Module 11 Troubleshoot basic software, hardware, and connectivity problems

Computer Troubleshooting for Teachers and Students
This website gives 5 topics that will help the individual trouble shoot problems that arise while using computers.  The five topics are Common Input/Output Devices, Internet and Networking, SmartBoard and Projectors, Microsoft Office Applications, and Printers and Scanners.  After clicking each link it will give you the information that will help you fix any problem that comes up when using these items on the computer.  Having the information and being able to fix the errors yourself will free the technology coordinator's time, so he or she will be able to focus on helping the teachers use 21st century skills in the classroom.

A Computer for Every Student and Teacher: Lessons Learned about Planning and Implementing a successful 1:1 Learning Initiative in Schools

Every teacher and student in twelve high schools will receive a laptop with wireless connection to the internet. The goal for this initiative is," to improve teaching practices; increase student achievement; and better prepare students for work, citizenship, and life in the 21st century."(Corn,Oliver,Hess, Halstead,Argueta, Patel Tingen,Huff 1). This study started in 2008 and lasted 3 years. Surveys, focus groups, and classroom observations were used to assess how well the initiative was going and what needed to be fixed to make it better. Teachers received the laptops first so they will be able to receive PD, while the students received them on a later time. Wireless access was a problem, because many schools had to be redesigned with wireless access. Lenovo, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell were the brands of laptops that the schools choose from. These computers had the access to learning tools such as Word, Web page editors, E-mail applications, and Video editing tools. Schools incorporated guide lines that were set up to govern student usage. Support personnel were utilized to help students and teachers. The support personnel had the duty to, "conducted professional development, troubleshooting equipment and software issues, modeling technology use and co-teaching. They also reported maintaining open communication with district technology staff as part of their regular routine."(11) Professional development was offered to teachers in a variety of areas, examples are; lesson planning sessions, classroom management and policy issues, and differentiated levels. Students were excited with this initiative because it gave them the chance to interact with peers more, engage in educational websites and games, access to study assistants, and to gain information for research projects. Students having the computers were preparing them for a society where it is more globally connected, and technological advanced. 

Reflection
    A simple restart of the computer will fix the problem that pops up in the classroom. Teachers should know the simple fixes for simple problems. Teachers need to know how to fix the common error in Microsoft Office and the everyday technology based problems in the classroom. The reason why I feel so strongly about this is that the technology coordinator may not always be present immediately and if the teacher is able to solve the problem, the classroom flow will not be interrupted by the technology coordinator entering the classroom or the error presenting itself during class.
    I would love to be part of a pilot program that would place 1:1 with student to computer ratio. I think this would be enjoyable because the teachers are part of the culture change of education, it is giving the students the tools to educate themselves and go at their own pace. In other words, giving the students freedom to educate themselves. I especially love the note taking and video editing tools that are programmed on the computer. I also loved the idea on how to overcome the problem if the student doesn't receive a laptop or forgets their's at home. The way this will be fixed is by a term they used called "laptop buddies".  This is where a student can borrow a laptop from another student, or that student is grouped with other students who also do not have a laptop.

