Technology+Resources


 * Technology Resources Page**


 * **Storybird-**[]
 * Storybird is an online collaborative storytelling and story creating site. This site is available to students, parents, and teachers and provides a way for students to creatively write and publish a piece of wriitng. The writing can then be printed and shared with family members. This link [] displays a virtual tour and shows the viewer how to create an account and begin an original story. This site allows a connection between teachers, students, parents, and the community and allows for authentic learning experiences. Storybird is an excellent site for all ages and for all learning styles.
 * To create a free account, you simply visit the site listed above, click "Create an Account," and fill in some basic information. From there, all you need is some creativity and time to explore! Teachers can also create a teacher account to construct assignments, make student accounts, and build libraries for evidence of learning.

(Storybird information added by Tiffany Wilson)


 * **Discovery Education** -[| http://www.discoveryeducation.co m]
 * 1) Discovery education is an online website that allows teachers to create probes and assess students online. Teachers create probes by selecting the standards they want to assess students on and create an online assessment. Students can take these assessments at home or the teacher can take the students to a school computer lab to complete the probes of their choice. In our school my math colleague and I are currently creating a probe for each standard. Students can work at their own pace mastering each probe. The online probes gives teachers immediate data for each student. Teachers can also enable games for each probe. If the teacher decide to enable the games section, the student can chose a game of their choice and each time the student gets a question correct they can play a game. Each probe also contains videos that the student can view for remediation. This is a great tool for teachers, parents, and students because they can do the probes at home or at school at their own pace. Discovery Education offers probes for every subject and grade. After reviewing data the teacher can use this information to help guide her instruction. Students can also print their scores. Using this tool also allows teachers to view probes created by other teachers. Teachers can allows create their own questions. Students can create their own puzzles or view videos. Students can also access WebMath, which shows students step-by-step how to work out any math problem. I tell my students to access this website when they are at home and do not know how so solve a problem.
 * 2) To create an account teachers need to purchase a subscription and go to[| http://www.discoveryeducation.com/] for more information. Many teachers also know this as "Think Link" and although this is not free, it is well worth the money. Some teachers may already have the Think Link assessment, but are unaware of the probes they can create and monitor online. If you do not purchase a subscription you cannot create probes, but still have access to several videos that discovery education provides as well the puzzle maker generator and great interactive lesson plans.

(Discovery Education information added by Marivel Villa)


 * **SMARTboard Technologies, Interactive Whiteboard ([|www.smarttech.com])**


 * 1) Interactive whiteboards are a growing technology in classrooms across the country. These incredible resources are utilized in much the same way as a typical whiteboard, for writing notes and displaying objects of importance, with one incredible difference. It is linked to a computer, making anything that is possible with a click of a mouse, possible with a touch of a finger.
 * 2) The interactive whiteboard hangs in the front of the classroom, like any whiteboard would. When interacting with the computer and projector, the interactive whiteboard becomes a large computer screen, manipulated with a gentle touch on its touch screen.
 * 3) When I first began using the interactive whiteboard, I was simply using it to show films, Power Point slideshows, and utilize online education websites for gaming. As my understanding of the technology improved, I began to utilize a website, www. smartexchange.com to find applications that have already been created, and could be saved to a flash drive and then used on my computer. Once I was comfortable using premade applications and programs that I found online, I was comfortable enough to begin creating my own. The SMARTboard technology that I am familiar with is easy to manipulate. I have often compared it to creating a slideshow in Power Point with a few more options, and a few more buttons. No matter what your comfort level is for using a computer, an interactive whiteboard is very user friendly.

(SMARTboard Technologies information, added by Amanda Yates)


 * Technology Resources: Moodle (Jessica Long) www.moodle.org**

In one of our class videos, “Upgrading the Curriculum” (Laureate Education, 2010), there is an interview with a young, dynamic principal of a middle school in West Seneca, New York. In the interview, this principal discusses with a visible glow her implementation of the virtual learning environment, Moodle. In discussing this tool, the principal, Catherine Huber, explained how frustrated she would be in trying to gather and share important resources with her energetic and eager staff. With the everyday requirements put on a principal, like organizing bus routes, answering parent calls and paper work, she found she could not focus on a key factor in a good administrator’s job: ongoing professional development for teachers. After reviewing the importance of breaking away from the “once or twice a year” model of professional development, she explained how exciting and user friendly the Moodle system was for her, and how it revolutionized the way teachers communicated, shared ideas, and revised their practice in her school.

