NetSmartz

I talked to a high school senior--age 17. He hadnt really ever heard of cyberbullying and didnt know what it was. He only uses the computer for information on the current sports and homework, occasionally he will use facebook or email. I talked to him about what was appropriate to have on his profile. He was not aware of the dangers of posting personal information such as phone numbers and addresses as well as age, etc. I explained why it's important to be cautious about the information you give out on the internet. I talked to him about some of the dangers of chatrooms and some of the horrific things we viewed in class. He was a little bit taken aback and said that it was hard to understand why people would do something like that. I think it was a positive experience because I was able to share some good information and help inform someone of the dangers that exist on the internet. Hopefully he will be more cautious from now on and be aware of the information that he is giving out online.

Things I learned from my classmates

I think the number one thing that I learned was that there are a large variety of ways to incorporate technology. I never thought about using technology in guided reading, but one member of my group incorporated technology in a fun interactive way. Another member of my group used a program on the computer I had never heard about to help teach fact families.

I have been introduced to a variety of resources and I think one other important thing that I have learned is that if you put forth the effort to find something, you can use technology to enhance almost any lesson. There is so much available to us, we just need to be aware of those options.

Internet Article Questions

What article did you choose to read for your fourth article?
I read "Fighting Internet Filth" by Mario Hipol


What were the most important things you learned from the readings?
I think that the most important thing I learned is that it is important to teach internet safety to children so that they will develop good habits. I am not familiar with all of the different negative sites and content that people can access, but I know that there is a lot of it. It is important to know how to use the computer to set up a safety net. I like how the article mentioned keeping bookmarks so that you don't have to search for popular sites to visit. But really, I think the most important preventative measure we can take is to teach correct principles.

How will what you have read influence your actions as a parent and/or teacher of children and youth?
A lot of the methods mentioned for making computers safe for children were used in my home to prevent the use of any inappropriate websites. I will definitely monitor computers in my home and will invest in internet filters to avoid unwanted pop-ups. I will also limit what sites that my students/children can access.

How can you use what you have learned from the reading to have a positive influence on family and friends?
I think that keeping up to date with ways to remain internet safe is the most important thing you can do. Secondly, it is important to inform those around you of the dangers and ways to avoid them. By doing these things, I can help others be aware of what they should expect when using the internet and I can help them avoid negative influences.

Technology in the Classroom Slideshow

Tech Project.

View more presentations from carisaf.

Week 11, Technology Experience

Today I had a great opportunity to use technology in the classroom and the students absolutely loved it. We had an engineering day at our elementary school and the students went through different rotations. In my rotation, we started out with a clip from a crew that did some experiments with different toys in space. The clip asked the students to follow along and do some experiments of their own and see how the results differed in space from on earth. I then had the students do an experiment and led a discussion asking them to predict what would happen in space.

After the discussion, we watched another clip of the experiment in space and then discussed the differences. I then asked the students what made the difference. They were able to identify the force of gravity as the main difference and we were then able to talk more about microgravity and other forces that affect objects on earth and in space. We repeated this process for two more experiments. The students loved the hands-on experiment and the clips that allowed them to see how the experiment would work in space.

One way to use technology...

As I have observed in the classroom, I have noticed that technology is not used very often in my classroom. One idea that I really like though is using CD's on tape of different books. I think that this can be a very effective tool. Students have the opportunity to listen to a book, but at the same time they can work on different projects. This allows students to be introduced to more literature.

I also think that a lot of books on tape have a great amount of expression, especially with the different characters. They are really fun to listen to. This is a good way to get kids excited about books and literature. This is one of the many kinds of technology I would like to incorporate into the classroom.

Practicum Week 1: Technology in the Classroom

Today I had the unique opportunity to take the class to their prep hour at computers. While we were waiting in the hall for the last class to finish up, I started talking to the kids about what they did during this hour and how they liked it. A lot of the students talked about how they would use the computer to do a variety of reading and writing activities and then they would play games for a while. Most of them said that they really liked it. I also talked to the teacher about a program that they are using that prepares students for the end of year tests. It asks different questions about the subjects they are learning about and prepares them for the format of the test. The only other time that the students use technology is when they are listening to books on tape, or when they are typing up writing assignments that they have completed.

I think that the technology that they do use makes the students excited about things that they might not normally be excited about. It also helps relieve some of the pressure from the teacher when the students can be directed by different programs. I think that in these cases, technology is very beneficial to the classroom and to the students.

