• Reflect on at least three benefits of Genius Hour or 20% Time.

1. Genius Hour is an excellent way to use inquiry-based classroom learning. It helps students to have choice in learning. Students apply their learning to their ideas in order to create a product or project. They learn to discuss their ideas, why they want to use their particular idea, and how they will create it into a project. They learn how to document, research, and present. They also learn how to comment on peers’ ideas and projects (Juliani, n.d.)..

2. Genius Hour closely relates to a myriad of standards for various subjects such as: ELA standards for reading and writing (Ex: researching for inquiry, application, analyzation, presenting, writing, evaluating, and creating) and math standards for critiquing reasoning, creating arguments that are viable, and mathematic modeling. Being able to connect Genius Hour to standards will help teachers to assess learning and promote Genius Hour to stakeholders (parents, administrators, and even colleagues) (Juliani, n.d.).

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3. It is easy to find time to fit Genius Hour into your curriculum because you do not have to start off with using 20% of classroom time. You can implement a small project to see the time it takes for students to do it and then adjust your plan for implementing Genius Hour from there. There is no one particular formula for implementing time into your curriculum. Some teachers do multiweek projects, an Innovation Day, or short projects during one class period per week. Teachers have worked Genius Hour into science, social studies, and reading workshops during ELA time. How you want to do it is totally up to you (Juliani, n.d.).

• Identify at least two potential hurdles or obstacles (curricular and/or stakeholder) and how you may address them.

1. One potential hurdle would be that students may not want to do this type of project. Students could be scared to do learning that is inquiry-based. On the teacher end, it could be tough to manage students who are doing nothing with the free time that is supposed to be used for Genius Hour. Teachers should have conversations with students about their life and interests. This will help the student to connect their passions to something they might want to work on for the project. The teacher can ask the student for their help. Lastly, the teacher can help the student find a new learning purpose (Juliani, n.d.).

2. Another potential hurdle could be administrators or parents not being on board with the time Genius Hour could take away from curriculum material. Some potential ways to get around this obstacle would be to send a letter to the parents or administrators with details about what you will be doing for Genius Hour. Teachers should be inviting and offer to have stakeholders visit the classroom to experience what Genius Hour is all about. Teachers should have students post updates on blogs so that stakeholders can see their progress. Lastly, stakeholders should be invited to watch student presentations of their final products or at least have videos of presentations to show stakeholders (Juliani, n.d.).

Juliani, A.J. (n.d.). The 10 Most Asked Questions About Genius Hour and 20% Time Projects. Retrieved on 3 July 2021. http://ajjuliani.com/the-10-most-asked-questions-about-genius-hour-and-20-time-projects/

Chris, Kaitlin, and I met on Zoom at 9 AM on Friday, June 25^th. We talked about the plans our schools have for next school year in regard to restrictions and learning options, such as virtual instruction (synchronous and asynchronous) and in-person instruction. All three of our school districts are saying that they are going to offer only in-person instruction and no virtual options. We are hesitant to believe this since our districts have changed their minds so many times. My district, for example, told families that they would have to pick virtual or in-person for a whole quarter and stick to it. We had students switching in and out of virtual all day long and we would get emails multiple times per day about what classrooms these kids were going to My district also let parents pick and choose virtual days on a daily basis for in-person students (Ex: if they miss the bus). My district is continuing to provide their own virtual academy but we had that before the pandemic. We caught up about what we have been up to lately outside of school and class. We also talked about the Twitter chat activity and how hilariously lost I was since I am not a Twitter user. Overall, it was a great experience getting to see the faces of the other people that are taking the class with me. I enjoyed connecting with them a lot!

How you might use these tools in the future to either connect with other teachers or to help your students connect? What do you hope to gain by using this technology?

