This week's question is "Can I Integrate Mobile Technology into My Educational Setting?"  Type a blog post that describes...

• your thoughts on integrating mobile technology and how they may have changed during this class,
• your thoughts on whether or not ED 610 has been helpful for you, and
• your thoughts on topics that should or should not have been included in ED 610.

This class has opened a whole new world for me in terms of integrating mobile technology into my classroom! It has opened my eyes to the vast amount of educational, productivity, and presentation apps available for my use. Five weeks ago, I said this in my first post: "I hope to learn how to more effectively use my iPad for educational purposes. I hope to become aware of other forms of mobile technology that can be integrated in a kindergarten classroom. I would like to see how other teachers use these forms of technology in their classroom, discover new apps to use, and further branch out into other such realms." I feel like I have indeed learned how to more effectively use my iPad in my kindergarten classroom. In fact, just yesterday I met with a fellow kindergarten teacher who said she was tired of doing the "All About Me" beginning of the year project the same way she has done for years and wanted something new. I jumped at the opportunity to tell her of my final project for this class and the plans I have to help the students create such a presentation about themselves. She really liked the idea and will probably do it with her class, too. We also talked about the Listen to Reading component of the Daily 5, and I showed her the myriad of books I have on my iPad for my students to read. She was impressed that listening to reading can happen outside of a CD/tape player and headphones. We talked about me writing a grant to get more iPads in my classroom to further learning. There are so many other ways I can integrate mobile technology with my kindergarteners, and I feel like this class has provided me with many tools and references to use as I embark on this journey.

Through this class, I have greatly enjoyed participating in the App of the Week discussions, reading other teachers' blogs, and learning how they use technology in their own classrooms. I have discovered many more apps to use myself, or ones that I can pass on to my colleagues. Thanks to everyone who has shared and participated - I have learned a lot! For that reason, I can definitely say that ED 610 has been extremely helpful to me, as well as a class that I thoroughly enjoyed. It is my third online class I've taken (I have one more during Summer 3), and it is my favorite online class that I've taken. It is one of my favorite grad classes; my other favorite one was with Dr. Smith (can't remember the course name, but we were outdoors a lot learning about different flowers and plants.) I believe the set-up of this class is how online classes should be. The instructor was a fabulous facilitator and I learned so much from the other people enrolled in the class as well as my own exploration. I hope that I somehow still have access to things after this class ends, or else I'm going to have to start making lists and bookmarking web pages pretty quickly!

With ED 610 being only five weeks long, a lot was jammed into our time together. I felt that there was a good balance of topics in the class. I especially enjoyed learning about the presentation apps, since I didn't even know things like that existed! That was definitely my favorite part. I also liked how we were able to create our first presentation on anything. That made it easier, being the first time I ever did anything like this. I am glad that our final project is supposed to be something useful for classroom use. I am excited to use what I've learned!

My five year old Stephen brought me the book The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse today. He told me he could read it. After he did it once, we used Doceri on my iPad to take pictures of the pages and record him reading it. Click to hear him reading this story! I think it takes Windows Media Player to work. Enjoy! :)

This week's question is "Are There Educational Apps For My Learners?"  Type a blog post that describes...

• your prior experiences with mobile tools that help your learners,
• your thoughts about learners using mobile devices in the classroom
  

