April 19th

Today was such an awesome class! We went over to Edith Bowen Lab School and talked to a third grade teacher that heavily uses technology in his classroom. He has iPods for the kids to listen to books on or watch a movie on, he has a Nintendo DS for the kids to play educational games on when they're finished with their work, they have 13 Mac computers in their classroom for the kids to do their spelling on or do math problems on. They even have a Wii. We each paired up with a third grader and they showed us all the technology they use. They are making a claymation movie. They each have a partner and made a stage. The teacher, Mr. Johnson, got a program for laptops where you push the space bar and it takes a picture and then you move your clay people and take another picture and the program will make it into a movie for you! I thought this was the most useful class we've had. It was so interesting to see technology in the classroom firsthand. Then we came back to our classroom and evaluated education websites. We evaluated a school website, a lesson plan website, an informational website and an interactive website for kids. Three out of the four websites I looked at were good, but the lesson plan website I looked at wasn't good. There weren't very many ideas and it was hard to get around and I think that teachers probably wouldn't use lesson plans from that website. I really enjoyed class today.

April 12th

This week we had a graduate student come in and help us with our inquiry lesson plan. She came and showed us this website called Instructional Architect. It is such a useful website! You create a login and then if you're a teacher you can have all your students log in and use the lesson plan you created. But it has such great resources! You type in the subject and grade level you want and then it comes up with websites you can use in your inquiry lesson plan. It also has templates for the inquiry lesson plan. The lady that came and helped us was so knowledgeable and helpful. I was confused about how we were going to create the inquiry lesson plan but this class time really helped out a lot.

WebQuests

We talked about WebQuests today. WebQuests are a lesson plan on the computer that kids do themselves. So it just guides them through a lesson without a teacher. So for example, I looked at a webquest about dressing for the seasons for kindergarten through second grade. There is a paper the kids can print out with a cartoon guy named Flat Stanley and there was a whole list of cities the kids can choose from to send Flat Stanley to. You choose a place and then look up the weather for that place and then draw the proper clothes on Flat Stanley. Then you are supposed to mail him to that place and there were links to weather games at the end. It was cute... I think that most of these were targeted toward home schooled kids. From a teacher's perspective, I don't think that I would ever have the kids do these. Maybe in a computer class, but it's like it replaces the teacher. The webquest tells you everything you need to do. I think that you could use the webquests to get lesson ideas from... But a lot of the links are outdated and don't work. Interesting ideas but I don't think I would use them in my class.

Science Sim

Today in class we learned how to log into this sim world called Science Sim. Our whole class logged on and we all had "avatars" (a computer person to represent yourself). We teleported to a place called Alaska South and went into a school and learned how to chat with our fellow classmates. I'm not really seeing how you could use this technology in the classroom... The teacher said that you could use it to teach kids about other cultures or you could go on a virtual field trip to a castle or something. But it's all cartoon, it looks like you're playing a video game. I think that kids would really like it and would think it is way fun but I don't really think it's useful in the classroom. Maybe in computer class or in high school but probably not elementary school.

Spreadsheets

Today we learned how to use Excel spreadsheets. My mom is a teacher and she uses it all the time. I think that it is a very useful tool for us to learn. I really like that you can put in a formula and it will calculate the answer for you. It saves so much time! Instead of sitting and punching everything into a calculator, it will just figure it out for you. How handy. It was pretty confusing figuring out how to open the file but once we got it open, it was easier. My favorite part of class was learning how to do the texting online polls. It was so cool watching our texts and seeing how people voted! Technology is amazing. I can't wait to use it in my classroom!

Microsoft Word and Googledocs

There are many ways that we can use word documents in the classroom. You could put assignments on googledocs so that if a student forgot their hard copy or lost it they could access it online. You could have a get-to-know-you page on googledocs where each student could write something about themselves and save it so that all the students could read about each other. I really liked the report idea that we did in class today. That is a great way for students to each do their part and also convenient that you don't have to email back and forth. I was interested to learn how to edit in Microsoft Word and highlight and leave notes. That's a cool way to grade students' essays or journal entries. Saves on paper. :) I also really enjoyed the adding a sentence to create a story in MS. You could do that with your students and type them up and put them on googledocs and let the kids read them online.

Week 3!

I have decided to post about the technology in the classroom I'm in for my practicum. They don't really use technology a lot, which is weird because it's a charter school and I would expect that they would incorporate technology. I have noticed that the teachers use powerpoint a lot to teach history and science. The kids have a computer class once a week, but other than that it's pretty much just pencil and paper learning. They don't incorporate much of anything... No music, not much art at all, and no technology. I think that integrating art, music, and technology in the classroom helps kids learn better. But the school I'm at is a back-to-basics school which means they put a lot of emphasis on math, literature and spelling. I am guessing that they just don't feel like they have time for that stuff when they need to focus on more serious subjects. I personally think that music, art and technology are essential. In my classroom, I will incorporate those subjects.