Chapter 7

Chapter 7 offered a few interesting tips I had not considered in evaluating websites to use for the children. I am starting to see that you must evaluate the websites you choose to use with your students the same way you evaluate the literature you share with them. The book points out that the websites we use have to be appropriate for the students in terms of language and content. Engaging activities for the students will retain their attention and promote fun educational facts that assist your course content. The table on page 181 provides us with a guideline to justify using certain video games. We may not be sure if using a video or game is appropriate but the guidelines provided allows us to evaluate which ones we may use in an educational manner.

InspireData and Persuasion Map are two tools that I would like to use in my classroom. If I am able to have a few computers in my classroom, the students would most likely prefer to write their essays on it. The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate. Students begin by determining their goal or thesis in a short sentence. They then identify three reasons to support their argument, and three facts or examples to validate each reason. The map graphic in the upper right-hand corner allows students to move around the map, instead of having to work in a linear fashion. 

InspireData also caught my attention as a tool I want to utilize because students can use InspireData to investigate, analyze, represent data and information in dynamic graphs and charts. InspireData tools make it easy to change variables and plot types so students can explore data in multiple, meaningful ways. This encourages them to investigate data analytically, ask more questions, and apply their understanding of the data to form better conclusions and continue exploration. 

The suggestions made for the learning skills games for vocabulary building is also a new age way of tricking your students into learning vocabulary. Depending on the age of your students, there are plenty of games you can play with your students to foster learning. Incorporating educational concepts into the games they play will assist the children in retaining the information because in the background they are listening to the cues on screen. Depending on the task they have to achieve they will match the corresponding educational goal you have for the students. The students are focused on the action of the game without knowing that they are learning at the same time because the tasks the game has the children's achieve are educationally based. 

My big take away form this chapter is for me to learn to view evaluating the websites I use with my students the same way I evaluate the books I use in the classroom. I now know to evaluate everything from the outside links the websites offer to the vocabulary used on the sites as well. I did not think that so much work went into choosing the websites I use as long as the school has the proper filters on their system.This would work for the sites I use in class but not for the sites I assign for outside reading or projects.  

Class Discussion

My take away from this class was the benefit of using the Internet for virtual field trips and exposing the students to different cultures and other schools thru technology. The benefit of using the Internet as a virtual tour allows the students to have a base knowledge of a subject. This is an exciting new technology aspect I would like to use in my classroom and link up with other schools in other states for virtual conferencing.  I would have to first monitor the content I look for before I present it to the children but this will assure I have a well-rounded knowledge of the content they are looking through as well.  My only hope, as I always put, I hope my school will be accessible to technology in the classroom for the students. 

WebQuest

Webquest is a new innovative way to engage the students with online learning. It is an online journey you are taking the students on and a new way for the students to view learning. Using a tool they are most comfortable with is like tricking the students into learning. A term I would hear a lot growing up was to trick the students into learning is the only way to get them to learn. This can be the new form of “tricking” the students into learning. Using the Internet and incorporating engaging activities into your lesson plan can get the student to want to learn. The internet has many different avenues the students can be shown to use to improve their school work and can be shown educational areas that have more to offer then just YouTube.  I learned today that you need a lot of links and areas for the students to go to. You should be speaking to a general audience not just a specific class.  Each area should have the appropriate steps to follow for the students, so they are not lost in your webquest. Viewing the different types of webquest that are on the web provides me with a lot of ideas for how I would like to construct my webquest.  I find the most important part of the webquest, or component of the webquest, is the more links you provide the longer the students will be engaged.  My fear is that the school is work in will not have enough computers in the classroom, if they have any, to utilize webquest. 

Wikipedia: To use or not to use?

The first lesson and the demonstration on how to use iMovie was very helpful tonight. I own a Mac and never even opened the program so using it for this assignment I think is a fun new challenge. Seeing what I can create and see if what I make is similar to what is in my mind is going to be fun.  I plan on working on it this weekend and see how far I can get with it.Your 5 W’s for evaluating a web site will also help me in grading the websites the students use and the websites I will use with the children as well.

Another topic we brought up that I enjoyed discussing is the credible sources we need to teach our children to use in the classroom. We first need to know what material we will accept.  Making the comparison to the days we were in school and using magazines for materials and now Wikipedia was very eye opening. I never made that connection but it is try. This topic of correct sources to use has always been around. We just need to learn the new ways the students will implement in order to complete their projects.  I would have to agree that as long as they have other peer reviewed journals and cite their sources correctly, I wouldn’t mind them using Wikipedia.  Not an issue for this teacher. 

