For this assignment, I chose to create a podcast about magnetism for a 4th grade class. It meets the benchmark...
Physical-Motion of Objects-Elementary 3
Describe patterns of interaction of magnetic materials with other magnetic and non-magnetic materials.
Key Concepts: Magnetic poles, magnetic attraction and repulsion.
I think that podcasting will definitely be a useful tool that many teachers will begin to use in their classrooms very soon. You can use them as a lecture. This benefits students because students are able to pause the lecture to take notes, or even watch the lecture multiple times to get a better understanding or find the stuff they missed hearing it the first time. This especially benefits students with disabilities and those who are absent.
Teachers can also use podcasts as a project for older students to create in groups or individually as a culminating assignment. One example would be for students to narrate a story they have written and find pictures to illustrate the story, or to put together an oral history of their family where they interview a family member and put family photos to illustrate it.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Google Maps
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*Click larger map to view all of the placemarks.
This week in class we explored maps and mashing technologies. I chose Google Maps to create my weekly project. Using Google Maps, I created a map that could be used for third grade social studies. I know that in third grade, students learn all about Michigan, so I thought that this type of technology could be useful in learning where important landmarks are located in Michigan and links to learn a little bit more about them. Students can use this mashup to visually see where things are located, in order to get a better idea of the places, without actually going there. They are able to see where things are located relative to where they live, or other landmarks that they know. This is sometimes hard to mentally visualize when you are that young. This map helps students concretely see this. You could use this map with students as part of a lesson where students explore individually, or as a supplement to a lesson. Students love exploring this type of technology, so it is a great way to get students motivated to learn about these places.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Digital Storytelling
This week we learned about digital storytelling. I chose to create a digital story as an example of something I, as a teacher, could possibly show my students to introduce them to a unit on conserving natural resources or the rainforest. I actually had a very hard time creating this presentation using VoiceThread. I also encountered problems with the doodle feature throughout the presentation ( I do not know why it makes circles on some slides and not others.) I also would like it better if I could play some music along with the sideshow of pictures, but couldn't find out how/ if I could do that using VoiceThread. I think maybe if I played around with it more, I could maybe get more used to the features and create a better digital story next time.
Although I can see the valuable uses of using this technology in the classroom, I have found that it takes a much longer time creating than I had anticipated, so I would probably not use this as much in my teaching as I would other technologies because of the amount of time it takes outside to prepare it. Because of this too, I think this would be a good unit project for students to work on together throughout a couple week period. I think digital storytelling can be a great teaching tool for teachers to use when there is a substitute teacher, because the teacher can create a lesson using her voice, which makes it seem like she is there. Students can post comments or questions they might have right in the presentation, so the teacher will know what she needs to address when she returns. It is also good to use to help cater to all students. Digital storytelling helps cater to the visual learners in the classroom.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Using Digital Images
Photo Attribution:
Original image: "Eiffel Tower at Dusk"
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1077/761420734_e7e90e7f09_m.jpg
By: franz88
Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://search.creativecommons.org/
Before this week, if a student asked me where to go to find images that he/she could use for a presentation, I would have probably have told them to search using Google images by typing in a keyword of the type of image they were looking for. Thats all I previously knew about finding and using images before this week's class discussion. I did not know that you had to cite the image or how to go about doing that.
Luckily, I now know. I would tell her that she could search images using flickr.com or a Creative Commons Search. You can find higher-quality images on these sites that would be great in a presentation. I would also make sure to tell them to cite the image as I did above with the Eiffel Tower photograph, as an example.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Did you know?
No, I did not know.
