After reading chapter 12, the technology with the most promise for classroom teachers is the 3D printer. Many students are visual learners who will excel by seeing and feeling diagrams or models of things they are being taught about. A quote from page 291 of chapter 12 says, "Three-dimensional printers open new possibilities for educators who want to use models of otherwise inaccessible objects such as historical artifacts, dinosaur bones, math manipulatives, and even molecules for their students to touch, examine, and manipulate." I believe the best type of technology for a classroom is technology that will allow students to experience things they otherwise would not be able to see, feel, or experience.
I noticed that the chapter had similar things to virtual reality, but not specifically things like the Oculus Rift virtual reality helmet that we interacted with at the Tech Sandbox. This product revolutionizes how students can learn in a classroom. Since field trips are expensive and sometimes a hassle to coordinate, having virtual reality software can allow teachers and students to "travel" to the place they are discussing in the lesson without actually leaving the room. This software also will allow students to travel to places that would be unrealistic or impossible. Students in a classroom in Kansas would be able to travel to a jungle in Africa. Students in a classroom in Arizona can travel to the deepest parts of the ocean. Students in South America could travel to the inside of the human body. While these field trips would be impossible to achieve in a normal classroom, they can be done with the help of virtual reality.
As outlined in the podcast, the digital divide is defined as the gap between those who have or do not have access to technology. I am, and always have been, part of the side that has had access to technology. My house has always had at least one computer and internet access. As technology has developed, I have accessed laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc. Every school I have attended has had an open computer lab for use as well. Since I have never been on the other side of the gap, I will never know first hand what it is like to not have technology. As a future educator, I need to prepare to teach to those who do have technology at home and those who are inexperienced with technology and do not have access at home. This means my assignments will need to be able to be completed without technology, so as to not favor those who do. It is also important to allow students to access and experience technology during the school day so they are being prepared to enter the world using technology to their advantage.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
Because We All Want To Be A Ninja
Most people are guilty of using really distracting transitions in PowerPoint at one point or another, especially as a child. This Slide Share gives some basic rules and outlines how to properly use transitions in a PowerPoint.
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
7 PowerPoint, Adaptive Technology, and Web Design
The levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application, comprehension, and knowledge. A person could use the Microsoft Office application PowerPoint to support student learning at each level. For every level, PowerPoint is a great platform to display information. By displaying information you find, you can show what theories you have assessed, compose information in creative way, organize your ideas, apply your knowledge, summarize information, and recall information in a PowerPoint presentation. Powerpoint covers all the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Assistive, or adaptive, technology is outlined on page 70 of the textbook as "hardware and software that is designed or can be used to support the needs of exceptional students". These technologies can be reading tools, like recorded books or text-to-speech software. The book and the podcast outline several tools. For computer use there are alternative mouse and keyboard devices, keyboard labels, and screen readers. For composing papers, there are word prediction softwares and talking spell checkers. One of my middle schooler teachers had a daughter who was blind. She had a very large braille typewriter to take notes during class. She wrote her papers on speech to text software as well. The typewriter was very loud when she pressed the keys and many students expressed that it was a distraction. I think it is so important to incorporate ESE students into the classes they can mainstream into. I also think at a certain point the assistive technologies that come along with that can be distracting to "regular" students, like the braille typewriter. Some of the other assistive technologies involve speaking or listening to someone speaking. This could also be distracting. Instead of not mainstreaming the students, I would like to find assistive technologies that do the same job without distracting the "regular" students.
At first I was very confused on how to use Weebly. In the classroom setting the website was not reacting to my commands and it was quite frustrating. At home, the website worked well and I finished the project easily. I learned how to organize a class website and also design websites using the Weebly platform. I will be able to make aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and informational class websites for my future students and their guardians.
Assistive, or adaptive, technology is outlined on page 70 of the textbook as "hardware and software that is designed or can be used to support the needs of exceptional students". These technologies can be reading tools, like recorded books or text-to-speech software. The book and the podcast outline several tools. For computer use there are alternative mouse and keyboard devices, keyboard labels, and screen readers. For composing papers, there are word prediction softwares and talking spell checkers. One of my middle schooler teachers had a daughter who was blind. She had a very large braille typewriter to take notes during class. She wrote her papers on speech to text software as well. The typewriter was very loud when she pressed the keys and many students expressed that it was a distraction. I think it is so important to incorporate ESE students into the classes they can mainstream into. I also think at a certain point the assistive technologies that come along with that can be distracting to "regular" students, like the braille typewriter. Some of the other assistive technologies involve speaking or listening to someone speaking. This could also be distracting. Instead of not mainstreaming the students, I would like to find assistive technologies that do the same job without distracting the "regular" students.
At first I was very confused on how to use Weebly. In the classroom setting the website was not reacting to my commands and it was quite frustrating. At home, the website worked well and I finished the project easily. I learned how to organize a class website and also design websites using the Weebly platform. I will be able to make aesthetically pleasing, easy to navigate, and informational class websites for my future students and their guardians.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
6 School Websites
I visited the school websites for two different schools. The first school I looked at was the high school I graduated from, Titusville High School (Grades 9-12) in Titusville, Florida. This site was posted through Edline as a host. I could not access any class pages since I did not have my own log in. I could only find basic teacher contact info, county wide information, and a calendar. The other school I looked at is called Astoria Park Elementary School in Tallahassee, Florida. I am a mentor at APES once a week for two hours in Ms. Sherman's kindergarten class. I could access more through this website than THS's website. I could see class schedules and a meet the teacher page. There were links to other sub sections, but they did not have any postings in them. It was still interesting to see a classroom website posted.
