Social Networking: Algebra 1 Resources Curation

Here is a link to my Algebra 1 Resources curation that includes a variety of resources from articles, to lessons, to online tools that can be used within the Algebra 1 classroom.

http://www.scoop.it/t/algebra-1-pbl-and-inquiry?nosug=1


My self-assessment of my curation is pictured below.

 

Social Networking: Ten Keys to a Positive Digital Footprint

Here is my plan for developing a positive digital footprint and managing your online reputation.

Social Networking: My Digital Footprint (Or Lack Thereof)

I agree that in the world today, digital footprints are pretty much unavoidable. With technology becoming a bigger part of the world, everyone is communicating more and more online. Whether it be for social reasons, school, work, or anything else; almost everyone has some type of digital account. I also remember when I began using social media, being told to be very careful with what the public could see and couldn’t see. I also find myself reminding my students of this daily and how what’s found about them online will affect them the rest of their lives whether it affects them positively or negatively. I believe digital footprints can definitely be used for great reasons, but also how dangerous it can be for some if they are not careful. If you use it the right way, it can positively impact your job for instance versus negative digital footprints keeping you from getting the job you always wanted. Digital footprints are unavoidable, but you can control what type of digital footprint is left for you.

With that said, when I go to look for my digital footprint, I know there won’t be anything that will negatively affect me. As far as my personal accounts go, I am a very private person. However, I know work resources or school resources may be more out in the open. When I google my name, I do not show up on any of the first results pages at all. I believe this is because of the fact that my personal accounts are private. However, I also believe this has a lot to do with what my name is. When searching “Kathleen Johnson”, there a ton of results. Not only does Kathleen seem to be a big hit, but my last name Johnson is an even bigger one. Therefore, I began to make my search a little more specific. After I didn’t come up with anything using just my name, I added Greenville, SC to the end of it. Once I did that, one result of mine was on the first page. It was the link to the mathematics department page for the high school that I work at. After that, there was no more about me under Greenville, SC which isn’t surprising since I’ve only been here for three years. As I added other places I have lived to the end of my name, I found a few more results from posts through my classes at Clemson University to the link to my brother and sister in laws wedding website, but again, not much more.

Overall, I would say my digital footprint is really small. When it comes to my personal life and accounts, I’m completely fine with that. However, I wouldn’t be opposed to my digital footprint growing positively in relation to teaching and education. I think this master’s program and this class more specifically will be a great way to help with that. 

Social Networking: Twitter for Professional Development

This week I chose to follow quite a few hashtags related to teaching and education. I started following #alg1chat, #geomchat, #mathchat, #edchat, #engagechat, #math, #teacherprep, and #putkidsfirst. I chose the math ones because I am a high school math teacher and more specifically, I teach both Algebra 1 and Geometry. I also wanted to follow other educational hashtags that could help give me overall ideas within my classroom and lessons.

Once I started looking into the posts within each hashtag, I immediately started finding a lot of great ideas and resources. Under the #geomchat, I found a great tool that I could incorporate into my dilations lesson to help students understand and also investigate the concept on their own. It was set up on Gizmo and also had a student exploration sheet, answer key, teacher guide, and vocabulary sheet attached. Another great tool I found was under #mathchat. It was a link to an app my students could download through iTunes to help them with their multiplication skills. This may seem too basic when thinking about the fact that I teach high school, but one class that I teach is the slower paced Algebra 1 class for a group of students who still struggle with the foundations such as simple multiplication. So this app could be a great tool to help build their confidence within math in general! I found many more great resources and articles, but the last one I’m going to share with you is one on project based learning that I found under #math. It was a project that used Domino’s pizza to help students understand slope-intercept form. I feel that it is extremely important for math students to truly understand slope, how to write a linear equation, and truly understand what the equation represents. This project really gets into the students fully grasping the concept which is awesome to see.

As far as using Twitter as a “just in time professional development,” I think it is a great idea. I just finished my third year of teaching and with that; I now really want to try more on hands learning with my students. My course load is finally consistent and I’m feeling confident enough to really take my lessons to another level. I really believe that Twitter can and will be a great resource for me with this. It is so true that technology keeps changing so quickly and with that, the access to Twitter can help us as teachers to keep up with those changes close to the same pace (versus the usual professional development within our school districts that is taught the exact same way for years). I’m really excited to continue to grow as a learner and teacher through the usage of Twitter.

