures and videos, which is perfect for visual learners. I used this app for the first time to make a timeline for one of my own projects and it really helped me stay organized.

Some of popplet's features include different fonts, easy access to color coding, easy to combine different ideas, and easily connects ideas. I would personally use this tool because of the organization that it would provide for my students thought process. I am studying to be an art educator so it would be nice for me to see how my students are planning to organize and understand their thought processes. I could then use their ideas and help make sure they are headed in the right direction.

Besides an art classroom, this mapping tool would be perfect for a student trying to plan out a project, a paper, and even in my case with my project. This tool not only gives students a way to organize, but the teacher can understand the students through the process and will make it easier for the teacher to give them feedback.

There are some cons to this tool that I do feel educators considering using this should be aware of. You have to create a personal account which may be a setback for some classrooms depending on age. It also does not have spell check which may or may not be an issue. I do highly recommend this tool at least for students to have for their thought process.

Teacher Awareness of Copyright

Copyright is extremely important for students, teachers, and really anyone who is using a source that doesn't belong to them. Many students and teachers may not realize that some of the simple things they take from the internet can be considered stolen, or realize the penalties for not giving an author credit to their work.

As a future teacher, I think it is important to keep in mind that I need to make sure I am using sources that are credible and that I am giving those sources credit so I can avoid the consequences. The internet is a great source for teachers to obtain information for themselves and students, but after reading an article that gave information about fair use and copyright for teachers, I realized how serious this can become. Penalties for not citing sources can result in up to $100,000 for each act of plagiarism. It is also important for teachers to look over the policies that their school district has for discipline because in some cases when charged with copyright violations, they will not be provided with legal support from their district.

Knowing this means that educators have a lot of responsibility to make sure this information is given to their students. Because I am going to be an art teacher, I will have to make sure that I am teaching my students how to cite sources if they are doing a paper for me. I will also want them to be aware of how important it is to cite other artists work when using it for their o
wn uses. I feel it is important to explain to them that downloading music and videos. I want to teach at a middle school and high school grade level so I believe this is important information that they need to understand. Many kids this age do not understand that it is illegal to download music and movies because they simply believe it is free. But what they don't know is that they could get into legal trouble for doing this. I currently do not know how I want to bring awareness to my students, but I definitely feel it is extremely important.

Another responsibility I will have as a teacher is to understand the importance of the four creative license elements. These elements consist of attribution, share-alike, non-commercial, and no derivative works. These elements can be applied to all work under copyright such as images, blog posts, articles, books, etc.

Overall I strongly believe that teachers should be aware of how important it is to make sure you are following the copyright laws. I also believe that no matter what subject that you teach, it is important to make sure you give your students background of this knowledge so you can prevent them from getting in trouble in the future.

Why Digital Citizenship is Important

The internet is constantly growing and there are many ways people can be involved with it. Becoming a teacher means that you are going to have students who are involved with the internet and are learning how to use it. The problem with this is that some students may not understand what responsibilities come along with the use of social media and the internet which is why it is important that we teach them what digital citizenship is.

Digital citizenship is one of the first steps that we can take to become more literate with media in the 21st century.  It offers a lot of opportunities and can help us make the internet safer for students. After reading about digital citizenship, I realize how much it means to me personally as well as professionally. Something that really stood out to me was how important digital security is. Knowing that whatever I do on the internet can affect my personal life really opened my eyes. It made me realize that my students may not have an understanding of this which is why I feel that it is so important to make sure that they know to be ethical when using the internet. 

I have not personally been a victim of cyberbullying but I do know people that have been. I think a big reason that we have these problems is that kids are not being taught that not only are they being disrespectful and hurtful to others, but they are creating an image of themselves that can stay with them forever through their digital footprint. By teaching our students what digital citizenship is, we will be teaching them a safe way for them to use the internet and that cyberbullying is the same thing as bullying but just over a screen. 

In my classroom, I would try to make a lesson to bring up the importance of ethics and what they mean in social media. I would also make sure that I show my students how important it is to watch what they search on the internet and how to be safe when doing so. I believe that a lot of adults feel that if they don't explain the dangers that are on the internet that somehow they will be avoided. But what they don't understand is that the internet is not going anywhere and kids are going to get curious. If we take the time to help students understand digital citizenship, we help to inform kids about the dangers and they will be safer in the future

This being said, I highly recommend that we as educators research digital citizenship in more depth and that we try to incorporate it into our classrooms.

