What I learned in Class Today

First we started off the day by taking attendance. We wrote on the board for the first time, which was fun and easier than expected.

We talked about Chapter 2. The people that presented today used Prezi, it was interesting to see one of our classmates work on a different type of presentation tool.

Presentation Do's and Don'ts

-watch your words (...um and ...like) and don't broadcast them, just move on and be aware of them

-knowing the technology-some things are not going to work the way you think they are going to work (try and mess up is better than not trying at all)

-Organization-make sure you are well prepared

-Variety in the presentation

-Great job moving around the classroom, great movement-progress monitoring (don't move too much)

-a bit long...the presentations are 30 minutes long

-be aware of the questions you ask-do not ask "not" questions when using multiple choice (because they are confusing)

-Be cautious about relying too much on notecards

-clarify the words that you are using-(example: firewall vs. filter) make sure to use the correct words when you are talking about your chapter

-Make sure the data that you use in your presentation is up to date

We also talked about different websites that we can use in our classroom. We talked about WebQuest, which gives an intentional use for the Web. We can use this tool right away as a teacher because the WebQuest is already planned and made for you.

We also talked about website credibility. We talked about the different steps that we should do while evaluating websites. This is so important for our classroom as well as in our own lives. One thing that is very important when searching is triangulation. Triangulation is finding the same information in different locations. One of the websites that we can use in our classroom is "All About Explorers," which is a website that is made by teachers to help students learn about fake websites. We have to be careful of the domain names. We saw an example of a .org website that is not credible at all. I think this is such a useful thing to know and teach in our classroom.

We also took some class time to revise our inquiry questions. We each shared our question and had other people help us make our question better. I really enjoyed getting feedback so that I can make this question meaningful for my future students as well as for myself. I think that this is a very useful process for us because it helps us think critically about our questions. Having our peers reflect on our question provides us with more ideas to make our question more polished. My question is: How can educators use technology to support learners with autism spectrum disorder?

We learned about Scratch. It is a very interesting tool. It is a great interactive tool that we can use in our classroom to make student's learning more meaningful and fun.

Website Credibility

When evaluating a website students should go through many different steps to check that it is a credible website. Our book gave us many different questions to evaluate the information provided. The students should first search on the website for the answers to these questions. For example they need to check if it is published by a credible organization. I was looking at the Tree Octopus website and the first thing that I saw was a picture of an octopus in a tree. More importantly I saw that the organization that was behind the website was called Greenpeas, now it sounds like a credible source like Greenpeace and I did look over it at first but then when I read it again and followed the link at the bottom of the page it gave me a error screen. I know from this bogus organization as well as prior knowledge that this website is not legitimate. Another question that students should ask themselves when reviewing a website for credibility is if there is a reference page where the bibliographies are credible. Just like when I was talking about the octopus website, I followed several of the links and it led me to an error screen again, it also had People for the Ethical treatment of Pumpkins, now that again could easily be looked over for something credible but the link did not bring me to a website. Another question that students should consider are if there are any gaps in logic, or is there missing information that is relevant to the subject. Something that I noticed when I was reading the Octopus page is the part about donating money. It says that you donate straight to the octopus. This is not logical and it tells me that this website is obviously not credible. I looked at the Dihydrogen Monoxide website and the first thing that I did was look at the bottom of the page to see when it was last updated and if they had a credible organization that supported their cause. There was a phrase that stated: “Note: content veracity not implied” which tells me that it is not truthful information. I also learned from the book to look for different signs that they are just using their website to advertise and get money. They have a ton of different advertisements everywhere on the screen. Another thing that makes me think that this website is not credible is that it says that it is not affiliated with EPA. It is also not credible because it is also another name for water and it is talking about all the “dangers.” Another thing that I found that was tricky and manipulative was the many common uses, all of those things are what water does and it was making them sound negative. So students should search for websites with credible sources as well as credible organizations.

This was a very interesting task because I would have thought a few of these websites were credible before looking at the criteria to evaluate the information within a website. It was comical to look at some of these different websites because they were so outlandish but I know how important this process is for students in my classroom. This will change how I teach in the future because it will make me aware of the credibility of websites. Some of these websites that are on the web are very tricky and you have to look very closely at websites in order to find the hoax behind them. I had to read the organizations on the Octopus website a couple of times before I realized it was not Greenpeace and instead was Greenpeas. I think that this will help me as well as my future students when working on the web.

