All Summed Up

I have learned so many things in EDU 610 that will make me a more effective teacher. I have learned all about the Net Gens and how technology is just part of who they really are. I believe today's students expect some use of technology in their classrooms, but I also think they want the student to student and teacher to student interaction.

As a teacher, I want to get to know and understand my students and how they learn so I can prepare them for the world, which is highly technical. I truly feel like I would be doing an injustice to my students by not incorporating technology in my classroom. Including technology in a lesson can be accomplished by using animation, video, and sound. I think it will be fun to incorporate video into class projects! I might use clips from the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, and PBS to name a few. There also are so many educational websites that have video clips available for teachers to use as a supplement in the classroom.

Podcasts and blogs are other cool tools I might use in the classroom. They get students excited about learning and sharing their opinion, especially once they realize their audience isn't just their teacher! They can be viewed by other students and teachers all over the world.

Technology is like a giant mirror that reflects back to you and your own deepest issues. It sheds light on how we interact with our students and how they respond to our lessons. It forces us to think about the real meaning of community.

I have really enjoyed EDU 610 and have learned so much in a few short months about technology! I know I will be a better teacher after having taken this class, which has equipped me with invaluable tools to utilize for years to come. So, thank you, Michelle for teaching me so much in such a short amount of time - you have made me a better teacher! Merry Christmas!

My electronic portfolio web address is:
http://www.ttlb310.weebly.com/

Smartboard

After reading about smartboards and using them in class, I have a new appreciation for computers yet again. I think smartboards are a great tool to use to enhance a lesson. They are a terrific way to get students involved and out of their seats. I found it fun to come up with different games and activities on smartboard. There are so many different things a teacher can do; the possibilities are endless!

There are three main parts to using a smartboard; touching, writing, and saving. By using a finger, a teacher can control directly through the board, like a mouse click. The smartboard also acts like a whiteboard and has a pen tray that senses which color marker is picked up and when the eraser is picked up. Smart notebook is another tool that can be used to write notes and draw diagrams. All notes can be saved in the notebook file, just like working straight from the computer. Smartboards come in various sized boards and also have a smart keyboard accessory along with hand-writing recognition.

I enjoyed working in smart notebook in class. I loved the hot spot game along with reveal boxes and all of the interactive parts from the lesson activity toolkit!

Group Video Project

Our group video project was a really great learning experience for me. I have never created my own video online using movie maker. I thought movie maker was fairly easy to use after we knew what we were doing!

It was a lot of fun coming up with a current social issue to create a PSA. We ended up picking the very new issue of children on reality TV. We focused on "balloon boy" for our video clip. We found a ton of online articles and video clips about this family and the balloon incident.

Since this is such a new issue, we did, however, have a somewhat difficult time finding any statistic about how harmful reality TV can be to children. We found that we could relate child abuse and mistreatment to this particular story for our statistic.

We really enjoyed filming our movie. We used a silver balloon and barbies to help re-create the story. There were some things we would have done differently, such as; filming our story in order. For some reason, we just thought about different aspects of the story and filmed them in the order we thought of them instead of filming them in the order they actually happened. This made it more difficult for us to arrange our clips and cut them at the right place. We also would not have talked while we were filming! We were having so much fun and got a bit carried away with our talking, not thinking about it being recorded.

All in all, I thought this was a really great learning experience for me. I learned how to use movie maker, download movies, pictures, and music, edit clips, and incorporate transitions. This would be a fun project to do with a class to really make a lesson or unit come alive!

Digital Video is yet another great tool to use in the classroom. It not only is an interactive activity students can participate in, it is fun! I believe I would have learned more about any subject if we would have had more interactive tools in our classroom like digital video.

I do remember having one video project for a social studies assignment in 11th grade. We had to "act out" a scene from a certain time period. We were put into groups of five and we set up a time to get together out of school to film our story. It was fun - I still remember doing it!

It's been a while since I have had classes in anything, but thinking back to my undergrad years, it would have been extrememly helpful to have actually watched videos on people and the social issues they face. My major was social work, and even though we read case studies in class and were told about problems people were facing, let me tell you, it was quite an eye-opening experience for me when it actually came time to go out and do my internship! Watching actual footage of people, just like the Water Buffalo video, would have been very educational and would have better prepared us for real life. It would have given us more understanding of the circumstances as to why the people were living the way they were, which would make it easier for all parties involved to help them become productive, successful, confident people. Podcasts would have also been invaluable tools for sharing experiences and learning about other social workers experiences.

