Technology Integration Plan

The lesson plan I chose was from my Padlet unit plan and involved reading informational texts and displaying an understanding of what the student read by transforming their knowledge into another medium, kind of like a book report but more creative. The original lesson plan uses a newspaper article as the transforming medium that students use, however for this assignment I chose to change that to a comic strip as I felt it allowed for more creativity and made it more interdisciplinary with the use of art. In addition, the original lesson plans assumes that students already know how to read an informational text critically. However, in my technology integration matrix, I added sections that allowed me to provide that background knowledge to my students to ensure that they knew how to make the most of their reading time, and what to look for while reading.

The first line of my matrix represents the actual reading of the informational text that starts off the entire lesson. While they are reading they are to annotate, such as highlighting, underlining, or taking notes in the margins. For this task, I included the use of Google Spreadsheets giving students the opportunity at the end of their reading to collect all of the notes and highlights that they made in their text into one streamlined, easy to read format. In doing so, the students should also be able to use columns next to their reading notes to jot down inferences they were able to draw from their reading such as connections they may have noticed between characters and other characters or to the larger event, or any other influence they may have concluded on that impacted the event.

The second line of the matrix provides further background information on informational texts. Using a Prezi presentation, I would provide my students with a brief lecture on what distinguishes opinion from facts and how to determine the author's position in relation to the purpose of the text and how it impacts the text overall. I would conclude with an exit card, 3-2-1 activity where I would have students write on a small card 3 instances from their reading where they saw the author provide his point of view, 2 inferences they drew from the reading, and 1 question they still have. This form of assessment would allow me to determine if my students are understanding how to determine when an author is providing their opinion or offering a fact, and telling me how critically they are thinking about the text they read based on the inferences they've made. The question at the end also gives me an opportunity to receive feedback from the students and see if there is any further information that they need to be provided to further understand what they are reading, so in this way this assessment is for me as the teacher too!

The last line of the matrix is the follow up activity. Students will demonstrate here that they understand the events that occur and the characters they are introduced to in their reading by applying it to a completely new medium. In small groups, the students will discuss and create a comic strip using Bitstrips, a website that allows you to create and customize your own comic strips. In this comic strip they will need to identify the characters and events from their readings and portray them in a manner that displays an understanding of how the characters interact with one another and influence the event(s) that take place. In addition, they will create a Word Press blog, as the more formal assessment, to narrate the comic strip and provide background information as to why they chose to portray characters in the manner they did, why the events are depicted in the way they are, and what inferences they made from their reading that have impacted the way that they chose to display any characters or aspects of the event.

Increasing student understanding of informational texts
Standards	Strategies	Technology
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.1 Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text	Annotated Reading (S)	Google Spreadsheet
ISTE-S Research and information fluency
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.6 Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how the author distinguishes his or her position from that of others.	Lecture (T)	Prezi
ISTE-S Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making	3-2-1 (S - A)
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.3 Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events).	Group Discussion (S)	Bitstrips (https://www.bitstrips.com/create/comic/)
ISTE-S Communication and collaboration	Sticky Note Graph (T/S - A)	Word Press Blog

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dT9oapRqLFMw8f1YG5EpR8bbxdLzixKtB641LRPkdXY/edit?usp=sharing

Padlet Unit Plan

Padet Unit Plan

For my unit plan, I chose to review informational texts because they are not only a central part of the NJ Common Core Standards for Language Arts Literacy, but they are also a key part in any kind of future research that a student will need to perform. I tried to construct unit goals that were aimed at answering the essential questions I created for this unit, and the essential questions were formulated by going over the Common Core Standards and understanding what key skills a student should learn in the grade level that I chose. I would like to teach middle school in the future, and my most recent subbing job prior to the start of this project was for a 7th grade teacher, so I had this particular age group fresh in my mind.

The majority of the lessons that I cited in my Padlet are from the ReadWriteThink site by NCTE. This was one of the sites I used to conduct research on lesson plans from Interactivity #3, and it proved to be extremely helpful here as well because the site comes equipped with recommended technologies, websites, and outside research ideas for students. This made it extremely easy for me to find technologies that were student-friendly and creative ways to include them in the lessons. I specifically chose the resources and technologies I did for their ease of use and navigation, and their seamless integration into the lessons.

