Sunday, March 27, 2011
Comics in my classroom
I will be the first to admit that I do not like comic books. I have always been an advanced reader and loved reading so i didn't understand why people wanted to read comic books. As a future educator i now understand that comics are a great tool to use for discouraged or struggling readers. They are also great for ELL's and visual literacy. I could also use them as a way to better understand books that are hard reads. Using comics in the classroom is something i need to continue to research about because i grew up disliking them and i know that my preferences are not going to be the same as my student's.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Podcast, Website & Blog Mid-term Critiques
Part 1: My peers had really good podcasts. They were about some of the resources we used in class like animoto and classroom 2.0 and they included a few resources that we had not covered in class like PBS teachers and 4teachers.org. There podcasts were appropriate length and i could hear them and understand them clearly. When i compare my own podcast to theirs I think that my voice was a little to quite and i was working so hard on talking slow and clear that it sounds really monotone and boring.
Part: 2 The two websites I critiqued were very well organized. Things were easy to locate and they were interesting. They both had good layouts and designs that made it easy on the eyes. It was nice that everything was easy to find because a lot of times people dont want to search for what the are looking for. The color choices and layout designs were well thought out and individual. After seeing the other two websites, i am glad i decided to change to another processor besides google sites because it allows me to do more with the layout of my pages. I also would like to add more information for future employers to look at rather than just class projects.
Part: 2 The two websites I critiqued were very well organized. Things were easy to locate and they were interesting. They both had good layouts and designs that made it easy on the eyes. It was nice that everything was easy to find because a lot of times people dont want to search for what the are looking for. The color choices and layout designs were well thought out and individual. After seeing the other two websites, i am glad i decided to change to another processor besides google sites because it allows me to do more with the layout of my pages. I also would like to add more information for future employers to look at rather than just class projects.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Fun with Text Reflection
Wordle
Using Wordle was definetely fun, it is something I will use personally use quite often on projects for classes. It is easy, creative, user friendly and the product looks a lot more complicated than it is! I can see showing it to the kids as something to use to describe themselves, or things they did during their summer or things like to do, or maybe even for vocab words. I have not however figured out how I would incorporate it into a lesson as a real learning too. Maybe it is just me but i have thought about it quite a bit and I cannot really think of a way to use it in my classroom. I am sure as the year goes on and i get deeper into my core classes I will realize a more benificial use for the Wordle tool at an elementary level, that is. I do love it myself though! Very fun!
Using Wordle was definetely fun, it is something I will use personally use quite often on projects for classes. It is easy, creative, user friendly and the product looks a lot more complicated than it is! I can see showing it to the kids as something to use to describe themselves, or things they did during their summer or things like to do, or maybe even for vocab words. I have not however figured out how I would incorporate it into a lesson as a real learning too. Maybe it is just me but i have thought about it quite a bit and I cannot really think of a way to use it in my classroom. I am sure as the year goes on and i get deeper into my core classes I will realize a more benificial use for the Wordle tool at an elementary level, that is. I do love it myself though! Very fun!
Reflection #8: (Podcast) Conversations
Conversations #89 Teachable Moments
Well at first I was going to change to a different podcast because it took a little while longer than normal to get to the topic. Now I am glad I stuck it out to listen to the whole podcast. Teachable moments, I learned, are not things that we fit into the curriculum or plan ahead for. They are just things that are so important they need discussed. Many times has to do with current events. For example, climate change is a good teachable moment that teachers could have taken advantage of many times this year with the Haiti earthquakes, the floods in Brazil or the 48 of 50 U.S. states with snow fall. The podcast wants to capitalize on these moments in this era of "no extra time." A few other teachable moments from recent current events are the shootings in Arizona and health care issues. They talked about how most of the time students are hearing about these things at home and school is where they can learn factual information about these topics. Some parents however would rather talk to their kids themselves about it rather then them learn about it at school. The problem is, how open do we get with the students? Also they talked about how experienced teachers are more likely to take advantage of teachable moments then new teachers because it is scary and easy to get off track. Also you don't know how far the kids will take some of the topics and it can be hard to get back to the curriculum. Or experiment teachers just recognize that the topic may be more important then the curriculum for that day. teachable moments, Ive learned is just all about you handle it and being flexible!
