Ryan: Ryan the Brave Saves Everyone from the Dragon
Josiah: The Enchanted Prince Tries to Save the Princess
Quinlan: Space Story
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Reflection #7: Students Reading Books for Podcasts
Josiah:
Ryan:
Quinlan:
To encourage the boys that I nanny to read, I told them that I would record them and put them on my blog. It was great incentive! I told them that I've had people from different countries and different states look at the blog and that got them really excited. It made for a good geography lesson in the midst of reading. Someone from California looked at the blog. My boys have family in CA, so they really connected to that--got them really excited.
I would like to be able to do this more--maybe next time they'll have to practice a little more to be more confident in their reading skills. I would really like to help Quinn know that he knows the words--almost all of them!--he just need to be confident, and patient, enough to read them.
I am excited for what this can mean for future students! (And my boys!)
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Assignment #4: Technology Project Plan
I have set up a webpage (www.MissSmith.webs.com) to keep parents and students up to date with the happenings of the class. The site has a plethora of tabs including a calendar, a gradebook, an assignments list, news, resources, and photos among others. I will post weekly learning objectives, assignments, large projects and materials needed, special class events, school events, and other important information on the webpage. I will create a few mock assignments to demonstrate how it works and I will do the same with the online gradebook that I have created that is linked to the webpage.
I chose to do this because I need organization and these two sites are a simple way to keep me organized and all of my information in one locale. I think that students will also benefit from this because they are from the technologically rich world. It's what they know, how they think, what they play with, and how they communicate. by having something online that they can access for a calendar or grades, I believe that students will be able to stay on track more easily. Because of the world that my students come, one that can download or upload anything, anytime, anywhere, I think that this is the best way to keep in touch on a regular basis outside of the classroom.
Follow Up
I added a million tabs to my site that involve all the stuff that I could think up at the moment. I am 100% certain that I will think of more when I actually get into the classroom, but the site is so easy to manage, that that will not be a problem.
I think that it will be very useful to me. It keeps all my ducks in, at the very least, the same pond if not the same row. I think that it will be helpful in communicating with parents.
My project promotes NETs 3 and 4 for teachers because through this I am demonstrating how to use technology and I am encourage my students to become users of the technology as well as helping them use it properly. Also, it promotes student NETs 5 and 6 because it encourages students to be familiar with the technology world as well as learning more about how it works.
Week Nine: Panel Questions
1) Do you students have a computer lab time where they are taught about Word or Excel or Powerpoint or other programs? Or does that fall on you?
2) How does your library blog work? Are you the only one who posts things or do the teachers post things as well? Or the students? How does all of that work?
3) How do you do you stay sane?
Monday, October 18, 2010
Week Eight: Caught on Video
Read Bob Sprankle's Blog post titled Caught of Video
I really like Mr. Sprankle's ideas for using a Flip video camera in the classroom. I think my favourite was #5: film students asking questions at the beginning of the unit and the same students answering the questions at the end of the unit. This really shows to both the students and the teacher that the students are learning.
I also liked the comment about how it can be really powerful to show what a student has done without adding an interpretation to it. It's so easy to put your own spin on a situation that having concrete, this-is-what-actually-happened evidence is really valuable.
I'm a little bit scared of his comment that the more teachers use this kind of technology, them more students and parents are going to expect them to be used regularly. It's so cool, yet so daunting! If sounds like a lot of work, but if we could use this tangible grading as evidence we might be able to eliminate other pointless forms and it would become easier and ever more valuable.
There was a little bit about how a student could use a clip of herself doing well as encouragement in the future. I have often heard people encourage a visit to the past via a project or a letter or a card or whatever to encourage in the moment of discouragement. This could be really powerful. (But think of all the space that would be needed to save it all!) It also makes me think of how timeless it could be. A video has so much more weight than an A+. Who cares about that? What does it really mean anyway? It doesn't demonstrate learning; it demonstrates settling. I have even come to the point where the grade doesn't matter--if I'm passing that's good enough for me. I know that there is more to me than any test or paper and there is more to the teacher than that one moment in grading. If I could see how I have grown and learned over the years, now that would be something. And I might care a little bit more--I'd have something to show for my efforts.