TPACK Questions week 7

What is the content you’ll be using in your lesson? The content of this lesson will be to explain how selected indigenous cultures of the Americas have changed over time. The culture we will focus on is the Mayans.
What is the pedagogy you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content? The strategies that I would use include observing, researching, comparing, etc. Students will be able to research information on different Mayan cities. In addition, they will compare photographs of Mayan ruins and current buildings/cities and will observe the differences. This fits with the content because in order to understand that a culture or city has undergone a change over time they need to be able to see differences. Seeing how a land was once filled with pyramids and is now covered in forest or more modern cities shows that there has been significant change.
What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy? The technology includes google earth which will show students exactly what is located in a certain area now. As well as provide links to different pictures and information that will give students an idea of what kinds of changes have taken place. In this project, students focus is on the technology, the learning is individual based because they will be exploring and learning as they go through the tour.

Virtual Tour Plan

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico	Students will read about different Mayan ruins and write down the name of their favorite and why it is their favorite	Photograph of Chichen Itza, link to site with multiple ruins
2. Uxmal, Yucatan, Mexico	Search some of the ruins read about in the first part of the tour on GoogleEarth	Photographs of ruins in different cities
3. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico	Compare some of the buildings found here now, to the ruins previously read about (find ancient ruins in Merida)	Pictures of houses, buildings and streets in the area, link to photographs of ruins in Merida
4. Forested area of the Yucatan	Explain how the area has changed over time and the causes for the change: talk to your neighbor about these changes	Link to clip about Mayans, gives details about the land occupied by the Mayans
Details of image polygon:	Highlight the boundaries of the ancient Mayan civilization

Digital Storytelling

"Where did you come from baby dear?"
Poetry Interpretation

***I spent several hours trying to load this into teacher tube with no success, so I just uploaded it into my blog.

Storyboard

TPACK Questions Week 5

What is the content you’ll be using in your lesson? The content comes from standard 1, objective 2. Students will be working on developing language through viewing media and presenting. Students enjoy different types of media, which is why this assignment would be so beneficial because they are working with literature and creating a story through media that they will share with the class. Everyone will benefit from viewing other stories.
What is the pedagogy you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content? For the writing assignment, students will do a poetry interpretation. This means they will be putting a poem together with their own illustrations. I think this would be a good opportunity to talk about symbolism and how different people get different meaning from poetry.This fits with the content because they will be using media to present their poem.
What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy? I will be using photostory or iMovie to put the stories together. Students may also be using digital cameras to capture images. This fits with content and pedagogy because the use of technology allows the students to put their presentations together.

TPACK Questions

The content that I focused on in my science lesson was for the third grade and addressed the earth's relationship to the sun and the moon. The method of pedagogy that worked was observation because students could best learn about the rotation and the revolution of the earth by observing. With something like this it is hard to get hands-on, but this is as close as you can get. It's hard to replicate something like this in a classroom, which is why stellarium is a great technological resource and fits well with the content and pedagogy.

Tech Savvy Teacher

There is a wide variety of technological resources available to teachers. Let me share a neat example of how to incorporate technology in the classroom.

For this activity, I focused on teaching students about the movement of the earth, moon and stars through the sky and how these movements related to the earth. To start out students were put into small groups of two to three and were asked to research about the movement of the sun. Students found that the earth moves in two ways through the sky. First, the earth revolves around the sun. Second, it spins on its axis. The research process is shown in the picture on the right.

The next step in the process was for students to experiment with the effects of the earth’s movement. To understand these effects, students were introduced to Stellarium. With stellarium students were able to observe the effects of the revolution of the earth around the sun, as well as the orbits of other planets. This can be seen in the pictures below.










In addition to observing the orbits of the planets and the moon, students could observe the effects of the earth spinning on its axis. These effects are seen as night and day. The students could capture these images (examples are shown below).










By using technology, students were able to observe all of these instances in the classroom. Students could actually watch as the earth orbited the sun. This is something that cannot be replicated outside the classroom. This technology (which can be downloaded on to any computer) allows students to observe something that, normally, could not be observed. To reinforce this activity, students can observe the movement of the stars over a period of time, which is what they can see through stellarium at an excelerated speed.

TPACK and science technology

Teachers should be aware of how to teach a variety of subjects using different resources. TPACK is important for teachers to understand because it shows how content, technology and pedagogy relate. It also shows the importance of having balance in your teaching.

This week we were shown some different resources that teachers can use to teach science, including stellarium. I thought this tool would be very helpful in a classroom to show different time zones. It can also be used to teach astronomy. It is a tool that students can use and experiment with themselves.

RSS Feed

This week we learned about RSS feed. This can be a resourceful tool because it can keep you updated on new technologies and research. I really liked the GoodReads tool because it can help you keep track of the books that you have read; it can also give you ideas for good books to read that others have recommended. I like the idea of using this to help students who really like to read by finding new books that they are interested in. If you keep your files updated with good books, then you will have a whole selection of books to suggest. Not only that, but the reviews will help you remember more about the book.

Background and History in Technology

I have a basic background in technology. I have worked with a number of programs including microsoft office; I have extensive experience with powerpoint and word. I can use the internet effectively. Right now I am working on creating my own website that will include resources for my future teaching career.