Digital BookTalk! Clifford and the Grouchy Neighbors by Norman Bridwell

The booktalk was such a fun experience for me, I really enjoyed picking a book, choosing the way I was going to do my booktalk and then planning the whole thing. I believe that I put a lot of effort into making my booktalk. I first had to pick the book that I wanted to do for my booktalk. That was really fun because I chose a book that I have loved since I was a child. Then I had to make props and costumes for the booktalk. I made different props for the different scenes in my booktalk. I had to make a Clifford costume for my dog Tye. One of the hardest parts of the booktalk was having my dog as the main actor in my small film. I was very worried that he would eat the other characters or eat the props (he has a tendency to eat things). It was also hard for him to stay still, so the whole booktalk was an fun filled adventure. I was pleasantly surprised by my dog’s acting skills. I really was impressed on how well he stayed in his one spot while filming. I think overall the filming part of the booktalk went very well. I also had to make a script for my sister and I to read for the booktalk . After filming all of the scenes we did the audio for the booktalk. Next after everything was uploaded onto my computer I had to use Window’s Movie Maker to edit and combine all of the different elements. This was an especially difficult part of the project because you have to align all of the audio with the video and create headings and credits. It was a fun and great learning experience. I believe that I exerted a lot of effort on this project and I am happy with the outcome.

I think the value of this course task is to show us that we can use these types of things in our classroom, not only can we encourage our students to make their own booktalk about their favorite book but we can also make some to promote different books that we are going to read in our classroom. I think that this is a fun and worthwhile project that will be very beneficial in our classroom. I think that students will find a lot of gratification and pride from doing a project like this. They are able to speak their mind about a book that they really enjoy and show their classmates what fun and exciting books are out there for them to read. I kind of view a digital booktalk as a digital show and tell. I used to love show and tell and now students can show their fellow classmates their favorite books, just in a different way. I really liked this project and see how it can be beneficial in my future classroom!

Chapter 2 Reflection-Investigating With Technologies

The first thing that struck me in this chapter that I had not thought of before is researching on the web. I did not think of it as being meaningless in the ways that it talks about. It is very true, even for myself that if a teacher gives us some close-ended questions to find in a chapter that we read or on the internet we are not looking to learn but just to find the answers. I learned from this chapter that we need to follow a step by step process in order to make our research meaningful. The four steps that are included in this process are: Plan, use strategies to search the web, evaluate, and triangulate sources (page 15). This will change my teaching because I will give my students direction, I will help become effective researchers and I will help them to become intentional. I like how they talk about modeling in this chapter and how to model intentional research. Modeling is something that I will always use in my classroom and now I am learning how to model technology concepts to my students that I did not know how to do before. I also learned about different search-engines and directories. Before reading this chapter I would have told you that they were the same thing, but now I know the benefits of both and how to use them more effectively. Something that I will use for teaching and lesson planning are the social-bookmarking websites. It is such a great resource that we can use when we are teachers for finding websites that other teachers use as well as other classmates. I liked the Diggo bookmarking site that they mentioned in the chapter. I like the idea of a digital transparency that they were talking about, because something that I have issues with is remembering why I like a website so much. I think that this would be great to use for websites where I only like part of the website, like the activities or only the lesson plans. The evaluating of websites in this chapter has made a big impact on the way that I intend to teach. I have thought a lot about the dangers of using the internet in my classroom and I believe that there is a great importance in evaluation of a website. I think it is an essential to teach our students how to evaluate a website for fact and for fiction. I think that the questions and the guidelines that this chapter provides will help me teach my students the difference between a legitimate source on the web and also a illegitimate source. The section about safety and privacy also has impacted my thinking and views on teaching with technology. I have always been in support of the filtering devises for students because I think that their safety is the most important thing. I know how frustrating it can be though to search online for different things on a school computer and then not be able to find anything because of the installation of a filtering devise. I think that we as teachers should try to find that middle ground and educate our students and how to use the internet more effectively. I am still kind of confused on how you reach this though, what I mean is that we are responsible for the safety of our students in our classroom. This gives the schools and teachers a great responsibility so I guess we have to monitor our students closely and make sure they are not straying away from the intended topic and material.