Activity

Problem	Solution and student solution
There is no sound coming out of the speakers on the student computers.	Make sure the speakers are plugged in and the power is turned on.  There should be a green light that shows the power is on.  If there is power and still no sound coming from the speakers, you should then go to the control panel and locate the icon, “sounds and audio", following the advanced prompts.   If neither of these works, contact the technology coordinator for a new set of speakers.   I am able to teach the students the proper way to connect the speakers if this needs to be done.  Most computers have internal speakers and there should be no reason why students need to change this.
I can't connect to the network.	Double check that the FJ-45 cable is plugged in and the green light is shown. Make sure you are typing in the correct username and password, and that the CAPS button is either on or off.  Most passwords are case sensitive.  Be sure that you are not logged into another computer; most networks allow you to be logged onto one computer at a time.      Educate the students on the correct way to join the network and to memorize their username and password.  The students should recite the correct username and password and steps to the teacher before they get the computer.
My computer keeps freezing up on me.	The computer is usually low on memory and you should contact the technology coordinator.  A simple patch could fix the problem.  A plug-in such as Adobe Flash, Javascript, and ActiveX could be used to fix the problem.  If neither of these fixes work, then malware or a virus could be in the system.  Running an anti-virus program can solve this problem.     The network should be updated with the latest anti-virus programs and students will not need to worry about the update.  If the computer keeps freezing up for the student he or she will need to contact the teacher or contact the correct   teacher that will help them solve the problem.
My printer won't print.	Make sure the cables are connected, and consult the program manual to see what cables are needed to connect the printer and computer.  Also double check the correct printer driver is up on the computer.      Tell the student to double check that they are selecting the correct printer to print from. Also check the printer to see if it needs paper or toner added to it. They should have a printer that is their default printer, so all printed items go to the same printer
My SMARTboard pens aren't working.	Make sure the light is green and if it is not you need to reset the SMARTboard by placing a pencil or pen into the small hole and holding the red button down until all 4 pen holders blink and the red light turns to green.  Make sure all the pens are in the tray and pick any color and use on the board. Model for the students how this can be done, and students can do it when you are teaching.  This will limit classroom distraction.  Name one of the student to be the “go to person” that performs the duties to reset the SMARTboard when needed.

   
Self Assessment
Summary paragraphs - There is one summary paragraph per reading. Each paragraph is substantial and well developed. . Good   5/5

Reflection paragraph(s) -One or more reflection paragraphs are substantial, well-developed and show deep thinking about the readings.    5/5  Good

Quality of Writing - Writing contains no more than 1 spelling or grammar mistakes. Writing is very clear and the organization is superior. . 5/5   Good

Connections to readings - Reflection paragraph(s) make a strong and coherent connection to each reading.   5/5 Good

Module 10 Using digital communication and collaboration tools to interact globally with students, peers, parents, and the larger community

Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World 
The global economy and the demands of work have changed because of the speed of the Internet, lowering import tariffs, and foreign investment by the federal government. Employers are looking for more competent and reliable workers who are are willing to work wherever the job is located.  Jobs that are completed by using simple techniques are being completed by robots, where as jobs that require expert thinking and communication are on the rise.  High levels of mathematics, reading, writing, literature, science, history, and arts will be essential in the future employee generation. Future jobs will require employees to imagine and create things that will be able to be used in everyday life.  Examples are writing books, movies, imagining new types of software, and developing creative sales techniques. In order for the students to understand the deflated economy, they will need to be willing to improve on their own work and have the willingness to change. With globalization changing the workforce, students will also need to understand the foreign market.  For workers to be competitive, students must understand the global significance. Topics that are imperative for global significance are engineering, science and business, which require the student to think and act like an expert. A change in demographics is happening all over the world and in the United States it is no different.  214 million migrants are living and working around the world, and 50 million are estimated to live within the United States.  The migrant population is responsible for giving back $338 billion dollars to their county of origin.  Besides the money aspect, migrants also send back to their home country social ideas and know-hows.  A growing number of migrants are able to communicate with their family back in their home country because of the technology revolution. In order for students to succeed in a world of unprecedented migration we have to provide students with positive examples when cultures meet.  They can meet in the classroom, society, or virtually.  What can help the students compete in the changing global economy is the use of Common Core Standards.  Common Core gives the teachers flexibility to create learning experiences in working with the global economy and work force.  Competent global students must be able to recognize global perspectives.

     1. Recognize and express their own perspective on situations, events, issues, or
     phenomena and identify the influences on that perspective.

     2. Examine perspectives of other people, groups, or schools of thought and identify the
     influences on those perspectives. 

     3. Explain how cultural interactions influence situations, events, issues, or phenomena,
     including the development of knowledge.

