Looking Back and Looking Ahead

    When I made the decision to finish the remaining courses for my Technology Specialist I endorsement, I felt somewhat uneasy, yet determined. Jumping back into blogging and the prospect of learning new ways to integrate technology into my classroom excited me. Now, as I reflect on the last 8 weeks and look towards the future, I feel secure in my knowledge and prepared to try new things. Let's do this!

Image Source: Giphy

    In the grand scheme of things, I don't feel my views on technology have changed all that much. Before taking this course, I understood and appreciated the impact that technology has had on both my professional and personal lives. Particularly in education, the benefits of technology seem limitless. Of course, there will always be drawbacks or learning curves, but I feel that the positives certainly outweigh the negatives. Having technology engrained in basically everything we do means that the world can be basically at my students' fingertips... as long as we have a solid Wifi connection!

    In my opinion, one of the most interesting topics we explored was the concept of accessibility. As a special education teacher, this is a topic near and dear to my heart because accessibility and accessibility features allow my students to have equitable learning experiences. I was even able to grow my knowledge of accessibility features on Generation 9 Apple iPads and put my knowledge into practice. I was proud to share my infographic on some of the accessibility features offered on iPads with a colleague last week who recently got a new student that is learning English as an additional language. In my classroom, I have also been teaching some of my students how to use the screen reader function so they can have an easier time conducting and analyzing research for their food chain projects in Science- taking away the demand of reading has been such a weight lifted for my boys, especially because their auditory comprehension of more complex, lengthy passages is off the charts!

    Another aspect of our course I enjoyed was getting the chance to view different "decide" tools on a weekly basis. While not required to use, read up on, or look into, I appreciated getting quick facts on different technology tools I could use in addition to the exisiting ones in my toolkit. One such "decide" tool that has become my new favorite is ClassroomScreen. This website provides an online whiteboard for teachers to use as a classroom management tool. With features like visual timers, noise meters, and other fun personalization options, ClassroomScreen has given me an additional tech tool that I rely on every day. Because I employ station teaching in my math class, this tool is particularly useful to help organize students into groups, time our rotations, and display set expectations for class. 

Image Source: Personal Screenshot of ClassroomScreen

    In all, I am very satisfied with everything I have learned and have been able to accomplish over the past 8 weeks! Time really flew and I'm excited to start putting more of my skills into practice... after I take a well-deserved nap!

 Artificial Intelligence

    Have you ever seen the Disney Channel Original Movie, Smart House? For those of you who aren't familiar, the plot follows a teen boy, his family, and their brand new, fully loaded, smart house. The brand new house wouldn't be complete without PAT, the family's very own AI entity. At first, life is great, but everything starts to take a turn for the worse when PAT begins to take control of the family's lives, causing lots of challenges in the house.

Image Source: Tenor 

    When I first started learning about the concept of artificial intelligence, or AI, my brain immediately kicked up the memory of me watching "Smart House" in my childhood living room, thinking about how bad life would be if the robots of the future took over everything, just because they could! However, as AI has become more developed and prevalent in today's society, there are many practical uses for this kind of technology. Prior to this exploration, my knowledge and use of AI was very minimal. At least, my intentional use! Without even knowing it, I have used forms of AI when using Google Maps, exploring new recommended songs on Spotify, and even when driving my car with Mazda's break assist technology. In the school setting, many teachers are starting to use AI more and more to create lesson plans, as a way to increase productivity, and in various activities with students. 

To determine if beginning to use AI powered platforms are right for me and my students, I decided to test out a few tools that wouldn't be overly difficult to integrate into my lesson structure or with current technology tools already in our routine. For this exploration, I focused primarily on ChatGPT and Canva's Magic Studio. 

ChatGPT- ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence bot that is designed to give detailed information based on user input. When first visiting the website page, you are prompted to ask the server a question- you can also select different categories, such as "summarize text", "get advice", "help me write", "brainstorm", "surprise me", "make a plan", and "code". To see what the server would give me, I gave it the following prompt: "Please generate a 5th grade level passage with literal comprehension questions". Below is a screenshot of what ChatGPT was able to provide:

 Image Source: Personal Screenshot taken by author

After receiving this from ChatGPT, I had to admit I was pleasantly surprised! I feel like this tool could be game changing for me in terms of creating goal work for my students to complete to measure their competence with IEP goals. I feel like this is a task that is usually challenging and time consuming for me. Using this tool, it took less than 30 seconds for me to have a reading passage at a specific grade level with a specific form of comprehension questions given to me. This tool could also be very helpful when I need ideas for specific topics to cover in the new AV Club I was asked to start with one of my colleagues. I definitely plan on continuing to use ChatGPT to help with the more mundane and time consuming tasks at my job in the future.