I watched this video for my TE 402 class and found this video to be shocking and well, kind of scary. (Especially the part about the supercomputers that exceed the human brain and race!) The world around us is changing at an incredibly fast pace and we as teachers need to be aware of these facts. Technology has changed our world dramatically in recent years and will continue to change our world. This video provided us with some shocking facts about how big of a role technology plays in people's everyday lives throughout the world. For example, "1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. met online" and that there are over 106 million registered users of MySpace. Since new technologies are constantly being developed, I think that it is imporant not to just simply teach students about a certain technology, but also HOW to learn new technologies on their own so that they can be active players in their ever-changing world. Like the video said, we are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist, with technologies that haven't yet been invented, in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet. This means that we as teachers need to teach students the social skills needed to understand the world around them, no matter what that may be.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Rainforest Ecosystem Unit
For this week, we had to create a week-long unit lesson plan addressing 2 GLCE's and 2 METS for a particular grade level. I chose to create my ecosystem/food web lesson plan for 4th grade science, since I hope to teach 4th grade someday. The benchmarks that this unit addresses are:
(GLCE) SCIENCE Benchmarks:
L.EC.04.11: Identify organisms as part of a food chain or food web.
L.EC.04.21: Explain how environmental changes can produce a change in the food web.
(MET) TECHNOLOGY Benchmarks:
Technology Research Tools 1: Use Web search engines and built-in search functions of other various resources to locate information.
Technology Research Tools 2: Describe basic guidelines for determining the validity of information accessed from various sources.
Here is the science schedule for this unit: (created by Google Calendar)
This public calendar can let students and parents know what is going on for the week in the classroom. If this were a real classroom, I would add all the other subjects onto the calendar as well. Since science is only approximately 1 hr per day, that is why the calendar seems so empty.
To create this lesson plan, I found some useful websites and tagged them using my del.icio.us account. I tagged all of the websites for this unit as "food web." Some of the websites that were specifically aimed at the rainforest food webs, I tagged "rainforest food web."
The first website I found was a website with general information on rainforests and also listed some rainforest animals. This website is helpful because on Monday, I will introduce what a rainforest is, where it is found, the climate, and what types of animals are found there. This will give students some valuable background information about this biome.
The bulk of the information and lecture will be on Tuesday. The rest of the week, students will be working on a mini-project. On Tuesday, I will focus on some important vocabulary words such as producer, consumer, decomposer, herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. The second website I found gave an example of a rainforest food chain, broken down by what type they were (producer, consumer, etc). The next website thoroughly explains each of these new vocabulary words as well as the Food Chain and Webs website. This gave me some background information to better teach these vocab words. After this introductory lesson on food webs, students will create their own using the Gould League website. This will better prepare students for when we create our own rainforest food web in the classroom.
On Wednesday, students will be assigned a different rainforest animal and be required to research it using the Internet. They will be required to find out information such as what it looks like, what it eats, etc. and create a mini-report on their animal. This is where the technology benchmarks fit in. Students will have to use search engines and the websites I bookmarks on del.icio.us to find valuable information. Before they do this, we will have a quick discussion as to what makes a good source, so that students can make informed decisions on the validity of the information they find. Students will be required to create a colored drawing of their assigned animal. They will use the Internet to find pictures to see what it looks like.
On Thursday, students will give a 5 minute presentation on their assigned animal and tell the class where their animal will fit in on the classroom food web. The food web will be created on the wall of the classroom. We will draw in the arrows as a class to show which way energy flows.
On Friday, I will read them a book that talks about rainforest food chains and the affect things such as logging have on the ecosystem. We will have a discussion on how logging affects the rainforest food web. The last website I found is an article describing the effects of human activities on the rainforest ecosystem and its animals, thus alterating its food webs.
(GLCE) SCIENCE Benchmarks:
L.EC.04.11: Identify organisms as part of a food chain or food web.
L.EC.04.21: Explain how environmental changes can produce a change in the food web.
(MET) TECHNOLOGY Benchmarks:
Technology Research Tools 1: Use Web search engines and built-in search functions of other various resources to locate information.
Technology Research Tools 2: Describe basic guidelines for determining the validity of information accessed from various sources.
Here is the science schedule for this unit: (created by Google Calendar)
This public calendar can let students and parents know what is going on for the week in the classroom. If this were a real classroom, I would add all the other subjects onto the calendar as well. Since science is only approximately 1 hr per day, that is why the calendar seems so empty.
To create this lesson plan, I found some useful websites and tagged them using my del.icio.us account. I tagged all of the websites for this unit as "food web." Some of the websites that were specifically aimed at the rainforest food webs, I tagged "rainforest food web."