What I learned in Class Today....January 14

Today we learned about adapting tools for our elementary students. We talked about how we need to incorporate the different technologies into our individual grades. In this class we are talking about more general technologies for all the grades, not on the particular grade that we are going to teach. We also talked about having classroom wikis, we talked about the benefits of having these classroom wikis in our classrooms in the future. I did not really think that we could use them in our classroom but now I can see how the classroom wiki would be very helpful. We can use them to involve parents in our teaching, we can put our schedule and homework for our students. We also talked about a particular contemporary issue, we talked about having textbooks online. In my opinion this is a great idea for many reasons. For example, using such a tool like a "Kindle" can have many benefits for personal use as well as in the classroom. We can use this for cost issues, instead of paying fifty dollars for a textbook we can pay only ten dollars. It is a great way to minimize the weight of our student's backpacks as well. When I was in middle school I remember the huge backpack that I had to carry around. My back was killing me by the end of the day and I was not keen on bringing that backpack everyday. Using online texts is a great alternative to this. Students can have books accessible at any time and can bring them almost anywhere. An issue that I might have with using online books is that we are not using physical texts. In my opinion, there is many benefits of having the physical books in hand. They can interact with the books by looking at the pictures, some physical books have textures that students can interact with and feel. Online books do not have that valuable aspect. One thing that I really enjoyed learning this class is the different tools that we can use for presentations. I like the idea of steering away from PowerPoint. It is a great way to keep our students engaged and involved.

Chapter 1 Reflection

In chapter one, I learned that meaningful learning for students has five different characteristics. The characteristics for meaningful learning are Intentional, Authentic, Cooperative, Constructive, Active and Intentional. When I first read this chapter, I did not know how technology would tie into all of these different characteristics. Before reading for example, I did not know how technologies could be used in the context of cooperative learning and collaboration. I have always that the idea in my head that technology was something that students did on their own, it was individualized and sometimes anti-social but through this chapter I learned something new that I did not think of before. Technology can be used in an individual basis but it can also serve as a great communication tool. For example, the chapter stated that it could connect students inside the classroom, around their town and even around the world. I love this idea of cooperative learning. This is one way that I might change my teaching styles because of this chapter. I want my students to see how other students view things around the world, we can use these technologies in science to see the different animals around the world, first hand using technology, or we can see other cultures and talk to other students in different languages. This type of technology opens the door for so many teaching possibilities in my classroom. The chapter also discusses how our instruction should be active and engage the learners. They can manipulate technology in their own way and teach technology in the ways that they want to use it. Another aspect of meaningful learning is being reflective learners. Students need to find meaning in what they do in order to stay engaged in their learning. This type of teaching allows students to ask questions and allows them to find meaning for themselves. They are not just given a solution to the problem but as good teachers we have to allow them to find answers for themselves. Another characteristic of meaningful learning is making learning authentic, and what is more authentic in these children’s lives than technology. We can give our students a chance to learn using the technology that they have been exposed to since they were little. We are relating their learning to their own lives. When we are using their video games such as Nintendo DS or other game systems to teach a lesson on math they are able to relate because they know how to work this type of technology and it does not seem so formal and intimidating. I think that this has changed my view of teaching because they have always taught us to make learning relevant to students lives but not in this way. I now see that technology can be used to make learning relevant and fun for our students. I think this chapter opened my eyes up to so many more possibilities for teaching and learning. I believe that technology can be used in so many different contexts that I would never have thought of without reading this chapter. I can see the benefits of using these technologies in the classroom and I look forward to the chance to try out this new teaching style in my own classroom in the future.

Digital Autobiography Reflection

I feel that I put a good amount of effort into making this project. It was frustrating at first because when I was creating the first digital autobiography I tried to add my own music but I was unable to use any of my music files. Then I searched through the music that they website provided for me. I picked the music that I found that I feel fit my video the best. It was very difficult to find any music that would be appropriate for a video about my family. I found music that deals with love and I think that it helps make my video more fun and meaningful. Another part that I put effort in was picking the pictures that I was going to use. It was hard to come up with a time in my life to highlight for my video. I put a lot of effort in finding the photos for this project. I really enjoyed creating the different captions for the pictures. I created an Animoto autobiography first. When I was creating this project, I could not figure out how to put the captions under each of the pictures so I put the captions before the pictures that they pertain to. I think that this was difficult to decide what captions to put for each of the pictures. I also had to organize them so that the captions and the pictures match up correctly. Next, I made an autobiography using PhotoShow. That was a similar experience. I had some of the same issues using this tool. One thing that I liked more about this tool is that I can put captions under each of the pictures. I think it made it tell a better story than the Animoto tool. I got to see the benefits of using the second program because they each had different aspects. I think that I put a lot of effort into this project. So I decided to use the Photoshow tool for my digital autobiography. I went back and changed some of my original autobiography to tell a better story and better utilize the tool. I think that it was a great project and it was a lot of fun creating a story of my life.

