What I learned in class today.

I liked watching the autobiographies from today. I realized that even though we used the same program to create our autobiographies we all had unique presentations to share. I feel that I can use this site in the future with students and the projects will still be unique. I think that I learned how to better phrase my inquiry question since we took class time to revise them with the class. I know that I changed the wording of my question before I share it and then when I shared it the class thought the wording of it was fine. Another thing we did today was we talked about the Scratch assignment. I thought that this was fun to learn. I am excited to go home and try this site and see what I can create. I like that it can be created as an interactive experience for the person using what you created. I want to show it to my kids and let them explore the site.

How to Teach Learners to Evaluate Websites?

We all know that anyone can put anything on the internet and it doesn’t necessarily have to be true information that they are passing on to the public. But young children may need to be told about this so they don’t believe everything that they read online. Especially since more and more assignments that students need to complete, require searching the internet for information. Chapter 2 of our book mentions that teachers should teach students steps to learn how to tell if a website is valid or not. The two main areas to focus on when evaluating a site is: relevancy and credibility. When we are teaching students how to tell if a site is accurate, we need to teach them to ask questions to themselves to evaluate the source and the treatment of the subject on the site. For example, “Who provided this information and why?, Does the organization have a vested interest or bias concerning the information presented?, Is it clear when the site was developed and last updated?, and is a Bibliography or resource list included?, Is someone trying to sell us a product or point of view?, What kind of site did it come from (.com=commercial, .gov=government, .edu=educational institution, and .org=nonprofit organization), Is this primarily an advertising or a marketing site?” (pg.22 Meaningful Learning with Technology by David Jonassen et.al.) We want students to use reflective thinking about what that particular site has and what it might be missing in terms of content. After students have done the two steps above, we should teach them to verify the information by checking with at least two other websites and see if all of their information is in sync with each other.
I used these steps when I looked at the sites listed for us to evaluate. The one about the tree octopus the first thing I did was try to find the author of the site and see if he was an expert in his field. There was a drawing of the author of the site and a document that was smudged out saying, “was smuggled out of a filing cabinet in the main office of a black helicopter farm by loyal Cascadian Sasquatch operatives...” a little shady right there. A google search of Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus led me to numerous sites that said that site was a hoax created in 1998. So this site did not pass the triangulate test. Another site I tried these steps on called All About Explorers. The first thing I did was read the link at the bottom that was about this site and it tells you on that page that the information is fictional on the site. If we give students the right tools they can learn how to spot the websites that contain false information.

Digital Booktalk Reflection

This assignment was a lot of fun. I don’t have much time to explore some of the programs that are on my computer, so using the Movie Maker was fun. I started my booktalk in another program and realized when I was finished with it that I was unable to save the movie file in any format. I think my program was out of date and I could not find any updates for it. Thanks to Marissa, I found the Movie Maker program (which I had on my computer and did not know). It is very easy to use and the help function was useful to me. I spent a long time working on this assignment. Mainly because I had a particular vision that I wanted to portray in my booktalk. I had my kids and one of their friends help with the video. It was more difficult that I thought it would be to get three children to follow my direction on camera without me saying anything that would affect the audio of the video. But, after lots of video I was able to edit it to something that I thought was cute.
The value of this assignment to me was that I feel proud of what I was able to make. I had never tried to make a movie before but it was a lot of fun. Plus my kids learned a little something about it from helping me. My oldest one has tons of video that he has filmed with his camcorder and I am sure he is eager to start creating his own movies as well.
From using children in my booktalk for our class, I feel that students would love creating one of these in my classroom. I can imagine each class creating a digital booktalk and sharing them with the other classes to promote reading in the school. My video is funny to me. Mainly because the two in the movie are going off of what the other one is reading for their direction. And the one reading could not stop laughing at the two acting it out. I had to edit out a lot of chuckles in the recordings. They had fun with the whole process and helped me with create my finished project.
The process started with going to the library and selected a few books to use, then we read the books and created a character list, next we decided who was going to be which character. After that we made the “costumes” and wrote our roles. Before we started the filming, we made a few practice runs of what we were going to do and say. I was a little concerned at the beginning that they would not like it. I was definitely wrong. These digital booktalks are a fun way to get students more interested in reading.