PS If I am remembering correctly, I believe a friend told me that NU has Flip cams that we could test out...
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Comments on Classmates' Blogs
Comment on Ariel McNamara's Cool Education Blogs post.
Comment on Alison Langstraat's Reflection Entries 1-6 post.
Comment on Yajaira Garza's Technology Reflection 1 and 2 post.
Comments on Ashley Buhler's Reflection #3 and Reflection #2 posts.
Reflection #6: BookSneeze
"Great books are contagious." BookSneeze's tag ling.
BookSneeze gets books into the hands of people who love to read, and who love to blog--and the books are free!! I found this really cool program that gives books away to people who will review and post the review on their blog. You get to choose from the books on their website, and they ship the book to you for free and you get to keep it.
I think that this is a really cool way to get people books that they want to read, at a good price--I always liked free--and get the word out about the book. It also makes people think about how the book might affect other people.
I don't know how it would work, I still working on it, but I think that using this in a classroom would be a really good idea. The majority of the books are geared for adults, so it might work better for HS than elementary.
Reflection #5: Caffeinated Technology
I had a project for a geography class to name the places and landscapes that make up my home region. I live in the Seattle area, so of course, I listed Starbucks. Currently, I am sitting in a Starbucks using the internet to complete the homework for this course. In my mind, coffee houses started as a place where poets would frequent, then they became places where friends could hang out and chat, and now looking around, every single person--oh, nope, all but one, and that one is over 70--here has a laptop or an iPad out using the internet for whatever: travel, education, business, etc.
We are so ingrained in this culture of (coffee) and technology that it is everywhere! I feel disconnected when I am unable to check my email to connect with friends or colleagues or professors. (And, I'm not sure that I love this tech-rich world.)
Monday, October 11, 2010
Reflection #4: Technology ... in the middle of Africa
I went to Africa in the summer of 2009. I went expecting a lack of things familiar--yet, I was completely shocked when I saw a plethora of cell phones. I saw a man on the back of a camel in his turban and white, gauzy, light, made-for-hot-sticky-African weather clothing texting on his cell. I saw children in torn clothing with dirt on every inch of visible skin using phones (as in the picture). I left with the phone numbers of friends in AFRICA!I was in the-middle-of-nowhere-Africa and they had access to the technology of cell phones. (It actually does make sense--it's a lot cheaper to pay for cell towers here and there and get cell phones than say land lines. And it's a much faster mode of communication--and easier--than pen, pencil, and/or envelopes, let alone stamps, and transportation of said letter.)
Looking back over my photos of the trip, I've been thinking a lot about how technology impacts us, globally. We can reach almost anyone, any time, anywhere. It's amazing!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Reflection #3: Three Year Old Orders $10 Movie
The other day, a family friend was telling me how she was baby-sitting her grandchildren and had a lovely little experience with Comcast's OnDemand and her 3 year old grandson. He's three, right, yet he knows how to put in DVDs or VHSs, he knows which buttons need to be pressed to make it so that you can see one or the other--I can't even always remember that! He knows how to get to one of his favourite shows (that he's only allowed to watch when the little sister is asleep :) ) and asked "Ma' if he could. She, exhausted, said,"yes." My friend, Ma, went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, came back to the living room (which you can see from the kitchen!) fewer than 45 seconds later to find that the three-year-old had order an R-rated movie OnDemand that cost $10, because it was a pre-view movie.
I am continually shocked by the stories that my friend tells me of her grandchildren and the escapades that they find themselves in. These kids (the oldest who is the one in this story, almost four, and the youngest, barely two) know so much about technology and are so familiar and comfortable with it. I thought it was easy for me to use, remember, and learn about technology, and yet I feel ancient in comparison to these tikes.
Week Seven: ActivBoard
I found an article regarding the ActivBoard titled Interactive Teaching and Learning using the ACTIVBoard. The author says how when she started using the board in her classroom, students became more engaged and those with "special needs" seemed to be able to step out of their need and connect more to the material and the class.
