Jim's USF Tech Cert Blog

Hello class, When choosing a collaborative web tool to review last week, the biggest criteria it had to meet was could I actually use it in the classroom.  One of the tools I reviewed cleared that criteria, so I was happy to get the chance to look further into the tool with our discussion this week.  The tool I decided to deliver lessons in the classroom is called Edmodo.   The web tool describes itself as a "safe and easy way to get your students connected so they can safely collaborate, get and stay organized, access assignments and grades, post videos, and stimulate creative thinking."  Wow, sounds like a pretty powerful tool, that definitely had 21 st century learning in mind during development.  I quickly set up a free profile, and made a “biology class” page for my students.  I decided to try a few things that I currently use google communities for like posting videos, assignments, and starting a discussion.  Unfortunately, I can onl...

Hello class, Although I have been using digital tools in the classroom since I begun teaching 12 years ago, this year it has ramped up to a new level due to our school going to 1:1 instruction.  Our students having chrome books is an incredible opportunity to introduce more tech in the classroom, but also added another responsibility on the teacher's plate to make sure the technology fits, engages and supports the curriculum.  Simply put, I work hard to make sure I'm not just using the computer to use the computer.  I don't want to just put my paper worksheets online, but rather use technology to enhance the curriculum and engage the students in the lesson material.  Because of that, these are the  3 criteria I feel are important for teachers to consider when evaluating which tool to use to enhance their existing curriculum.  The first criteria I look at when choosing which tech resources I want to use in class is how ENGAGING the technology is for ...

EEND 675 Artifact 2 Jim Nielsen The second artifact that I am going to discuss was my favorite piece I created for this entire course.  The website was suggested to us by our instructor as a really good blend space, something that I have never heard of before.  Hyper-docs have become really popular in our district and I see teachers using them all the time.  Personally, I never really understood why hyper-docs where that interesting and I honestly thought they were just a glorified listing of websites.  That is why I am so excited that I was introduced to the website www.tes.com/lessons.  So excited that I have already hosted a PLC "training" on the website and have multiple other teachers using the website for their classes now.  Again, it really is awesome that we are learning about technology tools that we can actually apply in our classroom. The blend splace, tes.com/lessons, is really a supped up version of a hyper-doc.  But it is so much mor...

EEND 675 Artifact #1:  Jim Nielsen For module 7 in our Foundations for Educational Technology Course, we had the opportunity to create a new project that would engage students in creative learning using technology.  I chose to use an online program called Pixton to assign students a 9 part comic strip detailing an environmental concern.  This creative project will be used in my 9 th grade co-taught Biology class.  I will use this to engage students in a creative writing assignment for our Ecology unit at the end of first semester.  It is an adaptation of a previous assignment in which I assigned the students to create a letter.   I may still give students that option, and add this as another creative option to accomplish the same goals.  By giving them multiple creative writing options I hope to encourage flexible thinking, one of the best practices for developing creative thinking that we learned this week.   This project wa...

Hello Class, I've actually thought a lot about the topic presented to us for this module.  I teach co-taught 9th grade biology and group work is a huge part of our curriculum.  In fact, we have always done a lot of collaborative work in the classroom, but really have just begun to experiment with tech based collaboration.  I think that although the content drives the course, teaching students to be productive members in society is possibly an even bigger job for the classroom teacher.  A big part of being an educated, productive member of society is the ability to work well collaboratively with others.  Group projects and labs add a lot to our classroom experience, but also create a lot of problems as well.  Especially when it comes to fairness, grading, and cyber ethics. Recently, this has been magnified with the introduction of technology in the classroom.  Students have so much more to work with and the projects have evolved to become much stro...

Hello class, As I mentioned before, I teach co-taught biology 3 periods of the day.  In any given classroom I could have as many as 15/30 students with IEP's plus a handful of 504's and ELL/ESL students.  Differentiating the lesson is a requirement almost every day because my classroom is so diverse as far as learning levels go.  In fact, some of my students read at a 3rd grade level while others will move on to honors or AP classes as a freshmen.  Although most of the differentiating we do is with the delivery, or modifying labs, assignments, or assessments, I recently began using google screencastify as a means of differentiating my lectures for notes.  Because of the timeframe of the 45 minute period, sometimes I move faster than some students in the classroom can keep up, even with their modified, fill in the blank notes.  Other times, students could use more exposure to the material before they attempt a lab or assignment.  In order to prov...

Hello class, My name is Jim Nielsen and I teach Biology and Anatomy at Waubonsie Valley High School. Teaching was a 3rd career change for me as I worked previously as a zookeeper at Brookfield Zoo, and did medical research at University of Chicago for 5 years as well.  I am currently in my 12th year of teaching and truly get excited to come to work everyday and spend time talking about the study of Life with young adults.  The two courses I teach are extremely diverse in learning levels as I teach freshman co-taught biology and Senior Anatomy.  It really creates a fun challenge to create material that works for all learning levels.  Because of this challenge, and our districts move to 1:1 instruction next year, I decided to enroll in the Educational Technology courses at St. Francis.  This is my 3rd course at St. Francis, and my favorite aspect so far is that I am actually able to utilize many of the lessons in class. When students leave my classro...

Hello class, This week's assignment was to come up with two practices we could use in class in to inspire creative thinking using technology.  I teach 9th grade co-taught biology as well as senior anatomy.  I decided to again focus on biology because of the diversity of learners in the classroom.  There were many great resources to pick from, and I look forward to implementing a few of them in the class this year.   The first link I clicked on drew me in because our school uses google Chromebooks.  It was called "4 Chrome Apps for Student Creation".  The first chrome app that was mentioned is WeVideo, which is an amazing app.  Since I have already used WeVideo a lot in class, and even wrote about it for this class I decided to talk about another app featured in the article called Scoot and Doodle.  Scoot and Doodle is a free Chrome app that can easily be added to your chrome browser tool bar.  Right away I saw many ways to apply it...