Wikis

Today I got to explore Wikis and how this piece of technology can be useful in the classroom. I came to find that Wikis are a lot like Google Docs in which you can invite people to edit your documents, power points or spreadsheets all on a website or page. It is very convenient that you don't have to e-mail people back and forth to accomplish what you want where a lot of confusion could be created. The difference between Google Docs and Wikis are that Wikis are a little more personal where you can create a profile, change the background or theme of your page and really make it your own while in a Google Doc it is just a simple document that looks the same as everyone elses document and is not directly on one of your pages. the personalization of Wikis is what makes them similar to a Weebly or this blog that I'm typing out. All three of these tools can really become yours where you can change the different settings to make the tool more to your liking. the difference between a Wiki and a Weebly or Blog though is that someone cannot come around and edit your Weebly or Blog. The only thing they can do is add a comment or a message, which could get confusing to follow if you were talking about something important.
One way I would use a wiki in the classroom is if the students were working on group projects and they all had to collaborate together to get it done, but did not have the time out of school to accomplish it or if they all had different parts they had to do. You could give each student a role and the person who is the leader or facilitator could create the wiki and all the pages, which could represent the different parts of the project, and the students could go on and edit/work on the pages at their own time. Students can hold each other accountable with each part of the project and if they get stuck or need help the other students can easily see what they are working on and help them out. They can also add and delete things that could improve the project and look after each other's work. Another way Wikis could be used in a classroom is for reading groups. In many classrooms students are broken up into groups when reading a book, whether it's the same book across the classroom or different books for different reading abilities. Students could collaborate with one another and talk about questions that the teacher assigns the students could discuss and use a wiki to do this. The teacher can also see the conversations of the students and probe the students to think more about their responses. This will help the teacher see what types of connections the student's are making about the reading, figure out who is reading the book (which could be a form of assessment instead of having a pop quiz) and see what the teacher needs to emphasize more in their classroom discussions about the books. These are just two ways that a wiki can be really helpful in the classroom and I'm sure there are endless possibilities for this tool to be used.

Teaching Controversial Issues in School

One thing that we talked about in my TE 401 class today was teaching controversial issues in school and whether you would want to do this in your own classroom. Controversial issues can range anywhere from having a debate of whether someone should have to buy another student a new pen that they broke when they were borrowing it to who should be responsible for fixing the roads or figuring out whether all schools should have a school uniform. I decided that I wanted to teach controversial issues in my classroom because this would allow students to not only share their own view points, but will have the opportunity to hear other students perspectives and opinions on an issue or problem. Learning how to deal with conflict and controversial topics are important for any person to learn because people will have to interact with people that do not have the same values or viewpoint as them at some point in their life,so if we can teach students how to become informative about topics, learn how to gather facts and information about the topic and how to argue about it in a respectable way that this will be teaching them a skill that will be beneficial to them outside of the classroom.

It was also brought up in our discussion that it is important that the teacher builds a trusting and strong relationship with all their students and that the students can trust one another as well. If there is not a comfortable learning community where students feel safe to share their views and ideas then the discussions and debates will not be as rich or worthwhile then if the students felt comfortable with one another. It is important for the teacher to establish this learning community early, like during the first week of school, and not right before the teacher decides they want to have a debate. A comfortable learning community should begin at the beginning of the year and developed as the school year goes on.

So would you teach controversial issues in your classroom? Why or why not?