The first website I found was a website with general information on rainforests and also listed some rainforest animals. This website is helpful because on Monday, I will introduce what a rainforest is, where it is found, the climate, and what types of animals are found there. This will give students some valuable background information about this biome.
The bulk of the information and lecture will be on Tuesday. The rest of the week, students will be working on a mini-project. On Tuesday, I will focus on some important vocabulary words such as producer, consumer, decomposer, herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. The second website I found gave an example of a rainforest food chain, broken down by what type they were (producer, consumer, etc). The next website thoroughly explains each of these new vocabulary words as well as the Food Chain and Webs website. This gave me some background information to better teach these vocab words. After this introductory lesson on food webs, students will create their own using the Gould League website. This will better prepare students for when we create our own rainforest food web in the classroom.
On Wednesday, students will be assigned a different rainforest animal and be required to research it using the Internet. They will be required to find out information such as what it looks like, what it eats, etc. and create a mini-report on their animal. This is where the technology benchmarks fit in. Students will have to use search engines and the websites I bookmarks on del.icio.us to find valuable information. Before they do this, we will have a quick discussion as to what makes a good source, so that students can make informed decisions on the validity of the information they find. Students will be required to create a colored drawing of their assigned animal. They will use the Internet to find pictures to see what it looks like.
On Thursday, students will give a 5 minute presentation on their assigned animal and tell the class where their animal will fit in on the classroom food web. The food web will be created on the wall of the classroom. We will draw in the arrows as a class to show which way energy flows.
On Friday, I will read them a book that talks about rainforest food chains and the affect things such as logging have on the ecosystem. We will have a discussion on how logging affects the rainforest food web. The last website I found is an article describing the effects of human activities on the rainforest ecosystem and its animals, thus alterating its food webs.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Google Search
I chose to research a place where I plan on moving to and hopefully getting a teaching job sometime soon, North Carolina. I have heard that it is a great state full of teaching opportunities, but I have never been there, so I chose to search information about the state, and North Carolina public schools. The first website that was listed after searching "North Carolina" in Google search was the official North Carolina website. This site had information on information on moving to North Carolina, taxes, events, weather, education, as well as government business. I know that this site is credible because it is a government website due to the .gov in the address. The second website was more of a travel guide with some basic North Carolina facts and events. It has information on each of the regions: the Appalachian Mountains, the piedmont, and the coast. It also has links to places to stay and dine so if I ever want to go visit. This site did have an RSS feed that I subscribed to so that I can be updated and get a feel for whats happening in North Carolina. From what I learned in my CEP 416 class, this site looks credible, despite the fact that it does not have stated authors and is a commercial website. It is updated frequently and may even be created by the Department of Commerce.
To search for information about North Carolina Schools, I searched using the "+" operator, typing in North Carolina + schools to find websites that had to do with North Carolina schools. The first website I found was the website for North Carolina Public Schools. This site was very useful because it has the K-12 Curriculum posted, information about becoming a teacher in NC, statistics, the school calendar, testing, etc. I know that this is a credible source by looking at the "About Us" page. This is an organization called North Carolina Department of Instruction, which is responsible for "implementing the State's public school laws and the State Board of Education's policies and procedures governing pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public education."
I have learned how to more effectively search for topics after learning some useful search operators in class. Usually, researching a topic takes a long time for me to find exactly what I need, but after learning these, I was able to find useful, credible information in no time. I also learned what counts as a credible source after reading a website on evaluating webpages in class.
To search for information about North Carolina Schools, I searched using the "+" operator, typing in North Carolina + schools to find websites that had to do with North Carolina schools. The first website I found was the website for North Carolina Public Schools. This site was very useful because it has the K-12 Curriculum posted, information about becoming a teacher in NC, statistics, the school calendar, testing, etc. I know that this is a credible source by looking at the "About Us" page. This is an organization called North Carolina Department of Instruction, which is responsible for "implementing the State's public school laws and the State Board of Education's policies and procedures governing pre-kindergarten through 12th grade public education."
