Jim's USF Tech Cert Blog

Artifact #2 Hello Class, For my second Artifact I chose to discuss our module 2 assignment on technology Leadership.  I chose to write a piece on the benefits and challenges of implementing the use of social media in the classroom.  I feel like this was a really authentic assignment for me because I am implementing social media in my classroom a lot this year do to this being our first year of 1:1 instruction.  There are many benefits to utilizing social media in the classroom, but there are equally if not more pitfalls that come with social media in a classroom setting. One obstacle that technology leaders must address when using social technology as a means of delivering or sharing lessons is the ethical dilemmas that may present themselves. This is why as a technology leader I feel teaching digital citizenship is an important part of any classroom that utilizes social technology.   Students are growing up in a world that plays out on social media, but code...

Artifact #1: Hello Class, For my first artifact, I decided to review my experience with the Instructional Technology Plan that we worked on for the majority of the semester.  Since this assignment encompassed the majority of our work from the class, as well as the assignment I learned the most from, I decided it was the best to review. As I mentioned in my video review of my plan, it was really powerful to look at technology from an IT perspective or from an administrators point of view.  As a teacher, I feel that I have only focused on the use in the classroom, but there is a lot more that goes into obtaining, maintaining, and properly using technology in a school setting.  I learned a lot about how to obtain new technology, important protocols for maintaining building technology and also the disposal of damaged or out of date technology.  But, the most applicable learning that took place was learning that when making technology decisions for the classroom, ...

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 classroom...

Link to Full Plan: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f3wIi7dSBiWEuJgOoqxYaX7bvel6oBNs/view?usp=sharing Thanks, Jim Nielsen

Hello Class, For this Module we were to reflect on the semester and discuss our opinion on what are the most important criteria to consider when managing educational technology services.  We have learned a lot this year on a topic I really never considered before, the administration and IT side of technology in the classroom.  The following is my ranking of the top 3 criteria to consider when managing educational technology. Successes: When ever you have an end goal in mind with anything in life, I think it is critical to look at what will be accomplished and how will that strengthen you or the program involved.  Also, I think it is important to look at what went well when reviewing goals in life as well.  That is why I chose SUCCESSES as my number one criteria for managing educational technology.  Not just as a review, but also as a look into the future.  What successes do I see the students, teachers, administrators, and community having by implemen...

ELL Support Using Technology Hello Class, Teaching co-taught biology I focus a lot of my differentiation on students with IEP's and 504's. Especially because we have a separate ELL biology class at our school.  Since our school is made up of students from the Aurora-Naperville area, we have a lot of students who don't speak English as their native language.  Our Spanish-Speaking population is very high, and because of job transfers to the Naperville area, we have 12 different languages as primary languages in our school.  Although the language of biology is a foreign language to almost all freshmen, it is important to differentiate the material to help out those students that don't speak English as their primary language.  Using technology to do this makes sense, as it provides lots of opportunities to work with the material inside and outside of class.  The article,  The Impact of Using Technology in Teaching English as a Second Language, brings up a...

Impact of FERPA on Educational Technology Services Hello Class, After reading a few of the articles and watching the youtube video, I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on FERPA and where it has benefited student's privacy and also where it has been abused.  I think in general, FERPA not only means well but successfully protects students private records.  In a time when anything is available at the touch of a button, and data hacks and profiles are being leaked all the time, I think it is critical that we protect student's private information.  Personally, I find it crazy that every time I log into my computer, the computer seems to know more about me in the form of ads and websites that the web thinks I would like.  I also think we need to make sure we don't create extra hurdles for parents, or students, to access their information easily.  This can create a "catch 22" because we need to have strict regulations, but also easy access for the students a...