     4. Articulate how differential access to knowledge, technology, and resources affects
     quality of life and perspectives. (Jackson and Mansilla, 36).

A school in California and a learning center for the poor in a slum in India engaged with each other with the concern for awareness of living conditions.  The project encouraged the students to think for themselves, and see how the majority of the world lives. Students communicated by using Skype and blogs and reviewed each others' work.  The students review of the work from their counterparts in India turned into contemporary art, and the work of the students in India turned into a mobile classroom that could be used for a place of meditation and study.  Diverse workplace, academic study, and civic participation is must for the 21st century students.  Connections with other cultures will overcome stereotypes, and develop intercultural understanding.  Learning about other people's culture forces the students to develop intercultural awareness.  

Sister Cities and Sister Schools
Pen pals are now maintained on a blog level and no longer with a pen and paper.  Sister Schools use blogs to express ideas, experiences, and histories. By using three examples it has created a worldly connection. Blogs are also being used for students introducing themselves to other foreign partners, communicating about field trips and allowing administrators to provide information to each other about their schools.  Blogs are being used primarily by teachers, but student use is on the rise. The only draw back of students blogging is that teachers are not able to consistently monitor their blogs.  PowerPoint, Keynote, and Slide Shows are all programs that help provide visual representation between global communities.  Skype is used through a PC, whereas FaceTime is used with a Mac device.  Both help with the understanding and communication with peers face to face.  Problems arise when the broad band, time zones, and cameras prove to be a speed bump when trying to communicate.  Wikis are used to collaborate information about the topics of discussion. Users are able to edit the information that is presented.  Blogs and wikis are generally used by administrators, teachers and sister city leaders and can be used anytime, in any time zone.  Again, adult supervision is a concern with wikis because the supervision maybe not be available at all times.  YouTube is used to exchange visit reports, introductions to sister schools, and documenting community information.  Lack of video equipment can be a road block when accessing YouTube, but on the bright side it can be done whenever and wherever, no matter the time zone.

Virtual Field Trips - The Hershey Company
All the cocoa beans come from other countries, and they are shipped to Hershey, Pennsylvania. The reason Hershey Pennsylvania was chosen to make chocolate is because of the lush land for dairy farms and abundant spring water.  Milk is valuable but the beans are the most important. They arrive daily. Once the beans are cleaned, they are sorted by country of origin. The beans are then shattered and the nib, which is the inside of the bean, is used to make the chocolate. Nibs are then changed to chocolate liqueur, and then when the nibs are ground up, the result is cocoa powder. Constant grinding gives the chocolate the fine texture, and this takes several hours. 100 pounds of chocolate is created each day, with almonds from California being used to make candy bars.

OERcommons
OERcommons is a free resource that teachers and students can use.  Open Educational Resource (OER) offers "courses, modules, syllabi, lectures, homework assignments, quizzes, lab activities, pedagogical materials, games, simulations, and many more resources contained in digital media collections from around the world."  The feature is Wikipedia, the feature network is OLNET Evidence hub, and there is an app for training, also. There are tabs that give the user guidance around the website.  A road map is presented for leaders, teachers, and students.  There are yearly meetings, and the meeting places are all around the work. The groups where people can meet are from Hawaii, Arkansas, and UC Berkeley.

Reflection

It is impressive that globalization is uniting the work force and creating a more centralized businesses. Twenty-first century employees will need to understand different cultures in order to effectively work together.  I wonder how the communication began with the school in California and the learning center in India.  What a great experience for the students and teachers.  I bet friendships were created and bonds formed.  I would venture to say the students from California gained more than educational knowledge.  I would think they feel lucky and blessed to have such a simple and easy life at home, compared to the students  in India. Sister City and Sister Schools was interesting in that technology is their only way to quickly stay connected.  With wikis, YouTube, FaceTime and Skype being used for communication, the schools are able to create bonds and relationships. It is wonderful how all of these items have surpassed the "pen pal era".  OER is and can be a great resource; I am teaching patterns to my fifth graders and I am stuck at the moment, and I have already found information that will help me teach math patterns to my class.  There are over 312 items to look for! Great resource.