I plan to continue to use Zoom for virtual, live instruction when we have snow days to connect with my students. I don’t typically do a whole group Zoom since that was done by the homeroom teachers for inclusion time but I could always offer it incase they want to connect with the kids in my room that come from various homerooms. I enjoyed using Zoom for virtual, individual instruction since I could share my screen and teach the students using Boom Cards. They could have remote access to the screen to manipulate the activities themselves but I chose to manipulative it myself and ask them questions to figure out which option they wanted to pick out of the activities and answers within the activities. I could use Zoom to connect with other teachers for professional development. During professional development training and meetings this year, it was so much easier to see the screen or presentation. I was able to take notes quickly and not miss anything. When we have staff meetings in-person, you have to make sure to get a good seat close to the screen or at least be at a decent angle to see. Otherwise, you have to rely on your hearing only or ask a coworker to borrow their notes later. I hope to continue to gain knowledge of features on Zoom as they update their website. I want to test out the whiteboard feature since I could explain mathematics much better on the digital whiteboard than the physical whiteboard. You should see me drawing on it, holding it up, then trying to erase, then writing again. It is a show! This whiteboard feature could also help me teach writing to a certain extent online as well. I have a Ziggy but it often would not work so I resorting to trying to teach writing on the physical whiteboard as I held it up in the air next to my face. I look forward to continuing to explore the features on Zoom to better prepare myself for any situation we might be in next school year.

How can Twitter be used for professional growth in education?

Twitter can be used as a personal/professional learning network for professional growth in education (for both students and teachers). Teachers can use Twitter to follow other professionals around the world to get ideas and inspiration. They can use Twitter chats to discuss specific topics with other teachers based on the chat hashtag and scheduled time of week. Teachers can also research various hashtags in order to stay up to date with the latest trends, ideas, or best practices in relation to a specific education topic.  Being able to connect with other teachers or professionals in the field helps the teacher to expand their knowledge and improve their classroom practices. In regard to student use, students can help kickstart their professional growth by following people who are in a career path that they themselves would like to go into some day. This can help them to start networking with the right people in order to figure out the steps they need to take to get into the career they are interested in. In addition, they can follow hashtags about the specific career or general career path they are interested in to learn more about it before fully committing to a post-secondary education program. During the school day, students can also have Twitter chats as a class to discuss a certain assignment or topic. This can help to open their eyes to different perspectives.

Five Pros:

1. You can follow professionals in your field from around the world (or students can follow professionals from their prospective career path) to make your feed richer with quality posts.

2. You can collaborate and also ask for advice from other professionals through posts or Twitter chats.

3. Teachers and students can continuously get updates on trends and best practices in education (or their prospective career path).

4. Many people are familiar with Twitter (Although, I am not since I am lame. Haha.) so it feels less daunting to find professional resources on this platform.

5. Twitter can be used on computers, tablets, and phones. Therefore, it is more easily accessible than platforms that are only able to be used on a web browser on a computer.

Five Cons:

1. Keeping separate accounts so that social life and educational life do not get intertwined could be aggravating, especially if you find something that you like and you’re logged into the opposite account.

2. If you are not a Twitter user (which I am not), you have to remember to use all of the @ and # for tweeting at certain accounts and for tagging certain topics. So, if you are not familiar with Twitter, then you could misuse it and not get the results you intended to get.

3. The posts are limited to a certain amount of characters so if you write too many words, it turns into another tweet which could be confusing to knew users or aggravating users want to see the entire post displayed.

4. Students can get distracted and start looking up social things instead of staying on topic.

5. As with other social media, once you post it is out there for the world to see and it is hard to retract it after that point. This could lead into a conversation about digital footprints.

I chose this picture because I love taking hikes or trips to see bodies of water, especially waterfalls (even though they are not in this picture). It reminds me of the adventures that I would like to start going on again. I am very excited about Flickr from looking around on the website. I think there are many possibilities as long as you keep the license of each picture in mind. This would require you to teach the meaning of each license to the students so that they understand what they can do with a particular image. In addition, you would have to teach the students how to search for images that are able to be shared or edited so that they do not become attached to a picture that they cannot use. I think Flickr would be great for finding images that spark imagination for a project in the art classroom. Students could find an image they want to work from, as long as the licensing allows, or use it as general inspiration research. I could also see images being able to be used for blog posts in the art classroom in regard to photography topics. Students could do a critique on the composition of the photographs from picture to picture or from artist to artist since each artist has their own account and albums. In addition, Flickr could be used to find images can be used to base a short story or poem off of for Language Arts. I could also see it be used to find images that might fit a scene or story students have been working on in order to create a blog or discussion post. For digital citizenship or technology lessons, Flickr could be used to research how the licensing affects the ways that images can and cannot be used.