My whole world opened up to mobile devices this past school year when I received a school-issued iPad...it was like the skies parted and heavenly voices began to sing! The original purpose of these iPads was to be able to do DIBELS assessments on our students, sync them to mClass, and have access to all of the included mClass tools. (DIBELS, for those of you who don't know, means Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills...letter naming fluency, nonsense word fluency, reading comprehension, etc.) But our principal also generously gave each of us an iTunes gift card with instructions to look for apps that we could use in our classrooms. Wowsers! Thankfully there are PLENTY of free apps, but I did use that iTunes card to judiciously purchase some apps (and believe it or not, there is still about $4 credit on it!). Once the iPads entered our world, many of us really went to work looking for the best apps for our kiddos. We had "Constructive Coffees" once a month where different teachers would present on different topics, and quite a few of these topics centered around the iPads. We had Tech Tuesdays where we could go hang out with the tech people and enhance our knowledge of technological devices. Through all this, I became a firm believer that mobile tools can definitely help learners. Of course, there are always drawbacks...like the fact that I just had ONE iPad and a class of 22...but I still found creative ways to use it. I had no projector or SmartBoard or anything yet, and I was still in 4th grade. This upcoming year I will have a projector with a SmartBoard and will now be in kindergarten...lots of changes over the course of one year. Last year, my 4th graders were encouraged to bring their own devices to school on the day they had Computer class. At the end of class, the teacher let them work with their own devices. Not everyone had one to bring, but he had extras on hand for individuals or groups to borrow...and the kids LOVED that. During recess, if we were indoors due to weather, I let them on their devices on that day only. Granted, at that time they just wanted to play Minecraft and had to be encouraged to do something educational...but then, even the educational things sometimes just seemed like fun to them! I had a student last year who was allowed to have 10 minutes at the end of the day to play on my iPad if he had a good day. Talk about motivation! And I made sure I had plenty of educational apps on there for him to use. When we were talking about glaciers, erratics, and glacial grooves in science class, I looked up images of those and passed the iPad around the class. I'm looking forward to being able to do much more this year with the projector and SmartBoard. But with moving to kindergarten this year come other challenges...like NOW how do I use the iPad effectively? One way that I'm looking at involves using it during The Daily Five. As their website says, "The Daily 5™ is a series of literacy tasks which students complete daily while the teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals. The Daily Five involves five aspects of literacy- Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and Word Work. Now, I've never used The Daily Five before, but the teachers at my school who use it just love it! I have the book (on my Kindle on my iPad of course) and am working through it. But back to how the iPad can be used...throughout the summer, I have been working on finding books (preferably free) that can be used during the Listen to Reading section and I've been putting them on my iPad. Currently I have 39, and that doesn't count the individual books under some apps like Booksy, Reading Rainbow, and Stella & Sam. My five year old has been kid-testing them, and he just loves listening to the books being read to him! He comes and tells me interesting facts that he's learned, and when I ask him where he learned it, he tells me that he read it on my iPad! Although someone else is reading it to him, he links that idea to HIM reading...and I like that very much. Now, at the moment, I still just have one iPad, but it could be used for a small group of children at a time. Plus I know there are ways to write grants, etc. and get more iPads or other devices. I will need to work on that. But what I do know is this - students as young as five years old can and do use mobile devices, such as iPads, to learn in the classroom. All we have to do is be the facilitators of this learning, and a whole world can then open up to them as well.

Last night, while peeling potatoes for supper, I had an epiphany pertaining to productivity. I propose that perhaps productivity pertains to that which simplifies things...for me. See, for me, I am not into keeping up with the latest this-or-that. I only just got facebook and email on my phone...before this, I hardly touched those modes of communication unless I was told to check it. But I have plenty of other things that demand my time and attention, and whatever makes my life easier can then be defined as productivity for me. Like I said in my previous post, I think that productivity has a lot more to do with organization than I had ever thought before.
So when it comes to increasing my productivity, here is what I've come up with:

1. Continue to work with Evernote to make it work for me. Get it on all devices and figure out a way so there's enough space on my phone. (Stinkin' phone comes pre-loaded with stuff I don't even care about - Madden11? Really? And I can't delete them. Grr.)
2. Install Grocery Smart app on my phone to help me make my lists.
3. Continue using Google Calendar which I have synced with my school calendar and husband's calendar and am able to access on all devices.
4. Actually use the exercise apps I've put on my iPad - I'm considering these productivity apps because they make my life easier. I don't feel like wasting time waiting 5+ minutes for the DVD to load and go through all the stuff it has to go through and I can't skip over no matter how hard I try so that once it finally gets to the exercise part I've lost my motivation....can you sense my frustration??? :) So exercise apps can do the trick.
5. Continue using DailyBible app on my phone - gives verse of the day and readings for the day...keeps me focused in the midst of my chaos and I can read it anytime, anywhere.
6. Look into the apps discussed in this week's module, specifically the ones that collect education apps for you in a specific spot. I put ---APPitic, Google Play, IEAR, Wired Educator, and Learning In Hand on my iPad, but the ones that I'm leaning toward are really just APPitic and . For me, too much attempts at productivity actually ends up being counter-productive. So a few simple, key places to go to will work wonders.
7. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Want a dinner menu? There's an app for that. Want materials for kindergarten? Teachers Pay Teachers is a great site. Want already made, fabulous presentations that teach exactly what you're trying to teach? Nearpod, Educreations, and the like have plenty. So don't reinvent the wheel...do a little looking around and see what there is out there, because if I can't find it, it probably just means I haven't looked far enough. That goes for both my personal and professional lives.

This week's question is "Can I use mobile devices to be more productive?"  Type a blog post that describes...

• your prior experiences with mobile productivity tools,
• how you think you may increase your productivity as a result of this module,
• your thoughts on using these productivity tools in educational settings.

When I think of mobile productivity tools, I think of apps like Primo Do, a list-making app for the iPad that I mentioned in my discussion for a previous week. The only reason I link that app to productivity is that's how it's categorized in the app store: Productivity. And it did help me be more productive, especially when I was feeling overwhelmed with everything I had to do last school year. But my thoughts of mobile productivity tools don't go much further than that. When I initially looked through everything for Module #3, I was surprised to see apps like Dropbbox or GoogleDrive listed under Productivity...I guess because I never really considered them as helping me be more productive. It was more like being more organized, or more focused when searching for apps. But when it all comes around, I suppose organization and focus can be ways to help a person be more productive.

Perhaps that's the first way I may increase my productivity as a result of this module - changing the way I view mobile productivity apps, branching out and broadening my horizons. Other ways remain to be seen. I will come back to this later on in the week.

Using these tools in educational settings has huge implications. We all have so much to do, and so little time in which to do it. We are bombarded with meetings, paperwork, assessments to do, lesson plans to turn in, and every other item that corresponds to teaching - anything that can help us be more productive can only be positive, provided it's used correctly and does not overwhelm the individual trying to me more productive. I say that because after looking through this week's module, I truthfully did feel overwhelmed and not as comfortable with the content as I had the past two weeks. There seemed to be so many avenues from which to choose, so many directions that I could turn...and it was a bit overwhelming...to the point where I took a couple days off just to process what I had learned.

But I digress. I am going to post this...and continue on my quest to be more productive. I will come back to let you know what I've learned. Hasta luego.

Mobile camera apps...still looking for something I like. Tried Little Photo as well as some app that was meant to create collages. Little Photo is promising and I need to work with it more, but that other app was garbage. I tried four times to make it work, with four different pics, and four different collage options...and it shut down each time. Promptly deleted that app. Don't even remember what it was called. Sorry! About Little Photo, what I'm learning is that I need to put that as a widget on my phone's home screen instead of the regular camera. But the thing is, all those effects that can be chosen...not many appeal to me. I'd just as soon have regular coloring, clear pics, etc. The only thing I would maybe want to alter would be borders or something like that. In other words, I'm still playing with it.

Image hosting sites...I think Flickr is the one for me. I can get it on both my Android phone and iPad. Uploading is easy, and the site seems easy to navigate. The only problem I've encountered so far is that I could not upload pics from my phone without it crashing. Not good, since that is where I take most of my pics. But on the plus side, this site could save my family the continual hassle of deciding how to share pictures. We've tried facebook, but not everyone is on there or wants their pictures on it. My dad likes to transfer  pics from his new iPhone onto his desktop and then burn them to CD, which then just leaves me with a bunch of CDs. So I plan on playing around a bit more with Flickr to see how it works and then introduce it to the family.

Mobile presentation apps...I installed Doceri, Educreations, Nearpod, and Prezi on my iPad with plans to look closely at each of them. Those were the ones that stood out to me the most. I ended up using Doceri because it seemed the easiest to utilize. Educreations was a close second for this presentation, especially since I received personal email correspondence from people who created Educreations. Nearpod was awesome...and I can see using it in the school setting easily. I especially liked how you can use other people's presentations as well and that they are organized by age levels. Prezi didn't impress me too much, and I will most likely never use it. I am glad that I am now aware of and familiar with these mobile presentation apps. Thanks, ED 610!

