Final Class

In today’s class we watched each other’s group videos. I really enjoyed watching everyone's group video. They were all so different and unique. It is great to see how each group used technology in a different way. I really enjoyed watching how each group came up with an idea and how they executed the topic in their video. I think while watching the other groups videos you come up with different ideas of how you could produce similar videos and use them in your classroom. Also as I was watching I was thinking of where I could use each of these videos because they were all so good. As a teacher it is nice to see other group’s videos and see if you could use it or how you could take their style of video and put your own content in it.

   I think this relates closely to what would happen if you use technology inside of your classrooms. Students are able to show their creativity and produce pieces of technology that incorporate content knowledge in a creative way.  Students, like us, will be able to relate what they have learned from other groups into their own future work. They will learn technology from their own groups and the other groups in the class.

Chapter 8 and Chapter 9

Chapter 8:

Chapter 8 focuses on how technology helps teachers communicate with students and parents. There are many types of communication technology that a teacher can use to keep in contact with their students and parents. Some examples are emails, blogs, websites and wikis. In my classroom I e-mail my parents as a form of communication. If the matter is not urgent I find that sending them an e-mail is a way that we can communicate with each other about their child. Many of these parents are at work so it is an easier way for us to communicate. The chapter also discusses the many ways you can use these forms of technologies. They can be used for just one student or parent or you can use them for a group of students or parents. I think this is great especially when working with older children. I think when they can go home they can continue the learning process by having a group discussion on a blog with their peers. Something with communication technology I saw a teacher use was using a classroom blog. This was a whole class communication technology. The students and parents were able to go on and view homework and assessments. The teacher also had notes up for the students to view when they were home in case they needed a reminder. The children were also able to ask the teacher or fellow classmate’s questions about the work in case they needed help from each other. I thought this was a great way for the whole class to stay connected together outside of school.

Chapter 9:

Chapter nine discusses the ways in which you create and share information inside of your classroom. There are many forms of technology that you can use in your classroom videos, power point, and movie maker just to name a few. This chapter goes over the many ways you can use these forms of technology.  In my classroom I use a lot of videos. I show my students videos from BrianPopJr, youtube and from other educational websites. I feel that when my students watch a video related to the content that we are learning they develop a stronger understanding of the content. I really like videos that are for younger children with fun characters because it gets them engaged and motivated to watch the videos. I also see that another tool we use a lot in education especially with older children is power point presentations. I think that it is so popular because teachers can create it with everything they want the children to know, or the things that they feel are important. I also think it is used so often because teachers are able to connect links and pictures to their power point presentation which makes it more interesting for the students and uses more forms of technology in one lesson they you could with just a lecture.

Questions:

1.    Which form of technology communication do you think is the best when working with your students?

2.    Do you find yourself using more technology communication as a group or one on one? Why do you think you use it more?

3.    Which form of technology do you share or create in your classroom?  

Chapter 4 and Chapter 6

Chapter 4: Integrating Technology and Creating Change

Chapter 4 was about how as a teacher you can integrate technology inside of your classroom.  It also explained how you could use technology to also help you outside of your classroom. Teachers can use technology in the classroom to change the way students have generally been learning. The teachers should not forget about the usually way of teaching but incorporate technology in order to enhance learning in your classroom. Many teachers feel that if they do not have a full set of computers how could they teach children using technology.  In fact you can add technology into your classroom even when having only one computer. The chapter gives you many different ways you can use technology inside of your classroom.  I feel that teachers need to use technology inside of their classroom to work best for them. They know their students and understand which way is best for them to learn so they are able to integrate technology into their lessons in order to make it useful for the students.

Chapter 6: Teaching Educational Website

Chapter 6 talks about teaching educational websites and other online resources. This chapter talked a lot about webquests I found it really helpful. It helped me to know more about what a webquest is because last week I was a little confused since I have never made a web quest before.  It talks about designing a webquest and what you should put inside of your webquest. The webquest is there to help students learn electronically. Teachers are able to use the webquest as a tool to help their students learn through technology.

1. Is there a form of technology that works best for you in your classroom?

2. What do you think is the most important part of a webquest? How would you make the webquest meet the learning needs of your students?

3. How do you decided what educational websites are best for your students?

Webquest Defenition

A webquest is an inquiry based lesson. I believe a webquest is a place where students go to perform task based lesson, based on a specific unit. The teacher is able to give the students a task, with related websites, fun games, and assessments. This gives the students reliable websites about the topic instead of having students search for websites on their own. I think this is very useful  when you use them with  younger students who may not be able to find reliable websites on their own. This could still be beneficial for older students because they are able to work hands on with a specific task and assessment that they have in front of them.

After this class I learned a lot about what a webquest is and how to use it with your students. We saw examples of what a webquest is. I really like how interactive the webquest is. I think that using the webquest with the students give the students and interactive way to learn the unit based on the lesson that you provide for the students. The videos we watched also showed me examples of how I would and would not use a webquest inside of my classroom.

Chapter 5: Researching and Evaluating

Chapter 5 discussed about were your students should get their information when they get it off the internet, and how do your students know if the information is good information. The first thing when we tell students that they will have to research information they think about finding the information on the computer. This makes a lot of sense because there is so much information at your finger tips. It is not like the old days when you would have to go to the library and spend sometimes hours trying to research one topic. What use to take hours now takes minutes to find information but with so much information we need to learn how to access the information and how to assess what is the right information. I think teachers should start by first giving student’s websites that would be good to use. Some I always use with my students are discover kids, brain pop Jr, and awesome library. I also always list websites that I do not think are good websites to use, if they are not already blocked on the computer. I think teachers should review the websites with the students to help them understand if the information they have found is good or not. This part of internet information is very important because if students are accesses information that is incorrect they will read this information and believe it is correct. You need to teach children the importance of finding and using the right information

This point takes me into what the chapter talked about regarding plagiarism. Plagiarism is when we take information and use it like it was ours. Teachers need to teach students that they should not plagiaries and if we do use information from a source we need to site that source. It is important for teachers to teach children how to do this.  If children do not get the right information from the internet they will be sourcing facts that are incorrect. These two concepts are strongly connected and we need to make sure that students have a good foundation in both in order to collect information correctly.

Questions:

1: What are some websites that you find have good information for your students?

2: In what ways would you help your students to access the right kinds of websites?

3: Do you think we should teach students about finding information in other places besides the internet?

Class Discussion 2/19

This week in class we learned a lot of interesting information. I like best when we talked about how we learn. I agree with the professor that no matter how old you are we can all acquire the same content. I think that it is important for teachers to develop lessons that help students develop the content before worrying about technology inside of the classroom. We also reviewed about the learning theories that we went over in chapter 2. Being able to see the examples were a better way for me to understand them than I had in reading the text. I enjoyed seeing the behavioral their being put to place in watching the Big Bang Theory clip and how we remember certain information based on the way it is grouped together. What I think for me I am taking away from this class is the importance of how and what content you teach to the children. The content of what you teach is important not how you may teach it exactly.

Chapter Two: Transforming Learning with Unique, Powerful Technology

Chapter two discusses the importance of technology in helping with planning inside of your classroom. It explains how you could use technology in your lessons to make the way you teach more adequate.  The chapter gives you many ideas on how to use technology to benefit your students in a fresh new way.

One part of the chapter that I found to be informative was the way you can use technology to make your students be more creative. Your students can use technology to become more creative the name for this is informational technology and creative practices. The book listed many ways you can make your students more creative including design tools, student created movies, computer animation and desktop publishing just to name a few. You can use technology to also make your students work more creative they also included writing in this. Before I read this I always thought that when writing a first draft it was done best on paper first and then you could add it the computer.  After reading this article I understand why people might feel writing on the computer is best. They are able to get their thoughts and ideas down faster on the paper then they can when writing. They are able to brainstorm easier and add creative ideas to the stories. This part of the text opened my eyes to a new idea of how writing can be beneficial on the computer.

Chapter two gives you many ways to benefit you students learning through technology. I think it gave us as educators many new ideas to think about using in our classroom.

Questions:

1. Do you think that creative writing on the computer is beneficial for students?

2. Do you think that students are more engaged when using technology inside of the classroom?

3.What kind of advantages does technology have on students?