EDIM 514 Photo-A-Day_Day 5

Friday was race day! The students cars levitate due to the repulsion of the magnetic field on the bottom of their car and the track. Electricity is sent through the aluminum walls of the track, and up through the wires that they soldered onto their motors. The motor spins, causing the fan blade to spin.

EDIM 514 Photo-A-Day_Day 4

On Thursday my 9th grade engineering students finished making their Magnetically Levitating Cars. Ironic this student's car is a space ship because it flies like one. Interested to see how it does in the tournament tomorrow.

EDIM 514 Photo-A-Day_Day 3

On Wedensday, I finally hung my graphics design student's introductory Puzzle Piece Design Challenge project. If you can't see what it is a large puzzle. The students were tasked with designing their puzzle piece with their interests and hobbies. They were also tasked with working with the other two students that connect to their piece finding either a common interest / hobby or a design element. The middle is currently blank because I haven't hung up the class banner yet. Also, giving students the middle pieces would make it unfair for some students because they would have to work with 4 people.

EDIM 514 Photo-A-Day_Day 2

I was forced to switch classrooms over the summer. At some point over the summer the chiller in the AC unit in the ceiling broke. Water spilled everywhere and the humidity in my room rusted / potentially ruin a bunch of equipment. On Tuesday I tried 3D printing my student's project. Unless you think their project was to design plastic spaghetti, you can see the humidity took its toll on my 3D printer.

EDIM 514 Photo-A-Day_Day 1

On Monday, over 400+ teachers, family member, and friends all wore red to show unity while attending the school board meeting due to our unsettled contract.

EDIM 514 Week 4_Digital Story Created With a Cell Phone

In this week's larger assignment, we were tasked to create a digital story all with our phone. I use my phone for a lot of things, but I knew this was going to be a challenge because I am a perfectionist at times. Well this week became way too busy way too fast, so I didn't get to do this project earlier than today. On my travels home this morning from camping, my wife decided to drive so I could work on this assignment. Seeing that the assignment had to be done all on a cell phone, it actually worked out well.

I started by finding an easy video creator online though my mobile internet access. Once I found one, I looked through my Facebook account and found a few pictures I wanted to use. Then I opened a Google Doc and wrote a small speech. Next, I uploaded the pictures into the timeline on the video creator and conducted a voice overview. I did some last second tweaks of how long the pictures lasted and the video was created.

Click here if the below video does not work!

EDIM 514 Week 4_Mobiles in the Classroom Interview

This week's topic of discussion was on cell phones in the classroom. Weather cell phones are a good thing for education or they aren't. After discussing this through our discussion board, my discussion thread came to consensus that cell phones are amazing tools that can be used in the classroom, but also can be a nuisance. This is definitely true. Sometimes they are more of a distraction than a tools for success. With every situation / classroom comes different needs and supplements. If its not for you or that activity, don't use them. If it makes teaching / learning more efficient, engaging, and collaborative then use them.

Next, we were assigned a small activity on this same topic. We were posed with finding an educator whom uses mobile devices in the classroom and interview them. The person I chose to interview was my brother who also teaches Tech. Ed., but in another district than me. I chose to interview him because his district is very strict on policies that involve mobile devices, and I thought it would be funny to see his perspective on it.

The first question I asked him was to explain his school policy on the topic of cell phones in the classroom. He stated:

"My school tries to be up to date with technology, but struggles with their connection to how things really work. The policy used to be that cell phones were not acceptable to have on themselves unless they were off and in a bag. If they were seen out in plain sight without informing or asking the teacher first, the teacher could confiscate it. The teacher would then have to write the student up and tell them to pick up the phone at the end of the day in the office. Now that the school has tried to adopt the technology as a teaching tool, the policy has slightly changed to allowing the students to have their cell phones with them as long as they are on silent and are not using them unless the teacher says so. The confiscating policy is still in effect."

When I asked him about how the community (parents and guardians) felt about the policy change, he stated:

"The community was actually OK with the change. The school was smart before changing the policy. They sent out a community poll to see their feelings on the possible policy change. The results were overwhelmingly positive for it. I think this had to do with an article that was posted on the front page of the newspaper the week before about how a teacher in a neighboring district has changed the atmosphere within his classroom by utilizing cell phones as a powerful tool. Once the positive results came back, the school held a board meeting to address the topic once again and anyone in the community could voice their opinion at."

Last but not least, I asked him about the technology / education change / challenges he has encountered since the change. He stated:

"The biggest problem I have encountered so far is that the school does not have a guest network that the students can use. The network that is available is blocked with a private IT password. Also the signal strength of most cell phone's mobile access in our building is very bad. Its so spotty throughout the building that some students hold the phone out the classroom window to upload something. Until IT creates a guest network, the student's cell phones are basically only being used as a camera, video recorder, calculator, or notepad; all of which I already have in my classroom. Not being able to use it as instructed angers the students, and then they just wind up playing games on them until you see they aren't actually on task but instead playing games. When you ask why or yell at them they blame it on not having internet access, which is a good explanation. Most teachers have complained and then gave up. It almost seems like the school has created the policy change to say to the public that they are allowing cell phones like the other districts are, but yet know they don't work within the building anyways. To say the least, its frustrating!"

After that conversation I could tell he was done with the interview because he spent enough time getting angry just thinking about it. I still appreciated his input and it made me much happier to be in a district that 100% supports technology at its best.