Technology Review

During this unit the students will be learning about other cultures. We will be learning about the history of other areas of the world as well as customs, traditions and their way of life. During this unit the students will be assigned a pen-pal from Germany. Their pen-pal will be their same age and will be attending school as well. Throughout the unit students will be required to email back and forth with their pen-pal by creating a gmail account. Luckily our German pen-pals know English so language won't be an issue. The students will be able to see how life is for someone their age in another country. They will be able to see some similarities and some differences between their lives and their pen-pals. Our students should be able to learn a lot from this experience. Another thing the students will be required to do is to make an account on Picasa. On Picasa they will create a photo album. Students will be required to take pictures of their daily life and post them in photo album on Picasa for their pen-pal to see. This will help the students in Germany be able to see what their life is like. The students in Germany will be doing this as well.

Gmail Email:

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Our students will use gmail to email back and forth with their German pen-pal. Students will be required to answer and ask certain questions in their email. Emails will be sent out every other day. Gmail email is great. First of all creating an account is free. There is also tons of storage room. Students will be able to create files and save the emails that have been written back and forth with their pen-pal. Gmail offers great organization to keep everything sorted. By creating this account students will also be able to keep in contact with me as will the parents. This will really help our class stay on the same page. This will really impact the classroom and the curriculum because what we learn by using gmail for this activity will help us throughout the semester as we integrate more and more technology into the curriculum. Gmail also does a great job of keeping junk mail out of your account. Gmail is very user friendly and easy to use. One con about gmail is that ads do show up on the side of your screen. It uses key words in your email to see what things you would be interested. This should not be a problem for the students though. Gmail does not allow inappropriate ads to show up. To further understand the pros and cons to gmail please read the two articles that I have linked above. That is where most of this information came from.

Picasa:

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Once students create a gmail account they will also be able to use Picasa, a photo sharing site from Google, for free. Picasa is awesome. It lets your upload your photos and place them in an album. Once you create an album you are able to share them (through email) with anyone. The students will create an album about their daily life for their pen-pal in Germany and then share it with him or her. Picasa is very user friendly. Students are able to create titles for their albums as well as captions for each picture. This will be great because their pen-pals will be able to understand the picture better when their is a caption. Picasa also makes it easy to organize your photos. Another great thing about Picasa is that it allows you to edit your photos. Another cool thing is that you are able to add text anywhere on your picture. After reading up on Picasa and doing a little exploring I have decided that I am definitely going to download it and use that instead of iPhoto. This will be great for our students because after they learn how to do this in class they will be able to use it for themselves anytime. Another great thing about Picasa is you can create slide shows. This would be really neat to create for our pen-pals. For more information read the two articles above.

Reflection #6

What?

This week we learned how to make videocast, podcasts, acquiring videos from various sites to use in the curriculum and how we can use National Geographic in the curriculum. In our teams we are going to create a video and a podcast.

So What?

This technology is really neat. In my current classes some of my teachers use podcasts. For some class periods my teacher records the session on her ipod and then links it onto the classroom website. This is great for those who might be home ill or have some circumstance that did not allow them to come to class. Another way I have teachers that uses podcasts is by having us listen to ones made by other people that have to do with the content we are studying. It is really cool because it allows you to listen in on something without being there. It also is cool because you are able to replay it. I find a lot of times that hearing something something once is not enough. Over time I will forget. By having lectures or other important messages on podcasts we as students are able to listen to them again and are able to get clarification on things we might not have understood super well before.

The things we learned in class this week are really cool because they can be applied to many other areas in our life, not just education. If there is anything we are interested in we are likely going to be able to find podcasts, videocasts and videos to learn more about the topic. I especially like Zamzar because it does not require us to download something to convert files. I don't like having to download applications onto my computer very much so I really like Zamzar.

Now What?

I loved the National Geographic site, especially the interactive where you could learn all about the landing on the moon. Students would probably really enjoy exploring sites and things like that. I definitely planning on using these resources in my future classroom. I also think that podcast and all the video tools we learned about will be neat to use in the classroom as well.

