Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Webquest

This is a link to my Webquest: What if
My leading question is - How do students learn with the opportunity to create an alternate reality?
Meaning, If the students pretend to go back and change historical events, what will they learn from the process?

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Webquest - The Affiliator

___Efficiency Expert
__X_Affiliator
___Altitudinist
___Technophile

WebQuest
Strengths
Weaknesses


Grow School Greens
This Webquest has jobs for each person to fill which in the end, will have to work together for the best results. Good opportunity for collaboration.


 If more people are in the class than there are jobs, some might be left out. They need to double up the people on the jobs so that they may work together to come up with the best solution for their job when they present to the other jobs.




Where is My Hero?
 The Webquest has the students spilt up into groups of 4 so that they may discuss and debate on the qualities of a hero.


 Most of the work for this Webquest is individual like interviewing and recording facts on famous people. The only thing they do together is pick 3 qualities of a hero.



Underground Railroad
This Webquest has the students into groups to listen to a story to help fill in the gaps pertaining to the Underground Railroad.

 The majority of work in this Webquest is individual. The person finds their own information, writes their own journal, fills out their own graphic organizer.




Ice Cream
 This Webquest splits up the work so that all members research, participate in the new flavor challenge, and designing a poster. They must work cooperatively which is a very good thing!


N/A




Ancient Egypt
 This Webquest is to be done with a partner to design a brochure.


All the work in this lesson can be done individually, and most likely will be. All the research is done on their own.


Bernie Dodge, Department of Educational Technology, SDSU

Saturday, April 7, 2012

DEJ #11

In this YouTube video, I found it very refreshing that they realize that there is almost too much for teachers to know. Teachers are very intelligent people with amazing capabilities, but it is a very messy business keeping up with all the new technology that keeps coming out. I'm glad that these two presenters understand this.
Another thing that I liked in this video is the importance they stressed on the combination of Pedagogy, Content, & Technology. I like that they say that "quality teaching is the transformation of content. It is the act of learning to think in a disciplined manner." because it is very true. Just because one is math person doesn't mean they can't expand their horizon to help the student get to a better understanding.
The last thing that I absolutely love about this presentation is that he says digital technology is a messy business because I agree. He goes on to tell of an example of the iPhone and how it is unstable. Technology, no matter how reliable, is unstable.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Ipad Assignment

As someone who is wanting to teacher on a level of kindergarten - 2nd grade, I chose apps that would be well suited for these grades.

The first app I downloaded was KIDS MATH FREE. In this game, the user uses math to gain points to earn special prizes for the next level. The math is very simple for the grade level I've chosen and includes a visual aid. For example if the problem 14-9 showed up, there would be 14 apples,with 9 of them crossed out. This makes it easier for the user to count what is left and to understand why this number is correct. The only draw back of this game is that to go beyond the first level, you must purchase the full game.

The second app I downloaded was LETTER SCHOOL LITE which is also a free game. This game is for reinforcing letter recognition! Since this game is the free version, the user can only use the letters A through E, to use other letters, you must buy the full version. The user picks a letter and then is shown a picture of a word that begins with that letter like the letter C, is shown a clown. There are 3 phases to this game: first the game shows you how to make the letter, second you trace the letter, & third you draw the letter on your own. This is very simple and age appropriate. If I had access to Ipads in the FSU READS program, I would definately use this app in my Kindergarten class.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

DEJ #10

We are especially interested in broadening participation among girls. Even with strong efforts to increase female participation, only 30% of the participants in Lego Mindstorms robotics competitions are girls.
Reflection:
I find it very interesting that they're trying to reach out to girls. I know that I'm not that kind of girl to play with electrical parts, that's what I have a daddy for! It would be nice to see more girls be independent enough to use a program like Cricket or be interested in robotics. I also think that if I had the opportunity to use one a Cricket, with directions of course, I would try too. After World War II, I think our female population owes it to those women who stepped up and did the jobs for the men and showed the world that we were more than just housewives.

Resource:

Rosie the Riveter was the name given the iconic image representing women in the homefront war effort, World War II.
Citations:
 
Resnick, Mitchel. "Sowing." Learning & Leading with Technology. ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education), 2007. Web. 1 Apr 2012. http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Learning-Leading-final.pdf.