Can you response for two colleagues ?I will post their responses.

1..You should to responds for two colleagues.Iwill post their response.

2.You should to give them helpful suggestsions/feedback and/or asks/answers questions, based on their responses.

3.You must use correct conventions for grammar, spelling, and punctuation; avoids most slang AND cites all sources used to develop posts .

1/Currently I use my Outlook Calendar (which is connected to my iCal as well) to manage my meetings, assignments/classes, trainings, and coaching responsibilities (games, practices, etc.). I find my Outlook calendar to be my means of survival throughout a school week. I live by my Outlook calendar. Each morning when I wake up I preview my calendar (usually on my phone) to see what my day is going to look like. My school district uses Outlook as a standardized platform for sending meeting invitations and reminders.

As a special education teacher I have many IEP meetings, data review meetings, parent meetings, planning meetings, etc. each week to prepare for managing my caseload of special education students. I send Outlook reminders to the rest of my team to remind them about the meetings. I also include personal appointments or reminders about deadlines and things I need to do. I have realized that although my calendar is color-coded it is starting to get pretty full.

When reading this week’s resources, specifically the Tech.Co article, “6 Ways Technology Helps Your Work-Life Balance”, the Asana app caught my attention. It’s basically like a digital ‘To Do List’ that also allows for collaboration between teammates and potentially students as well. When diving a little deeper into this app, I had three potential purposes in mind for further investigating this app.

Managing IEP paperwork and tasks involved in preparing for an IEP meeting (tasks specifically assigned to me).
Managing IEP evaluations and annual reviews amongst case managers and related service providers.

3.The possibility of using this as a digital planner for students. I have been looking for an app that works for students to manage their assignments digitally for several years!

Here’s what I found out:

App Name- Asana it can be found by clicking this link (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. or typing Asana in Google.
There is a free version and a paid version.
- The basic (free) version allows for unlimited projects and conversations for up to 15 members.

2.The premium version is $31.25 per month (billed annually) and allows for an unlimited amount of team members, opportunities to include start dates for projects, and customizable dashboard features.

3.When you sign up for the app you get a dashboard which helps to manage different projects. When you make a project you can tag specific topics and include certain collaborators/team members that the project applies to. Next you can add and assign subtasks within a project. When subtasks are completed, the team member can check off their task and all team members would get a notification that that piece has been completed. You can also attach documents to the tasks so that team members can view the resource or product that was created. There is also the opportunity to start conversations on entire projects or specific tasks. This would also automatically notify all team members associated with the project that a conversation is happening. This particular assignment in general hits on ISTE-E performance indicators as I will be exploring and learning more about this app and potentially, if found effective, rolling it out to some students to try as a digital platform for their planner/assignment notebook. By exploring this app and utilizing it to manage teacher responsibilities, department responsibilities, team responsibilities, or teaching students to use it as a digital tool to help with their time management and executive functioning the following ISTE-E standards are touched upon.

o2c: Model for colleagues the identification, exploration, evaluation, and adoption of new digital resources and tools for learning (ISTE, 2018).

1.I just signed up for the basic version of Asana and want to try piloting it for my special education responsibilities for the rest of the school year to see if its something I want to switch to for next year. I am going to pilot it for managing the 17 students on my caseload, communicating with families (I have set a personal goal to communicate with all parents on my caseload once every three weeks). Instead of having a paper To Do List for these lengthy tasks, I am going to set a project in Asana and check off the subtasks as I finish them. Im hoping this can help me stay on top of my deadlines as well as remain organized and use my time effectively. (PSA: I have the tendency to rewrite my To Do List multiple times a day, when it becomes to messy… I just cant help it! Im hoping this will eliminate the time I spend writing out my list)

References:

ISTE (2018). Standards for educators. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Panchal, J (2015). 6 Ways technology helps your work-life balance. Retrieved from https://tech.co/technology-work-life-balance-2015-05 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Edited by Natalie Radke on Feb 27 at 10:53am

______________________________________________________________________

2. I am a very visual learner. I used to create graphic organizers for myself when I was an undergrad and studying for exams. With the advances in technology, there are so many possibilites beyond graphic organizers today. One new visual technique that educators, presenters, and students now have is the infographic. To me, the infographic is like the computerized version of a poster presentation. Most infographics that I come across are on the website Pinterest, and they always look so polished, that I assumed they were very time-consuming to make. But in researching educational tools, I came across the website,18 Good Chromebook Apps for Teachers. (2017), and realized that there is a tool called Piktochart that can help students to make very professional looking infographics without too many tedious steps.

One great feature of Piktochart is that it is free. You will need to create an account so that you can save your infographics. Another great feature is that there are plenty of templates that teachers and students can choose from when creating an infographic. Piktochart is established enough online that there are numerous Youtube videos to help first-time users get acquainted with the tool. Lastly, the infographic can also transform into a slide presentation quite easily so a teacher could give the class the infographic and then discuss each section separately without overwhelming the students.

This week is the first time that I tried to make an infographic. I learned that each section of the infographic is a block. Each block can be customized in many ways. Students have endless possibilities to show their creativity by changing the look of their text, using photos from the photo bank in the Piktochart tool, or uploading their own photos. There are plenty of icons to choose from as well. I really like that there is a charts option that allows you to plug-in data by hand, or upload data and there are many different chart options to choose from. There is no need for a student to flip to another program unless they want to upload data from a lab software or such.

Once the infographic is completed, it can be downloaded as an image or as a PDF file. The infographics can be published by clicking on the share button, which gives options for sharing the infographic. The infographic can be shared to the public, or to certain email addresses by way of a custom link. The infographic can be embedded on a webpage, or shared using a social media platform.

I think that this is a nice tool for science teachers because it does have the ability to input data and create charts. An infographic would be a great product to summarize a concept or summarize an experiment. Science teachers usually assign a research report or a poster presentation to demonstrate knowledge and application of the scientific method. I think infographics can be more advantageous than posters because students are not spending time on cutting and gluing and other tedious tasks. More time can be spent on gathering research and presenting research in creative ways. In my opinion, the creativity aspect makes the infographic different and perhaps more inviting than a recipe-like lab report.

Lastly creating infographics can add several student ISTE learning standards to a lesson. As mentioned, students get to demonstrate their creative thinking (ISTE standard 1). They must organize their knowledge and then develop a one-of-a-kind infographic to relay their understanding of the topic. Infographics are meant to be shared, and so this is a great medium for students to communicate their knowledge and publish safely online (ISTE standard 2). Piktochart allows for students to input and analyze data using its charts feature. This is one of the aspects of ISTE standard 3: research and information fluency. Students further utilize standard 3 as they locate information and evaluate their sources to make their point. Students must utilize ISTE standard 4, digital citizenship, as they upload and use photos, icons or other graphic information within copyright rules. And since the students are using technology to create their infographic, they will be inherently demonstrating ISTE standard 6, technology operations and concepts as they will need to learn the tools and features of Piktochart in order to have a functional and unique infographic. This one product encompasses so many student skills!

As for ISTE Standards for Educators, I believe using Piktograph is one way to meet standard 6 which states: Educators facilitate learning with technology to support student achievement of the ISTE Standards for Students. (2018) Teachers definitely use Piktograph to challenge students to design the flow and look of a product that encompasses computational thinking and nurtures creativity.

Cited Sources:

18 Good Chromebook Apps for Teachers. (2017). Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2017/05/18-good-chromebook-apps-for-teachers.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

Create.piktochart.com. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://create.piktochart.com/dashboard (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

(2018). Iste.org. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-S_PDF.pdf (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

ISTE | Standards For Educators . (2018). Iste.org. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.