I feel this is one of projects I have enjoyed most in this course. I feel like I was very interested in finding the answer to my inquiry question (how can weblogs promote student learning in the elementary classroom setting?) and that is what made this assignment so interesting.
Before my research I was very interested in coming up with a question that would benefit me and give me ideas for my future elementary classroom. Because I felt blogging was one of the greatest tools I have been shown in this course, I felt that asking a question incorporating blogs would be great for my inquiry.
Next came the research for my question. I spent a lot of time researching for my sources. It seemed many of the sites I visited pertaining to blogging gave the same information. I wanted to make sure I had a broad range of ideas, so it took me a while to find multiple sources that I was happy with it.
When I created my annotated bibliography I really felt the better it is earlier the easier time I will have creating my best practices later. I put a lot of effort into creating paragraphs that gave a great summary of the site or articles I used as a source in this project. I had to redo my APA citations a few times before they were correct.
I also put a lot of time in creating the look of my wiki page. I wanted it to appear professional, yet inviting and intriguing at the same time. It took me a while to figure out the font because I learned that wikispaces can be very touchy.
It was hard picking out the best practices I wanted to use in my wiki. I found so many great practices that a blog can bring to an elementary classroom. This part of the wiki is what really taught me what I had learned though.
Additional resources was not very hard for me to create. I knew what sources were the best and would benefit the people who visit my wiki most. It did however take me a long time to figure out how to link something. I had to google how to do it, and then it was simple.
Lastly, was my screencast. I feel because this was the second assignment that I was much more comfortable and smart creating my screencast. I made a script first and practiced it a few times. I timed it also making sure before I start jing I was under 5 minutes. I only had to redo my screencast 3 times, which was a huge improvement from the 75842894758 times I had to redo it in my first screencast assignment :)
I felt I learned a lot from this assignment. Fist, I learned how to better research and document my findings. I see how being organized in the beginning creates for a better experience later on. And of course I learned how blogging can be very beneficial in my future classroom. There are so many great benefits that a blog can bring to the classroom. It can engage, it can strengthen literacy skills, it can provide communication, it can promote collaboration, and much more! Knowing all this great information is very valuable because it involves my future! I now know how to correctly use a blog in the classroom setting in a very affective way. By completing this task I also feel I am very comfortable working with Jing and creating screencasts in general. I know the secrets now :) I intend on using screencasts when applicable in my future classroom, so I feel this task has impacted me greatly.
Here's my screencast :) if anyone wants to take a look!
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Exit Slip 12.9.10
Professor Boyer started class by stating that we, as students, should be proud of all we've accomplished during this course. I am proud of myself! This class was a lot of work and took a lot of time, but I believe it was worth it. I feel I am much better prepared to teach my future class effectively after completing all the projects in this course.
Next, Professor Boyer talked about his Twitter account and shared some articles he has posted on his account. The articles sounded very interesting and I will check them out more sometime soon.
CELEBRATION TIME!
Professor Boyer had us think about how we would teach his little daughter, Ella.
3 Different Ways I would Integrate Technology in Ella's Class (My Class):
1. In my fourth grade classroom I would create a classroom blog that allows for Ella's parents to see pictures from daily activities, field trips, and so on. I want her parents to feel connected to her learning environment and always feel up to date on Ella's time spent in my classroom. My blog would also post current events that allow the parents to always be aware of what their child is doing throughout the school day. This is a site where all the assignments and rubrics are posted for their convenience.
2. I want to provide my students with class laptops (maybe they could even each have their own!). They will use their laptops often when doing research for projects, playing educational games, connecting with people from different countries/areas/cultures, and so on.
3. I want to provide my students with a class wiki also. This is a place where they can post questions to other students or me and get better and more diverse feedback. This is also a place for discussion and reflection on projects/assignments/activities. This also a place where they can post their assignments/projects.
Other peer's ideas:
1. Have a huge interactive whiteboard to increase class participation.
2. Using "streaming" video (what's going on in class.. parents can see what's going on)
3. Scratch (creating games for certain class topics)
4. E-pals (LIKE THIS ONE!): connecting with people from around the world, country, state, county..
5. Simulations
6. Online collaborative whiteboarding (example: Scribble)
7. Course website (kind of like my blog idea)
8. Podcasting (visit iTunes U..? many podcasts available here)
9. Online multi media (so many out there!)
10. Screencasting
11. Audio (important in early grades)
12. Delicious (save resources for a project, interactive games at home)
13. Video editing
PROFESSOR BOYER'S TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
-constructionist pedagogy
FINAL THOUGHTS ON HOW MY THINKING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING HAS CHANGED OVER THE SEMESTER:
I think it is evident by the list I made above on how I really intend and want to incorporate technology tools in my future classroom. At first I think I was a sceptic when I entered this classroom, but I now believe I support technology and believe strongly that it needs to be in our schools now and in the future! We need to teach for the future or else we will not be fulfilling our jobs. I now know this and feel much more knowledgeable in the world of technology.