Virtual Field Trip to See Where The Battle of Gettysburg Took Place
I have always been curious about the Civil War, and more importantly Gettysburg.  There is a large amount of information and multimedia concerning Gettysburg on the web.  The amount of information was so much that it was difficult to decide what to use and what not use. My virtual field trip will explain the important significance of The Battle of Gettysburg and the events that happened that made this battle a deciding factor in the war.

Following are the links for the virtual field trip:

-What started The Battle of Gettysburg

- Picketts Charge

- General Lee's last ditch effort to win Gettysburg

-  Horrifc images of war

- The Gettysburg Address

Module 9 Using digital-age communication and collaboration tools to interact locally with students, peers, parents and the larger community

Tweeting the Night Away: Using Twitter to Enhance Social Presence 
The following article starts off saying that learning management systems are beneficial in the classroom because of grades, course work, and announcements, but they miss what happens during breaks, out of classroom experiences, and faculty interaction.  Social importance plays an significant role in learning because it raised the cognitive level of interaction to learning. The more the interaction in a social setting the higher the level of thinking happens. Your typical LMS can increase your typical day to day communication, but many challenges arise with the typical day in and day out routine. Of the many challenges, one is that there are many lost opportunities to communicate during the day. A second challenge is "losing the informal, free-flowing, just-in-time banter and chitchat that we have with students in our on-campus courses"(Dunlap, Lowenthal 2). Twitter is the Web 2.0 microbloging tool that would connect the gap of communication.  "According to the Twitter website, Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"(3). Besides giving people constant news, Twitter is also up to date with a refresh of the app, so the news and information is in real time. In addition to the classroom, Twitter is used in public relations, project management, and medical education. Twitter was used during a class experiment, and it proved to be helpful in the following examples.

1. Students had questions from the readings
2. How to embed music into a slideshow presentation
3. Communication between team members using the private message format
4. Retweeting funding information regarding higher education funding. 

Twitter made the interactions between the teachers and students more authentic and real because they did not have to log into a system and find the discussion board.  In addition to the update function and time sensitive material, Twitter also plays an important role in addressing student issues in a timely manner. That includes clarification of an assignment, emergency, or other important and serious issues. Twitter also makes, you the writer, be more sensitive with the information that you are presenting.  You are able to connect with authors and present questions in anticipation that they will reply back to you. A final positive from Twitter that students may acquire is informal learning on Twitter during their free time.  For the large amount of positives, there are always negatives. A limit of 140 characters per tweet, bad grammar can be practiced, and Twitter can be time addictive. Cell phone plans may not be supportive of Twitter and your data usage might rise, in effect, creating a larger cell phone bill at the end of the month. Five guidelines were presented when using twitter with students, and a list follows:

1. Tweets need to be relevant to the course work
2. Clear expectations for the students
3. Model the guides lines
4. Build and assess Twitter results
5. Actively tweet and read tweets.

Grassroots Professional Development: How Teachers Use Twitter

By using surveys, analysis of tweets, and interviews of teachers, knowledge regarding the educational use of Twitter came into view. Besides talking about their classroom ideas and practical information, Twitter gives the teachers ways to connect with like-minded educators. Social capital is the terminology regarding the value of social relationships via Twitter. With this ever ongoing social communication, professional networking and sharing of resources has increased. In addition to Twitter, blogs, Wikis, and microblogging are becoming more familiar with everyday life adapted for educational and professional use. The article continued to survey people on Twitter using the hash tag marks #edtech and #edchat. Of the completed surveys, 78% of the educators have been using Twitter for a year. All grades K-12 were used in the survey.  High School teachers were most represented followed by primary school.  63% of the teachers surveyed taught at a public school and 62% had a masters degree. Four basic themes were discovered after all survey was coded and analysed. These were professional development, classroom exercises, policy, and Internet Safety. Teachers became connected with professionals that they had previously met either at prior schools or conferences. These networks between teachers became resourceful and motivation for new classroom practices.  A random sample of tweets were referred as "meforming" and "informing".  "Meforming" are people who just update their posts to tell things about themselves; 80% of people on Twitter are meformers.  Twitter still isn't fully accepted by schools and parents.  Many believe it still isn't safe, and that is where you have to communicate with the child the expectations of the use of Twitter. Using Twitter is a grass roots reform and it is bridging the gap of trusting the student and teaching them to communicate using Twitter to gain and share ideas.

