WV TIS-CTE Monthly Activities FY 2010-2011.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Podcasting - Sharon Cole-See it here:
I hope you enjoy watching this podcast as much as I did!!!! My plan is to continue building on this podcast to create an innovative introduction for my Globaloria students next school year!
Monday, May 16, 2011
April Blog - Sharon Cole
Well April has come and gone.....not sure where it went!!!! I have been extremely busy all the way around not only with TIS, but also with LiveGrades, Experential Learning, SENIORS, creating PBL's for my classes, introducing my new iPod labs into my classes, digital cameras and flip cams, the reinstallation of my projector for my newly installed white board, addition of two new computers in my lab, the non book adoption for Business Ed teachers in Harrison County, Performance Assessment testing and more Performance Assessment test and oh yes did I mention Performance Assessment testing?????? I think you get the point....LOL!!! I was also notified that I have been notified that I get to be trained and teach Globaloria next school year as well as starting a Marketing endorsement! I think I must have lost my mind to have so much going on, but I have always been one who LOVES to learn, learn, learn, learn. Over spring break I attended the virtural FETC conference and for those of you who were unable to attend you really need to check it out. I have also been busy watching many hours of webinars, which I have really enjoy this aspect of learning!!!! Just when you think the end is near, some new technology opportunities open up and I find myself jumping in full force!!! Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather and remember the end is in site!!!!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Janie's April Blog
April was very technologically challenging for me. On April 1, we took our Business and Marketing students on a field trip to Washington, DC. This is where my students did the second part of the digital project. We have a new tech person, so I was busy acquainting him with all of the technology in our building. I had five computers with the blue screen of death, so we were very busy trying to get them back up and running. We were successful with one. I still have four computers not working because after we fixed the first, our tech guy was out for emergency surgery. I got a new desktop with LEA funds, and I am still trying to get it set up because I do not have the administrative priviliges to connect to our network.
I left on April 14 for Greece for an EF tour. If your schools are not involved with EF, you should give them a try. We took 16 students and adults to Greece on an Athens and the Isles tour. We were four days on land and four days on a cruise. We also visited Turkey. This is where my students finished the third phase of my digital project. We literally took thousands of pictures. It was so difficult to decide which ones to use in our presentation that we must do in front of the Board of Education. As far as technology, count your blessings for what we have in America. They have very, very slow Internet service when you can get it at all. At our hotels, we could get Internet for 90 minutes for 5 euros. It took most of that time just to get connected. We then tried to Skype with our families back home because it was almost impossible to make international calls. It was very difficult to Skype because of the poor Internet connections. Some of the kids were able to use FaceTime on their Macs. That was the first time I had heard of it, and I found that it is exclusive to Macs. Then when we got on the ship, the cost was 20 euros for one hour of Internet service. So we decided it was not worth it to even try. We were really so busy touring, shopping, and climbing volcanos that we didn't have much time to use our computers. It made us appreciate the Internet service we have at home. This was a great educational experience for the teachers as well as the students. I think the greatest impact on our students was how little our dollar is worth compared to other currency. This was a great educational experience for both teachers and students.
When I returned, we concentrated on preparing our students for the upcoming CTE Performance Assessments and WesTest. Our CTE Director purchased headsets for all the computers in all of our labs, so that was a nice addition. They will especially be helpful for KeyTrain. For the rest of the month, I continued working on my wvlearns content, and I signed up for the WebTop class that many of us will begin tomorrow. I can't wait to see all of you again. Many of us are thinking about attending FETC again next year. I hope you all will join us.