Making Reading More Fun With Canva!

A lot of students tend to hate reading from a school textbook or even off an article you give to them. From personal experience as a student, I have a hard time concentrating if I’m reading from a book or article and I miss a lot of the important information. But, reading an infographic, on the other hand, helps me retain information and keeps me focused. This being said, I decided to use a website called Canva.

 In Canva, you can easily create your own infographic. It is a very easy tool to use and is perfect for both students and teachers. I would strongly recommend for a higher age level if you are going to have students create an infographic because there is a lot within the site itself. When creating your account, the site will give you the option to sign up as a student or a teacher which is perfect for a school setting. Even though not everything on this site is free to use, there are plenty of free options and if you can’t find a picture that you want in your presentation, the site allows you to upload your own.

Because I am going to be an art teacher, I could use this tool in my classroom in many different ways depending on what I want my students to get out of it. For example, if I am teaching at a high school level, I will want to have my students learn a little bit of art history. Instead of making them read articles that may bore them, I could create an infographic about what I want them to know. This would keep my students interested and it would make it easier to pick out certain things from a reading. I could also have my students use this tool if I would decide to make them research a famous artist. Instead of making them write a paper, I could have them create an infographic which would allow them to have fun with the project and be creative.

There were a lot of pros that went along with Canva including all the templates, shapes, pictures, and backgrounds that you can use to really personalize your design. The only cons were that it is kind of advanced and can be a little confusing. For example, you have to make sure that if you want a shape behind your text that you put the shape in first then the text. This can become a hassle because if you already have your information typed, you have to delete it and then redo the font size, color, and style. Other than that, it was a very convenient site and was easy to figure out.

How To Make Spaghetti by Autumn Kostley

TPACK

TPACK is a framework that has the knowledge of three areas. These areas include technological, content, and pedagogical knowledge. TPACK is something that is great for a classroom environment and has a lot of potentials. TPACK helps teachers create away of ensuring they are using technology in a helpful manner.

 When introducing new tools within a classroom, it is important that you make sure to consider what it will do for your students. It’s best to ask yourself what you want your students to get out of the technological tool you are introducing to them. Since I will be in an art classroom, I will have to try to find a way to bring technology into the classroom that won’t be distracting to my student's creative process. So when researching new technologies and creating my lesson plans, I will have to make sure they have a purpose to what I am going to be teaching. For example, I will try to introduce some sort of technological tool that helps my students plan out their projects.

There are a lot of positive effects on students from using technology in a classroom. They help to improve comprehension skills, and writing skills. For example, if you introduce your students to google docs, they will be able to improve on spelling and grammar because of the tools within it. It also improves children's reading skills when they are able to listen to an audiobook because they can hear the words being emphasized and they don’t have to have a parent or teacher reading it to them to pick up on these skills.

There are some things that do get in the way of technology in classrooms. For example, some teachers did not grow up in a time of technology and don’t want to use it in their classrooms. There are also a lot of teachers who haven’t had proper training and don’t know how to use technology in a proper manner. It can also be hard to apply new technologies in a classroom because you may not have the device to do so.

Overall, it is important to use technology in a classroom and I will definitely try to include it by using the framework of TPACK. One question that I do have is how do I make sure that I follow TPACK and how do I make sure I do so successfully? I do think that this will be the future for most of our classrooms and that we will do a lot for students by bringing more technology into our schools.

Clyp: Review for a classroom purposes

I recently decided to look at Clyp, which is an audio tool, to see if I could use it in my classroom. This app was very easy to use and would be able to be used easily for students starting as a middle school age.

 I personally liked the way that this tool was set up and how easy it was to use. When you get on the app, it allows you to simply press upload, and then you can either choose a previous recording, or you can create one on the device you are using. It allows you to record a 360-minute recording and once you finish your recording, you can then upload it in an unlisted setting which allows the recording

to be for your eyes only. You can also add a description to your recording, a title, and a picture so that way you know what it is about. You can copy and paste the link so that way you can share it with people. Another thing that you cannot do on this site is getting an embedded link.