Links to the resources I found if interested:

1. Found from #geomchat

https://www.explorelearning.com/index.cfm?method=cResource.dspDetail&ResourceID=182

2. Found from #mathchat

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/multiplication-fun-house/id516649808?mt=8&ls=1

3. Found from #math

http://www.educationink.org/pbl-learning-new-content-with-projects/

Social Networking: Creative Expression of CoPs, Connectivism, and PLNs

The above creative expression is a math problem that solves for the variable L. In the end, you get the math formula that L = I + M + P + R + T + W. As you can see in the picture, it tells you that L represents the learner and all of the variables in the end make up the learner. I thought an equation was a great way to represent the major elements we have discussed. The equation originally needs to be evaluated and solved for L to see the final outcome. Considering how there are a variety of pieces that make up a successful learner using the three main elements we have read about, (communities of practice, connectivism, and personal learning networks), I thought an equation could be the perfect way to represent how all three of those come together to make the individual learner a successful one.

The variables that were used within the equation came from our three main elements: communities of practice (variable X), connectivism (variable Y), and personal learning network (variable Z) as well as some key words that stuck out to me when reading on each of the three main elements. If you look at each main concept alone (X = , Y =, Z =), it’s the learner without all of the elements together so in the beginning, the learner is not fully successful.  It is not until you plug all of the variables in that you can begin to develop the successful learner.The variables M and P were chosen for communities of practice. The variable M represents membership because learners have to take ownership and commitment of being a part of the community and the variable P represent participation because the learner must play an active role and be engaged within the community(Wenger, n.d). The variables T and W were chosen for connectivism because through reading and learning about it, those two words were used throughout articles. As one article stated, the World Wide Web can be used to share and learn from one another using online tools such as email, social media sites, and more (Connectivism, 2015). When reading about personal learning networks, one of the pieces that really stuck out to me was how Carter and Nugent describe the learner as a self-initiated system (represented in the equation by the variable I). It puts the learner in control of initiating their own learning and I think that is a huge element within the personal learning network (Carter & Nugent, 2011). Another piece that really stuck with me about personal learning networks is the multiple resources one can have access to within their network and how the learner can then use those resources to gain knowledge (Neubauer, Hug, Hamon & Stewart, 2011). Resources were represented in the equation by the variable R. In the end, it can be seen that all three elements play a huge role in becoming a successful learner.

Carter, T. J., & Nugent, J. S. (2011). Personal Learning Networks: Implications for Self-Directed Learning in the Digital Age. In Encyclopedia of Information Communication Technologies and Adult Education Integration (pp. 226-240).

CONNECTIVISM (SIEMENS, DOWNES). (2015, June 1). Retrieved June 5, 2017, from https://www.learning-theories.com/connectivism-siemens-downes.html.

Neubauer, B. J., Hug, R. W., Hamon, K. W., & Stewart, S. K. (2011). Using Personal Learning Networks to Leverage Communities of Practice in Public Affairs Education. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 9-25. doi:10.2307/27919545.

Wenger, E. (n.d.). What Are Communities of Practice? Retrieved June 5, 2017, from http://www.ncddr.org/cop/whatiscop.html

Social Networking: Reactions, Experiences and Expectations

I have a few different initial reactions that have taken place since joining these social networks for this course. My first reaction was that I was happy to know how to use two of the social networks pretty well (Facebook and Twitter).  On the other hand though, I’ve never heard of Diigo and I’ve written a few blog posts before but haven’t ever really dived fully into a blog. I’m also really interested to see how we incorporate each of them throughout this course and to gain ideas for inside the classroom.

As far as experience in using social media for my own professional development, I really lack in that area. That is one reason I really chose to take this course.  I do follow a few teacher twitter accounts on my personal twitter that I read posts from and gather some ideas from, but that’s about it on my end. I know this is an area that I could definitely improve on and I’m hoping this course will help me with that.

I therefore also have no experience using social media as an instructional strategy as of now, but would love to incorporate it in the future for sure. Our school has multiple social media accounts for the students and teachers to follow, but I haven’t used any of them individually for my own classroom. I think it’s a great strategy to pull in the students’ interests and could then help the learning environment tremendously so I’m excited to learn ways to do so.

Overall, I would have to say that my expectations for this course are to take away multiple uses for my actual classroom. I would also love to become more comfortable with a variety of social networks so it would make the transition of using it in the classroom more successful for the students.