Next, Professor Boyer talked about his Twitter account and shared some articles he has posted on his account. The articles sounded very interesting and I will check them out more sometime soon.
CELEBRATION TIME!
Professor Boyer had us think about how we would teach his little daughter, Ella.
3 Different Ways I would Integrate Technology in Ella's Class (My Class):
1. In my fourth grade classroom I would create a classroom blog that allows for Ella's parents to see pictures from daily activities, field trips, and so on. I want her parents to feel connected to her learning environment and always feel up to date on Ella's time spent in my classroom. My blog would also post current events that allow the parents to always be aware of what their child is doing throughout the school day. This is a site where all the assignments and rubrics are posted for their convenience.
2. I want to provide my students with class laptops (maybe they could even each have their own!). They will use their laptops often when doing research for projects, playing educational games, connecting with people from different countries/areas/cultures, and so on.
3. I want to provide my students with a class wiki also. This is a place where they can post questions to other students or me and get better and more diverse feedback. This is also a place for discussion and reflection on projects/assignments/activities. This also a place where they can post their assignments/projects.
Other peer's ideas:
1. Have a huge interactive whiteboard to increase class participation.
2. Using "streaming" video (what's going on in class.. parents can see what's going on)
3. Scratch (creating games for certain class topics)
4. E-pals (LIKE THIS ONE!): connecting with people from around the world, country, state, county..
5. Simulations
6. Online collaborative whiteboarding (example: Scribble)
7. Course website (kind of like my blog idea)
8. Podcasting (visit iTunes U..? many podcasts available here)
9. Online multi media (so many out there!)
10. Screencasting
11. Audio (important in early grades)
12. Delicious (save resources for a project, interactive games at home)
13. Video editing
PROFESSOR BOYER'S TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
-constructionist pedagogy
FINAL THOUGHTS ON HOW MY THINKING ABOUT TECHNOLOGY'S ROLE IN TEACHING AND LEARNING HAS CHANGED OVER THE SEMESTER:
I think it is evident by the list I made above on how I really intend and want to incorporate technology tools in my future classroom. At first I think I was a sceptic when I entered this classroom, but I now believe I support technology and believe strongly that it needs to be in our schools now and in the future! We need to teach for the future or else we will not be fulfilling our jobs. I now know this and feel much more knowledgeable in the world of technology.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Exit Slip 12.2.10
Today Professor Boyer started class with sharing a video with us about how one teacher integrates technology into her classroom. These are the notes I took during the video:
+ technology has revolutionized how she teaches and how she teaches students based on their learning
+ students are active in their learning
+ old lessons went along with unengaged learners and a stressed teacher
+ her lessons now engage students
+ her smart board allows active participation and engages them in cooperative learning opportunities
+ uses online collaborative projects which allows for her students to connect with one another and the rest of the world
+ open classroom approach online that allows parents to see what is going on and celebrate their child's learning knowing current events. This allows students to always be updated if they miss a day on assignments
+ uses blogs in classroom
+ students get to share what they learn with the world and become involved in our community
+ many laptops shown throughout video
Next we discussed our findings as a whole class. As a group we sorted our finding into 3 categories: could do before, couldn't do before, could do before but better now.
COULD DO BEFORE: collaborative projects (example: collaborate with different grade levels)lab, engage, participation present, still inform parents (classroom newsletter), journaling (besides blogging), share perspectives
COULDN'T DO BEFORE: world wide collaboration, blogging, online concept, recognition (besides teacher)
COULD DO BEFORE BUT BETTER NOW: collaboration, engagement level, participation, connect with parents, create well designed lessons, connecting with more diverse people around the world, open classroom
He shared these three categories with us to make us think about when it is appropriate to integrate technology. If technology will make something better than use it!
...
*JIGSAW Activity*
My assigned reading talked about how as a teacher you need to feel comfortable with not knowing everything. Also you need to accept the fact that your students may know more than you and may teach you a thing or two at times. We need to remember this especially when dealing with technology in our classrooms! We should look at this as an advantage because we have the oppourtunity to learn too! In conclusion we need to remember that the world is always changing and we are "stupid" if we do not realize this. Embrace technology with a positive attitude and learn all you can!
The point of this activity was to collaborate our findings with each other so we could find out what each reading was about. There was a good and a negative for each reading. I really like this jigsaw method because it creates smooth transitions and you get to collaborate with many different people.
I didn't write down what each reading was about because I was too interested in listening to what our volunteer speakers shared. I bookmarked these articles into delicious so I can reference them at a later time.
...