The cons to this site were that you have to create an account which you may need parents permission for. But you can easily have students register with a school email. Although I like this app, I did not like that you had to make sure you didn’t post it publically and that you have to use a link in order to show it to someone else.

I think this tool has a lot of use in a classroom. I do think that for myself personally, it would be hard for me to incorporate in my classroom because it would be an art class. One thing that I would use this for is to have my students use to record the comments given to them during a critique. I could have them add a picture and description of their work so that way they could look back at it and see what they need to improve on with their next project.

Overall, I would recommend this tool for a classroom and I think that it is easy to use. I feel that the students would be able to easily record what is necessary.

PLN: Why open education resources are so important

Open education resources are something that I recently discovered and I never realized how important they are in a classroom until I learned more about them. To me, open education resources are a part of a participatory culture, in which the public contributes by sharing information that they gain. This kind of community is something that is becoming apart of our future as educators and it’s important to start realizing what being open to other resources can do for us, and for our students.

Technology has evolved throughout classrooms for as long as I can remember. One thing that I have experienced while growing up is the process of getting rid of textbooks. Ebooks can do a lot within a classroom and can save the school a lot of money. Students won’t have to worry about damage fees and they also cannot lose the books. They can also interact with the books though highlighting, and note taking features within the books which is nice because they don’t have to worry about marking up a book that they need to return. I strongly believe that textbooks are coming to an end soon and that we are going to start using ebooks. Because there are a lot of schools lending out school ipads or laptops, this will make it easier to do so.

Because technology is starting to play such a huge role within classrooms, it’s important that we as teachers become open to an open classroom environment. Open resources are really important because it gives you the ability to share with your students what you are learning. Many students are already learning openly on their own time when they are trying to learn more about something. I watched a video, by Alec Coures, and it gave me the impression that in an open classroom environment, teachers will be assisting their students how to be safe about what they are learning online. Because I want to be an art teacher, in my classroom, I would teach my students how to search properly when trying come up with an idea of their own for projects. When students are creating projects, they tend to search the project to start thinking of ideas but forget to make it their own. Because there are so many open resources, I plan on either creating or finding a resource that helps create something of their own.

As I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of advances with technology in classrooms. After reading an article called, “Participatory Culture” I realized that we need to start capturing the fact that the internet is at our fingertips and we need to take advantage of that within our classrooms. Learning doesn’t have to be a teacher to book experience anymore and can become something that students enjoy more. Internet knowledge can expand the knowledge of not only us but our students. I think that our future as educators holds a lot because teaching and learning can now happen anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. I think that it’ll make our future students more successful if we become open to resources and share with them how to learn openly in the right way.

My First Experience Using Emaze: Pros and cons

Today I used the website Emaze to create a mock presentation. I wanted to see how this tool could be used within a classroom and if it’s worth introducing to students. This tool is very similar to powerpoint and keynote but does have a lot of differences that can make it uncomfortable for student use. The tool has a lot of different template outlines that would help students create a layout that will enhance their projects. It also has a nice transition between slides, and different slide layouts to choose from.

Within a classroom, you could use it to create presentations for multiple subjects. Because of the variety of templates, you have a lot of options for your students to

be creative. My mock presentation is on the nervous system which would be perfect for a science classroom. You could assign a body system to your students and have them use this tool give an overview of the system and you could have them break down the parts of the system by using text and pictures. They could then present their findings to the class or they could create the presentation just for the teacher's eyes. Either way, it’s a nice way to see your students understanding of what they are learning in your class.

Although I enjoyed using this tool, I would only recommend this for a high school age level. I do think that students would be able to use this effectively, but, it requires you to make an account. I feel that it would be more convenient for high school students because a lot of them have their own email accounts either through the school, or just a personal one that they could sign up with. Another thing that is inconvenient within this tool is that you cannot copy and paste pictures. You have to get the pictures link address, or you have to save the picture to your device.
Other than these few cons, students could still easily create a presentation artifact with this tool.

Overall, I had a good experience with this app but I would definitely try it out to make sure it’s a good fit for your students. I do strongly believe that as long as long as the students are older and have a background with powerpoint/keynote that they would be able to easily create something.

