Blogs in the Classroom

Having students blog about their ideas?!? Having the teacher have a classroom blog to stay in touch with parents and students outside the classroom?!? These ideas seem crazy but they are becoming more and more popular in the classrooms of today. Blogs are becoming a way of communication between the teacher and the parents of the students. It is a great way to make sure that the information gets home instead of lost between school or home. It is also a great way for parents to get involved in their students school work and stay involved instead of just going to parent-teacher conferences once a semester.

For the students it is a way for them to look to see what the homework for the night is and what is coming up in a certain subject. Blogs can also be used for students to express their ideas and also talk about what they have learned that day or week in school. Blogs are a great and inexpensive way for students to really share their feelings about the things they are learning about and also to get help or a simple reminder of what is expected of them.

E-books

How can we incorporate this new technology into our schools without spending a ton of money? I think that e-books are a great technology to let students have in the classroom. They are cheaper and way lighter than the normal textbooks we see students lugging around everywhere.They are the same textbooks just presented in a different way, on a tablet or e-reader. I have had some e-textbooks in my college courses but have heard that younger grades are beginning to allow them in their classrooms.

E-books can be both a positive and negatives aspect of using e-books. There is the knowing that they are way lighter than the everyday textbooks. They are cheaper and will take up less space because they are all found in one main source(the e-reader.) Some of the negatives are there are more distractions on the source than in a regular textbook. Also it has been said that the teacher may not know if the student is actually reading and not playing games. The last negative is that the student will be staring at a screen for a long period of time.

The negative with the students not staying on task can be said about anything they are doing. It is up to the teacher to walk around and make sure that they are staying on task. I also think that there is a way to read the e-readers without harsh lighting.

I think making the move to e-books is a great idea. There are many positives to them. They are cheaper, take up less room, and are way lighter. Students are already choosing e-books over regular textbooks for these reasons.

Skpye in the classroom?!?!

Skype is changing the way the world communicates. It is a fast and cheap way to talk to your family and friends across the world. I bet you are all thinking why not just pick up the phone and call them...my response it is not the same. With Skype you can video call one another and chat with them, yes there are other video calling software out there like FaceTime. With FaceTime you can only talk with people who have other Apple software but with Skype you can talk to anyone no matter what computer, phone, or tablet they have. Now you are probably thinking what does this tangent have to do with Skype in the classroom.

As I said before Skype is a cheep and fast way to communicate with another person. This can come in handy when teaching in a classroom. What teacher doesn't love an inexpensive teaching method. There are many ways to include Skype in the classroom. One way is to communicate with another class in the United States. Say you are doing an unit about the New England States. You can call a classroom and ask students themselves about their state and what they think are defining characteristics about the state that they live in. Another way to utilize Skype is to call another country. You can call a class in the country that your unit is about and your students can get first hand information from students their age. You can have pen pals with students and talk to them face to face and through the old fashion "snail mail" way. There is many things that you can do to utilize Skype in your classroom.

Skype is a fun and interactive tool to use in the classroom. If done correctly it can have a tremendous impact on the way students learn and the knowledge they gain from the unit. It is an unique way for students to gain information about other cultures from the source itself.

Problem-Based Learning

In class we have been looking at PBL (project based learning.)PBL is where students work together or individual to figure out a problem using the material given to them, whether it be software, a problem, inventing something, or building something. Each group in our class had to create an example of a PBL, my group chose to do a breakfast invention. We decided to use a WebQuest, Google Form, wiki, and our students imaginations. This project was rather difficult because we had to think of ways to challenge our "students" but not make it to difficult. I think that creating a PBL for a class that you know well and their strengths and weaknesses will be much easier than creating one for an imaginary class.

I really enjoyed learning about PBLs in class. It was something I didn't know much about or how to implement it into a classroom. I plan on having some PBl activities in my classroom. They are a way for students to expand their horizons and push themselves to make something way outside the box!

Collaborative Tools

During this class I have learned a lot of new collaborative tools. The one that I enjoyed using most was Google Docs. I think that this is the coolest thing ever! I use it for almost all my group projects now. Most people have not heard of it so I have to explain to them what it is. I simply saw that it is a way for all of us to collaborate together on the project at the same time from the confides of our own homes. The own home part is usually what gets them all :). After that I just say it is like a regular word processing software. Google Docs has made those dreaded group projects ten times easier! :D

Another collaborative tool that I have heard of but don't use that often is Wikispaces. I believe that this collaboration tool will come in excellent use in my future. I will probably use it to keep parents involved in my classroom. It is a sure way to know that parents got the information and it wasn't lost in the back pack or thrown out. Most everyone has internet access now a days so having a classroom WIKI would not be difficult.

Two things that I thought I would never use in a classroom were Facebook and Twiiter. Most teachers frown upon these two things in the classroom, they say they are just eating away at their students brains. Well Dr. Z thinks differently! We made a Facebook group and talked about projects, problems, and any thing else that was related to the class. We all made a Twitter account to stay in touch with one another and to get our information out for our projects. We used Twitter to send the links for our surveys and just used the classes hashtag. This allowed everyone to find everyone's surveys. I thought that I would never ever get a Twitter account but now that I have one I love it!

I really enjoyed learning about collaboration tools because they are something we can use in our future and in our other classes now. These will be very helpful in every aspect in my life! :D

Group PBL Learning Lesson

For our final project we were to explain a new technology to the class and use it in our lesson plan. The technology that my group chose was Google SketchUp. For our lesson students were asked to create a breakfast invention that made breakfast faster but have it still be healthy. I liked having the other students in the class actually go through and do the assignment and create their invention. We created a Wiki for the students to post their ideas, projects, blue prints, and collaborate with each other. It was a great learning experience, we could actually see problem-based learning in action with our own ideas.

I enjoyed doing the other groups projects as well. I learned about some new technologies that I didn't even know existed, like Artsonia this is a website where teachers are able to post their students art work and also their regular school work. Another technology I learned about is Edmodo this is a website that allows teachers to post their assignments on the internet and have their students post their assignments on the website also. This will allow for student's parents to be involved in their students school life as well.

When I become a teacher I will probably be using Project-Based Learning, so this experience was very helpful. Seeing how these technologies can be used in the classroom was also helpful and gave me lots of ideas. This project was very informative and helpful in a lot of aspects in the classroom!

Interactive Whiteboards and Flipcharts

In Classroom Computer Applications we had to make a flipchart lesson plan. We downloaded the software ActivInspire. This software allows you to create your own flipcharts to use with an interactive whiteboard in your classroom. It comes with many tools, clipart, and gadgets to help make your lesson fun and interactive for your students. There are many resources available to teachers at Promethean Planet website. My partner and I found a lot of nutrition lessons for all ages. The lessons are from other teachers who belong to Promethean Planet, and they have used the lessons in their classrooms.

The software is very easy to figure out for the most part. Colleen and I ran into some problems figuring out how to get the magnify glass to work. There are a lot of tutorial videos, maybe to many, that you can watch to help you figure the software out. As I stated before there are a lot of them so Colleen Googled our question and got the answer right away.

This activity was by far one of my favorites. It would have been cool to see it actually be used on an interactive whiteboard because I thought Colleen and I did a really good job on it. The activities were really easy to make with the software. The clicker question was a breeze due to it being in the software and you just have to click a few buttons and its done. I highly enjoyed this and even told my sister ( who is a teacher) about the software and she downloaded it and is now trying to use it in her classroom!