I have learned how to more effectively search for topics after learning some useful search operators in class. Usually, researching a topic takes a long time for me to find exactly what I need, but after learning these, I was able to find useful, credible information in no time. I also learned what counts as a credible source after reading a website on evaluating webpages in class.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Gallery Project: RSS Feed
"As educators and advocates of lifelong learning, we are constantly seeking out new ideas and information to improve our teaching."
For the CEP 416 Gallery Project, I chose to look for webpages that will help me gain new information in a certain area of professional development and subscribe to their RSS feed, so that I can be updated with the freshest and newest content available. I chose to focus on classroom management since this is an area I think I can always work on. I found three websites and blogs that deal specifically on classroom management that I can look at and find out the latest news. I subscribed to the NEA's (National Education Association) Works4Me Tips on managing the classroom because this national organization is very prominent in education, and I especially like how teachers from all over the United States post what works for them, so that others can read and get tips. Another blog I liked was the Problem-Student Problem Blog that posts new articles about motivation, violence, PDA in schools, etc. The third webpage I found was a "Classroom Management 101" blog that posts videos about classroom management, resources, and answers to questions. By subscribing to their RSS feeds and managing them in my Google Reader, I am easily able to quickly browse and read articles from these sites that I find useful, without having to check back everyday to the individual websites.
Before this class I had no idea what an RSS feed was, nor how useful they could be in my future teaching. I will probably use RSS feeds for student learning when students have to research a topic on the Internet. RSS feeds allow students to become active readers in a new literacy age by allowing students to quickly sort through numerous websites to find out what is important or useful, instead of having to look at each individual website to see if their is any worthwhile information. As a teacher, I can use RSS feeds in this same way. By subscribing to a website's RSS feed, I am able to remain up to date on the latest findings in science, for example, so that I can more accurately teach my students. This would also work for professional development, as seen in my Gallery Project. I subscribed to three webpages/blogs on classroom management, so that I can know whenever the pages are updated with new information.
RSS feeds are a good way to connect communities. They can be used to help connect with and communicate with parents. As I talked about in my previous post on blogs, I want to create a classroom blog that involves letting parents know what is going on in the classroom. Parents can subscribe to my RSS feed and be notified everytime something new is posted on the blog, so that they don't miss anything important. In return, if I am subscribed to my blog, I will know when they post back, so that I can respond in a timely manner. In this same way, students can be subscribed to the class blog's RSS feed so that they can recieve a class "newspaper" with headlines and synopsis of student writing, so that they can decide which post would be best to respond to without having to spend so much time reading every post in-depth, which often leads students to not enjoy responding. I believe this strategy will allow for better responses by students because they won't be tired of reading by the time they write their response, since they won't have to read everyone's posts all the way through, they just read the synopsis given by the RSS feed, to get the idea of what the posts were about. As a teacher, this little "newspaper" saves me time and makes it easier to assess and provide feedback on student's work, without having to visit 20 or so individual blogs, to see what students posted.
For the CEP 416 Gallery Project, I chose to look for webpages that will help me gain new information in a certain area of professional development and subscribe to their RSS feed, so that I can be updated with the freshest and newest content available. I chose to focus on classroom management since this is an area I think I can always work on. I found three websites and blogs that deal specifically on classroom management that I can look at and find out the latest news. I subscribed to the NEA's (National Education Association) Works4Me Tips on managing the classroom because this national organization is very prominent in education, and I especially like how teachers from all over the United States post what works for them, so that others can read and get tips. Another blog I liked was the Problem-Student Problem Blog that posts new articles about motivation, violence, PDA in schools, etc. The third webpage I found was a "Classroom Management 101" blog that posts videos about classroom management, resources, and answers to questions. By subscribing to their RSS feeds and managing them in my Google Reader, I am easily able to quickly browse and read articles from these sites that I find useful, without having to check back everyday to the individual websites.
Before this class I had no idea what an RSS feed was, nor how useful they could be in my future teaching. I will probably use RSS feeds for student learning when students have to research a topic on the Internet. RSS feeds allow students to become active readers in a new literacy age by allowing students to quickly sort through numerous websites to find out what is important or useful, instead of having to look at each individual website to see if their is any worthwhile information. As a teacher, I can use RSS feeds in this same way. By subscribing to a website's RSS feed, I am able to remain up to date on the latest findings in science, for example, so that I can more accurately teach my students. This would also work for professional development, as seen in my Gallery Project. I subscribed to three webpages/blogs on classroom management, so that I can know whenever the pages are updated with new information.
