One educational technology article which came out in the past month that I found interesting is available at: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2012/04/is-reverse-instruction-education-technologys-perfect-storm/
It is titled "Is Reverse Instruction Technology's Perfect Storm." I have been interested in learning more about the process of "flipping the classroom" since viewing the 60 Minutes piece on Khan Academy.  To define its advantages,"“reverse instruction” is the idea of having students consume learning content (i.e. ‘the lecture’) outside of the classroom, usually as homework, thereby freeing up valuable face-to-face classroom time to reinforce materials and work on assigned work (work that may have been homework in the traditional classroom)."
The author suggests that the educational technology movement has suffered some setbacks because of problematic implementation, i.e. purchasing Smartboards for every classroom in some schools, while failing to train teachers to use them.  Because "reversed instruction" doesn't require a great initial, financial committment and teachers will be able to adapt it at their own rate of readiness, the author called it "the superman instructional technology idea that we’ve been waiting for"

Google Forms Assessment

The following is a short test that I created using Google Forms.  It asseses student understanding of a learning unit over Assessing Credibility which is drawn from the lesson plans available at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) Information Management System (IMS) website.  It is intended for 11th grade English

<iframe src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dHdaMXNYU0lxYThsT0lLM3paTE1wNGc6MQ" width="760" height="1679" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>

Here is a link to a lesson plan which I will be likely to use in the future for English classes. I located it through the ODE Information Management System website link for lesson plans. 
 Lesson Plan: Credibility of Sources - Grade 11
  http://dnet01.ode.state.oh.us/IMS.ItemDetails/LessonDetail.aspx?id=0907f84c80532c74
This lesson plan teaches students what credibility means and how to assess the credibility of information and sources found in various media.  In one activity students view clips of the same news story as covered by two different news stations and compare the information and opinions presented in each. The students are taught to apply standards for evaluating sources using a rubric called Rubric for Discriminating Viewers.
I really like this lesson plan because there is a superabundance of information available through television, the internet and other media and students need to be able to use critical thinking skills to sort through it and determine what is most/least trustworthy.

In Ed Tech class today we learned how to use the photoediting website Picknik.  This is a picture that I altered for the assignment.

Blog Feedback

This is the spot for Ed Tech classmates to provide feedback on my blog as it is today.

Class Introduction,

This is a little presentation to share with students at the beginning of the year:  Class Introduction