SMART Boards

    This week I was able to explore SMART boards through the workshop we had on Wednesday. I had very little experience with SMART boards prior to this workshop. We had a couple in some of the classrooms at my old high school, but I never saw them used. I did see a SMART board used once in my field placement last year though, but the only thing my teacher used it for was as a projector screen. Because of my limited experience with SMART boards I used to think they were pointless and that they really weren't that special because I never saw what all the different elements they contained. Through this workshop though I have learned that there are THOUSANDS of ways you can use a SMART board and that there are endless possibilities to use it in a classroom. A SMART board is a touch screen 'white board' where you can use the special pens to draw things or you can use your fingers to drag and select things. There are thousands of applications that comes with the SMART board technology, such as game templates, like Jeopardy, different fonts and pictures, instruments that you can play or listen to the sounds they make, spinners, dice, maps, a stopwatch, and even an application that allows you to dissect a frog! You can even go onto the internet with your SMART board and you can draw, highlight or write on a website, take a picture of it and it gets saved to the SMART board to be used over and over again. This tool is one of the coolest pieces of technology that I have used and experienced with this semester and hope that I can use one of these in my classroom in the future.

Cell Phones in the Classroom

      This week i have explored the idea of whether we should use cell phones is school to better educate the students and to bring in a familiar technology into the classroom setting. This issue has been debated since cell phones have been put in the hands of younger and younger students that now it is typical for a middle school student to have a cell phone. The pros of bringing cell phones into the classroom is that students can look up meanings of words, use them as calculators or even do research by going onto the internet to look up information on websites. If a student cannot remember a math formula they need to use on a worksheet they can quickly look it up on their cell phones. This makes it easier for students to do projects or paper that involve looking things up on the internet because not every school has a computer for every student, but since almost all students have a cell phone they could look up anything they wanted at the palm of their hand. This means that students will have easier access to the internet and have the opportunity to work on projects, which will in turn allow students to really be creative where there is no limits to their learning. Smart phones especially can be beneficial for the students because there are so many applications out there that can enhance student's learning abilities, such as google earth, dictionaries, 'words of the day', conversion tables and the list goes on... With the way cell phones have taken off and been developing at a rapid pace, most students, I believe, will have a smart phone in the next 5 years.

    The cons of having cell phones in classrooms are that they can be a huge distractions during a lesson because students are able to hide their cell phones out of the sights of their teacher to text their friends or play games. Cell phones going off in a classroom can also be a distraction, which used to happen on a regular basis in my high school and also occurs in some of my college classes. Another problem with cell phones in the classroom is that it is an easier way for students to cheat on tests. Students can text their friends and ask them for the answers or if they have a smart phone or a phone with internet access they could look up the answers to problems on a test.

   I think that if we educate the students on the appropriate uses of cell phones in classes and model to the students how a cell phone can help students learn even more and how cell phones can enhance their abilities to find out more that they could be very good for the classroom. Distractions, cheating, and inappropriate uses of cell phones will always be a problem in a classroom as long as students own cell phones. As long as we show students the proper way to use a cell phone in the classroom and find a way for the students to respect you enough to not use their cell phones in class in ways that are not helping their education that they could be very beneficial. For now though I think that not every student has the access to a cell phone, and one that could be used in a classroom because most cell phones that students have are just for talking, texting and taking pictures. I think for now cell phones should be kept in students lockers or backpacks until more research has been done with cell phones being used in the classroom and the correct ways to use them in a school setting.

School Pride

So I am currently watching the show School Pride, which is a show about these four adults that go to schools and renovate them so that the schools are in better shape for students to learn in. They are trying to create a better learning environment for the students. It is along the same lines of the show "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" but the difference is that the students, teachers, parents and anyone who is or was impacted by the school volunteer to help fix up their school. The four people who run the show take in some special projects, like fixing a football field, redoing a classroom and cleaning up the cafeteria, but they also provide the school with some new technologies or resources that the school may need. The schools that I have seen them flip upside down have been inner city schools that are literally falling apart. What this show is showing America is that there is a huge problem with so many schools across the country where students cannot focus on their learning and school work because they are too focused on whether the ceiling might cave in on them. This show also conveys to people that teachers are putting in so much time and even their own money to teach their students when the school obviously does not have the funding to give the teachers the resources they need. If the schools cannot even fix their leaky roofs or broken lights then how are they supposed to provide the teachers with the materials they need? The teachers are paying out of pocket to help the students succeed and this is occurring across the country and not just in inner city schools. This show has proved that if you improve the facilities and the learning environments of students that test scores and grades of students improve drastically. I encourage you to check out this show just to see what it is all about. One of the schools they renovated was in Detroit, so if you want to see how they are affecting your own state this would be an episode to check out.