Canva Magic Studio- Canva is a platform that I use regularly. In my school, there has been an increase in teachers attempting to have students use Canva to complete various assignments because of the great features the platform possesses. While I haven't tried to have students complete assignments via Canva yet, some of my general education counterparts had their 6th grade students use the AI features in Magic Studio to generate an illustration based on their descriptive essays when teaching Alice in Wonderland. Feeling inspired, I tried to use Magic Studio to help me generate a poster for our upcoming Family Night event happening in November. The results were... interesting, to say the least. Check them out below! While I probably wouldn't use this feature again, I'm glad I gave it a shot. Maybe there are some tips or tricks I can learn from my colleagues if I ever wanted to attempt making an AI generated poster again. For now, I'll stick to my big chart paper and poster markers!

Image Source: Screenshot of poster generated through AI image generator app via Canva

Key Takeaways

While my results were somewhat of a mixed bag, I appreciated the opportunity to explore. I feel like there are definitely positives to using this kind of technology, but it can cause more work than needed in some cases. As this kind of technology continues to progress, I will be interested to see how it is used to improve education.

Getting Inked: My Digital Tattoo

 Digital Tattoos

    Getting a tattoo is a very personal experience. Personally, a lot of thought was put into the planning of my tattoos before I went through with the commitment of permanently inking something on my body. However, what doesn't get a lot of thought or attention are the digital tattoos that everyone has. Also known as a digital footprint, a digital tattoo is like a dark mark or scarlet letter-- everything you post, and even some information you personally don't post, is out there on the Internet, ripe for the picking. For your safety and peace of mind, it is important to know what kind of information is out there. Watch this video to learn a little bit more about the impact your digital footprint can have and how to use your digital footprint to your advantage!

Detective Work

    I first had the opportunity to learn about the concept of digital tattoos and data mining back in 2022. Since that time, I haven't thought to do some detective work and check to see how my digital tattoo has evolved over the course of two years. While this is a practice I should probably do more regularly, sometimes I feel that the less I know, the better off I will be. When writing my initial blog post on this subject, I remember reflecting on the feelings of stress and anxiety that had been stirred up as a result of my deep dive. While feeling a bit daunted, I soldiered on and got to work. Here, dear readers, are my findings:

PeopleFinders- Starting off on a positive note, I could not find myself on this website! I conducted a search using my first and last name and my full name, but all results that showed were for people who are older than me or do not live in my area. It was interesting to learn that there are at least 4 other people who have some variation of my name!

TruthFinder- This website seemed like it was going to provide me with a very comprehensive report about myself, but it was unfortunately locked behind a paywall. The website did prompt me with questions asking about certain relatives and places I have lived, which told me that the information in whatever report would have been about me and not another Kelly Barker. While I would have been intrigued to see the kind of information listed in this report, I have to admit that I began to panic slightly as the program cycled through all of the topics that the report would cover- locations, known relatives, address information, online profiles, traffic offenses, photographs, phone numbers? How much could one site really know about me or be able to find that much information? Thinking about it for too long started to make my skin crawl.

True People Search- I was interested to use this website again in my data mining journey because when I had first searched for myself two years ago, this site had almost every piece of information on me that a person would want to know. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't even find myself in the results! I tried everything- using past zip codes, searching my full name, and filtering the age, but nothing worked. The closest result I could find is someone living in Texas with the same first, middle, and last name, but is three years older than me.

Radaris- Radaris finally gave me what I was looking for- I actually found myself! This website was able to accurately state my previous locations, relatives, and my birthday. Out of all the websites I had used up until this point, Radaris gave me the most amount of information without asking me to create an account and pay to see more in-depth details. However, I did think it was interesting that when I clicked on the hyperlink to view more details about myself, I was redirected to the Truthfinder website!