Collaboration in the school environment or outside of school can help students to develop interpersonal skills as well as 21^st Century Skills. When people are in a successful collaborative environment, they are better able to recognize the weaknesses and strengths of others, to help find problem solutions, be more responsible for their downfalls, be active listeners, and give credit when others contribute. Sharing knowledge or working together in a collaborative environment encourages participants to see multiple perspectives, be a reliable team player, and manage priorities (Doyle, 2020). This collaborative knowledge sharing helps the students to take more ownership of their learning and enables the teacher to switch from a role of knowledge sharer to a facilitator. The teacher can learn from the students’ knowledge sharing to broaden their perspectives and address their own misunderstandings. To utilize time effectively in a collaborative learning environment, students must be willing to use open communication, come together to decide on project strategies and goals, apologize when mistakes are made, acknowledge others’ contributions, and address obstacles cooperatively (Doyle, 2020). Students also reap the benefits of increasing their skills of active listening and communication (nonverbal, written, and verbal) (Doyle, 2020). Students can increase their diversity respect by learning about others religious and ethic backgrounds, learning about their viewpoints, discussing expectations and strengths, and having discussions as a group in an equal way (Doyle, 2020).

Collaborative knowledge sharing helps students to fix misconceptions and rectify misunderstandings. This can be considered a type of peer learning (Cornell University: Center for Teaching Innovation, n.d.). Deeper thinking is developed through peer learning because it is engaging, social, student-owned, and contextual. Students taking an active part in contributing to their learning helps to develop faculty-student interaction, increased student responsibility and self-esteem, higher-level thinking (leadership, verbal communication, and self-management), diverse perspective understanding, and employment and social situations (Cornell University: Center for Teaching Innovation, n.d.).

Doyle, Alison. (26 June 2020). What Are Collaboration Skills? Retrieved on 9 June 2021. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/collaboration-skills-with-examples-2059686

Cornell University: Center for Teaching Innovation. (n.d.). Collaborative Learning. Retrieved on 9 June 2021. https://teaching.cornell.edu/teaching-resources/engaging-students/collaborative-learning

The researchers in this study prefaced the conversation by discussing the amount of people enrolled in some type of online instruction before the pandemic in 2017. 3.1 million college students were fully online out of the 6.6 million college students who were taking courses with online components. On the contrary, 13.1 million students were taking face-to-face classes instead. It was also found that out of all students in undergraduate school in 2019, only 10% were entirely online. Disadvantages of online courses that most people perceive are as follows: learning methods that could be less effective, minimal personal interaction, cheating is difficult to monitor, some courses cannot be taught online as effectively as in-person, and communication skills are not addressed as much. The researchers decided to investigate about the effectiveness of using video discussions in courses that have online components. They state that Flipgrid has many activities it can be used for, such as presentations, discussions, field-based activities, and reflections.

Flipgrid has shown to help increase engagement and community building in the online environment. Flipgrid can help students to learn technical skills (such a video recording and uploading), communication skills, and presentation skills. In addition, usage of this video discussion website resulted in student confidence being increased in a writing course in a study done by McLain in 2018. Language skills can be improved through the use of Flipgrid. Some of these skills are as follows: student confidence, collaboration, pronunciation, and speaking. Connectedness was shown to increase in another study using Flipgrid from 2018 by Bartlett. Students also said that they felt it was “beneficial to their learning” (Carlson et. al., 2020). Of the ten classes and 227 students, 163 filled out the questionnaire sent by the researchers. 21% of the respondents said that something they liked about their online course was that they got to use Flipgrid. Only six students that responded specifically said that they did not like Flipgrid being used in the course.

