As I continue to monitor my GAME plan and assess my progress on meeting my goals I find that I am making progress because of the great suggestions that my colleagues have given to me. What a great learning community! To review, my goals are to; one, create an interactive classroom website where parents, students, and community members can participate in our walls-down classroom; and two, to review current research to better use my MIMIO board for more than just notes and graphics.
My first breakthrough with my classroom website came after reviewing my school's website. There, I found a link to access teacher web pages. On these web pages, most teachers only post a little information about themselves and then continually post homework assignments throughout the year, which is great however I want to use my website for something more. Upon looking through all of the websites I found that I could use the same format for what I would like to do. My next step is to talk to the technology head in our district to see if I would be able to enable comments on the teacher website so that it can have a conversational feel and so that everyone can participate in posts, not just me. Also, through this week's resources I found another way to utilize my classroom website. Dr. John Ross mentioned that we can use technology to collect and analyze data and then share that data (Laureate Education Inc., 2011). This gave me the idea to assign each students a random number or symbol that is only shared by me and their parents. This would enable me to post assessment results on the website using the numbers or symbols so that parents could monitor their students progress. One concern I have is that it may not be anonymous enough and that students will find out their numbers or symbols and share them with others and it will turn into a competition and create embarrassment, which is not the goal at all. Any suggestions in this area would be greatly appreciated!
My next steps in using the MIMIO board are already taking shape. I had lunch yesterday with my math co-teacher and shared with her my GAME plan and she was excited and wanted to be part of it. So, currently we are both looking for professional development classes that work with both of our schedules so that we can obtain more knowledge for using our MIMIO. We are also planning on getting together at the beginning of August so that we can complete some research together and create new lessons for the upcoming year using our MIMIO.
Resources
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009a). Program one. Assessing student learning. [Webcast]. Integrating technology across the content areas. Baltimore, MD: Author
Jennifer to Nikki,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that you want to post personal grades on your website. Our school grade book is online and each student and parent has an access code so that they can easily monitor their results. You could, however, create a class results post. Students can then take their own personal grades and compare it against the entire class. If you teach more than one class of the same subject, this may lead to some friendly competition between the students. I have a website that I try to keep current every week, but it involves me updating every Sunday night. It is a rather large task and takes time and organization. I think that being able to find a teacher from your district to participate in professional development will help as you begin using your MIMIO. This is the type of teacher collaboration that I am hoping to achieve in my own district.
I agree with Jennifer in that you never want to post a grade on a website for others to see. Due to confidentiality policies, that could get you into some real trouble. One teacher in my school regularly posted test averages using the student’s ID numbers. These ID numbers were the same ones that the student’s used for lunch. The students monitored the test scores and targeted the students with the lowest test averages. They used their ID number in the lunch room to take their lunch money. It was a real fiasco. Even though the teacher used numbers to identify the students, he was reprimanded pretty severely. Our school also has on online grade book that parents can track student progress. What does your system use?
ReplyDeleteEmily Williams
Missy to Nikki: I agree about not posting student grades on the web.
ReplyDeleteI do have a suggestion about having comments on your website. Why not link a blog to your site? I have a website that has a link to the blog. You just add whatever icon or words you want and then link that to your blog page. Then you have a blog like this one open for those who wish to see and participate, and you can keep your other website information on the same page without clutter. You might also be able to link the blog to a tab on your site.
What is a MIMIO board? Is that like a smart board?
Also, Kuuipo posted a site where you can get an avatar and make it talk. If MIMIO is like a smart board, maybe you could use that the first day of school to introduce yourself to your class, and tell them about your website, etc. (Voki.com)
Missy
Nikki-
ReplyDeleteI am so glad to hear you are making progress toward your goal. I have a classroom website, which I use to post homework, special events, etc. My principal checks our sites randomly each Monday to see if they ahve been updated with the correct week's information. He's just looking to see if we have homework for the week, any tests scheduled, that sort of thing. However sometimes I think he and I are the only ones accessing the site. We do have a program called Gradekeeper, this is an electronic gradebook I am required to use at school. This program allows me to export my grades to my website. Parents are given a randomly generated code to access their child's grades. I try to keep this confidential as best I can.
I think it's great your colleague is wanting to participate with you. I hope you all find lots of useful information. I think it is easier to learn something new when you have someone with you that you can bounce ideas around with.