Chapter 2 Reflection

Ch 2 talks about the different trends in technology. One topic was Internet researching and how it is a common thing these days. The only problem with searching the web is how to trust the information as being a fact. Simply searching the web for information is not learning. For students to learn, they need to have a purpose for searching particular information and use it to solve a problem. There are steps for this intentional information searching: 1. Plan, 2. Use strategies to search the Web, 3. Evaluate, and 4. Triangulate sources (pg. 15). All of these will help students decide if the information is true and believable.
First, when teaching students to evaluate sites they need to be taught to ask themselves questions like, Does the information pertain to what I am looking for?, Can this information help me construct new knowledge? Second, evaluate the credibility of the information. Questions such as, Who provided this information and why?, Is the site created by an organization that you have heard of? I like the one mentioned in the book, Is this site trying to sell me something? I know that my son is 11 and he use to believe that every commercial that he seen on TV was real. Now he will tell me that they are just trying to sell stuff and things are not always real that they say on TV. I never actually told him this; he came to the conclusion on his own. Third, you should triangulate the information with other sources to see if you get the same information across the board. All of these steps can help students but I feel that many of them figure out ways on their own as to how they are go about trusting the information they read. I know that I check other sources if I think the information is not believable in my mind.
This chapter also discusses social book marking sites. I absolutely love my delicious account that we created. I have been bookmarking sites that we have used for other classes like math and science so I will have them at a later date. I will share this information with my students when I become a teacher. I think it will help them manage the information that they get from the internet and keep the sites that they know are valuable saved for easy access at a later date.
WISE seemed interesting to me. I need to check it out. It is an interactive approach to teaching in the classroom. That incorporates science learning at a different level. It is recommended for students in grades 5-12. This chapter has taught me that technology is very useful and needed in the classroom. Student’s tend to be more involved when teacher’s motivate them with new and exciting gadgets that they can use. After reading this chapter I want to keep myself informed about the new technology that is available for students. Also I will try to think of ways that this technology can be used to benefit students learning in my classroom.

What new thinking did I take away from class today?

I like the "what we did this week update" idea. I feel that it will help me a lot as a student and a teacher. Sometimes I try to take notes and keep up with class but then I go home and try to read them and don't remember what I wrote. Having a place to go will be very helpful for me. On the other issue that we discussed for these updates, I am a parent so I feel that if parents are able to see what went on in the classrooms it would help them know what is being taught and maybe how some of it is being taught.

I like the idea of using the kindle in the classrooms. The only issue that I have is that it seems that they are very expensive. But, I don't know what elementary textbooks cost so they could be just as costly. They would be much easier for students to transport and read with them when they have time to read on it. I know that for me personally, switching to a digital copy of a book would probably help me read more since I have wait time different places that I go and having it on hand I could read some here and there when time is available.

I loved the clicker thing we used. I am very interested in learning more about using this device. I want to teach the younger grades and there is probably one of these devices that could be adapted to assess their learning. Especially for the silent students in the class. I never thought of using a device like this in a classroom environment before, but I see how it is truly beneficial to an educator.

I appreciated having an input into when assignments are due in class. I think that teachers need to give up some of the control in the classroom to get their students more involved in the class community.

Digital Autobiography Reflection

I loved creating my digital Autobiography for this assignment. At first I was a little overwhelmed about this assignment, but I turned out having a lot of fun with it. It was interesting seeing what the different websites had to offer. I had only used one of the sites before which was voice thread. I knew that it would be a good option but I spent a good amount of time researching the others to make sure. I am glad I did because I really liked the site that I choose. Roxio was a perfect match for what I wanted to create for this assignment. I choose it because it offered a good variety of backgrounds that I could choose from and the option for audio and text. After viewing it you will see that I went a little crazy with the text aspect. I wrote what I wanted to say but then decided to add in bubbles with text what the kids would be saying. I ended up spending most of the day on Friday researching sites and creating my autobiography. I feel that I exerted a huge amount of time and energy on this assignment and it was a lot of fun!
The value that I get from completing this task was the sense of, “look what I made”. I showed it to my Husband, my kids and my sister when I was finished with it. I have pride in my completed project. I am also adding it to my delicious page so I can use this site in the future. The hardest part of this assignment for me was deciding what to show and finding and scanning all of my pictures. I did not realize that most of my pictures are not digital, so I had to dig through my photo albums and scan them all into my computer. Having the option to choose 10 pictures I thought was going to be simple, but that is the part that I pondered over the longest. I couldn’t decide if I wanted them all of me or my kids. I decided that I would put up one of me but mostly show my kids since they are really the biggest thing in my life right now.
This assignment has been useful to me as a future teacher because it is a fun and creative way for me to share a part of myself with classmates or future students. Creating a digital autobiography was much better that standing up and saying my name and having to think on the spot of something about me to share with the class. I think that students will love using technology in their own way and making something that represents them to share with classmates. I plan on teaching younger kids, kindergarten and first grade, so maybe I can help them create something short that tells the class a little about them. Overall, I think that this was a beneficial assignment.