Podcasts and the video tools we learned about are really great because they allow us to collaborate with our colleagues. From what I have heard teachers are really busy and put in a lot of work. I am sure that we won't have a time to create tons of videos but if we work with our colleagues I am sure we will be able to share with each other and have a wider variety to work from. I also think that it would be really cool to have guest speakers come to the classroom and create a podcast from it. In that circumstance it would be great to be able to hold on to what messages was delivered. Especially if that person we unable to come in the future, you could have your future classes listen to the podcast. I like learning about all these different tools because it gives us many more options of what we can do as teachers to make the content richer for our students.


Video:

The video was pretty funny. At first I thought it was really a segment done on Letterman but then I realized it wasn't and I felt kind of silly for thinking it was at first. The video showed the top 10 things they don't teach your in college about teaching.

It seemed like most of it was geared toward elementary teachers and I am hoping that is the case! Hopefully I don't have to worry about cleaning up a student's pee! I am sure though some of those things ring true for us secondary teachers too though.

Field Work Reflection

These last two weeks I have spent a lot of time in the classroom for my fieldwork. I have completed most of it but still have my technology interview. In my fieldwork thus far though I have been able to technology used in the classroom, or the lack thereof.

These last two weeks I spent time in a high school and in a junior high. I really enjoyed my experiences teaching and observing in these settings. Everyone hears those horror stories about teaching in junior highs but I loved it. Maybe it was this particular class, but the kids were great. They were well behaved and really sweet and fun. I noticed this class had a cart that had a projector on it and other cables that I believed would be used for powerpoint presentations and such. When I went to teach this class I asked the teacher before hand if I could use the projector for a powerpoint I wanted to create. The teacher said I could but that it was kind of a pain to set it up. I felt that the teacher did not want me to use it, so I told it that it would be OK. Due to the teachers response I gathered that that element of technology was not used in this class much. I felt it was a shame to not use the great resources available.

In the high school I went to I observed a teacher who had created a really great powepoint that involved the students and had many objectives, graphic organizers, and questions. I was happy to see this teacher use the technology and resources available to her. The students seemed more engaged in this classroom and seemed to like this method of teaching.

From my observations and teaching in these two classroom I was able to see how one teacher used technology in the classroom and how the other felt it was somewhat of a pain to try to incorporate technology in the curriculum. I really enjoyed these experiences and learned a lot. I saw firsthand how technology helps students be engaged in learning. My observation and first hand teaching experiences got me more excited to conduct my technology interview in the coming weeks.

Field Work Reflection

This week we are suppose to blog about our field experience. I am doing my field work on Tuesday so I will blog about it next Sunday.

Reflection #5

What?

This week we worked on our WebqQuest.

So What?

My group is really enjoying this assignment. We are learning a lot of new things in creating it. One thing my group is learning is learning is how to collaborate well. We are using google docs and working on our assignments outside of class as well. Another thing we are learning is different tools in Powerpoint and how to link thinks.

My group is also learning how to research and find good information on for our WebQuest. One thing we have found really useful is using UEN to find information on our topic and good interactive games. UEN has a lot of information on our topic and it has been neat to go through it. We are not only learning a lot about WebQuest but are also learning more about the Holocaust (our topic) in our research.

Now What?

My teammates and I are going to continue to work on our WebQuest throughout this next week. We have broken the assignment into pieces and each person is responsible for a certain aspect of it. I have a great group and we are having fun with this project.

When we are done it will be exciting to publish it. It will also be cool because this is something we could use in our own teaching someday. It is also really cool that others will be able to use our WebQuest as well. I am really looking forward to using WebQuest in my future classroom.

Video:

I really liked this video. It was neat because it really showed well how technology makes education more accessible (and pretty much everything else for that matter). With computer technology, cell phones, and other technological devices people don't have to worry about classrooms being too full. Education can be done outside the classroom. This was a really cute commercial and I really enjoyed it.