Adapt Content: Book Creator

Book Creator is a simple, easy to use app that allows you to create your own book, and now with a recent update comic book as well! You can choose for different book shapes, upload your own photos or videos to embed in your book, and show tons of creativity by changing font sizes, colors, types, and all sorts of backgrounds. For my future classroom, students could use Book Creator as a medium for a large project. For example, the assignment could be to choose an independent novel that the student has read and relate it to any of the books read in class up to that point in the year. The students could then use Book Creator to write up their assignment and provide visuals of the two book covers, images of what they think the characters look like, and they can even take advantage of a double page spread to do comparisons! My students could then use platforms like Evernote (which I reviewed previously), to share their books with myself and their classmates.

While this app is free to download, you only get to create one book for free. In-app purchases allow you to upgrade to be able to create more books.

Due to previous criticism about its incompatibility with any platforms other than iOS devices, Book Creator is now also available as an app for Android and Windows devices, meaning it is easier for everyone to have access to this app. The only drawback I see is the sharing capabilities because it requires you to share over another platform which could cause confusion and higher risk for technology to go wrong.

(video presentation of how Book Creator works)

Supporting Instruction with Technology

While searching for lesson plans to use for this assignment I was looking to see if there was anything that resembled an activity that I had previously done in school myself that I enjoyed, or if there was anything that was highly student-centered. This lesson plan fit both of those. I actually remember doing a similar task in middle school, and I liked that it was heavily involved with student-on-student discussion because I feel that, especially for English, less teacher involvement is the best way for kids to share ideas. However, this lesson plan didn't include much use for technology, and was so student-based that I had to add a bit so that the teacher could provide some background knowledge.

I think mindmeister was an incredible tool! Especially for English Language Arts, students could use these maps to organize their ideas and thoughts when drafting papers, or throughout the reading of a novel to organize characters and themes as they arise. The website was incredibly easy to navigate as well, incorporating keyboard functions that eliminated the need to click on common functions, such as pressing "TAB" or "ENTER" to add a new level as opposed to having to click. The only downside for me was in regards to design, it had very few options and lacked bright colors that would have better captured students' attention.

Take Notes: Evernote

Evernote is a free online tool students can use to take notes. Your notes save onto the Evernote cloud so that you can access them at school, home, or anywhere else you may go to study! Evernote allows you to keep everything organized, and even include hyperlinks and graphics. Students can also build check lists that could help them stay organized! With more and more schools investing in personal devices for their students, using Evernote for class notes seems easy. Unfortunately, not all schools are fortunate enough to give each student a device. In addition, having any type of device in a classroom setting could easily become a distraction.



Evernote does have paid services with additional features such as offline access, and password protections across multiple devices.

As a prospective English teacher, Evernote could be a great note-taking tool for my students. I could require them to share their notes with me, so that I can check to make sure they're understanding the major themes and concepts from lessons. In addition, they could share their notes with the peers, like if a student were absent for class one day. They would easily be able to share class notes via email.

History of Technology in English

Mass-production of the pencil in the late 19th century has made a drastic impact on English classrooms everywhere. The pencil allowed all students more portability to write anywhere!

Share Ideas & Opinions: Kidblog

Link: http://kidblog.org/home/

Kidblog is a publishing tool that gives teachers the ability to provide a safe, kid friendly environment for their students to publish online. Teachers can monitor all of their students activity, even comments, and have control over what material goes live and to how wide a range of audience. Students can even send codes to their parents to give them access too! The site even allows other classes to connect with one another! With Google integration, students can also embed Google Docs, Presentations or Drawings to enhance their publishing.

Teachers can start with a free account which gives them basic access to all of the sites features, and allows them to invite or send special "join codes" to up to 40 students per "class". There are two tiers of paid accounts, the "Teacher Premium" and "Admin Pro", which start at $29/year per teacher.

As a prospective English teacher, I can imagine using Kidblog as a great tool for my students to write their impressions and opinions of the books we read in class, and talk to one another about them. One feature of this site that I find most appealing for my future classes is the class connect feature. As a secondary teacher, this would be a great way for me to get all of my students to talk to one another on the same material.

I feel that this site really aims at relieving any technological limitations by creating a very basic, straight-forward interface, allowing all users to navigate the site easily. Since teachers are in the middle of everything that goes on within the class, and there are no ads within the site, I think it makes for a very safe environment as well for students. The only limitations that I see are for other content areas, as in I'm not sure how a math or science class could benefit from a class blog.

