Rebecca+Egler



Hi everyone! My name is Rebecca Egler and I'm excited (albeit slightly nervous) to be beginning my first ever online class with you all. It's going to be great to have a little more knowledge about such an awesome tool! I've been on Twitter since 2008, but still have little to no working vocabulary when it comes to discussing and really using technology, so this will be an excellent opportunity to change that. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, but I went to the University of Michigan for my undergrad. There, I studied History and something known as Community Action and Social Change... which was essentially a fancier name for Social. I currently live in East Harlem and work in West Harlem, so expericing life as a Manhattanite has been fun, but I know that one day I'll be back to the city's best borough of Kings County.

Right now, I teach 11th grade Advance Placement United States History, as well as United States History and Government (I promise they are slightly different) at a charter school that will eventually be moving to the Bronx. It is my first year teaching, and the school itself is only in its third year growing, so it's been a really interesting experience to be growing as a teacher alongisde my school.

I have really loved becoming a history teacher, and I hope to encourage my students to question what they already know about the past everyday in class. The theme of our class is "What it means to be an American" and we constantly question how the answer to that has changed throughout history. My students come from a diverse slate of backgrounds, and they bring some really interesting perspectives to the table - that is of course, as teenagers, when they want to.


 * For my personal use project this semester, I'll be starting a teacher Twitter account, and trying to enrich my own. Follow me at @RebeccaEgler or @Ms_Egler and track my progress here:**[]

Final Reflection and Portfolio - I enjoyed making a Prezi to document a number of artifacts that demonstrate my learning goals. Please [|enjoy!] Check out my final reflection on these learning goals here.

__**My Life as a Technology User**__ My students recently began a unit on the industrial revolution, so I figured I would include a picture of what is probably my favorite technological advancement in their honor. In 2012 time though, my life as a technology user is both busy, but probably somewhat antiquated. I've been on Twitter since 2008 (follow me @RebeccaEgler) and Facebook since 2006, but I probably do not use either to the best of their power or potential. I'm married to my cell phone, but don't do much on it outside of checking email, texting and calling people. In fact, I only just got a smartphone in June because I was concerned about having the ability to check email on a phone... glad I got over that one. I have never been the person who is concerned with the "latest" gadget, and in fact is generally overwhelmed by said gadget, but I do enjoy keeping abreast of social media... that is the varieties of it that I enjoy - I hate LinkedIn, for example. I remember when I first started using the Internet back in the day of dial up, I loved the idea of being able to connect with people remotely and became immediately obsessed with email and IM. Perhaps because I enjoy chatting and friendships so much, these are the ways in which I have used technology most successfully in my life. For many other things though, I feel as though I become easily frustrated and deny myself access to the many opportunities that exist through technology. I don't enjoy professional networking online, and while I do love to read the news and blogs, I myself don't generally partake in creating that content (aside from the occasional wikipedia edit, and a short-lived attempt at running a current events themed limerick blog that didn't quite work out... really can't imagine why that wasn't a success...)

My fondest memories of technology to date though have been, as alluded to before, with twitter. I cannot begin to count the number of times I have learned something or laughed in a moment that otherwise would have granted me not access to anything outside of where I was at the time. Aside from just learning about high profile deaths (Steve Jobs, Osama Bin Laden, Michael Jackson, etc.) as exciting as that is, I have also been able to keep up to date with a number of personal and professional contacts that I would otherwise hear from less. While when I first began using Twitter I clearly did not understand what it was for - I believe my first tweet said "Wearing a Fedora and a Cape" I have grown to love it, and regularly finding myself defending it to those who doubt its effectiveness as a tool. In fact, one of the coolest ways I think I have used Twitter personally was through the Hurricane Irene scare this year. While it turns out, we didn't really need to panic, it was exhilarating to keep up to date on Bloomberg, the FDNY, NY1 and the million other news and safety resources I had at the tip of my fingertips throughout the weekend. I knew what Zone I was living in (C), what I could do to prevent any sort of property and personal damage, and similarly who out of my friends I should offer safety to considering their locations. While I do believe that I could be more active and conscious in creating content on Twitter, I do appreciate and regularly use all that is available.