Google Docs

I have used Google Docs before in one of my TE classes and i thought it was kind of annoying. I was annoyed because there were a lot of us trying to use one set of documents at once and the computers were moving extra slow, so it was causing a back up. This time when I used Google Docs it went a lot smoother and I was able to experience a real sense of how it works. I was a little frustrated by the fact that my document kept wanting to save and sometimes the program didn't pick up every letter I was typing, but other than that small inconvenience I have found Google Docs to be very beneficial and interesting. I would suggest using this to write a group paper or to work on a project together instead of people trying to find a time in their busy schedule for everyone in the group to meet. This way a bunch of people could work on the document on their own time and people would not have to be sitting right next to each other to get the assignment completed. I also think that this would take off some pressure of people who are nervous to express their ideas to a group. This was they can express their thoughts in a document and not be nervous to speak their ideas out loud. Google Docs can also be a way for a bunch of people to edit someone else's paper without having to print off multiple copies. I can think of a thousand of other ways that Google Docs can be used and I feel like many of these ideas can be implemented in the classroom as well. I see this being used more in the upper elementary or higher. Google docs could be a way for students to communicate with students from other schools, states or even countries to see how the types of papers or projects they are working on are related to the other student's work. This could be a way for students among an entire school district to collaborate on a large project to help better their community. There is an endless amount of opportunities for Google Docs in the classroom and I feel like a lot of amazing and large projects/ideas will come alive through this application.

Halloween Dance in Elementary?

When I was in elementary school we would celebrate Halloween by dressing up in our costumes and having a parade around the school, so everyone could see our ans we could see everyone elses costumes. We usually had a little party too where we ate some cookies and fruit punch and it was all innocent fun before going out and getting candy that night. Well in the school that I am placed that this year they decided to change up the tradition of having a parade around the school to having a Halloween dance. One of the teachers in the school said it worked out very well in the school she was previously in and suggested that they try it at the school I'm placed at. All the students were invited to come back to the school for a dance from 6-7:30 at night the Thursday before Halloween. Parents were invited to stay and watch their children while others went home. I was really confused by the fact that ?Kindergarten-5th graders were having school dances already. I always thought that school dances were a privilege in middle school where students were a little more mature. I talked this over with my CT and she completely agreed with my stance that the students are a little too young to be having a school dance. She was surprised that I had this mindset because she said people my age are all for this change and the school dance instead of the traditional parade. She proceeded to tell me that she did not think the school dance was a good idea because of the sprouting relationships that are already beginning in the elementary school. She says there are problems in the school already with the boys calling the girls names or cat-calling and the girls where make up to school and dressing in not the most appropriate clothing. The Halloween dance just provokes this behavior and makes it a bigger problem. She also told me that a lot of the students in her classroom are apart of families where their dad has children with multiple women. I feel like this school dance is providing a way for the students to grow up much faster than they should. Do you think that dances in elementary schools is alright or that they should wait until middle or high school to be allowed to have these types of parties?

ELMO Projector

What I decided to explore this week as my technology of choice was the ELMO projector. I saw my CT use it for the first time in her classroom last week Thursday. I noticed on the first day I was in her classroom that she had one and was interested to see how much she would use it because from my research this week I would use it all the time. She used it to show the students a worksheet that she handed out to them and what they needed to do to complete it. I have noticed that my CT last year also had an ELMO and used to put a worksheet up there and it would be displayed on the whiteboard at the front of the room where the students could come up and do the problem on the whiteboard without actually writing on the piece of paper. I have also seen an ELMO used to read to a bunch of students who were sitting at their desks so they could see the pictures better and follow along reading with the teach. By seeing the ELMO used in these ways I was curious what other ways you can use an ELMO. I discovered a fantastic website that has "100 ideas for data projectors and Document Cameras" which is the category an ELMO falls under. The things that I have seen an ELMO used for were on there, such as Read-aloud and whole class participation in a practice state test, which is what my past CT used it for. There were also some interesting ways to use the ELMO, for example modeling of the physical process of writing - hand movements, which would be very beneficial for the third grade classroom that I'm in that have been learning cursive, magnifying insects needed for a science lesson and highlighting good vs bad grammar in writing. These are just a few ways I discovered that an ELMO can be useful in a classroom setting. The ELMO could be used in any age group and in all different subjects. It is better than the old projector that I was used to seeing when I was in school. I hope I can get one of these in my classroom in the future.