+ technology has revolutionized how she teaches and how she teaches students based on their learning
+ students are active in their learning
+ old lessons went along with unengaged learners and a stressed teacher
+ her lessons now engage students
+ her smart board allows active participation and engages them in cooperative learning opportunities
+ uses online collaborative projects which allows for her students to connect with one another and the rest of the world
+ open classroom approach online that allows parents to see what is going on and celebrate their child's learning knowing current events. This allows students to always be updated if they miss a day on assignments
+ uses blogs in classroom
+ students get to share what they learn with the world and become involved in our community
+ many laptops shown throughout video
Next we discussed our findings as a whole class. As a group we sorted our finding into 3 categories: could do before, couldn't do before, could do before but better now.
COULD DO BEFORE: collaborative projects (example: collaborate with different grade levels)lab, engage, participation present, still inform parents (classroom newsletter), journaling (besides blogging), share perspectives
COULDN'T DO BEFORE: world wide collaboration, blogging, online concept, recognition (besides teacher)
COULD DO BEFORE BUT BETTER NOW: collaboration, engagement level, participation, connect with parents, create well designed lessons, connecting with more diverse people around the world, open classroom
He shared these three categories with us to make us think about when it is appropriate to integrate technology. If technology will make something better than use it!
...
*JIGSAW Activity*
My assigned reading talked about how as a teacher you need to feel comfortable with not knowing everything. Also you need to accept the fact that your students may know more than you and may teach you a thing or two at times. We need to remember this especially when dealing with technology in our classrooms! We should look at this as an advantage because we have the oppourtunity to learn too! In conclusion we need to remember that the world is always changing and we are "stupid" if we do not realize this. Embrace technology with a positive attitude and learn all you can!
The point of this activity was to collaborate our findings with each other so we could find out what each reading was about. There was a good and a negative for each reading. I really like this jigsaw method because it creates smooth transitions and you get to collaborate with many different people.
I didn't write down what each reading was about because I was too interested in listening to what our volunteer speakers shared. I bookmarked these articles into delicious so I can reference them at a later time.
...
Final Reflection of iRLO project
I thought after my fist submission that I was not going to have to change too much on my iRLO project, but after reading my peers comments I knew there was going to be more work done. I put a lot of effort when I first created my iRLO (earlier blog post goes into more detail) and I also put a lot of work and time into the second submission. Professor Boyer talked about really making your "game" interactive and useful for the students who will be playing it. I thought that if I kept score that that would allow for much better feedback. It took me a while to figure out how to apply the scores in Scratch though. At first I played around with the program on my own and then I looked at peers Scratch projects to see if anyone had used scores, but was unsuccessful in understanding how they programed them into their projects. My next source was Professor Boyer. It only took him a few minutes to figure out the situation. It was actually a very easy process. He also was able to help me with including my player's name into the feedback they'd receive on each answer. I've learned through creating my Scratch project that yes, technology can indeed be scary and seem overwhelming, but technology is all about practice, practice, practice! The more you practice a tool the better you will understand it (evident by Professor Boyer's quick skills). Also you need to make time to just play around and explore technology tools also. For example, I wanted to make my numbers random for my players so they are always receiving different problems each time they play and I figured that process out by just looking over other peer's Scratch projects. It took me at least an hour to figure out just this one step, but it was worth it! This project, like many more in this course, is something you can not really be taught much about. It is a project where you teach yourself and I find these types of projects to be the most beneficial.
I thought this project was very beneficial to my future as an educator because it taught me that technology is about practice (like I just stated above). It also taught me how many different areas you have to consider before sharing a project or activity with you class. You have to make sure that it is going to be an activity where your students are getting immediate feedback (if possible) and it also needs to be very interactive to keep your students engaged! Also you need to consider what specific are of content you are covering, because you want each and every activity to be appropriate and meaningful in you classroom! Because all my peers have also created projects, I can look through theirs and possibly use them in my future classroom! Therefore, this project can be looked at as a great resource! I'm glad we were introduced to Scratch because it taught me a lot and I had never heard of such a tool! It was challenging at time (very challenging!) but in the end I believe it was worth it. :)
I thought this project was very beneficial to my future as an educator because it taught me that technology is about practice (like I just stated above). It also taught me how many different areas you have to consider before sharing a project or activity with you class. You have to make sure that it is going to be an activity where your students are getting immediate feedback (if possible) and it also needs to be very interactive to keep your students engaged! Also you need to consider what specific are of content you are covering, because you want each and every activity to be appropriate and meaningful in you classroom! Because all my peers have also created projects, I can look through theirs and possibly use them in my future classroom! Therefore, this project can be looked at as a great resource! I'm glad we were introduced to Scratch because it taught me a lot and I had never heard of such a tool! It was challenging at time (very challenging!) but in the end I believe it was worth it. :)
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