What Ms. Huber did not get into was how powerful this tool, Moodle, could be not just for teachers, but more importantly, for students. Though aspects of Moodle are available online, schools that invest in buying the system find the most powerful uses for it. Basically, Moodle is an online classroom, very similar to the one used here at Walden University, but with a few more interactive features, and a much simpler interface, one that students (and teachers) of all ages would feel very comfortable with. Though it can be used in a very “web 1.0” way (Wood, 2010), where teachers post information and students merely access it, its most important power lies in its Web 2.0 features, where students can interact in threaded discussions, post work and get peer and teacher feedback, and even have a live, in-classroom (or out of classroom) chat with members of the class. For a school that has adopted this technology, teacher use is easy. There are a variety of tutorials on Moodle, and often using school-assigned email addresses, a teacher can easily add students, and with as much effort as Facebook requires, students can chat, post, and discuss in teacher-constructed forums.

The twenty-first century applications are endless in Moodle. A quick perusal of the stated goals of this movement on the 21stcenturyskills.org website reveals that Moodle asks students to engage in many of the activities that support the use of these skills. On page three of the document, under the heading “creativity and innovation,” we find the goal to “work creatively with others,” and under that, a variety of bullets, including phrases like “adopting new ideas,” “be open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives” and “incorporate group input and feedback into the work” (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009). Clearly, an online group peer edit session of a posted paper, or a group discussion of a provocative essential question, created ahead of time in a “backwardly designed” lesson (McTighe and Wiggins, 2004) would engender all of these traits. In addition, a perusal of Churches (2008) work on how tools of technology challenge the minds of students, all of the activities listed above, like posting in a discussion, moderating a discussion or collaborating on a piece to improve or create it, would all fit under the category of “evaluation,” which is the second highest (formerly, highest overall) of the thinking skills we can ask of the students. Moodle as a tool both asks students to work in a forum they feel comfortable in as well as challenges them to think harder than they may in other, non-academic online forums. Best of all, these would all come naturally to the students, and ideally, if a teacher were to convince a school administration of the value of such a tool, more teachers would and could easily use it. Jacobs (2010), in her work, often states the dire need for teachers to step out of the classroom and share practices. A tool like this one would bring many schools one step closer to making that goal a more concrete reality. A teacher that tried some of the free facets of Moodle, and used it as a model of the power of the system could be a true teacher-leader in his or her community.

References: Churches, A. (2008). Bloom's taxonomy blooms digitally. //Educator’s eZine//. Retrieved from http://www.techlearning.com Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). //Upgrading the curriculum// [Video webcast]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6072199 McTighe, J., and Wiggins, G. (2004). //Understanding by design: Professional development// //workbook.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2009). //P21 framework definitions.// Retrieved from website: www.p21.org Wood, S. (2010). Technology for teaching and learning: Moodle as a tool for higher education. //International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education//, //22//(3), 299-307.

Glogster: []
 * //__Technology Resources __//**
 * Glogster is an interactive web based program designed to allow students to experience a  mix of culture, individualism, creativity and self-expression. Glogster allows students to create digital interactive posters through a variety of resources such as, music, videos, pictures, graphics, text and more. This level of access and freedom works well for all school aged children, and meets the needs of all learning types. Through Glogster teachers are able to separate accounts for their students, and sort them according to class. This allows for easy viewing and tracking of student progress, as well as organized collection and assessment.


 * Access to free accounts can be easily obtained by visiting the following link [] . Teachers and students can begin creating immediately simply by clicking the “create glog” tab located at the bottom of the page. Once the process begins students and teachers can create, save, publish or share their Glogster. Through the homepage link teachers can also explore Glogster's education by clicking the tab labeled EDU to the right side of the homepage, or by visiting the following link [] . Teachers also have the opportunity to purchase upgraded accounts that provide more access to the tools and functions of Glogster. The variety of tools give teachers the resources they need to manage students and classes for effective assessment, to create interactive poster projects, and to have students build collaborative projects.

(Glogster added by Robert Tatarek)