RSS feeds are a good way to connect communities. They can be used to help connect with and communicate with parents. As I talked about in my previous post on blogs, I want to create a classroom blog that involves letting parents know what is going on in the classroom. Parents can subscribe to my RSS feed and be notified everytime something new is posted on the blog, so that they don't miss anything important. In return, if I am subscribed to my blog, I will know when they post back, so that I can respond in a timely manner. In this same way, students can be subscribed to the class blog's RSS feed so that they can recieve a class "newspaper" with headlines and synopsis of student writing, so that they can decide which post would be best to respond to without having to spend so much time reading every post in-depth, which often leads students to not enjoy responding. I believe this strategy will allow for better responses by students because they won't be tired of reading by the time they write their response, since they won't have to read everyone's posts all the way through, they just read the synopsis given by the RSS feed, to get the idea of what the posts were about. As a teacher, this little "newspaper" saves me time and makes it easier to assess and provide feedback on student's work, without having to visit 20 or so individual blogs, to see what students posted.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Cool Blogs
After looking through many different kinds of educational blogs, Mrs.Perry's 4th Grade Blog really stood out to me. I really liked how it included everything from class pictures, links to other useful websites for students, interactions with special guests, classroom news, and a means to showcase student's work. The blog is attractive and easy to use, with lots of pictures, links and discussions. Compared to other blogs I found, which were cluttered and hard to navigate, this blog brought a whole new meaning of blogging to me. I realized how you can transform this type of technology from personal use and apply it to the world of teaching. It's definitely a good way to extend whats happening in the classroom to the students at home as well as parents. I especially liked the links to her literature blogs and other subject area blogs. She created a different blog for each subject-science, math, reading and history. On one of the literature blogs, the class read The BFG by Roald Dahl, and students posted on The BFG Literature Circle Blog. They answered questions posted by the teacher and discussed the book. I think that this is a great way for all students to participate in a group discussion of the book because it doesn't hinder the shy students from wanting to speak in class and it motivates the other students to participate because its something different than just talking or writing on paper about it... Its cool technology!!
I can definitely see myself creating a blog in the future modeled after Mrs. Perry's Blog. I think blogs are an innovative and convienent way to keep connected to your students and parents outside of the classroom. They can help to build a strong sense of community because students, parents, or I can post anytime from anywhere. I can create a blog to extend what we are learning in the class, and post homework assignments on there as well. I will also use the blog as a means to communicate with parents about what students are learning and what is happening in the classroom, so that parents can stay informed and involved in the class. I loved how Mrs. Perry used individual blogs for different subjects, especially for discussing classroom literature. Since I hope to teach upper elementary, I think that this would be both grade-level appropriate and fun for students. Through my experience working with students, catering to student interest is at the core of engaging student learning. Most of the students I have worked with really enjoy working with technology, so I think working with a blog where students can contribute on a regular basis, will not only help them become literate in a technological world, but also make them interested in the subjects I teach!
I can definitely see myself creating a blog in the future modeled after Mrs. Perry's Blog. I think blogs are an innovative and convienent way to keep connected to your students and parents outside of the classroom. They can help to build a strong sense of community because students, parents, or I can post anytime from anywhere. I can create a blog to extend what we are learning in the class, and post homework assignments on there as well. I will also use the blog as a means to communicate with parents about what students are learning and what is happening in the classroom, so that parents can stay informed and involved in the class. I loved how Mrs. Perry used individual blogs for different subjects, especially for discussing classroom literature. Since I hope to teach upper elementary, I think that this would be both grade-level appropriate and fun for students. Through my experience working with students, catering to student interest is at the core of engaging student learning. Most of the students I have worked with really enjoy working with technology, so I think working with a blog where students can contribute on a regular basis, will not only help them become literate in a technological world, but also make them interested in the subjects I teach!
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