Carlson, C.D., Keiper, M.C., Lupinek, J.M., & White, A. (22 Oct 2020). Student perceptions on the benefits of Flipgrid in a HyFlex learning environment. Retrieved on 6 June 2021. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08832323.2020.1832431?scroll=top&needAccess=true

A study was done to see how students taking a fully online course viewed the use of Flipgrid. Flipgrid enabled these 79 students to have video discussions asynchronously. Results showed that students felt a greater social presence through video discussions versus text-based discussions and that Flipgrid was simple to figure out. The researchers cite some criticism for text-based discussions in online courses since students can be focused more on the task than sincere communication. It can be difficult to enjoy the interaction when the emotions and cues are taken out of the text conversation. There is also lack of immediate response compared to in-person communication and it can come off as impersonal. If classroom community and social presence are enhanced in online course communication then students are more likely to be successful. The underlying question that these researchers had was if asynchronous video discussion, such as the kind students have on Flipgrid, could help to solve issues that students have in the online environment with discussion that is only text-based. Some research that they came across before their conducting their study showed that students do not prefer text discussion over video discussion. Group cohesion was also found to increase through the feeling of social presence from video discussions. In addition, video discussion can assist teachers with forming meaningful connections with students. Besides Flipgrid, people also use EdConnect, VoiceThread (multimedia), and Marco Polo for asynchronous video discussions. Students have reported back to researchers that using Flipgrid in an online course helped to foster feelings of connection and overall community. Flipgrid can also minimize the effects of isolation felt while taking an online course through connections created and increased engagement. Overall, 75% of students surveyed for the study said that they would likely use this video discussion website if they were teaching. Another result was that 61% of the students stated that they would not prefer text discussions versus video discussions.

Lowenthal, P.R., & Moore., R.L. (2020). Exploring student perceptions of Flipgrid in online courses. Retrieved 6 June 2021. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=stemps_fac_pubs

Flipgrid was acquired by Microsoft in 2018 and is free for teachers to use. Teachers use a specific link to invite students to record a video response (using the Flipgrid video recorder) in their grid. The grid is where the video responses to discussion questions are kept. Collections of topics are called grids and are created by the teacher. Students upload their response and also can comment on others’ video responses through video, too. Students can get notifications when others post into the grid. There is simple navigation. Students can re-record if they do not like their response and can also pause during the middle of recording. Teachers can limit the length of the video responses, too.

Some strengths of Flipgrid were as follows: formative feedback, appeal, tracking, participation, access, compatibility, and convenience. Feedback can be given through video or privately on an email. Students do not view videos as boring compared to reading written discussions. Discussion focus is equal amongst the grid so nobody dominates the conversation. Individual and group participation levels are tracked automatically by the website on the teacher’s account. Students do not need an account to respond. They only need the teacher’s link. Flipgrid is compatible with other platforms so teachers can embed the link directly into their LMS. It is an asynchronous activity so students do not have to be logged in at the same time.

Barriers and weaknesses are as follows: confidence, competitiveness, management of impressions, and equipment. Students could potentially express confidence concerns about not wanting others to see their appearance through the video. Options to “heart” and like videos can leave students in a competitive mode to get the most approval. On the contrary, it could leave students who are not competitive feeling upset from not getting as many likes. Students might voice a popular opinion to be liked instead of saying their true feelings in order to make a good impression on peers. Students need to be able to connect to stable internet and have a device that takes good audio and video recordings. Older technology may present issues for the student.