I think that it's really important for students to be physically involved with the material in order for them to be mentally involved in it.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Class Entrance Post
Write one thing you've learned and one thing that still confuses you:
I have learned much about the SMART Board and many different resources. I have tried to post a link to any website that I found that I thought was cool, useful, neat, interesting, helpful, awesome, or any other good adjective. So upon reflecting over those, I am kind of shocked by the number of websites that are new to me. No, that's not true, I know that there are a gazillions that I don't know about; I guess what shocks me is the content that is actually helpful. I know that there are things out there--games, articles, tips, resources, etc--it just never was easy for me to navigate before. I guess. Or something like that. That didn't make much sense. I think I'm trying to say that I knew all these things were out there, I just didn't know how to or where to find them and now I've found some places that tell me the answers to these questions so I can actually make use of the resources available. That is exciting to me.
I am still confused by how there can be so much out there! I cannot really think of anything in particular, in this class, that I am confused about. I'll probably come up with it given a little more time...Oh, got it! I want to see the voters in action. I'm not so much confused by them, I just want to actually experience using them.
Reflection #2: SketchUp
After reading Generation IM, I wanted to check out the SketchUp tool. Basically, it's an online tool that allows users to tri-dimensionally create models for all sorts of outlets. You can use it for architecture, gaming, carpentry, landscaping, interior design, and many others. I have discovered that you can use the pro version for up to 8 hours without paying for it.
I don't know that much about architecture, or gaming, or anything else that this might be a really awesome tool for, but I do think that it could be useful in the classroom, especially because it has so many uses.
I played with the tool a little bit, but I don't really know enough to actually know what I am doing with it. I was able to find a building, in Athens, and view it and manipulate it. There are 21 different angles and interpretations already created of this particular building that I could play with. You can see cars and people around the building to get the idea of the sizing of the building (this one big!) and how complex and intricate it is. The display gives measurements of any part of the building that you click on. You can view it from the bottom, the top, up-side-down, or any angle in-between. You can sue a tape measure to see exact feet and inches of a portion of the building (and it does something else, there are lingering dotted lines, but I haven't figured out what they do). If I were creating my own building, I could drop in people to see how they would look size-wise or spatially.
It is a really cool tool. It makes me want to have the time to learn about architecture. I think that's a big moment right there: it makes me want to learn. This cool techy gizmo makes me want to learn about something that I'd otherwise have no reason to. If we can use techy things like this in our classrooms, our students will want to learn about new things simply because the display is really cool.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Assignment 3: Toolbox
I have been gathering sites that I thought looked even remotely useful since the beginning of class when we went over the assignments. The sites on this list cover a range of topics and most of them I have used with in the last few weeks. Basically, I just gathered sites that I have used and know to be useful to teachers and complied them by category. I found sites for making websites or blogs, gathered sites that I've used in the past to learn subject matter, sites that are helpful in teaching, sites that I found through bigger resources like the library.
I think that just by working to compile this list, I discovered the most useful part of this and that is learning how much is really out there for me to use as a teacher. I have some friends who've taken the course in the past and we are going to swap our lists so that we have even larger lists of websites to use that have been complied by people we trust. I think that the way I have set it up, my toolbox is pretty navigable, and just letting other teachers know about it is the best way to share the wealth. I certainly don't have everything, but the things that I do have I have found useful, and that would be enough for if I were on the receiving end. I think that also having the toolbox on my website, or a teacher chat or bulletin board could be a cool way to spread the knowledge. If a school just had a blog or wiki dedicated to resources like these, that would be a great way to share these things, too.
My three favourites:
I have personally used this site to learn information and I have found it extremely useful. I really like the set up, the wide range of subjects, the easy navigability, the overall ease of the whole site. I think that for mathematics, sciences, and geography in particular, this is a really useful site. There are games with varying levels of difficulty, informational material, and history within subjects. I really like the geography games because they provide a brief history of the countries, regional information, introduce the maps, provide three levels of play with the maps, and have every country in the world incorporated in their system.
2) Wordle
This is a cool site that allows you to input words and it outputs a word cloud. I created a Wordle for a writing lesson to help provoke thoughts and give the students a base of words. It could be used to group vocabulary--spelling or subject, resources, brainstorms, months, jobs, etc. for a variety of uses. It's a fun way to present material that can engage students so much more than a simple, black and white list.