My storyboard topic will be on self-esteem. I want to use the book Stargirl by Jerry Speneli. It is a very good read and I hope the project I make does the book justice. 


Site:
Who: Stjohns.edu
What: web site for Saint John's University students and individuals who are seeking information on Saint John's. 
Where: www.stjohns.edu
Why: ...

Ch. 5 Internet as a Wonderland

Our discussion in class about student assessment mirrored much of what chapter 5 was about. Learning how to be a teacher that uses not only conventional methods such as worksheets and note taking, we also have to learn how to work online and use appropriate online material for them as well. The heading on the opening page “A Library of Unimaginable Size,” is what the Internet is. How we use it is up to us but what we can do with it can greatly assist our ability to teach.

Reading the chapter I have to admit that I still have a lot to learn in the area of evaluating source material and proper search engines to utilize for my classroom. Over the course of my college years I have used the same search engine, ProQuest, for all of my work. Where I lack, besides new sites to use, is the proper words to put into the search bar and different combinations to put them in for better results. I have to work on this and continue to work on this when I start teaching.  Teaching the student’s about scholarly material and peer reviewed journals can assist them with their searching but also expose them to well written material. The students need to learn the difference in speaking in the learning environment and with their friends.

Another issue the chapter brings up is plagiarism.  As long as the students know how to site their sources, they can avoid this problem. Teaching the students the proper way to site sources at the start of the semester can assure all the students know how to do this. Spending the first few classes demonstrating to the student’s how to site sources can assist them not only for your class but their academic career.

One tool I would like to utilize is the electronic note-taking site. I would like to work in a school that has their school information online so everyone can see what is going on.  I had one professor not allow us to take notes in class and only listen and partake in the lesson. He said that students cannot take notes and listen to everything at the same time and miss key points. If you take this small task out of the class and post the work online and focus on discussion and group work, the classroom can be more of a freeing place. I have not worked in a classroom yet, but would hope that I can work on this technique and have more of a discussion type of classroom and not just lectures. 

Class 4

Lessons Learned:

Today’s class discussion made me think more about formal and informal assessments and how I could use them in my class. The formal assessments of test taking and having students create projects are a valuable way to reach the children but what about informal assessments? I was taught a strategy by a professor of simply putting a thumb up to ask a student discretely if they are okay or if they are understanding a lesson. They can do this discretely and it can be a personal ting between the professor and student.

The topic for my video I am thinking about presenting is revolving around the short book Star Girl. The book has themes of individuality, and the awkwardness of being a child and how it is not revered as children but admired by adults. This ties into another class so it would be easy to continue from that small project to something like this. 

Blog 3. The Designer Teacher

Who are you designing for? 

You are designing a lot of things when you are a teacher. You are designing lesson plans that are relevant for the students and match the different learning levels that are in your classroom. You are putting into your lesson plan check points to make sure the students are able to follow your instruction. When designing your classroom or lesson plans you have to consider the students who are following your lessons, the parents who may have question and are curious where they can follow the material. As well as thinking of your common core standards who ask for different points to be implemented into your curriculum. 

What are you designing? 

I'm designing an atmosphere in my classroom. A place where students can be free to be inquisitive and not be ridiculed for it. I'm designing different lesson plans yearly and just using last years lesson plans as a guide line. The students change every year and I am not saying I will start from scratch every year, but I will add and tweak the lesson plans to the new crop of students I will be teaching. I do not want to over use technology in the class but I want to design lesson plans that evolves with the students and challenges them.  

What's the final product of your design?

The final product will be a building block for them to move forward. My area of concentration is English and I hope the children will walk away with the understanding that reading content is just as important as pictures. The students use visual aide so much now I fear that they will read for fun less and less. I hope that each year the students walk away with a healthy desire to want to be in school as much as I do. 

Reflection:

I liked the discussion of teachers being designers in both the traditional and none traditional sense. We model the mind of young adults and will touch a lot of lives. What I find is the new common core standards we will have to instruct will gives us a lot of freedom in how we present the material to the students and what we can use.  This allows for each of us to teach to our own abilities which will benefit the students. When you are allowed to design and present the lesson plan to your own strengths, the students benefit. I like how we are starting to think more outside the box and this will lead to richer classroom instruction I feel.