Intelius- While the majority of the Intelius report was locked behind a pay wall, I thought it was interesting that the two results both contained accurate personal information, but vastly different ages! I wonder how there are two Kelly Barkers with similar relatives and locations, but are somehow 41 years apart? 

MyLife- MyLife's information on myself was a bit of a mixed bag. It was able to give accurate details on both my current address and the address of my childhood home. It also listed a censored email address that I can only assume is from when I had my AIM account in junior high school! However, none of the people listed as associates were people actually related to me. I think I saw one or two names of people who lived in the neighborhood I grew up in, but all of the others were strangers to me. I also thought it was interested that the profile claimed to have pictures of me, but of the three depicted, none of them were actually of me. 

Google (via Safari and Firefox)- When searching for my first and last name on both platforms, the first thing to come up was a website for an author who shares my name. When I made the search more specific by including the city where I currently live, the first result was the sports roster picture and information from my senior year in college, where I played golf at Benedictine University. When searching my name and the city in which I work, I was able to find results for my school district's website, listing what building I work at and my work email address.

Data Mine Musings

    While I was apprehesive to conduct another deep dive of my digital tattoo, I feel that my first experience was far more revealing than my second. While I still felt a bit of stress/anxiety seeing how much of my information is online, I feel that I had more questions this time around. Have I really been less prevalent online in the past two years where the same sites from 2022 that had profiles on me had no results in 2024? Is there really a Kelly Barker that is 41 years older, knows similar people that I do and has lived in the same towns as me, or do I need to sign up for LifeLock Identity Protection? How can this be applied in my classroom? Is it even appropriate to talk about yet? 

    In my opinion, the short answer to my final question is "yes". While I work with students under the age of 13, the minimum age for most social media sites, I am well aware that a lot of my students have unfettered access to the internet in all of its glory. While I feel teachers have a responsibility to help students develop their digital citizenship, it isn't entirely fair for this burden to be placed solely on our shoulders. If parents are going to let their children use social media before they are even legally old enough to do so, they need to help keep their children safe on these platforms and on the internet in general. In my district, we send out monthly videos to parents that cover various topics under the umbrella of cybersafety, created by law enforcement agents who specialize in cyber crimes. While we can't force every parent to watch these videos and talk to their kids, it is one way to engage parents in the conversation about social media and safety. Now more than ever, students need to understand that their actions (in person and online) have consequences, some that can last a lifetime.

Professional Learning Network (PLN) Part 2

 "Stop! Collaborate and Listen!"

Image Source: Tenor

    Listen to Vanilla Ice- collaboration is key, especially in the education world. Taking the time to engage in a professional learning network, or PLN, can only help in your growth and development as an educator. Without even realizing it, you probably engage or interact with a PLN on a semi-regular basis. Way back in 2022, I had the opportunity to learn about PLNs for the very first time. While the concept seemed unfamiliar to me, I realized that I was already a part of various PLNs without even knowing it. Check out my initial blog post on this subject to read more! 

PLNs come in all shapes and sizes. From collaborating with teammates to joining online groups aimed at educators and everything in between, PLNs are designed to help those in the education field have a wide array of resources to cultivate a dynamic career and professional presence. This year, I am finding that I am relying on my PLN more than ever because I am implementing a new reading curriculum. Since I am working in uncharted territory, hardly a day goes by where I am not meeting with my teammates, reaching out to colleagues in other buildings, and even consulting teacher focused Facebook pages for advice and support.  

Image Source: TeachThought

Taking a Look in the Mirror

    Since I have an established PLN, I decided to engage in self-reflection and learn more about my personality to determine what traits I bring to the table and contribute to those I work with. To conduct this deep dive, I took three online personality tests: 16 Personalities, Five Factor, and Personality Type Indictator. 

16 Personalities Results

In reviewing the results from the 16 Personalities test, I was not really surprised to see that I am defined as an ISFJ, or a Defender personality. ISFJ is a personality type that is characterized by Introverted, Observant, Feeling, and Judging traits. ISFJ personalities are known for their loyalty, their perfectionism, and their thoughtfulness. In the workplace, ISFJs are reliable and collaborative in nature, but are prone to burnout since they want to please and will not often say "no" when asked to do something.

