All good things must come to an end. While I have found writing weekly blog posts during this semester to have been helpful in ways, I am certain that once the semester is over I will no longer be able to continue writing posts as I have. The simple fact is, there is just not enough time to continue journaling my experiences in teaching. This is especially true being as though I am a third year teacher having to complete the dreaded third year RESA program.

Unfortunately I have found that I don’t have nearly as much time to do things that I feel are beneficial. Far too much time is dedicated completing tasks and jumping through hoops that either administration or state officials feel are more important than focusing on my students.

I have learned so many new things in this semester that can be implemented into my instruction. This has been one of the most useful classes I have taken so far. I am now beginning to work on an infographic for recruitment which I would have never thought to do had it not been for this class. I have also gained a better understanding of various types online learning tools that are currently being used and could be used in the future. I also feel that was extremely important that I was able to hear some of the other instructors experiences with these online learning tools.

Hopefully after this year, things will slow down a bit and I’ll be able to reflect on this semester and implement some of the tools I could benefit my instruction and ultimately my students.

So this week’s blog post is a little bit more difficult to write about. When it comes to spreadsheets, I can honestly say that I really don’t know much about them. Back in the day when I used to design websites, I tackled a few websites they were completely database driven with built-in parameters for location, phone number, business name, business description, keyword tags etc. Obviously at that time spreadsheets for my best friend. I had to take all the data I had scraped off the internet about various business types and convert them into a CSV file in order to create a database that would house individual business listing which were all searchable within the website. Teaching myself how to use spreadsheets was no easy task. To this day still feel but it is one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do on my own.

I’m sure it has a lot of your past experiences, but I find spreadsheets extremely difficult to work with. Having to know all of the formulas associated with various input data can be very confusing and quite honestly for me, time consuming. Fortunately when it comes to grade input, our district uses progress book which makes things much more simple and user-friendly for the spreadsheet challenged instructor. To be perfectly honest, I really don’t find an immediate need for spreadsheets. There are so many plug and play websites that can be used to create just about anything that can be accomplished using a spreadsheet program. For me, it’s just much easier to use an alternative than it is to try to learn everything involved with using a spreadsheet program such as Exel. Not only that, the librarian at our school is very well versed with spreadsheets and is very helpful in that area

In my opinion, problem based learning is the absolute best way for students to learn. I am fortunate enough to have a lab in which problem based learning is natural and occurs on a daily basis. I think one of the most unique things about my lab the fact that new problems to learn seem to be endless. The skills that my students learn from these projects could never be taught in a classroom.

As I mentioned several times before and the other assignments and articles, I live and teach in a very rural area mainly comprised of agricultural based businesses. Many of the projects that come into the welding lab are pieces of agricultural equipment that have been broken down and in need of repair. I have my students handle the project from start to finish. From scheduling with customers, diagnosing the problem, brainstorming find a solution and ultimately repairing product to full operational status that must be compliant with quality standards that I set in place. Not only does this provide problem based learning which is extremely valuable, it directly relates to a large portion of the Welding industry that is found in our area. Many of these kids have farm machinery at home and with the projects that we do are able to figure out how to solve everyday problems at home and on the farm. Many of the methods my students used to fix some of the problem based learning projects, can be applied too many different scenarios and therefore teach them skills that go beyond being able just to merely melt two pieces of metal together. While we still take great pride in the weld itself, he skills that these kids learn from these projects are completely applicable to real life situations and show my students how to use the welding skills that they have learned as a means of fastening metal together to complete a project or a fabrication as opposed to focusing completely on the weld itself, they have an opportunity to see the the larger scope of the project.

Let me first start off by saying that I am a huge fan of ebooks. In fact I’m currently in the process of reading one now. The book is called Titan. It is a story about the oil tycoon, John D Rockefeller and I would highly recommend it.

Moving on to eTexts. My feelings are a little bit mixed on this topic. I believe that having a text book that is accessible anywhere at any given time is an extremely valuable tool this day in age. As far as that’s concerned I feel if there is no other direction but to move forward with this type of educational resources as technology becomes more and more integrated with everyday life.

