Tuesday, November 15, 2016

#10

Teachers can use data collection tools to poll classes for feedback.  Teachers can also use data collection tools to ask a class for their overall opinions and thoughts.  This is important because the better you understand your students the better you can cater to their needs and overall teach instruction to them in a way they understand.  For example, if I wanted to see what my 5th grade students knew about math before I began to teach I could create a survey on Qualtrics for my students.  Then i could form an excel sheet with the data.  This would help me understand what content would be appropriate to teach in the math field.

Other classmates have been posting a lot of interesting stuff about technology and the many uses of it in the classroom.  My favorite posts are usually the ones that mention the teacher websites we made.  I really enjoyed this assignment so it was neat to look at my classmates ideas, deigns, and content.  I also enjoyed looking at people's posts on open source media use because there were many different helpful links to open sources that I could use in the future.  These will be helpful as a teacher because it is important that we set a good example by following all copyright laws and adhering to ethical guidelines.

Next I would like to work on learning how to use excel! I want to learn more about excel because it is a useful tool for budgeting and calculating/interpreting feedback.  This would be useful in everyday life as well as in my future career as a teacher.  I can do this by complete the project we have do next week that uses a survey tool and excel. Hopefully after I do this project I will be more comfortable using excel and as a result do well on the upcoming skill check.

Monday, November 7, 2016

#9

The flipped classroom is when you do your homework in class and you learn the lesson through videos outside of class on your own time.  I personally have taken a flipped class before and I hated it.  I really do not like to teach myself and I find it hard to keep up with the videos.  That being said, some kids do thrive in the flipped classroom setting.  It just depends on how you learn.  Some people need more help in the learning process and others in the application process.  https://www.edutopia.org/videos has educational videos you could check out to get an idea of flipped learning and classrooms.

The open education movement from MIT makes the open courses available for everyone to learn.
Open content specifies what people can and can't do with what they find online.  This is sort of like copyright.  Teachers can save a lot of time by adapting and editing online open materials shared through websites.  Open source software is usually free and can be downloaded online.  Open office is an example and here is a link to that.  http://www.searchr.net/Open%20Office?l=us-en

The PowerPoint project helped me learn how to navigate the PowerPoint software better.  I had done animations before but not in a long time so it was a good refresher.  I liked setting up the lesson and coming up with activities for the kids the best. I tried to incorporate lots of discussion questions and group collaboration to facilitate learning.  I also tried to incorporate many different learning styles to cater to as many students as possible.

Monday, October 31, 2016

#8

I was absent so I did not get to visit the Sports Psych Lab.  However, I believe that technology being integrated into schools is essential to set our students up for success.  Specifically the Dynavision D2 helps with perceptional vision and could be helpful for visual learning.  This could also help teach physical education.  Eventually this tool will help students learn how to process multiple things at once.

Bloom's Taxonomy is a framework for learning through goals.  It starts with remembering and then moves to understanding and applying.  Then you should encourage students to analyze, evaluate, and finally create using the knowledge they have learned.  If you are using a power point you can guide students through the framework of Bloom's Taxonomy.  You can do this by introducing the topic with words and visual aids in a power point.  Then you can do an activity with the power point to create understanding and show real world applications of a concept.  After that I would put a group activity on the power point so that they can analyze and then they could create there own powerpoint to show their full knowledge of the concept and teach technology skills.


http://edtechteacher.org/tools/
This website is used to recommend apps and technological tools for teachers.  They also do workshops to teach people about the innovation in education of technology.

Monday, October 24, 2016

#7

Assistive technologies can help disabled learners still be able to use computers.  For example someone with a physical disability may not be able to physically type, but through a voice recognition system they can still operate technology.  I've never used this before but I've seen it used in movies before.  I feel like this could be a challenge to use in the classroom because while everyone else is silently working, the kid using the vocal recognition software would be speaking and that could make him/her feel uncomfortable.

I really enjoyed designing my own website.  It made me want to start a personal one on fashion or something like that!  Navigating Weebly was not difficult and it taught me the basics of building a website.  It also taught me that a website would be very helpful for students because you can attach so many links and resources to it.  Putting the pictures in the spots I wanted then was difficult at first, but I played around with it and figured it all out.  (quinelaine.weebly.com)

Working with Diigo has also been really cool.  I love being able to annotate and share with our group.  This would be so useful for teachers all teaching the same subject.  You could share resources, ideas, and lessons with each other.  Diigo could also be used for a whole class that is working on a project to share information and helpful articles.  Overall this is a very useful and cool tool that I look forward to using more in the future.

Monday, October 17, 2016

ILP-"Tool Box"-Edmodo

www.edmodo.com

#6

Your sixth post should contain: · Most schools require teachers to maintain a set of class pages on the school website. Visit a school website and look at a few class pages. Write a paragraph about what kinds of information you see publically, (students and parents likely have access to information you will not see without log-in privileges). Include a screen shot. Be sure to identify the school and grade of students. ·

This teacher mainly uses her website to let kids catch up on assignments.  Under each tab she has links to assignments.  This is for an 8th grade Earth-Space Science class and the content and design seems to be appropriate for this grade.  This teacher also has her name and a space for people to leave comments in.  Overall it seems like she is not fully utilizing the tool of having a website.  After looking at other websites on Conway Middle School's website, I found that many of the teachers did not seem to be fully using this resource.



I hope that I can use technology in a more effective way.  If I set up a website or an Edmodo page I want to use it frequently and make sure that I educate students on how to use it correctly.  Once the students are trained on how to use the technology, I hope to make using it and turning to it for information a structured part of my classroom.  To keep up with the technology I plan on attending trainings and researching new ways to engage students.  Technology can be a great tool if we use if correctly.

Specifically in the tech sandbox last week I enjoyed using the smart board.  I liked how it was easy to use.  I also enjoyed the interactive nature of the smart board.  The fun lessons and 3-D elements allow teachers to engage students and help them learn in a fun way.  Also you connect your smart board to a computer which is convenient for sharing files and interacting with websites.  Overall I think the smart board is a good and effective tool for teachers that I would like to use.