Week Eight

In the classroom, computers are becoming the teachers.  They are what the students look to for answers, look to for questions, and depend on to help them understand every piece of information they hear.  In some ways, the computers are becoming the brains of today’s children.  The advancements we are able to make because of the use of technology is amazing, we just need to get a handle on.

When it comes to technology usage it is sky rocketing.  Students are using multiple applications and programs for all types of things from networking to school work.  Because of this booming use of technology the viruses have increased greatly and continue to become smarter and smarter in order to sneak into the systems we depend on.  I notice that with the use of security systems at school they are great for blocking various things, but we get too reliant on their ability to stop anything and everything without us worrying about what we are going to.  I myself we admit I rely on the systems in place to keep things from coming in to harm the systems I use, when I know that I should use more caution.

At my school, we have a system over the entire district called Barrcuda, which blocks many websites from being viewed.  Also, no one has the authority to download any software or programs to their computers without administrative rights.  Only the technology people have the passwords for this and they have a better understanding of what is safe and what is not.  I will admit the place I feel that is most vulnerable is the school email.  There is really not a block with it and anything can come in, it is up to us to use good judgment on what is okay and what is not.

Bottom-line, you can never be too safe while on the computer and nothing is completely safe.  That is how we need to treat it and view it.

Week Seven

In week seven, I have learned some new information in the world of technology that I did not realize existed.  Like with educational software there are many forms such as:

• Drill-and-practice software, which gives the students immediate feedback, but does not however teach then new ideas.
• Problem Solving software, which challenges students, based on the concepts they already know.
• Creative software, which challenges students to explore and make connections on their own.
• Tutorial software, which walks the students through what they are learning
• Simulation software, which allows students to experience situations

I feel we need all these forms of software and they all work together to form some of the best site for students to use to improve their skills.

The brain discussion was quite interesting and provokes me to want to learn more.  On a video I was watching online I learned that through video gaming the gray matter in our brains are showing growth and it is sparking all kinds of creativity and motivation for students.  It is amazing to think that the video games that many say are horrible for children and the kids spend too much time on are increasing the Fluid intelligence of our children.  The brain is so amazing and I do not know that we will ever have a full understanding of all the possibilities of it.

With the technology explorations I found piclits and historypin to be my favorites.  When I think about it, they are quite similar and share a common bond.  They bond are pictures and we create our own interpretation of them.  On piclits we can write on the pictures whether it be one sentence, one word, or a poem and use the picture as the background to help with understanding.  With historypin on the other hand, we can compare how the world is changing in so many different ways and see the world through the lens of someone else.

Week Four

Week Four has been a journey in the areas that I enjoy the most.  All the activities and programs that we have worked with this week are ones that require creativity and challenge you to think bigger and outside the box.  Powerpoints can be quite boring if we just put a whole book of words and a few pictures and rant on about blah, blah, blah.  With the world of prezi and much, much more presentations and powerpoints can be interactive and make you feel as if you are right through in it. 

With the Technology Explorations this week I have found some amazing sites that I will be using soon to do projects with the kids.  The Comiclife site will be first on the list and a way for my kids to express topics we are learning.  I am excited to show my kids this activity and I can already see their minds running wild with imagination and creativity.  The other sites that amazed me were Storybird and Scribblar.  My kids already love to create stories and I have a million stories and books they have drawn posted all over my room.  Storybird will be a way for them to make stories online and a digital version that everyone can see.  It allows them to reach more people with their writing.

The powerpoint presentation I created and used with my students was with “The Hungry Caterpillar” book.  We are working on math skills such as addition and subtraction and I wanted to use technology to get this to them.  I used the various pictures and foods from the book to make interactive slides with addition and subtraction problems for them to solve at their desk.  I presented my powerpoint to my 1^st grade math students.  I am the most proud of the visual attractiveness of my powerpoint and how it brings you to every inch of each slide.  You do not look at the slides and see words everywhere, but pictures that tell you the problem.  If I could change one thing about the slide I would add voice to it and make it ask questions to the students about each problem, like with Voice thread.  The students looked the presentation and the artwork used.  It was very appealing to the students and not just a lecture that went nowhere.

Week Six

Webquests in the beginning were about to be the death of me.  They are something totally new for me and I had no clue what they were.  The more and more I read about them and the more webquests I looked at, I started to fall in love with them.  They are lessons ready to use, and fully use, from beginning to end for the student.  They are so unique and each webquest I looked at could be totally different, on the layout and what task it had for you to complete. 

I found creating my own webquest a very challenging and intimidating task.  I was unsure about how to word things and second guessed myself about a million times it felt.  In the end it was okay and the message of the lesson was there.  I have seen many webquest that not only have an excellent lesson for you, but are some visually appealing it is crazy.  I learned that the layout of the webquest can be very beneficial to the student and to what level they focus on the task before them.  You also what to make your webquest fun, inviting, and interactive without losing the focus of what the kids are being taught.

The challenges I faced this week while making my webquest were what exactly I needed to put in each area.  I was confused as to what information went where.  I do not understand the full logistics of how everything works as well to make it beautiful, but that will come.  Mostly, I was just confused with the title of the areas and what information I wanted to include in each area without being ridiculous.

My webquest is called Olympics Add Up.  It is tying in the Summer Olympics of 2012 with the math that can be gained through taking a deeper look.  Not only are you hitting math standards, but social studies, science, and using a ton of technology.  The high level thinking skills for this is going crazy.

http://questgarden.com/148/68/8/121001143021/

Week Five

Week five has opened my eyes to many different resources that are available to reach out to the students and parents.  You have different layouts that are coming popular, such as the community layout like Facebook, or the blog layout, or recording yourself for the students to open and listen to.  With the various methods that I have been introduced to this week, I feel that you should be able to reach a large variety of students with any learning style and help them to understand the material from their point of view.  The ways of online communication are limitless and we have talked about just a few such as: email, chat, blogs, wikis, communities, and much more. 

The things that I have learned this week that were totally new to me was the site edmodo.  It is great, and the site is safe for the students to use for communication with classmates and the instructor.  Also, I never realized the all the details included in my school’s AUP policy.  I knew of many of the details, but had never sit down and fully read this, I am sorry to admit.  I have a better understanding of what is expected with online communication in my district.  Also, I use YouTube a lot in my class, but I did not know they had an educational YouTube and I was pumped to find this out and I’m sure it will get some great use from me.  I have already watched the Lego Story and thought of tons of lessons for it, because my students love learning with Legos.

The informational I have learned during week five will help me to appeal to more students in my classroom and it will help me to be able to reach out to many more students in various ways.  Each student learns in a different way and hopefully through the use of many of these tools I will be able to reach these students that were struggling before in my class.  I will also make sure my students have a better understanding and knowledge about internet safety and correct use of online communication.  Bottom-line, I feel these resources will help me to reinforce the skills the students already have in a more modern way and one they are happy to share.

Week 3

This week word processing as came at me not only in class, but at school with my students.  My class is over the school newspaper and they were not excited in the least little bit when I said, we are WRITING the school newspaper.  However, we made our way down to the computer lab, and they were able to get on and TYPE their stories, or create on photoshop the pictures, they loved it.  They did not want to leave and ask to work on the newspaper everyday.  Being able to work on the computer has let me see a different and more confident side to many of my student that I am so excited about. 

During this time I was also able to work on the beginning steps of computer skills with my students such as:

-typing correctly

-copy/paste

-aligning text, selecting

-search and replacing words with dictionary

-and the extra things to make it appealing and eye catching

Having word processing and desktop publisher skills are something that is taken for granted in the world today.  Every career basically requires that individuals have computer skills.  The work force is in a new age and technology is booming.  The youth of today have to come out not only with the skill to accomplish the task before them, but to be able to do it digitally.

Below, you will see one of the flyer/programs that my students and I designed to hand out to the parents on the night of our afterschool enrichment program. 



With this flyer we tried to make it appealing to the eye by adding artistic flair and colors that would reach out and grab you.  We tried to make everything themed with the overall theme of the night with the Wizard of Oz.  By having the background and text formats to fit.  With all this however, the various colors can distract from what the event is about and what is going on at the event.

Looking upon this flyer in a new light, I will tone down all the various forms of text art and highlight one to keep consistency.  Also, make sure the messager of what the night is about is being displayed.

Week Two

Week two has grown upon week one, expanding into the world of WIKI.  We started off with understanding that the old boring thoughts of spreadsheets and databases can be used for so much more.  I will take the thoughts of the 3D charts during the classroom for my younger kids.  Such as drawing our the graph on the gym floor with painters tape or classroom floor and then using something like their shoes to represent the bars.  The visual would be a beginning to graphing and spread sheeting before starting the technology version. 

          Watching the clip “The Machine that Goes Ping”  had me confused at first as to why I was watching it and then as I watched it I found myself asking the same questions we had to answer.  Technology does seem to be more important in our ever-changing world than people.  We put so much attention on the newest thing, the most expensive thing that we become blind to the kids and why we even have the technology to begin with.  It is a great eye opener that I would love to use for our next meeting.

          Through our Technological Explorations this week I have learned about two more systems to use in my classroom, such as: making videos and digital brainstorming.  Both are great and provide another source for learning and getting through to students.  I’m excited to use the videos especially with my students for fun and for expressing the lessons we are covering.

          On Alice Christie’s website she shows many pictures of how her classroom is using spreadsheets to understand things in their classroom.  She not only uses it with math, but with a little bit of everything.  She has examples for grades K-12.  It really gets my mind going on what all you can really do to make it fun and interactive for the kids.  The link to her site is: http://www.alicechristie.org/edtech/ss/

It surprised me that you can make spreadsheets fun.  You do them in a way that makes the kids start to think outside the box and they start brainstorming about all the things that can spreadsheet in the room.  In the past I have used spreadsheets with students to graph favorite sports, favorite teams, eye color, what hand they write with, mostly characteristics about them.  We have mostly performed this on the computer, graph paper, regular paper by drawing it out, or most recently on the iPads.

          My task for the week ahead is to find a new way to make a spreadsheet without the items I listed above.

         

Week One

This week has been interesting to say the least.  With class just starting up I feel that everything has been so fast and just thrown into my brain to be looked at for another time.  At the same time this week has made my love for technology open again and had me reexamine with the lessons from Week one what I can change or make better for my students. 

          At the beginning of this week I learned that technology is not just a computer, iPad, or some device we use now.  That technology was around in different forms even when they built the 7 wonders of the world.  The pyramids required technology to be built.  They may not have had a laptop to bring up a program to lay out the structure for them, but they needed to know how to lay it out, what would stand, and why it needed to be built a certain way.  Technology has changed over the years and it will continue to change for future generations.  I’m sure they will look back at us one day and think the laptop was crazy to use.

          In the classroom I am going to start having my kids take pride in the times we use technology, not just take advantage of it without even thinking, but to understand what they are doing and to respect digital citizenship.  I want them to be able to accomplish various task with technology, but not rely on it to do things for them.

          I feel the main challenge that I as well as other classes will face with technology will be the students letting the technology do it for them.  We need to stress that the students are in charge of understanding the concepts, but technology is another tool for them to use.  Technology is not a quick way of getting the answer without them understanding for themselves.  To overcome this I will use technology as a reward after the skill is mastered, or an advanced way for them upon understanding of the skill.

          With the Technology Explorations, I fell in love with Tumblebooks and with Tikatok.  My students love to read and write if it is not the tradition sense.  They love the imagination running wild and creating a story to share with others, tikatok will help me to make this happen for them in a different sense and show great pride in their work.  Tumblebooks is another great source I can use with them to encourage reading!!