The downside to all this is the transition between offline educational resources and online educational resources. As I mentioned before I teach in a very rural area where the Internet is not always accessible to everyone. This poses a very big issue regarding online textbooks. A large number of our student population does not have internet connection at home. This makes it nearly impossible to assign homework from the textbook. Another challenge using online textbooks is in the unfortunate situation of technology failure which happens to us quite often in our rural area. There have been several instances where are internet connection has been lost in the middle of instruction even in the middle of online test taking. I remember my first year of teaching the internet went down during map testing and caused a lot of chaos that not only impacted the test takers but everybody in the school. Another issue for me has been students forgetting their login information and having to stop whatever is going on to look up that students information so that he or she is able to access their textbook. I know that this is the direction that we have to take in education but until solutions are found for these nagging problems it will continue to be frustrating for teachers and students alike. Sometimes, especially when the Internet is down, I wish my students could just pick up a textbook and turn to page 150.

Digital citizenship is something that everybody needs to take a good look at regarding both their professional and private life. We all have a reputation to uphold. There was a time my reputation was that of word of mouth but now it has moved into the digital world as well. It’s very strange to think that now through citizen through digital citizenship, One must be extremely cautious about their reputation and the content that they post on the Internet for the simple fact that it does not go away. Fifteen years ago when I graduated high school I did not necessarily have the reputation I wanted so I worked very hard to change that image in the eyes of my peers and the professional world. Through hard work I was able to establish a good reputation in my trade. Better that becomes increasingly difficult nowadays where your dogital footprint is left behind for everybody to discover whether it’s 15 years from now or 50 years from now.

As an educator my digital footprint or citizenship is even more important to me. Understanding with the slightest mistake can lead to the destruction of your career is something that I do not take lightly. It is caused me to be more aware of my activity on the Internet and on social media sites especially. Digital citizenship and something that as an educator I cannot avoid. So I feel that it’s extremely important to make sure that my digital footprint is one that I am proud of for my students to follow as well as my own children. In many respects I feel that the scrutiny educators face on social media sites makes us all more responsible digital citizens.

YouTube in the classroom

This past week, I was  tasked with writing about the use of YouTube in the classroom. Let me first start off by saying that I believe social media is a very powerful tool for educators if used responsibly. I also think that districts need to do a better job at training teachers on how to use social media to benefit their instruction and ultimately the learning experience of their students.

First of all I was a late hire. I remember thinking to myself right before the school year started how am I ever going to get through to these kids that are soon to be my students? I was working outside when I asked my son to come help space what the project what I had going on. I can see that he was doing something on his tablet but I didn’t know what. He agreed  to help me and  placed his tablet down. I realized he was on YouTube. When I asked what he was watching, he told me he was watching instructional videos on catching techniques. (My son is a catcher for high school baseball) I told him to quit lying to me so he showed me the screen and sure enough it was a YouTube video on “How to improve catcher pop time”. I then realized how important of a tool YouTube can be for instruction to teenagers.

The first few weeks of that school year flew by and I was busy with safety stuff, papers that I had to have the kids sign, papers that I had to have their parents sign, getting lab stuff situated uniforms in order and all that good stuff. I soon found myself actually teaching in the classroom. After a few days of lecturing anywhere between 30 minutes and 45 minutes a day I started to see the glaze in my students eyes. That night I went home and reflected back when my son was using YouTube video on how to improve his pop time and decided that I would try to find some videos on YouTube that related to the content I was teaching in class. So I found some videos on “How to strike and maintain an arc for SMAW” and it changed everything! I saw that same spark in my students eyes that I saw the first day I started lecturing. They took to the YouTube video much better than what I thought, and along with guided notes they retain the information much better than I thought. It was also a pleasant surprise that when I did go back to lecture in from the book they were receptive to that as well. I am convinced nothing just needed a change in media to keep them engaged. This mix of me lecturing and YouTube videos is still very successful to this day.

Advantages of using YouTube in the classroom

• Probably one of the most important advantages is the fact that YouTube is free.
• It can be used as a supplemental resource in coordination with classroom instruction.
• Students can use YouTube on their own time to complete assignments and or tasks

Disadvantages of using YouTube in the classroom

• Being as though I live in a very rural area and teach in a very rural area, we experience a couple of different things. 1 is demographically we have a very large population of students who are financially strapped therefore some do not have internet access at home.
• Not all YouTube videos come from a reliable source. There are many videos out there that are subjective to say the least. Many times I’ve found myself having to correct something that was said on a video during class because of its inaccuracy. So I found myself doing a little bit better of a job at previewing these videos before I show them to my class.
•  Another disadvantage for me anyway, would be using these videos on the fly is sometimes very risky especially in my trade. Welders tend to be a different breed altogether and apparently they can’t even make and instructional video without vulgar language. I have used YouTube videos in the past without planning to use them and had to turn them off in the middle in the middle of the video because of language the host was using.

