Reflection on the past few weeks:

I’ve been rocking through the Leading Edge Certification process the past three weeks. The first module since my last reflection was the Collaborative Tools module. We used probably the biggest collaborative tool in my 5th grade classroom, Google Slides, to share some of our favorites. Here is a link to check it out. I shared Padlet, which gives students a space to share their thinking with one another–most importantly it gives all students a voice. A tool that I took away from one of my cohort members was Seesaw: a free, easy to use ePortfolio service. Awesome! I’ve been looking for one. I’m going to try it out with my 5th graders this year and see how it goes.

The second week, we were tasked with coming up with a discussion prompt for students, guidelines for students on how to response and when to respond to their classmates, and a rubric on how they would be scored. I chose a 9/11 themed discussion that would be suitable for 5th-8th grade students. Check out the assignment here and feel free to steal/borrow anything you see.

This past week I was asked to create a video that could be used in class, make sure it was closed-captioned correctly, and provide a script. I decided to make a video for the parents of my 5th grade class. It shows the connection between “old-style math” and the common core. I felt this was well-worth my time. The entire module was truly eye-opening when it came to making sure your website was accessible for all people. I learned about alt text for images–so that web readers can tell someone who has sight issues what pictures are on the page. I also learned about the importance of using Headers correctly for web readers, including a Site Map on a website,  and providing transcripts of videos. Here is a link to my closed-captioned video–and my transcript is here.

Google+:

I haven’t been sharing and articles, but I have been discussing ones that have been posted to our Google+ community.

This was a great article posted by Jennifer Diaz. The current module, Online Learning and Accessibility, does a good job in hitting most of the ten guidelines in making your website for accessible. It included alt text for images, closed captioning for videos, using headers properly, and providing transcripts. The article also mentioned the importance of a Site Map–something I have always overlooked and never really knew what the feature was for. This entire week as been eye-opening. It only takes a few extra minutes to truly make a website accessible for almost all people. To be honest, I had never given this much thought until this module.

Project Status:

I have not created a website template yet, but that is next. I think that the KC Ed Collective will get my full attention once EVERYTHING is completed in the certificate program. I really want to create, or help organize, a Kings County Ed Tech Day–setup like a mini CUE Rock Star where teachers can share what they are doing in their classrooms. I know my Superintendent would fully support this happening at my school site.

Elective Status:

I’m waiting until after Mobile Technologies to finish my final two electives: Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing.