Teaching with Technology

Students in ED 510 have been investigating a variety of technology resources used for teaching and learning. Their findings have been published in screen capture videos - enjoy!

• A Craddock - Cloud Storage
• J Minyard - Maker Spaces
• B Need - Digital Storytelling
• S Thomas - 1:1 Initiative

The exciting world of ED 305

Today brings to start a new semester for ED 305 students at Athens State University! These pre-service teachers will learn new technological techniques and about the many resources available to them. I hope they are as excited about this semester as I am!!!

By the end of this semester in ED 305, you will have the knowledge and ability to...

• Design and Develop a teacher/class website
• Design collaborative exercises using Google Docs
• Create course specific digital imagery
• Design, develop and implement online multimedia
• Create interactive course lessons using SoftChalk
• Create and deliver presentations using presentation software
• Design and develop multimedia course lectures

The following is a list of previous student projects - YOU TOO will have projects like this in four short months!

• Teacher Website: http://meaganlspears.wix.com/m-spears-classroom
• SoftChalk Lesson: https://www.softchalkcloud.com/lesson/serve/29FKLsgaBo8pCE/html
• Video Productions: https://youtu.be/UuHp3rFZekw
• Stop Motion Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqplqCRkX9A
• Lecture capture: http://www.screencast.com/t/U7Citw7dMdi5 
• Classroom blog: http://kristilynnkruse.com/other/classroom-blog/
• Digital newsletter: http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=14441a39950b3dad1b05e7bcf&id=be136e385a
• Deliver content in a virtual environment: https://athens.blackboard.com/webapps/bb-collaborate-bb_bb60/recording/launchGuest?uid=2362d04a-5169-4837-a12a-73d7f18ad59f 
• Create digital art: 
  
• 
  

305 students master lecture capture

As stated previously, this semester's ED 305 group has really been doing great work...

Most recently 305 students created lecture/screen capture videos about a variety of technology resources used for teaching. Their presentations were created with Prezi - which in itself is a challenge for new learners. When discussing assignment expectations with the class, I explained in past semesters students were REALLY selfish with their use of graphics throughout their presentations - and challenged this group to really step it up. And guess what? They did!

The presentations submitted had more graphics than any group to date! Not only that, but the information presented was accurate, informative and engaging. I am, once again, very proud of their commitment to excellence!

I have recognized a few submissions below - while these are not necessarily perfect, they include some aspect of the assignment requirements that I found noteworthy.

• C Gilliland: http://www.screencast.com/t/l4vBWVTss9f - Overall very well done. Very engaging from the beginning, which opens with a question. Lots of graphics and constant presentation movement.
• A Cowan: http://www.screencast.com/t/Jzd9FuvKvQfv - Overall very well done. Very engaging from the beginning of the presentation. Throughout presentation lots of graphics, good information, continuous movement, with little visual lag time. Improvements include closing the ads on videos and fixing the sound on the others, but the digital storytelling message was still obvious even without the sound.
• K Goad: http://www.screencast.com/t/x27VLRWW - great presentation skills – used questioning to engage from the beginning and throughout the presentation. Nice mix of text and graphics, however, more zooms are needed to avoid excessive visual lag time.
• M Hall: http://www.screencast.com/t/mTVwyMvmI39 - great presentation skills – very engaging from the start and continues throughout – will make you excited about QR codes! Improvements include more zooms to decrease visual lag time.
• R Duvall: http://www.screencast.com/t/By0hcmUCzt - Very well explained - presentation provided a good understanding of clickers. Nice mix of text and graphics. To improve – more zooms – there were some instances where visual aspect of the presentation progressed slowly.
• A Baugher: http://www.screencast.com/t/gAcM7Ikj6j - lots of graphics – good presentation skills – overall nice job explaining cloud storage. Improvements include adding additional zooms to avoid lag in the visual aspect of the presentation – and capture less of the screen, only the presentation.

Based on the work completed by this class so far, I can hardly wait to see their final projects - teacher websites!!! They will probably blow it out of the water!

Teaching with Technology Presentations

ED 305 students really stepped it up with their teaching with technology presentations. For this project, students are encouraged to implement best practices for creating and delivering digital presentations. Overall the 305 students did a great job. One area of shortcoming for most students was the use of graphics in the presentation - I think this is mostly due to the availability of open-source graphics that matched their content.

One area where just about every student did an outstanding job was with presenting the information. There was VERY little reading of content. Most students discussed their content in a manner that made the presentation enjoyable and easy to listen to and learn from. I've never had a group of students do so well on this particular area.

A few students that I would like to recognize for their submissions are listed below. While these presentations may not be perfect, I've detailed the aspect of the presentation that was particularly good. You will notice that most of these had a nice presentation rhythm, with few extended periods of time on a zoom.

• Dylan Fisher: http://www.screencast.com/t/VKECm2xv - Excellent format and presentation skills. Provided a very nice overview of types of assistive technologies
• Kristi Kruse: http://screencast.com/t/GSctobXpXIa - Great word and graphic use along with presentation skills
• Brooke Kuykendall: http://www.screencast.com/t/wpBu9moI1o - Excellent word usage and lots of zooms. Presentation skills were good also.
• Erin Navy: http://www.screencast.com/t/SGm5jfkx4 - Very dynamic with excellent word usage.
• Jacob Ryan: http://www.screencast.com/t/ZrH80UC3k - Just an overall good job. The presentation included all required elements and was designed fairly well and presented nicely.
• Meagan Spears: http://www.screencast.com/t/lULVVIJ4DSDe - Overall really good job.

Teaching with technology

Cowan's TECH SAVY ED 305 students have been at it again.... this week they played around with Prezi and Jing and created some really great "teaching with technology" presentations. I must confess that I am quite pleased with the outcome of their hard work - I have, BY FAR, the BEST group of ED 305 students on campus this semester.....

While there were many very well organized and presented presentations, the one that shone the brightest was by Kelsey Turner: http://www.screencast.com/t/U7Citw7dMdi5 

Enjoy!

If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks.

                                                                                                                         ~ Maria Montessori

James 1:2-4 ESV 

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

I humbly thank my wonderful family for their support in all that I do. Robert Robbie Cowan, Robert Drew Andrew Cowan, and Hunter Cowan Hartselle, Decatur, AL