When I actually get to teach, I think it would be fun to incorporate video into class projects! I could use clips from the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, PBS, and maybe even C-SPAN. Hopefully, I will have an LCD projector and a white board to display the videos, but if not, I could even have small groups of students take turns watching on the computer screen. Plus, there are so many educational websites that have video clips available for teachers to use as a supplement in the classroom.

Podcasts are a cool tool to use in the classroom as well. They get the students excited about learning and sharing their opinion, especially when they realize their audience isn't just the teacher! They can be viewed by other students and teachers all over the world. When I was in elementary school, the only connection I had with students in other schools was a pen-pal. I remember getting a name of my pen-pal - I was so excited to learn about her and tell her all about me and my life. I thought she was from a far-away place, and then later learned through our letters that she lived about 20 miles away from me! It was still fun to learn about someone new, but it would have been even better to hear from someone my age who lived in another country!

Success with the Net Generation

I find it interesting to learn that many of the net geners do not have ample access to technology. I was surprised to learn this fact while reading chapter eight. I guess I just assumed that because they are the net generation, they would have all of the newest technology and know how to use it! Learning this fact helps me to feel a little less intimidated about teaching the net generation. I know I still have a long way to go and so much to learn about technology, but I do feel more at ease knowing that some of the students will not know more than I do!

Technology brings on a whole new aspect to teaching. It helps prepare students for lives of creativity, citizenship, and social responsibility as well as success in a workplace. IT opens up new and engaging ways to learn. I would like to use technology in my classroon to enhance student's learning. I would like to use it as another tool to serve as a link between active and passive, individual and group, and transmission and generation of knowledge. By using technology, students can more easily express themselves, contribute their commentary, provide expertise, and otherwise participate in potentially wide-ranging conversations. It opens the door to students and allows them to be themselves while learning and teaching others.

I think for me to be a successful teacher, I need to incorporate technology into my classroom and make learning more interactive. I can do this by using animation, concept inventories, WeBWork, Ask NSDL, The Molecular Workbench, BugScope, and the use of cyberinfrastructure. Cyberinfrastructure can help us teach difficult and important material that requires more sophisticated modeling, simulations, and visualization.

Technology is like a giant mirror that reflects back to you and your own deepest issues. It sheds light on how we interact with our students and how they respond to our courses. It forces us to think about the real meaning of community. I think it will take a lot of work on my part as a teacher to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology, as well as researching what is good and eliminating what is not so good for me to be successful with the net generation. I am excited to learn more about technology and the ways I can use it to enhance ever student's educational experience!

Social Bookmarking Project

The following are five ideas of how to incorporate Microsoft Excel into K-6 curriculum:

1. Have the students bring in a grocery store receipt and teach them how to input the data into an Excel spreadsheet. Teach them how to set up formulas using the software features. Have them figure out how much they would spend in one year at this grocery store.

2. Take the students to the computer lab and have them create an Excel spreadsheet for an upcoming class party. Write out a plan as a class of the items you will need such as paper plates, condiments, etc. The budget for the class will be $7 per person. Plug the information into the spreadsheet to show the students where they stand as a class as far as the budget is concerned. Explain the SUM FUNCTION to the class.

3. Have the students create a graph on Microsoft Excel of everyone's birthday. Write down everyone's birthdate and have the students type in their classmate's names and birthdates and create a graph for them to learn how to read. This activity will also help them to get to know their classmates.

4. While doing a lesson on health or nutrition, teach the students how to create a poster using Excel. They can create a poster of the food pyramid to hang on the wall by the activity center. As a class, you can discuss the daily recommendations at snack time or before lunch.

5. Take the students to the computer lab and teach them how to create a timeline while studying space travel. The students can use pictures to enhance the timeline and add words if they are able. The timeline shows the students how things change over time.

Social Bookmarking

I thought it was interesting to learn how social bookmarking is making many teachers and students lives easier. I think it's a great tool to use that provides an efficient way for students to keep in touch with their teachers, to stay informed about coursework and other academic activities, and follow developments in their fields of study. The example of the professor helped me to understand how this process works. He can keep tabs on all of his lab groups more easily than he could with email updates from students or by looking for blog updates on the courses Web site.

I think it's really helpful that by using RSS, users can quickly and easily access new material from sites that interest them without having to go to all of the individual Web sites! The information comes to you and you check your aggregator which is where you can access it! I would use this as a teacher and select the content I want to receive, tayloring it to my my unique interests and needs! How cool is that! I would use this as a teacher to keep track of my favorite websites. This saves so much time and helps to get the information you want quickly after it's been published!

The social bookmarking site that I chose was diigo. My diigo address is: www.diigo.com/user/tlb310alb