I left on April 14 for Greece for an EF tour. If your schools are not involved with EF, you should give them a try. We took 16 students and adults to Greece on an Athens and the Isles tour. We were four days on land and four days on a cruise. We also visited Turkey. This is where my students finished the third phase of my digital project. We literally took thousands of pictures. It was so difficult to decide which ones to use in our presentation that we must do in front of the Board of Education. As far as technology, count your blessings for what we have in America. They have very, very slow Internet service when you can get it at all. At our hotels, we could get Internet for 90 minutes for 5 euros. It took most of that time just to get connected. We then tried to Skype with our families back home because it was almost impossible to make international calls. It was very difficult to Skype because of the poor Internet connections. Some of the kids were able to use FaceTime on their Macs. That was the first time I had heard of it, and I found that it is exclusive to Macs. Then when we got on the ship, the cost was 20 euros for one hour of Internet service. So we decided it was not worth it to even try. We were really so busy touring, shopping, and climbing volcanos that we didn't have much time to use our computers. It made us appreciate the Internet service we have at home. This was a great educational experience for the teachers as well as the students. I think the greatest impact on our students was how little our dollar is worth compared to other currency. This was a great educational experience for both teachers and students.
When I returned, we concentrated on preparing our students for the upcoming CTE Performance Assessments and WesTest. Our CTE Director purchased headsets for all the computers in all of our labs, so that was a nice addition. They will especially be helpful for KeyTrain. For the rest of the month, I continued working on my wvlearns content, and I signed up for the WebTop class that many of us will begin tomorrow. I can't wait to see all of you again. Many of us are thinking about attending FETC again next year. I hope you all will join us.
Monday, May 9, 2011
On the Road in April
Most people look forward to the month of April for the flowers that bloom or sound of the crack of the baseball/softball bats. Educators on the other hand see the "Spring Break" dates on the school calender. This presents a challenge for the traveling "regional teacher educator." Seeing the various dates that differ from county to county, good planning is key to being effective during the month of April.
During the visits and observations, I found opportunities to expose the CTE instructors that I serve to some of the new sites that I discovered working with the 23 Things activities. The website GO2WEB2.0 has the most possibilities for the CTE instructors.
For those who are taking college classes, the end of April is the target date for final assignments due and finding time for study for Final Exams. As a college professor, my spring challenge has been the conversion of a course from a seminar based delivery to an online course. CTED 308/ATE 548 Application of Basic Skills is one of the required courses for the CTE permit and had previously been a 6 class meeting seminar course. I had the cooperative help from fellow staff member Brenda Tuckwiller to convert the course to a online delivery system using "Thinkfinity" as the online platform. We found that initially the CTE instructors were not as adapted to this mode of instruction but as the semester continued they become confident and acceptable to the delivery system.
The next step is to convert the entire program to online delivery.
During the visits and observations, I found opportunities to expose the CTE instructors that I serve to some of the new sites that I discovered working with the 23 Things activities. The website GO2WEB2.0 has the most possibilities for the CTE instructors.
For those who are taking college classes, the end of April is the target date for final assignments due and finding time for study for Final Exams. As a college professor, my spring challenge has been the conversion of a course from a seminar based delivery to an online course. CTED 308/ATE 548 Application of Basic Skills is one of the required courses for the CTE permit and had previously been a 6 class meeting seminar course. I had the cooperative help from fellow staff member Brenda Tuckwiller to convert the course to a online delivery system using "Thinkfinity" as the online platform. We found that initially the CTE instructors were not as adapted to this mode of instruction but as the semester continued they become confident and acceptable to the delivery system.
The next step is to convert the entire program to online delivery.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
April -- Gwen Miller
My favorite week of April was the week of spring break!!! We started using Movie Maker in my Advertising class. I had to unthaw all the lap tops, install the flip share software, then deep freeze all the lap tops. Then we found out the flip camera is being discontinued. I accidentally erased every one of the clips on the flip camera. Three students has to refilm everything. They took it very well. One of them told me he didn't think I did it on purpose. The students are teaching me a lot about the Movie Maker program. My first block Marketing II class made a commercial in Movie Maker call "Brat-B-Gone". I'm getting pretty good at putting messages on the outdoor sign. I still help 3 teacher with their absence spreadsheets.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
April TIS Dennison
Hello, I am writing this in May! I guess this shows me how time is quickly passing by. I have continued the endeavors that I started in February and March. My students are really excelling in their tech(knowledge). I am feeling more confident in my own skills related to technology, my typing speed has improved and the time I spend finding things has minimized drastically. I have been very blessed with Carrie Calloway, our MHS TIS. She has really helped me be comfortable with the activities I have planned and she is there to help me administer them to my students with ease. I am hopeful to be a TIS one day and I feel I will carry on the same type of relationship with my staff as Carrie does hers.