Well at first I was going to change to a different podcast because it took a little while longer than normal to get to the topic. Now I am glad I stuck it out to listen to the whole podcast. Teachable moments, I learned, are not things that we fit into the curriculum or plan ahead for. They are just things that are so important they need discussed. Many times has to do with current events. For example, climate change is a good teachable moment that teachers could have taken advantage of many times this year with the Haiti earthquakes, the floods in Brazil or the 48 of 50 U.S. states with snow fall. The podcast wants to capitalize on these moments in this era of "no extra time." A few other teachable moments from recent current events are the shootings in Arizona and health care issues. They talked about how most of the time students are hearing about these things at home and school is where they can learn factual information about these topics. Some parents however would rather talk to their kids themselves about it rather then them learn about it at school. The problem is, how open do we get with the students? Also they talked about how experienced teachers are more likely to take advantage of teachable moments then new teachers because it is scary and easy to get off track. Also you don't know how far the kids will take some of the topics and it can be hard to get back to the curriculum. Or experiment teachers just recognize that the topic may be more important then the curriculum for that day. teachable moments, Ive learned is just all about you handle it and being flexible!
Reflection #7: (Podcast) 21st Century Learning
21st Century Learning #148 1:1 iPads with Peter Smith
Peter Smith is the head of a Pre-k through 12th grade school. The school went from ancient technology to a 1:1 ratio of iPads per student. This is amazing to me and I was very curious as to how they managed it.
Luckily so were the hosts of the podcast. Peter told us about his school's discovery model approach. Rather than hand the iPads to the teachers a month in advance and say, "here, know everything there is to know about this by the time school starts," they gave them to the staff and the students and told them they were going to go about this together. They also brought in the parents for training sessions on how to use the device before they did the same with the children. They developed an entire learning community. I think that is so cool! Every student in the school had one but the Pre-k through 3rd grade students used them only in the classroom while the 4th and older grades checked them out at the beginning of the year and got to take them from school to home and back. The older students use them as daily organizers, to organize notes and they have email accounts in which the email some assignments to their teachers and receive them back with comments and grades that very same day. They also are used to individualize the curriculum based on each students needs. If a student is struggling with a certain concept, they will download apps to help them work on or understand that concept. All this is being done only 6 months into having iPads in the classrooms. The teachers also were supportive and cooperative in the change and i think that all has to do with the way the administration went about introducing this technology. As a learning community figuring it out rather than forcing them to do it alone. I not only would love to work in a school with this kind of technology integration but also this kind of administration and learning community! Props to Peter Smith!
Peter Smith is the head of a Pre-k through 12th grade school. The school went from ancient technology to a 1:1 ratio of iPads per student. This is amazing to me and I was very curious as to how they managed it.
Luckily so were the hosts of the podcast. Peter told us about his school's discovery model approach. Rather than hand the iPads to the teachers a month in advance and say, "here, know everything there is to know about this by the time school starts," they gave them to the staff and the students and told them they were going to go about this together. They also brought in the parents for training sessions on how to use the device before they did the same with the children. They developed an entire learning community. I think that is so cool! Every student in the school had one but the Pre-k through 3rd grade students used them only in the classroom while the 4th and older grades checked them out at the beginning of the year and got to take them from school to home and back. The older students use them as daily organizers, to organize notes and they have email accounts in which the email some assignments to their teachers and receive them back with comments and grades that very same day. They also are used to individualize the curriculum based on each students needs. If a student is struggling with a certain concept, they will download apps to help them work on or understand that concept. All this is being done only 6 months into having iPads in the classrooms. The teachers also were supportive and cooperative in the change and i think that all has to do with the way the administration went about introducing this technology. As a learning community figuring it out rather than forcing them to do it alone. I not only would love to work in a school with this kind of technology integration but also this kind of administration and learning community! Props to Peter Smith!
Classroom 2.0 Reflection
I dug around a bit on classroom 2.0 and I am very excited to have been introduced to this site. I think it will be very helpful in my beginning years as a teacher. The forum seems to be very popular and other teachers seem to respond quickly and eagerly. I think i would feel comfortable posting questions that i have in my beginning years on this site. Also I think it may come in handy if I need advice or information for projects in my blocks. That is why i joined the site, my membership is still pending though. I think it is neat that teachers can form groups on the site as well. I especially think that it would be neat to belong to a group of teachers from your own district. It is a good way to communicate and connect with co-workers.