Personality Type Indicator Results

According to the results of the Personality Type Indicator test, I am an INTP personality. I feel like the results of this test align with what I learned about my personality through the 16 Personalities test. According to Five Factor, I am basically one of a kind- INTP personalities only make up about 4% of the population! I do consider myself to be mostly introverted and intuitive. As pointed out in my results, I hold myself and others to a very high standard, I can become impatient when I perceive others to be less competent than me, and I do not like to make mistakes. The few things I disagreed on with my results are that I can be perceived as pushy or rude when sharing my ideas with others and that I value efficiency over the needs and feelings of others. Additionally, my results stated that I may have trouble working as part of a team, which I feel is only partially correct. I love my team that I currently work on because we are mostly like-minded individuals-- when having to involve myself with others who are not as like-minded, I do agree that I prefer to work alone in those situations. 

Five Factor Results

The Five Factor test measures your personality in terms of Extraversion, Openness to Experiences, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. According to the results of this test, my personality is: 59% extraversion, 75% openness to new experiences, 77% conscientiousness, 74% agreeableness, and 56% neuroticism. 

I feel that the scores for conscientiousness and agreeableness are very accurate. However, I would disagree with the percentages for extraversion and openness to experiences. In my opinion, I am very introverted, enjoy my established routines, and am resistant to change or new experiences. Additionally, while I am not proud of it, I would have to agree with most of the points in the neuroticism category. While I like to think of myself as a positive person, there are definitely times where I have a little dark storm cloud over my head. This can cause me to overthink and sometimes respond or react more emotionally towards situations than I would like. I recognize that this can sometimes make it difficult for me to cope with stress and work effectively with others. Like most people, I feel that my neuroticism can ebb and flow. There are times where I am very easy going, calm, and reasonable; however, when there is too much going on or many things on my plate, I tend to be more overwhelmed and volatile because of stress.

So, What Comes Next?

    While I consider myself to be a great teammate and an asset to my team and school, I know there are always things I can improve on. Based on the results of the three personality tests I took, the result or trait that stuck out most to me was Neuroticism. While I am not this way all of the time, I think that my tendencies to think pessimistically and react emotionally can put me at a disadvantage professionally and can impact my ability to contribute positively to my PLN. If I dedicate time to improving my coping skills, I think I will be better equipped to manage my stress, maintain a more positive attitude, and work productively with my team when we face challenges throughout the school year. After reading the article "Teacher Stress: 6 Coping Skills" from Education Week, I realized that I don't need to focus on making big, sweeping changes to help me achieve this goal. Here are some things I plan to do in the near future that I think will help me feel more positive and grounded. If I can implement these things and feel more consistently centered by January 1, I will consider it a success!

1.) Participate in the staff book club started at my school

    This is something I am proud to say I have already started on! In my district, our superintendent invited all staff members who were interested to join her book club. We are meeting monthly to discuss sections of the book "Teach Happier This School Year: 40 Weeks of Inspiration and Reflection" by Suzanne Dailey. The biggest thing with this goal is to focus on consistently participating. I feel that it could be easy for me to make excuses about not taking the time to read or reflect, or making the time to attend the meetings. However, there are other teachers in my building that are a part of the club and I think they could help keep me accountable!

2.) Keep a gratitude journal

    In my opinion, it can be easy to get bogged down with all of the things that are going wrong. Actively choosing to focus on things that are positive in my life or things that I am thankful to have in my life might help change my perspective. While I can't get rid of the challenges that I encounter in my work and personal life, I can take small steps to not give them as much space in my head. By journaling daily or weekly about things that I am thankful to have or about positive experiences, I can cultivate a better headspace for myself.

3.) Engage in mood monitoring

    As suggested by the Education Week article, mood monitoring involves teachers making a practice of tracking their mood at least once a day and writing down circumstances or situations that contributed to their mood leaning more positively or negatively. I feel like this practice could help me recognize trends in my day where I tend to experience more stress and could help me plan my workload throughout the week to factor in self care to my schedule. For example, if I know Tuesdays can be more triggering for negativity, I might try to get more work done on Mondays so that I can have time outside of work to exercise or do other things to address my mental health and mood.