I really think that this is a valuable tool. I think that completing this task lets us experience a different way of presenting things in class. I think that it is a very valuable tool to use in my classroom. I can use it to show my students a short presentation of my own life, and they can do the same to show their fellow classmates about themselves. It is important to create a positive classroom climate so that students feel comfortable and safe in the classroom. One way that we can create this climate in our classroom is that we can get to know each other. Another way that we can use this tool in our classroom is to use this program for other lessons. We can use it for showing visual images of concepts. For example, if we are teaching about mammals we can show a picture slide show of animals in different continents. With the different continents we can add in music that the students would associate the type of music with. We can use music from the “Lion King” to represent animals from Africa. We can also create different videos using the Voicethread for the students to add in their own voice. When the students can hear their own voice and see their own pictures on the video they can feel important. I think that this is a great social tool as well as a teaching tool.

Response to Frontline Video

The Frontline video opened my eyes to so many things that I did not think of before. In the light of all of the new technologies that our students are exposed to, it forces teachers to be entertainers. We have to capture their attention by using different technologies in our classroom. Our students are used to getting things right away, having immediate feedback. With a traditional teaching approach, students are not always getting responses right away. They have to practice in order to learn different things and they have to be patient when they are trying to learn. This becomes frustrating for students and we as teachers need to use the technology to help our students learn more effectively. This video also opened up my eyes to the idea of cheating. For example, in the video the students said that the majority of students use “Spark notes” instead of reading the actual book. This has to be considered in our classroom because we have to reevaluate what is considered cheating in our classroom. We have to ask ourselves how we are going to discourage this cheating.

Another issue that we have to take into consideration in our classroom is that most of our students are part of the social networking websites. These websites provide these students with the opportunity to create their social identity. This should be considered in our classroom because now we do not only have to worry about physical bullying but we also have to worry about cyber bullying through these social networking websites. As teachers we have a responsibility to teach our students about safety and how to use technology responsibly. We have to consider this as part of our classroom management plan, so that we can help our students learn good social skills, whether it be one-on-one social situations or online social situations.

I thought that I was part of the technology generation but after watching this video I realize what some of my students will be dealing with, due to the technology that is part of their lives. I never considered the different technologies to use in our classroom because I was not taught that way. I learned from this video that there is always going to be a significant generation gap due to technology. Students will always view me as the technology “dinosaur,” I think in my classroom I will be able to use this to my advantage. I will use this gap to help students feel empowered in my classroom. To some extent these students can teach me about technology while I teach them other needed skills. Some of the things that I will due differently in my classroom is incorporate a lot of different technologies in my classroom. For example, as an addition to their learning in the classroom I will have different computer programs that helps the students with different skills such as math. They will be able to get immediate feedback for their work. I will change some of my teaching by teaching students about “good cyber citizenship.” I will teach my students how to behave appropriately on line as well as on the play ground. I think that technology is very beneficial for my students and I intend on making it part of my future classroom.

What I have Learned in this class so far

In class today I learned a lot about incorporating different technologies in my future classroom. Usually when I think of technology I only think of computers. I have not really thought of all of the different technologies that are possible for use in our classrooms. I have learned some of the importance of using different technology in the classroom. I have also learned how to use different technologies such as digital autobiography, and blogging. I have not used blogging in the past and I now know how to use this tool. I also learned about social bookmarking. I can see the benefits already of using this tool. I will use this tool in the future as well as for this class to build my different resources to use in the classroom. I have also seen the impact that technology has on our students in the classroom because they are growing up in this technological world. It is our responsibility as teachers to make learning relevant for our students and I learned today that technology is important to our student's learning.

Role of Technology in Teaching and Learning

I believe that the role of technology in teaching and learning is to give students an opportunity with different kinds of technology. Some students will work more effectively using technology such as a computer instead of writing on a piece of paper. I believe that this generation of students has so much experience with technology that we have to incorporate that into our teaching. I think that when a student comes into our classroom it is our job to make accommodations for that student. We have the responsibility to help our students succeed in our classroom. Some students will use technology to succeed in our classroom while others will work more effectively using physical materials such as books, or worksheets. I believe that technology such as the “Smart Board” is such a great resource to use in our classroom to give the students other opportunities to use what we have just taught them.