Growing Up Online Reflection

Technology is obviously a huge part of the lives of young people. From watching this video I didn’t really learn anything that I was not already aware of before. Well, let me take that back, I did learn that kids are spending more and more time online than I had thought before. It seems very time consuming to keep up with everyone that is online. In a way I think that it is excellent that kids are learning how to use technology to keep in touch with friends and family around them, but in some cases it may be a little excessive. For example, in the video where the kids are in social situations with one another they are still highly involved with the computer instead of interacting with one another. I don’t particularly spend that much time at my computer unless I am doing research or homework. I am not someone that “grown up online” but as a parent and as a future teacher I need to be aware of the type of lifestyles that kids have and that includes what they are doing online. Parents and teachers can not dismiss the way that kids are living, they need to be aware of it and monitor it the best way that they can. Using monitoring software is not the way since kids are sometimes a step ahead, like the boy in the video that said he knew how to manipulate the parental control software to get to what he wanted to online.
Before this video I didn’t think much about addressing students on any of their outside of school activities. The parent comments in the video have changed my mind. They seemed very disconnected as to the world that their kids were living in. I think I need to be someone neutral that can discuss issues as I see them arising. As a future teacher I think the main thing I need to address in my classroom is the safety issues about using the internet. I think that it is ok for students to have these sites and friends online; they just need to know that everything that they put on the internet is public. I would want students to think about what they are doing and saying online. Such as asking them whether they would say or do the things that they are posting in a public place where everyone could see. That is basically what they are doing even if it seems a world apart because it is online.
My kids are not quite into the social networking sites yet. So I haven’t had to deal with any of these issues with them so far. The video did teach me something that I was unaware of though. I did not know that “club penguin” was a kid’s social networking site in a way. My son does use that site; I thought it was just games. Parents and teachers are not going to change how kids are communicating. But we can try to teach them how to do it in a safe way and not to devote their entire day sitting in front of the computer.

Preface and Ch. 1 Reflection

Reading this preface and first chapter has reinforced my feelings that technology is important to incorporate into teaching and learning. I completely agree that teachers should use technology to engage students in the learning process. And that technology can be utilized to help students acquire meaningful learning in schools. These sections discuss that teachers should let go of some of the control in the learning process and allow students to explore and gather their own learning about the world with guidance. There are many ways that teachers can use technology in the classrooms to help students succeed. I agree that teachers need to stay on top of technology and use these resources in their classrooms. I feel that even if the school you are working at is lacking these resources, there are ways to use what you can get and incorporate it into your curriculum.

Chapter one talks about how student’s in schools are taught to pass tests but are not taught why things occur in any real life situations. I agree with that statement. I remember being told, especially in math, that this is how you get the right answer. There was no reason shown to me about how or why this is right, just this is the way it is done. I did learn how to get the right answer, but as the book talks about I did not get any meaningful learning from it that I could use in my life. And really I did not retain much of the steps and problem solving that I was taught at the time. I agree that student’s need to have learning experiences that relate to real life (Authentic Learning). If I can’t connect something that I am learning to something that I am doing, why do I need to know it? This class is exciting because what we are going to be learning is information that I can take with me into my future teaching career.

One interesting point that is mentioned in Ch.1 is that when technology was first beginning to be used in schools it was to give students an alternative way to receive instruction. Not necessarily for students to learn using the technology, but for them to learn from the technology. I have never thought about this being different things before. I am guilty of purchasing products for my kids to use, such as the leap pad, for them to learn how to use technology to learn. But it is basically instructing them and they are not really learning from using the system. Since every time they don’t want to try and read a word they can push a button and it reads to them.

Using technology to help students think and reason are mentioned in the chapter. I know that as a future teacher I need to think of ways that students can learn using technology. I also need to stay up to date on the new technologies that are available to teachers. I am interested to read more into this book and see how teachers can use technology to help students learn. I still feel a little unsure as to how to know for sure that the technology is helping them think and not just instructing their learning.

First day exit slip

What new thinking did I take away from class today?

I am very excited about this class. I am looking forward to learning about all of the new technology that is available to teachers to use in their classrooms. I feel pretty comfortable with technology and want to see how teachers can use the technology that students are accustom to in the classroom. I know from having children that they are very interested in their technology and how it all works. They show me things that I never knew that their "toys" could do. If teachers use student's interests to their advantage, students should be more motivated to learn in the classroom.

Role of Tehnology in Teaching and Learning

What is the role of technology in teaching and learning?


I feel that technology is very important in teaching and learning. Mainly because students now are very familiar with technology and love using it to learn and explore. Most students have computers at home, video games and even cell phones that they love to spend their free time using them on a daily basis. Teachers need to use what students love to get them engaged in classroom learning. In order to accomplish these task teachers need to feel comfortable with the technology to be able to teach students with it in their classrooms. Connecting what they like with what they need to learn is the key.