Reading Reflection: "Fitbit One Teaches Students Benefits of Healthy Living"

In this article the author addresses the idea of using the Fitbit One in a K-12 classroom. Ken Felker used the Fitbit One in his higher education fitness class, and goes on to discuss how it can also be a useful tool in K-12 classes. He discusses how it can help teach students about proper nutrition, and also maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The best part about it though, in my opinion, is that it tracks sleep patterns. Too often I think students don't realize how important sleep is to your nutrition. A good night's sleep can positively affect how well they perform in school, as well as help them make better decisions about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It's also important for parents to also realize the amount of sleep their child is getting. Especially at a young age, while the brain in still developing, sleep is crucial, and parents sometimes need help in realizing this. The Fitbit One gives a good visual representation that sleep is good for a healthy child. It also helps to make the kids responsible in knowing that they need to get more sleep, if they want to be healthy. I think the Fitbit One could be a great tool to help teach students about healthy living early on in their education. The earlier we can show them how to live a healthy life, the better habits they will create. This is a great way to incorporate technology into a subject area where technology would not usually be.

I believe that this article demonstrates standard 3 from the ISTE Standards for Students. Particularly it pertains to standard 3d, "process data and report results" (ISTE Standards for Students, 2008). The Fitbit One allows students to track and record all of their fitness data. This also means that students can report the data acquire through the device, interpret it, and come up with a conclusion about how they can maintain a healthy lifestyle. The Fitbit One allows students to easily record their data using technology. It may not be the typical way to record data and do research, but it gets kids more involved in knowing how they treat their body and what benefits it.

Felker, K. (2013). Fitbit One teaches students benefits of healthy living. Learning & Leading with Technology, 40(6), 32-33.

Reading Reflection: "Blogging in Ancient Rome"

This article is a perfect example of how to integrate multiple subjects using technology. For this assignment students were asked to post on a blog by pretending to be the characters in a book they were reading in their Latin class. Along with Latin, the students worked on this blog in their history and literature classes. Each student was assigned a character, with the stronger writers having the lesser role,s so they can expand their imagination and writing, and the weaker writers with the main character roles. Each role was set at the writing level of the student so that they were not discouraged from participating. The students were asked to give thoughtful blog comments to the biographical posts of the others. In the beginning of the assignment the comments failed to be thoughtful and were quite vague, but toward the end, and with some help of the teachers, the comments became more thoughtful and detailed. To integrate history the students were asked to study the culture of the book, which was set in Ancient Rome, and use that knowledge in their posts and comments. The students became actively involved in their learning, and toward the end the authors said the students were participating for the fun of it and not just for a grade.

I think this is a great idea to get students actively learning in our classrooms. Studies show that students learn and retain more when they are actively engaged in their learning, instead of just listening to a lecture. What does this mean for technology and education? Like the example from the article,  technology has given teachers a variety of ways to integrate subjects to get kids involved, as well as given educators access to new forms of activities to be done in the classroom to help promote learning. I believe the students from this article learned a lot more than their peers who just listened to lecture. Especially with subjects like history, where most kids find the subject to be not enjoyable, I think it is up to teachers to show students how fun it can be to learn and ways they can apply the knowledge they are acquiring. Although the students may not realize it, through this process they learned great writing strategies as well as conflict resolution strategies, all of which are beneficial in the real world. With the use of technology in the classroom, educators can have a better opportunity of achieving this with today's generation of students.

I believe this assignment represents standard 1 of the ISTE Standards for Students, which involves creativity and innovation. Particularly I think it shows standard 1c, "use models and simulations to explore complex systems and issues" (ISTE Standards for Students, 2008). I believe it follows this standard because it demonstrates the students using the blog to solve the problems provided through the history and culture of Ancient Rome. The students use technology to explore the issues during that time, while being actively involved in that process. Therefore, the students are portraying fluency in standard 1c of the ISTE Standards for Students.

Barrett, J., & Goldsby, C. D. (2013). Blogging in Ancient Rome. Learning & Leading with Technology, 41(3), 34-35.

Creating a Personal Learning Network

I was a little hesitant about creating a Personal Learning Network because I did not think I would find it helpful to my teaching or classroom. After further investigation, I discovered that having a PLN could be extremely helpful to me, as long as I allowed it.

I have had a Twitter account for a long time, but have never thought to use it to gain access to other educators, blogs, articles, data, etc. I began my educational twitter account by following educational magazines or websites, like TED Talks or Huffington Post. I then decided to find some popular educators because I felt I could learn more from them. I first began by following the creator of Classroom 2.0, Steve Hargadon, since I knew his Twitter account name. I then looked at his followers and found, Nicholas Provenzano and Erin Klein. They are both well-respected educators and are supporters of technology in the classroom. I was able to learn a lot from them about ways to get your students engaged by using technology in the classroom. I only tweeted a couple of tweets, but was surprised that other educators favorited my tweets. It was interesting to see how using hashtags in my posts sent my thoughts out to a large audience of people, and getting a somewhat response from them. Although I did not have any twitter conversations with someone, I still felt connected to the other educators on the site.

I used my twitter account to sign up and make a Feedly account. From there I was able to access any blogs made by the educators or websites I follow on twitter.  I followed Erin Klein’s blog, Nicholas Provenzano’s blog, TED Talks videos, Education Week, and Education- Huffington Post. Just to name a few I enjoyed looking at. I thought it was a great site that I could use to access all the articles and blog post I want to read in one place. It is nice to be able to see all the different perspectives of what people think about certain topics, and also gain new ideas and inspiration from the different articles. I think I will continue to use Feedly in order to keep myself connected to the educational news of the world and ways to inspire myself and help inspire my students. 

I joined Classroom 2.0 which is a website used to help educators interact with each other, ask questions, share blog posts and articles, and in general help each other become better educators using technology. I was able to read a lot of great articles, blog posts, and discussion forums pertaining to a variety of things but specifically to technology in education. I joined a discussion forum dedicated to elementary school teachers and found many great ideas to use in my future classroom. I found an article through that forum discussing how to use your SMARTboard to its’ best potential. Also, I was able to find a great post about how to integrate timelines into a CCSS classroom.

Overall, my PLN experience was a good one, although it did not come without any difficulties. At first it was extremely difficult for myself to navigate through some of the sites, like the Ning group and Feedly. After I got the hang of the websites it became easier to find what I was looking for, and to navigate around the site. In my opinion, I think Feedly would be a better resource to use than Twitter and Classroom 2.0 because it is easier to access exactly what you are looking for. Although I would not object to using Twitter for instant access to data, or Classroom 2.0 for advice from other educators. I think PLNs can help teachers by staying up to date with material, and constantly finding new ideas to incorporate. There are many creative and seasoned educators around the world that we can all learn from, and PLNs give me the opportunity to learn from someone I would not normally have the opportunity to learn from.

Here is my badge from the Ning group!


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