 * My NETS Goals for this semester:**

For this standard, I would like to encourage my students to compare articles from //The// //New York Times//, or other mainstream media sources with blog posts on the same topic. In other words, **my goal for students is to be more actively aware of current events and their historical significance by regularly demonstrating an ability to make comparisons and connections as a graded assignment.** As a United States History teacher, I already should be taking more advantage of the world of current events, as it is generally the easiest way to hook students into any lesson. What I can then do, is set up a classroom blog, in which once a week, one of my students will be required to write a blog post comparing the mainstream article to the blog article. For extra credit points, I will allow and encourage students to comment on one another’s blog posts either disputing or disagreeing with the comparison made by their peers. By the end of the year, every student will have posted to the blog at least once, and I will try to fill in the gaps as well, posting on weeks when there is no student signed up. I think that this activity will both encourage the creativity and collaboration encouraged by this standard, while also requiring that students engage critically with real world issues. This goal will be challenging for me, as I often lack the organization skills to coordinate tasks that are more difficult than passing out paper, but I also think it will be manageable since it would only add a marginal amount of grading to my load.
 * 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity**

I regularly incorporate YouTube videos, and other web based media in my classroom in an attempt to try and allow my students to engage digitally. In order to better meet this standard, I would like to assign digital research to students for upcoming lessons. **In other words, for this standard, I would like students to independently incorporate varied media into our classroom content.** For example, if we have a lesson coming up on Native American treatment during the New Deal, I will ask a student to research a video clip, news story, or other piece of digital media that could be used for this lesson. The student will be responsible for spending only 3 minutes in class presenting on this find, as it will help to encourage them to engage with the lesson before it begins, and they will be given the opportunity to demonstrate a level of “expertise” before their peers. I think that this will hopefully allow them to engage in their own curiosities first, by giving them free range to sign up for the topics they desire, but also because I know from personal experience that any attempt at researching on the Internet often leads a person to discover a multitude of other related sources by following curious looking links.
 * 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Assessments**

My initial thought with this standard was to make my Twitter account public in order to share with students (and their parents if they are on Twitter) assignments, cool stories, links, and other related media for our classes. I think what I would like to do for this standard is instead of making my own Twitter public, I will create a teaching Twitter and have as many of my students who are on Twitter follow me. On it, **I will post the links that they send me related to our class, as well as keep them up to date with daily assignments and upcoming assessments and I will tweet at least two original tweets a day (other than assignments) and one @mention to one of my students. This is my personal use project.** By doing this, I will demonstrate to them the day to day use of a digital media, and as well as hopefully gain some credibility with them by demonstrating fluency in the media as well. I will try to tweet with as much relevance and fun as they may appreciate in order to stray away from simply repeating assignments, which might even encourage some of them to pursue similar behaviors on Twitter. I would like to use this as my personal use goal, as it will help me to also use my personal Twitter account in more personal and interactive ways. By forcing myself to do more than just tweet literally whatever comes to mine, I can translate these practices into my own Twitter account. For our classroom blog and media research projects, students will be given handouts to be signed by their parents that pledge responsible and safe Internet use. I will also encourage students to complete these assignments in school for a number of reasons: heavily monitored and filtered Internet access, reliable Internet access, and a guarantee that they complete any of the assignments on time. I will also provide the students with parameters with what constitutes success in any of these assignments, which will of course include and limit students to safe usage. While I will not develop a number of specific lessons on this goal**, I will definitely incorporate best and required safety practices as a part of the Do Now and Introduction to New Material for one of the days when we are specifically working with technology in the classroom.** As a first year teacher and a first year AP teacher at a new school, I have already begun to make use of the many Internet resources provided by the College Board. In order to try and partake in my overall goal of efficiency and productivity, **I would like to make it a goal of mine to regularly post and respond to posts on the APUSH College Board listserv, partaking in one thread at least every other week**. The support that I have begun to get from this listserv has already helped me in successfully completing my course syllabus, and so I would like to ask and search for more content specific advice – and offer peers what little I may have to share myself! I think this will definitely allow me to engage in a global community of educators who are all teaching the same subjects, just many miles apart! As a tech user, I think that this will allow me to connect with more online resources and formats – while somewhat primitive, the first concrete thing I have used this listserv for is to receive a History Question of the Day, which I have been incorporating into my Do Now in class.
 * 3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning**
 * 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility**
 * 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership**


 * Click [|here]for my Copyright Clarity Glog!**


 * Click [[file:ML&T - Statement on Digital Literacy.docx]] for my Statement on Digital Literacy!**