3) TED.com
This is a really cool site with an extensive gamut of videos of professional speakers on an extensive gamut of topics (I even found a video of the collision of Chinese and American food tastes creating a whole new culinary genre). This can be useful in hooking the students or educating the students. I found a video of Aimee Mullins, a woman with prosthetic legs, that could cover a wide range of topics. She talks about how children are naturally curious and not afraid of new and different but rather inquisitive; she talks about what beauty is; she talks about what a disability is; all of these topics among many others. There are so many opportunities for education within her one one ten minute speech on Ted.com. (There are few images within her presentation that would need to be screened within the classroom.) One short clip has left me inspired on a number of different lessons!
Assignment 1: Technology Literacy Project
I read Cybersaftey in the Classroom by Kevin Butler.
The article reflects on how teachers are now needing and being expected to have their students use the internet and be natives of this digital time, but how teachers must also teach how to safely use these resources. And how that is so much easier than it sounds. Many districts may want to teach students about proper and ethical use of the internet, but don't press the issue or don't prepare the teachers well enough to actually educate students about how to use the internet safely. It's a bigger deal that some might realize.
Our schools want us, teachers, to educate students in everything--including how to be safe and ethical users of the internet--and all that that entails. We cannot expect our students to simply know how to navigate the internet properly or how to protect themselves on networking sites. We have teach this as well.
The article provided some helpful sites for educating both the teacher and the student. It talks about Ning and how this can be used to help students network, but also teach them to use the networking safely.
I think that I am totally overwhelmed by the amount of information that I need to teach! But there are so many resources out there that could be extremely useful, if I knew where to access them. I think that one of their resources, CyberSmart, could be really helpful in knowing how, when, what, and where to integrate internet safety into any curriculum. NetSmartz also sounds and looks like it could be useful, but more on the student side. I think that with resources like these, I can handle integrating safe use of technology with other curricula.
3. Research and Information Fluency
Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
This is an important standard because it is basic to almost all internet usage. We need to know how to use the right words to search for something and we need to be able to evaluate whether or not a sources is credible. We need also to be able to use what information we find and interpret it and put into our own words and us this to transfer the knowledge onto something else. It doesn't matter if the information we are looking for is a person on a social networking site or historical facts for a research paper, we still need to be able to find it, evaluate it, and do something with it.
This standard could be met by having the students research and write a paper, in any subject, from their findings. This could also be met by having the students review sites, not to gather facts, but simply to be evaluating the site and gathering information to know if it might be useful in the future.
(1. Standard research paper or 2. website review)
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.
It is important for the teacher to know how to use the tools that s/he is expecting the students to be able to use effectively. Teachers need to be able to sue technology, from interactive boards to a project to the internet, fluidly so that the students can learn the content material and not get distracted or lose time because of a glitch, or a series of glitches. The teacher needs to be able to teach with what s/he's got in order to communicate effectively. It is also important for the teacher to keep learning. Technology changes so rapidly that even our students cannot always keep up, let alone the teachers! We need to be able to help our students learn about technology and how to gain from it and how to develop their own critical opinions about what they find (Student NET 3).
1) A lot of this has to be done while in the classroom, with actual students to accommodate for, however, I can increase my knowledge base from which to work off of. I have enjoyed finding new websites that incorporate different technological uses into the classroom. Sites like TeacherTube and Edublogs and Delicious make doing this so much easier than I ever imagined it could be. (Expand online database.)
2) Become more efficient with the technology already in the classroom. I need to be more familiar with the interactive white board and how to incorporate them into lessons in a variety of ways. I feel like there is a plethora of options here that I could do yet I don't know how to. (Gain knowledge of in class technology.)
3) Learn how others are incorporating technology. I think that there is so much we could be learning from one another if we would be willing to share or to admit that we don't know it all. I think that (if I had the time!) to go into classrooms and see how other teachers were using their materials, technology, internet, etc, I would gain so much more valuable knowledge than simply researching on my own over the internet. I think that personal experience is so much more beneficial than mere knowledge. (See what other teachers are doing)
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Reflection #1: Blogging and ELL Students
In one of my TELL classes, the professor was telling us how she's used blogs to connect with other classes who are learning English. I think that this is an amazing idea. It helps the students to practice their English in practical ways where communication and understanding is necessary. It's one thing to talk to your teacher, but it's another to talk to other students, in a different classroom--possibly in a different country.