EduTecher Reflection
Edutecher.net
So on Edutecher the first thing that catches my eye is edutecherTv. Sounds neat, so I click the link and it takes me to another page that has several video players titled on the side. I choose one called searchypants. In the video, I learned that this search engine is not only a safesearch but as a teacher, you can create your own customizable search engine for your classroom. You can even include links to the sites your students are using. This not only puts the teachers mind at ease, since it is a safe search site, but it also customizes your search engine to be specific to your class! How convenient!
I am also impressed with edutechertv in general. Many times, I get discouraged when I have to read a lot of Internet material. Watching and listening to the demonstration is much easier to understand than reading a lot of directions in text.
Because I enjoyed the edutechertv so much, I choose to learn about a second resource through the TV option. I watched a video about a site called Qwiki. It was also a really neat site. When you type a name or place into Qwiki search engine, the site it pulls up, reads aloud and gives a virtual definition of your search topic. Allowing you to pause and resume whenever needed. This would work really well for students who are struggling or just learning to read. It also had an option that let you switch from topic to topic within the pages. For example, in the demonstration he searched, "William Shakespeare." When the site was talking about his hometown, they clicked on the Q in the corner and the topic switched to the town rather that Shakespeare. Neat! I really like the reading aloud feature of this site.
The third resource I learned about through the "links" page on the site was called 21stCenturyLiteracy and it had all sorts of resources on bringing technology into the classroom. Including lots of video tutorials for using googledocs (free online tool) and ways to use googledocs in the classroom. They even have their own youtube channel. I think this would be a great resource for teachers trying to integrate technology into their lessons.
So on Edutecher the first thing that catches my eye is edutecherTv. Sounds neat, so I click the link and it takes me to another page that has several video players titled on the side. I choose one called searchypants. In the video, I learned that this search engine is not only a safesearch but as a teacher, you can create your own customizable search engine for your classroom. You can even include links to the sites your students are using. This not only puts the teachers mind at ease, since it is a safe search site, but it also customizes your search engine to be specific to your class! How convenient!
I am also impressed with edutechertv in general. Many times, I get discouraged when I have to read a lot of Internet material. Watching and listening to the demonstration is much easier to understand than reading a lot of directions in text.
Because I enjoyed the edutechertv so much, I choose to learn about a second resource through the TV option. I watched a video about a site called Qwiki. It was also a really neat site. When you type a name or place into Qwiki search engine, the site it pulls up, reads aloud and gives a virtual definition of your search topic. Allowing you to pause and resume whenever needed. This would work really well for students who are struggling or just learning to read. It also had an option that let you switch from topic to topic within the pages. For example, in the demonstration he searched, "William Shakespeare." When the site was talking about his hometown, they clicked on the Q in the corner and the topic switched to the town rather that Shakespeare. Neat! I really like the reading aloud feature of this site.
The third resource I learned about through the "links" page on the site was called 21stCenturyLiteracy and it had all sorts of resources on bringing technology into the classroom. Including lots of video tutorials for using googledocs (free online tool) and ways to use googledocs in the classroom. They even have their own youtube channel. I think this would be a great resource for teachers trying to integrate technology into their lessons.
Kan-Ed Reflection
This site is not only going to be useful in my classroom, is it extremely useful to me now as I progress through my courses in the education courses here at K-State. KERC and NetTrecker are both super helpful as I am learning how to align my lesson plans with the state standards. Aligning lesson plans will be something I will do for the rest of my career and it is important that I not only understand how to align my lessons but it is also important to know where to find resources to help me if I am having trouble doing so. Kan-Ed is a portal full of very valuable and essential resources. Thinkfinity is another resource from Kan-ed that I have already found useful. It has tons of lesson plans that you can narrow down by specific search options like, grade level, subject, type of resource and partners, which allows your search to include lesson plans from other approved sites! Kan-ed also provides links to online resources for and productivity tools for both teachers and students. Some examples of these resources and tools are Hertiage Quest, ProQuest and KidsInfoBits. I found myself very interested in KidsInfoBits and spent quite a bit of time exploring this resource. It is a search engine for grades K-6 and I absolutely love it! It is very user friendly and educational. It also has a "backpack" option which allows students to put an article into their virtual backpack so they can easily access it from home! How neat!
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