PLN: Why you should share what happens in your classroom

Sharing information is something that becomes extremely important for teachers all over the world. I recently watched a video by Dean Shareski where he discusses the importance of educations sharing experiences in their classrooms. Something that really stuck out to me was that his comment that without sharing, there would be no education. If you really think about it, if we as teachers did not share information with our students, they would not learn anything from us. Here are some things to keep in mind about sharing and why we as educators should step out of our comfort zones to do so.

Sharing among other educators can be done in many ways and can be just as effective through both text, or face to face conversation. You can share through blog posts, social media, email, facetime, or even a face to face meeting. Either way, you will be able to share your experiences about what has and what hasn’t worked within your experiences and how you made it work. You will also get to hear about experiences that you haven’t had yet and you will know what you could do if you ever are in this situation.

A lot of people sometimes feel concerned about when and when not to share because they may feel that what they have to say isn’t important or they may think they are sharing too much. I read into this and I found an article that talks about why you should start sharing and how you can start. This article gives you a lot of reasons as to why it is important as a teacher to share what is going on in your classroom. Something that had been in my mind since reading this is that a lot of people give a teaching profession a bad reputation and by sharing about the good experiences and seeing how much good comes out of it. After reading this, I feel like there really is not a time not to share or really anything that should not be shared out of your classroom. Something that may not seem like a good idea to post for you could really help someone else who is reading what you share/listening to what you share. There also is not a really bad time to share about what goes on in your classroom because once you take the time to share something and you release it, people can access it whenever the time is necessary to them.

All of this being said, I feel that educators should start looking into sharing and they should even start bringing sharing into their classroom environments. We can start teaching students to have confidence when they want to share something and that they can do so without being nervous about sharing their opinions. There are many ways to do this without making the students even realize they are doing so and it will help them develop the skills they need for the future. If we can create a positive experience of sharing within our classrooms, our students won’t feel as if they don’t know how to share and will not have many negative experiences to hold them back.

One question that I do have is how can I make sure as an art teacher that I can get my students to share their artwork without feeling insecure about their piece compared to someone else's? I strongly think that I could develop a way of doing this throughout my career, but I want to make sure that I can give them the self-confidence that they need when expressing themselves.

All of this is extremely important because as Dean Shareski states, our students are writing our textbooks. If we start to share our experiences in our classrooms and create positive sharing environments within our classrooms, we will start to create less negativity when it comes to sharing in general.

Pixlr Experience: why you should use pixlr in your classroom

I recently explored the online app, Pixlr, to see if I would be comfortable using it in my classroom. In the example I provided below, I used pictures of different textures and put them into a collage using this app. I’m studying to be an art teacher so I would probably use this app for activities that lead up to a project. For example, I could send my students on a scavenger hunt and have them take pictures of different textures throughout the school. I could then have them pick four of their favorite and have them use pixlr to put them into a collage. From there, I could construct a texture project where they have to use different textures to make into a picture. I would have them reference these pictures and make sure that they add text when editing the pictures so they remember where the texture was, and they would also have a visual of the texture to keep in mind when drawing out what they want to create.

Outside of an art classroom environment, this could be used for students who have to compose posters, or really anything picture related. They could use it for artifacts within their classes. The only thing that I feel would be challenging is using this app is when using the text. Once you add text to a picture, you cannot go back and edit it. This would cause problems if a student typed information onto a picture and then realized that they made a spelling error. Other than that, this tool would be effective in almost any classroom environment depending on the project. I would recommend that it stays within the middle school and high school ages.

The tool has different options as shown below but I picked to explore the collage portion. From there, you can pick what kind of collage you want to construct, such as how many pictures you want to include. Then you have the option of changing the background colors, the spacing between images, and how round you want the frame of your pictures to be. Adding your pictures is also simple as long as you have the pictures uploaded onto the device you are using. Once you add your pictures, you can then edit them by changing filters, rotating, cropping, zooming in, adding text to the pictures, etc.

Overall I do recommend this app for classroom projects and I think it would be a great way to introduce students to photo editing especially for times when they may need to present artifacts.

Random Things to Know About Autumn Kostley

Here are random facts that'll help you get to know me.

My favorite hobbies include drawing, painting, and cooking.

My favroite fruit of all time is an apple. I don't know why I love them so much, but if I had to choose one fruit to eat for the rest of my life, it would be an apple. This isn't because of the saying,  "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."