The Prezi still has some gliches and I find my students to be lazy or frustrated or unable to wait for anything. It seems this generation has every thing at their disposal at a rapid rate of speed. Patience is definitely a virtue and seems to be lost. My Child Development classes are presenting their Prezis/power points. The lessons are good and the presentations are pretty accurate. The teaching in between the lines of the Prezi is less than admirable. The students are just reading what they already prepared and nothing else. I have followed along and filled in the gaps. This tag team approach has allowed me to get the information to the students. The frustration for me is that they had more than enough time to present a more detailed lesson. I hold myself accountable to this part of the lesson. I realize I could use the collaborative assessment and the teacher interview for the lessons. I plan on going back through the intel lessons on assessments and improving this area. If I would have met more in depth with my students and evaluated them in the process this would have made them more accountable for the lesson. I plan to improve this lesson now so that next year the changes will be easy to implement and the lesson will go more smoothly. My LC classes are winding down. The mock wedding is tomorrow May 4 and the Seniors will have just a few classes left before finals and such. I have had a wonderful year with these young adults. Trying at times, especially close to the grading periods. Again I hold myself a bit accountable because the students do not have set deadlines they tend to procrastinate. I am not a moicromanager and this created some extra time and energy. Setting dates would be more prudent for all of us. I guess I like to see the way students perform with a less structured curriculum and then try to teach them life lessons at the critical times. Fashion Prezis are complete and I have a student creating a web page for my fashion class. Included will be the Prezi's. I will send the site when completed so you may enjoy!
I have learned a bit about the acuity testing and how to handle the process of testing and collecting by observing and talking to Carrie. She seemed to effortlessly pull off the testing without a hitch. I have created a wordle, wallwisher and more due to the 23 things. I still have some touches to complete on my 23 things, but I am feeling pretty good about the progress. I think my Flickr is my favorite check em out, if you get a chance. Well I will reflect again soon.
The Prezi still has some gliches and I find my students to be lazy or frustrated or unable to wait for anything. It seems this generation has every thing at their disposal at a rapid rate of speed. Patience is definitely a virtue and seems to be lost. My Child Development classes are presenting their Prezis/power points. The lessons are good and the presentations are pretty accurate. The teaching in between the lines of the Prezi is less than admirable. The students are just reading what they already prepared and nothing else. I have followed along and filled in the gaps. This tag team approach has allowed me to get the information to the students. The frustration for me is that they had more than enough time to present a more detailed lesson. I hold myself accountable to this part of the lesson. I realize I could use the collaborative assessment and the teacher interview for the lessons. I plan on going back through the intel lessons on assessments and improving this area. If I would have met more in depth with my students and evaluated them in the process this would have made them more accountable for the lesson. I plan to improve this lesson now so that next year the changes will be easy to implement and the lesson will go more smoothly. My LC classes are winding down. The mock wedding is tomorrow May 4 and the Seniors will have just a few classes left before finals and such. I have had a wonderful year with these young adults. Trying at times, especially close to the grading periods. Again I hold myself a bit accountable because the students do not have set deadlines they tend to procrastinate. I am not a moicromanager and this created some extra time and energy. Setting dates would be more prudent for all of us. I guess I like to see the way students perform with a less structured curriculum and then try to teach them life lessons at the critical times. Fashion Prezis are complete and I have a student creating a web page for my fashion class. Included will be the Prezi's. I will send the site when completed so you may enjoy!
I have learned a bit about the acuity testing and how to handle the process of testing and collecting by observing and talking to Carrie. She seemed to effortlessly pull off the testing without a hitch. I have created a wordle, wallwisher and more due to the 23 things. I still have some touches to complete on my 23 things, but I am feeling pretty good about the progress. I think my Flickr is my favorite check em out, if you get a chance. Well I will reflect again soon.
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