I really love learning about new tools for my future classrooms during this class. I have used class dojo for an ILP. Through that project I learned that I really like the tool and I hope to use it in the future. I will definitely use the Microsoft Office Suite, as outlined in the Podcast, on my computer very frequently in class and out of class to prepare lessons, rubrics, grades, worksheets, etc. I love the idea of having class blogs through a safe website like Kids Blog. I would love to incorporate Edmodo since it is a fun way to submit assignments and collaborate with other students. I will also need to use obvious other resources like e-mail to contact parents and colleagues. I want to create a class website independent from the school's, if allowed, using something like google sites so all of my resources can be easily accessed in one place. Through these tools I will be more organized in my classroom and more efficient as a teacher.
Through the Web Resource Evaluation assignment, I learned more in depth about how to use google sites. I used it as a platform to post media files and connect it to blogger in my last ILP. It was interesting to collaborate with two other people on the site. The only thing I did not like was that only one person could work on each page at a time, so we would have to take turns working on the front page introduction instead of all writing at once. I also learned about what criteria can help decide if a website is credible. It was interesting to see that the criteria can change slightly based on what age group and subject you are teaching. I hope to use this new knowledge as a base to design a classroom website in the future. I also will use this knowledge to create my own web resource evaluation cheat sheets for my future classes.
I really love learning about new tools for my future classrooms during this class. I have used class dojo for an ILP. Through that project I learned that I really like the tool and I hope to use it in the future. I will definitely use the Microsoft Office Suite, as outlined in the Podcast, on my computer very frequently in class and out of class to prepare lessons, rubrics, grades, worksheets, etc. I love the idea of having class blogs through a safe website like Kids Blog. I would love to incorporate Edmodo since it is a fun way to submit assignments and collaborate with other students. I will also need to use obvious other resources like e-mail to contact parents and colleagues. I want to create a class website independent from the school's, if allowed, using something like google sites so all of my resources can be easily accessed in one place. Through these tools I will be more organized in my classroom and more efficient as a teacher.
Through the Web Resource Evaluation assignment, I learned more in depth about how to use google sites. I used it as a platform to post media files and connect it to blogger in my last ILP. It was interesting to collaborate with two other people on the site. The only thing I did not like was that only one person could work on each page at a time, so we would have to take turns working on the front page introduction instead of all writing at once. I also learned about what criteria can help decide if a website is credible. It was interesting to see that the criteria can change slightly based on what age group and subject you are teaching. I hope to use this new knowledge as a base to design a classroom website in the future. I also will use this knowledge to create my own web resource evaluation cheat sheets for my future classes.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
5 Web 2.0
The podcast list several different web 2.0 tools, which all seem useful in their own purposes. I think using social media in conjunction with instruction in a classroom is a great idea and my favorite from the podcast. It makes the real world more relatable in a classroom setting so students can be prepared to be polite and safe on the Internet. Collaboration is an important aspect in schooling. I think my second favorite would be YouTube. It is a great tool as well since you can do things like show an educational video or a virtual field trip. Web 2.0 tools are more interesting to students since they are more interactive. One of the most important tools a classroom will need is a computer with Internet access, a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen (pgs 90-95) so that students can access the proper Web 2.0 tools. Peripherals will allow students to save, scan, and print their work and bring it home and work on it on other devices, which are also called peripherals (pg 97). Electronic whiteboards are my favorite peripherals. My mom has a smart board in her classroom and I always loved interacting with it.
I chose to go into depth into the Web 2.0 tool kidblog (http://kidblog.org/home/) since we have discussed blogging in this class frequently and we have blogs for this class. This website is easy to step up and free for teachers and students. You provide your email address, name, and a password. Once you sign up you confirm your email address. Then you are brought to the home screen where you can create classrooms with specific descriptions like "6th grade science blogs" or whatever grade or class you are teaching. You can search through blogs by name, tags, categories, and members.
The posting itself can be started by clicking new post. You can choose a header image for your post to correspond with the topic. You choose a title, a background color and texture, and the usual font settings. You can then post to the page with tags sort of like a twitter account and also you assign categories they can post their blogs posts to. When you hit post you get to choose your audience, either teacher, classmates, connections, and public. You can also choose to pin the post. Based on your settings, people can comment on your blog postings. This website is an easy way to monitor children's collaboration and teaches them real world skills.
I am an avid user of concept maps in writing. I use it to organize my thoughts before I start my first draft. I did not like the idea of using it to create study guides. It was very difficult to make it flow and fit correctly because the information was so broad topic wise. I learned that using linking words helps the chart flow better. In my future I will try to limit my topics trying to be fit onto one concept map for my students. If I make another concept map I will try to make it flow better and be more spread out.
I chose to go into depth into the Web 2.0 tool kidblog (http://kidblog.org/home/) since we have discussed blogging in this class frequently and we have blogs for this class. This website is easy to step up and free for teachers and students. You provide your email address, name, and a password. Once you sign up you confirm your email address. Then you are brought to the home screen where you can create classrooms with specific descriptions like "6th grade science blogs" or whatever grade or class you are teaching. You can search through blogs by name, tags, categories, and members.
The posting itself can be started by clicking new post. You can choose a header image for your post to correspond with the topic. You choose a title, a background color and texture, and the usual font settings. You can then post to the page with tags sort of like a twitter account and also you assign categories they can post their blogs posts to. When you hit post you get to choose your audience, either teacher, classmates, connections, and public. You can also choose to pin the post. Based on your settings, people can comment on your blog postings. This website is an easy way to monitor children's collaboration and teaches them real world skills.
I am an avid user of concept maps in writing. I use it to organize my thoughts before I start my first draft. I did not like the idea of using it to create study guides. It was very difficult to make it flow and fit correctly because the information was so broad topic wise. I learned that using linking words helps the chart flow better. In my future I will try to limit my topics trying to be fit onto one concept map for my students. If I make another concept map I will try to make it flow better and be more spread out.
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