It could work something like the blog that Alison reviewed where there was one blog site, but all the students were reading the same book and creating a project together. There is one end goal, or one project, that both classrooms can work on and share their information. I think that my favourite example of this was a multicultural culinary blog. The students, in groups of 2-4, the students had to find different restaurants of varying ethnic backgrounds and take some photos of their food and then review the and post the photos on the blog. It was really interesting, and it got the students talking and using English in a functional way.
Week Six: Generation IM
Article: Generation IM
I think the part about Wikipedia was pretty funny. We used to use encyclopedias to do our research, now we start with Wikipedia, do some more research, and come back to Wikipedia to add or change the content that we started with. That's an amazing ability and function. Not only are our young people able to access a vast array of information, but they also are able to become "experts," or at least those with knowledge, in the subject area.
"In a digital age, we simply cannot measure a child’s knowledge through an isolated, fact-driven standardized test." We don't need to know things the way we used to. We used to need to know facts to be able to function. Easy things like math, to calculate the new price after a sale; or (from a Christian school grad) Scriptures; or measurements, to figure distances or make a double batch of cookies; or where a state or country is located geographically; or even how to spell. Now, if we didn't store that in our minds somewhere, we carry devices that can look it up and tell us in moments. Our students are learning differently than ever before. They are being taught that they don't need "useless" information, and so are not storing it. Now, we're teaching our students how to critically analyze information that they look up or find. Not how to store what we give them as absolute in their own minds.
“We need kids to think about problems in innovative and creative ways. We need to change the emphasis of education to focus on higher-order kinds of thinking." I think that this is a powerful, true, statement. Lately, it seems that all I hear is how poorly our students are doing educationally; but perhaps that's because of how we're teaching them, and what we're teaching them. Maybe if we taught them how to deal with the world that they will face, not the one we used to face or wish we could face, we would all be better off. But then we run into the fact that there's simply not enough time for teachers to learn about the ways to use and incorporate technology and teach the subject matter effectively. Teachers simply cannot do everything.
I really liked their tips for incorporating technology into the classroom, so here are my notes on that.
Seven Ways to Bring Technology into Your Classroom:
1. Have your students blog
- Easier than a webpage
- Send work to grandparents
- Authentic audience
- Edublogs (free!)
- - Classroom blog site
- Classblogmeister (free!)
- - Classroom blog site
2. Create a social network
3. Podcast
4. Use wikis for big projects
- Better than a blog for separating lots of info into different pages
- Collaborative projects made easy
- Wikispaces (free for now)
- - Easy to create and manage webpages
5. Try social bookmarking
- Share online resources
- Students, teachers, parents, etc.
- Delicious (free!)
- - Bookmarking site
6. Post video
- Video discussions
- Can link to all parents!
- Animoto (free or subscription)
- - Video editing
- TeacherTube (free!)
- - Online video storage
- Avidemux (free!)
- - Video editing
- VirtualDub (free???)
- - Video editing
7. Explore with google maps
- Track Odysseus's journey
- Find major buildings for Beijing Olympics and create models using SketchUp
- SketchUp (free!)
- - Architecture program
Week Five: Review of a Classroom Blog
I looked at the Newtown High School Blog. I really like it. It has a lot of information, at least one blog post daily. Usually, multiple from different groups. I like th design and I like that they include photos on most posts. It could have been really easy for this to be a really daunting page, with a lot of information and no real connection to anything else, just a a mess; but it's not. It's really well organized and easy to navigate.
The blog gives the school a good name. It looks like they are well put together and cared for/about because their blog is. First impressions really are important.
I like the post in the Culinary section titled Trash to Treasure. It's short, to the point, yet poignant.
Week Four: What did you learn about the SMART Board?
Basically, everything is new and exciting when it come to the SMART Board. I love it. I learned that you can lock items in place so that they don't accidentally get moved. You can highlight or magnify certain parts of the screen, and you can move that around so that you don't have to draw it anew every time you what to talk about something different. I learned that you can add sound clips to the art, just like you can add a link to another page. I learned that it really isn't that scary to create your own notebook.
I would really like to learn more about the voting, though. I get the idea, but what I want to see it in action.