Colette Cassinelli’s edtech VISION

Dan Meyer has done it again – another contest – Annual Report II. 

The basic idea is to DESIGN information in four ways to represent 2008 as you experienced it. If you look at my second graph (below) you’ll understand why I missed the first Annual Report contest – I was on a self-imposed “no computer” hiatus during January 2008.  But this year I used the opportunity to play around with Photoshop – something I never take the time to do.

These four slides best represent 2008 for me: School, Learning, Family and my PLN. 2008 has been a great year for me professionally.  I gave presentations at three conferences (ITSC, NCCE and ILC) and  I attended the Google Teacher Academy.  I blogged regularly and was active in many online learning communities. I joined the Oregon EdTech Cadre and met tech-loving teachers from all over the state.    I feel more comfortable in my role as a Computer Teacher than I ever have before and I think that is reflected in my teaching.

With that in mind, here are my four slides:

Slide 1: This bar graph shows the number of students who walked through my classroom door in 2008, starting first with the end of Fall /Winter Semester 1, Spring Semester 2 and Fall Semester of the next school year.  I teach 6 different classes each term.  There are not a lot of electives at my small high school and many students choose to take the advanced computer classes their Junior & Senior year.  I love having them all – but it does make for a busy day and lots of planning.  Image credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cleopold73/2906486794

Slide 2: I started this blog in July of 2007 – right when I was finishing up my Master’s of Educational Technology from Pepperdine University.  I had just spent the last year and half blogging for the program and realized I enjoyed the connections I made and the reflective writing.  I never really considered myself much of a writer before but I enjoyed sharing what I was doing with my students in my classroom and resouces I discovered. I wrote 120 posts in 2008 – which I’m sure isn’t a lot for some people – but it is for me.  This 3-D cone graph was made in Excel.

Slide 3: This slide is a timeline of the major family events for 2008.  We traveled to Arizona for Spring Break to visit my husband’s parents and took a side trip to Sedona.  My youngest son graduated from high school and the summer was busy with 2 weddings and trips to the beach and lakes.  We traveled up  to Gonzaga University in the fall for Parent’s weekend and I attended the ILC conference in October – where I met the charming Mr. Meyer himself <smile>.

Slide 4: My Personal Learning Network exploded in 2008.  I have met and stayed in contact with so many fabulous teachers from the Google Teacher Academy, the Oregon EdTech Cadre and the conferences I have attended.  My favorite part of ILC was folks coming up to me and saying, “Hey, I follow you on Twitter – and then the next thing you know we are sitting next to each other, sharing ideas, commenting on each other’s blogs and entering fun contests!

Wow … I wonder what 2009 will bring?

I encourage you to participate.  Alice Mercer already has posted her four slides.  Come on – it’s fun!

Dan Meyer at dy/Dan has started a first day wiki for teachers to post what they do on their first day of class. Do you hand out a syllabus? Do you go over rules or just start right in teaching?

Here is what I added to the wiki for my beginning computer applications classes (Middle school and 9th grade):

I start with a part tech and part ice-breaker activity. Students open up Word processor and type “I AM THE ONE WHO …” at the top of page. I ask them to list things about themselves that we may or may not know. At the bottom of the page they write “I am … NAME”. I ask them to format the page with various fonts, color, alignment, bullets, border, images and we usually include a photo (2nd day). They need to space out the text and photos so it fills a full page.

This assignment gives me a good idea of their tech ability from the first day of class. We hang them up in the classroom and it helps students to get to know each other and connect names with faces. They usually are very creative and interesting to read.