http://www.umesd.k12.or.us/techlinks_100ideas (here's the website I talked about in my post)

Preparing to teach for the first time

Today I had my social studies talk with five students from my classroom. I had my science talk with five different students last week so I was a little more prepared on how I wanted to conduct my interview. I looked back at the things that went well and stuck to them and changed the things that could have gone better. Before i started my social studies interview I wanted to let the students know that I was going to be teaching to them next week to give them a heads up. I wanted to be honest with them and get to know me a little better so I told them straight up that I was nervous about teaching to them and asked them if they had any tips for me. They were all telling me how if people weren't listening to me that I should write their name up on the board and if they continued to be disruptive or were still not listening that I should put checks by their name, which if they get two then they will not get the snack that my CT brings for the students every day. They then told me that if they are being extra bad that I should send them to the principals office and I told them that I hope that won't happen. The students were telling me how they can get kind of crazy and wild when a sub was there and I told them that's EXACTLY what I was worried about! That when I teach they are all going to go crazy and not listen to me or do what they are supposed to. They told me that they don't like subs that much because they don't know them at all. They said that when I teach it will be a little different because I know them and they know a little bit about me. I come to their classroom and help them with their writing and math and know a little bit about each one of them. I then asked them if they were excited about me teaching and they all agreed that they were excited. I told them that we were going to do some fun things, and they seemed interested which made me feel really happy. I am so happy that I had this small conversation with my students because I feel a lot better about teaching to them next week. I recommend all the TE 401 students who are going to be teaching their first lesson soon to just talk to your students and be honest that you are feeling a little nervous. They will give you a little confidence and tell you all the inside stuff about the classroom and the students in it. I am now very excited to teach to this group of students and can't wait to see how they are going to react to me teaching to them next week.

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

I have found that developing a personal learning network (PLN) to be very beneficial. I have had the opportunity to follow many teachers and educational blogs, see what people are "tweeting" about and to bookmark different websites and resources all in one area using 'Delicous'. I have found that Delicious has been the tool that I use the most because it is so easy to save websites in one area and search for them by looking up their 'tags'. I have been using 'my Delicous' to look up websites and different resources for many classes and am constantly adding more to it. I feel like I have made a connection with the educational world by exploring and developing a PLN and believe that I have learned about how much more information and resources are out there for me to find and use to help with my teaching and how I can help others with the different concepts and technologies I have learned about. The only downfall of the PLN is that it is hard to keep up with all the blogs and all the tweets on top of my regular routines and jobs. There are so many people that I am following on Twitter that I have not been able to read their tweets because they write so many and with a lot of people tweeting multiple times a day it is very hard to read every single one. Twitter in general has been hard for me to get used to, really learning how to use it and how to use it in an effective way. So the only downfall I have found with developing and using a PLN is keeping up with all the different ways of communication and following everyone that could be and has been very important with learning new teaching skills and working different concepts into my own teaching. By learning to get used to using my PLN and how to use it in the most effective way I feel like it will be very beneficial for the rest of my teaching career.

Rocks and Minerals

        Presentation including narration/sound.

Presentation with no sound

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dg8bghxj_0gfh77qc2&revision=_latest&start=0&theme=shelley&cwj=true



This is my presentation using Google Docs.