What Parents Want in School Communication

Communicating with parents can be a tricky issue. A recent survey found that parents prefer to be contacted by e-mail. Other use of communications were telephone, school website, and newsletters. At one time, letters placed in the students folder were sent home, resulting in communication. The grade age of the child doesn't change the way parents want be contacted. The same priorities for the parents still exist. These are "updates on their child's progress or insight on how they improve, timely notice when performance is slipping, information on what their child is expected to learn during this year, homework and grading policies"(O'Brien 1).  47% of parents would like an update as soon as a decision is made, and the schools need to decide on what method of communications best suits their parents. In regards to the 1st grade teachers' website, it was exceptionally well done. It was updated regularly, with titles of the books that were read in class, classroom parties were mentioned, and the teacher even had links for games for the kids to play.  Reading, math, phonics, spelling, and other subjects each had current information from the teacher. On top of that, reminders for the parents were visible.

Five Steps to Better School/Community Collaboration

Brendan O'Keefe starts off by saying that for education to be real and valued it must have strong connections within the community. The local, state and federal government are unable to fix the problems that we face at a local level; it is up to the individual communities to fix these problems. O'Keefe found 6 themes that helped transform schools. There are "community/business school partnerships, parental collaboration, curriculum connected to real world experiences, student voice, cross generation learning, and locals designing solutions to local problems"(1). When respect is being practiced between the community, ideas will move quickly in a positive environment. To ensure to a positive school community relationship, a positive idea must be envisioned. A great way that O'Keefe mentioned to build a positive relationship is to have community walks.  Go to businesses around the community, and knock on their doors and try to connect with the businesses; this will also build positive relationships within the community.  Another way to connect with the community is to set up the curriculum in a way that the local businesses will be able to connect the business ventures to what the students are learning in class.  It's great to see an organization called, "Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools" being formed by students to save their schools. On the Facebook page, there are other comments from students explaining and voicing their right to a good education. Videos and pictures also have been updated to express the students' opinions.  Besides videos there are news articles talking about issues with the Chicago schools.

Reflection:
I love Twitter; while reading the article, one of the positives they mentioned was the up-to-date and constant information.  That is the number one reason why I like Twitter so much.  I can get news, sports, traffic problems, or weather reports at anytime. It is also fascinating to see the connection you can get from famous and important people.  It is almost like being able to text anybody you want, regardless of who they are.  The article talking about the grassroots aspect of Twitter was interesting in the fact that many teachers use this to connect with colleagues that they have worked with before.  Many times it mentioned that they won't share resources or URLs but brainstorm about ideas and topics.  Its a great idea, because we have different ideas on teaching various topics.  Dealing with the topic of communication with parents; at my school the parents want the information as quickly as possible.  For example, if there is a pending snow storm, parents at my school need to know ASAP because they need to find childcare because many times both parents are working.  We will have our school name scrolling on the bottom of the TV, and also have a "call blast" that will call all the parents pertaining to whether we have school or not.  I really enjoyed Mr. D's website.  The information was updated and organized in an user friendly method.  Parents even had the opportunity to provide feedback.  What a great website to model mine after!  The bar has been set high.  Connecting the community with school is very important.  The school I teach at has a tough problem with gaining support within the community. Community walks, maps, and curriculum can all be modeled to bridge the gap between the local businesses and my school.