Stoszkowski, John. (2018). Using Flipgrid to develop social learning. Retrieved on 6 June 2021. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/25368/1/Using%20FlipGrid%20to%20develop%20social%20learning.pdf

• Before teaching Kindergarten Learning Support, I taught K-8th art at a charter school as a long term substitute for a few months following student teaching. I had to student teach four times at the end of undergraduate school in order to earn three certifications (and take seven tests). One of these certifications was in K-12th Art. During this time, one of the projects for 8th graders was a research project (PowerPoint) about a famous artist. I decided to revamp this lesson since my students are too young with not enough skills to do a social bookmarking lesson. I chose this lesson based on what I remembered from the lesson that I did with the 8th graders. I knew that this would be a great lesson to integrate more technology with since they were already researching on the iPads. The students, at that time, had an iPad cart that was shared between the specials teachers.
• The advantage of using technology for various parts of the lesson is that it will make students more engaged in the content since they are having to respond in various ways. Another advantage, specifically about Symbaloo, is that it will help the students to keep their resources all in one spot and it will be easy to access. I had much trouble with students plagiarizing and not citing their source since they forgot to copy and paste the webpage during research. I honestly copied and pasted each slide from all of the PowerPoints with suspicious wording into Google. I want them to use good digital citizenship by quoting who they got the information from.
• The disadvantages of using more technology in this lesson plan is that it may take more time so I added in 1-2 extra weeks just in case. Back then, I was very surprised at how long it took 8th graders to come up with a very short PowerPoint presentation and their lack of knowledge on PowerPoint. This disadvantage is that the other specials teachers may have needed access to the iPads if I kept using them for a longer time period. However, these days many schools have one-to-one technology now so I am anticipating having that for this lesson plan.

In order to find student blogs close to my level of teaching, I did research on various web tools that we were introduced to this week and I used Google. I came across the website “13 Examples Of Great Class Blogs” which is shown below.

On this website, I found an example of 1st grade blogging but the website was taken down so I had to keep looking. Some other early elementary blogs were password protected which is great for the students’ privacy but I was unable to see anything. Then, I came across the link for Amber Moore’s class blog. Her class earned the 2019 Student Blogging Challenge Award. I am sure that she is proud of this accomplishment! The blogs that I looked at were on the page titled “Fifth Grade Champion Learners.”

These can be found at: https://mooreclassmath.edublogs.org/

Upon reading the blogs, I noticed that the teacher must have assigned them an activity based on writing a short story with one hundred words that go along with a picture of a light house. All of the students used creative titles to name their short story and used many descriptive words along with dialogue. I like that you can only see the first name of the student so it protects their privacy.

On the bottom right of her page, you will see a “Blogroll” which lists all of the blogs related to hers, including other student blogs. On the “About Us” tab at the top, you can find out more about this 5th grade class based in Arizona. They have a class Instagram, as well. There were two students who wrote the “About Us” information. A few more students wrote about their favorite things based on various topics (like apps, food, books, hobbies, and etc.).

Post to your blog what impressed you about the project and what you discovered that you could use in your own classroom.

What impressed me about Mrs. Moore’s classroom blog and the 100 Word Challenge posts was that the students were able to have a wider audience but also still have their privacy protected. It is integral that we protect our students’ personal information and keep them safe online when using web technologies, such as blogging websites. What also impressed me was the quality of their short stories and their ability to navigate a blog at such a young age. Although, they have been exposed to more technology than I was at their age in 2005!

Even though I would be unable to have my students blog, I think that students in 1st or 2nd grade would be able to blog in a more simplistic way to match their writing development and technology skills. If I taught older students, my idea would be to have them hand-write a sentence or two as a rough draft then type it into a blog along with a picture. This picture is what they would based their writing off of, similarly to Mrs. Moore’s 5th graders. They could describe the picture in their sentence or come up with a sentence about what they think is happening in the picture.

You can view a particular student’s (Katelyn) post called “The Witches Tower” at: https://mooreclassmath.edublogs.org/2021/05/29/the-witches-tower/

My comment on her post is below:

Hi, Katelyn and Mrs. Moore!
I am a Kindergarten Learning Support Teacher in Pennsylvania. I am researching about student blog examples for elementary school students for one of my college classes. I am working towards earning a Master’s Degree in Online Teaching & Instruction. I have really enjoyed reading all of the 100 Word Challenge posts that you and your class made. You did an excellent job with building suspense, using dialogue, and using a variety of words to convey your short story idea. You definitely should write more and continue your story! Keep writing and working hard! Have a wonderful summer!
From, Ms. D.