Reflection on Influential Technologies

For my three most influential technologies, I chose the three devices that I feel I use the most which are my cell phone, laptop, and Kindle. I use each of these three devices at least once a day and they are essentially built into my daily routines. The first thing I do every morning is grab my cell phone and check it for any notifications that I missed during the night while I was sleeping, like text messages, emails, or Facebook posts. A lot like one of the girls in the video, "Learning to Change, Changing to Learn: Student Voices", I also use my phone to text as communication with my friends much more than just talking. Especially now that my friends are I are living farther apart from one another, than just down the dorm hallway. My laptop gets used on a daily basis as well, to keep up-to-date with social media, random browsing, and currently for school work, and I read on my Kindle every night as I am going to bed. As you can see from the photo I have attached, the area next to where I sleep has been optimized for these technological rituals with my cell phone's charging dock and Kindle stored right next to my pillow.

With my cell phone, information just a few taps away, so whenever I have a question about anything, my first instinct is always to reach for my cell phone to Google search it. In this way, I noticed I have become more interested in how things work, and asked a lot more questions about things that I normally take for granted. For example, the other day while I was sitting in my boyfriend's car a random question came to mind, why are roads made with asphalt when most sidewalks are cement? With a few taps on my phone, I was able to find out that paving a road in cement is much more expensive and takes much longer for curing which means we would have to wait much longer before being able to drive on those roads again. With this ease of access to information, you could even say that I've begun to think in a different way where I question things much more, as the boy at the end of the video describes.

(I am using a generic image of my cell phone because my actual phone's screen is cracked pretty badly.)

My laptop, similarly to my cell phone, has made information much more accessible. However, the main purpose for my laptop has been school, including processing required for this course. My laptop goes nearly everywhere on campus with me in the neat cover that I have for it. In fact, this is my sixth online course that I've taken in my educational career, so having a laptop has definitely impacted the way that I not only learn, but attend classes! I have found that online classes for me have been easier to keep up with, as I can do the work on my own time. It's also been more comfortable because I have access to all of my favorite tools within my laptop as I do my course work. However, I mainly use my laptop for its internet browsing capabilities, especially for online shopping. Especially during my undergrad years where I didn't have a car, the majority of my shopping was done online. I'm also a huge Netflix user, so I use my laptop for streaming shows and movies. I've noticed recently that whenever I'm eating a meal at home, I can't seem to begin eating until I've got my laptop and a show all queued and ready to watch as I eat.

Lastly, my Kindle has dramatically changed the amount and ability to read books! I no longer need large book shelves to store all the books that I read, instead it all gets stored on a single device which saves me tons of space at home. With the expansive library of books available to me on the Kindle bookstore, I don't miss any good book titles and I can even still mark up the text as I need. My Kindle has allowed me to buy books for my classes at a decreased price, and even includes search features in the text so I can find exact quotes in class discussions! One of the students in the video mentions using technology to learn new languages, well with the right book selection, I can read a book to learn to cook something new, to change a fixture in my house, or even how to use technology!

PEW Survey Results: Teachers' Technology Use

Overall, the results from the PEW survey weren't too surprising, especially in regard to the high level of impact technology has had in classrooms given the increased use of technology in the world. As a substitute teacher, the vast majority of the classrooms I've been in are equipped with technology, such as Desktops or Laptops for student use and Smart Boards. My young cousins have even told me about their schools buying iPads and Macbook Airs for every student! Even within my own public school experiences, I always had access to a computer in school, my school offered computer-based classes, and my subject-area teachers would often bring us to the media center or a school computer lab for some classes. Therefore, the PEW survey does an accurate job of showing the level of impact that technology is having in classrooms, despite the disparities that it shows between rural and urban classrooms.

Having been raised in a school culture where mobile phones were not allowed in classrooms, I was surprised by the 73% of teachers that said "they and/or their students use their mobile phones in the classroom or to complete assignments." While I'm not sure if this also includes students using their phones when they aren't supposed to be, it's surprising to see such a high percentage of teachers supposedly using cell phones in the classroom to complete assignments!

Personally, I like to believe that I would rate comparatively to the other "teachers under 35" who are more confident with using new technology. I say this mainly because of my background with technology, and the fact that when I sit down with any new technology I'm usually able to get myself to work it fairly quickly. I also own a smartphone, laptop, tablet, Kindle, and use social networking like many of the other teachers surveyed, and I use technology to stay current about the field.