As I mentioned before I find YouTube to be a very valuable tool not only in my classroom but in my lab as well. I have had students who are working on a particular welding technique and just couldn’t seem to get the hang of it even with me demonstrating it for them in lab. The next day they would bring me there weld coupons and to my amazement they had advanced dramatically in the technique that they were practicing. When I’ve asked how they advance so quickly they attributed it to watching YouTube videos on that particular type of technique. Sometimes all they need to do is watch another person demonstrate or hear another person say the same thing as long as it’s not their instructor.

I will continue to encourage the use of YouTube in my classroom and in my lab. One of the things that I’m thinking about doing in the near future is creating a YouTube channel for myself as an instructor. It would log videos of my lectures in class as well as my demonstrations of various welding techniques in labs. I can see this being very useful for students who missed my class due to being absent and I can also see this being very useful for my students who have graduated to reflect in the future while learning their trade.

This weeks group presented on blended and online learning. I got a lot from this presentation. I thought that most of the tools presented we’re extremely valuable and could be implemented into the classroom fairly easily in the learning curve for the students didn’t seem to be that difficult either. I do have mixed emotions when it comes to online learning. The textbook that we have for my program is web-base. Works well most of the time but there are several times of the Internet has been down and my students have not been able to access their textbooks. I also teach in a very rural area where many kids do not have internet access at home. This is obviously a problem if the assignment is web-based and students are  not able to access it. There have been many times that we have had to change lesson plans in the middle of class because the Internet has gone down at the school and there was no way for my students to access the material I had planned to cover. If we are going to have online learning I do feel that we need written copies or hard copies of the material that is available online. Sometimes putting too much faith enter online or web based learning or tools can leave you on prepare in the event but those tools or materials not available. I do plan to take some of these tools that were discussed and implement them in my class if nothing more than just out of curiosity.

Last week’s assignment was to create a story with five images without using text or music to support the story line. Needless to say, I was dreading this assignment for the simple fact that I had no idea what to do. I sat down with my students and ask if they have any ideas as to what we could do for this five image assignment. After a while of thinking about what we could do, one of my students had the great idea of taking pictures in the lab over the process of a weld joint. The discussion turned to one that was very productive not only for this assignment but for my students and my instruction as well. Through discussion, I found that my students find it very beneficial to have images depicting what needed to be done in lab along with the verbal and written instruction. We decided that we would make this 5 image story about the process of a tee joint. This sparked up another very good conversation.

As we began to review the process of making a tee joint. My students had to dig deep to really think about the process of a simple weld joint. This made him think about stuff that they do instinctively and have never really put the time in to thinking about what they are doing. After we got finished outlining the process of the Tee Joint, all of my students told me that they had a better understanding of the process behind welding a tee joint and that they were more confident in their lab assignments and would also be more comfortable teaching others how to perform this weld joint.

Needless to say, this assignment that I dreaded ended up being very beneficial to my students. I will definitely be making more of these in the near future as I think they will be a great tool to further explain weld processes to my students, especially those who are low functioning or deficient in Reading comprehension.

First of all, my understanding of copyright laws pertaining to the Internet were sadly way off base. I have learned a great deal this past week and found Mondays discussion to be extremely informative. I was under the impression that if material had a copyright it was either off limits or you had to gain permission from the author to use it. I have never heard of the Fair Use doctrine. There certainly seems to be a lot of gray area surrounding Fair Use. Fair use would allow me to use copyrighted material to repurpose and use in my instruction. In the past I have not given any thought to whether or not I was violating copyright laws. I have often found articles, videos, infographic and the like on the Internet and not given any thought as to whether or not the material had a copyright or whether I was using the material appropriately to not violate copyright laws.

I found that material used for educational purpose was often more likely to be considered fair use as well as material that had been altered significantly from its original version. I found some guidelines that can help me determine if something is fair use in the future. For instance, I am allowed to copy a single chapter from a book or up to 10 percent of an article or piece of work can be used for educational purposes. I learned that making multiple copies of a piece that has a copyright is not considered fair use as well as using copyrighted material without attributing the author. I think I still have a lot to learn when it comes to using copyrighted material but this lesson has certainly opened my eyes and will allow me to better protect myself and my students in the future.