Finally, using these devices in educational settings...because after all, that's the real reason we need to become better acquainted with everything, right? Well, once upon a time in my school, each grade level had a Grade Level Camera...a big ol' thing that was complicated to operate. If we wanted to take pics, we had to borrow it from whichever teacher had it, hoping that someone recharged the battery or had one on standby. Those lovely cameras faded out of use when we got our school-issued iPads that (drumroll, please) included a CAMERA! Then came the trouble of knowing what to do with those pics, how to email them to the proper people to get them on the school website, how to get them on our own computers so we could work with them (because how else can you work with digital pics??), etc. etc. And now, for me at least, I want to do MORE with these pictures. Last year, I didn't get any pictures up on my class website. Didn't think I could, using the free version of Weebly. Guess there is a way after all...still figuring that out, though. BUT what is churning around in my brain has to do with creating some sort of presentation using one of those four I listed above using pics of my new kindergarten students, narrated by them, and able to be running on my new smartboard on back-to-school night after a week or so of school. Phew! To me, that seems daunting since I've never done ANYTHING like that before!

Module 2 Discussion Assignment #1 - Question of the Week: 10 Points This week's question is "Can I use mobile images and present them on a mobile device?"  Type a blog post that describes...

• your prior and new experiences with mobile camera apps,
• your prior and new experiences with image hosting sites,
• your prior and new experiences with mobile presentations apps,
• your thoughts on using these tools in educational settings.

Prior experiences with mobile camera apps: None. Why? I did not see a need. I take so many pictures, mostly of my kids, and don't have time to fool around with settings prior to picture taking.

Prior experiences with image hosting sites: I have uploaded images to Snapfish. They took a long time to upload. Maybe it was my connection. I ordered products through them and pictures and was pleased. I also set it so that friends/family could view/order pictures too (this was when our first child was born). After that, 5 years ago, I really haven't touched any image hosting sites...though I have thought about it...if only I could find the time...

Prior experiences with mobile presentation apps: None...and nothing more to say on this...yet.

Thoughts on using these tools in educational settings: Definitely a positive. I can see how lots can be done. I have glanced through everything for this week but still need to go back and READ READ READ in detail and LEARN a lot more. So come back later on in the week to see what I've discovered about mobile images and mobile devices. To Be Continued.....

My name is Tricia Hepler. I am originally from Pittsburgh, PA. I attended college at Clarion University and decided to stick around the area! I just finished up my ninth year of teaching. I began my teaching career at Punxsutawney High School. where I taught Spanish I and II. After that first year, I was hired at Keystone Elementary to teach second grade. I spent five years in that grade level, and then there was an opening in fourth grade. I moved up to fourth grade, where I spent three years. As the school year was winding down about a month ago, my principal discussed with me the idea of moving down to kindergarten. The enrollment coming into fourth grade wasn't as high as it was in past years, and they were going to have 3 fourth grade classes instead of 4. A fifth grade teacher was retiring; two kindergarten teachers were moving up to fifth grade...and this all put me in the perfect spot to move down to kindergarten. Honestly, I was not sure about the move at first, but now that I've had time to think about it and process it, I have warmed up to the idea. One fact that could be both a pro and a con of moving to kindergarten is that my husband and I have three boys at home...a five year old, and three year old twins. My five year old enjoys looking at the educational apps on my school-issued iPad, and so I've been taking some time this summer to find apps that are "kid approved" and would work for kindergarten.  That leads into the reasoning behind why I chose this particular class and what I hope to learn. Before receiving my school-issued iPad, I had no experience with mobile devices, other than watching other people use them. I feel that I caught on quickly, but I know there is always more to learn. I hope to learn how to more effectively use my iPad (for my students) and newly acquired Android smartphone (for me) for educational purposes. I hope to become aware of other forms of mobile technology that can be integrated in a kindergarten classroom. I would like to see how other teachers use these forms of technology in their classroom, discover new apps to use, and further branch out into other such realms. So here's to learning! :)