Benefits of Technology

     Technology has allowed for the world to communicate faster or more effectively and with more people. We use different communication tools everyday to communicate with each other for a variety of reasons. Texting allows us to let someone know we are in a meeting when we miss their call, emailing allows us to send out a mass memo to all the employees of a company and teachers can use them to give homework assignments and conduct lectures. Without them we would miss many oppurtunities such as learning online. Without these communication tools I may not be able to finsih a degree in Teaching. I have 3 children and work a full time job. I don't have the time to or someone to watch them for me to go to a class on campus. Having an exampus makes this possible for me and other people like me. Sometimes we have to take a different approach to learning to actually learn something new.
     With all of this technology we have to be careful with what we allow in our computers environment. We have to treat technology like we do ourselves and be careful of what we trust to come into this environment, I have had a couple of experiences with malicious software on my personal computers. Viruses that have attached my computer because I viewed a webpage with a virus embedded or viewed an email with a virus attached. The world of email has become advanced enough that it can detect some of these viruses but like any human virus they change. The people who make them change them and while it doesn't seem like anyone would take their time to rin millions of computers they do. Last year I started a new job working with a technology company. My computer at work can't really have many filters because we shop on the web for products everyday but to minimize any viral attacks, every computer is set up with protecfion that will detect files that have viruses. In the future I plan to protect against this software by having anti-virus software that on the computer to detect and rid of any worm or virus. I also plan to limit the websites that students can visit to websites that I choose and know to be safe.

SuccessMaker in the Classroom

In my experience with substitute teaching I have came across many types of software that teachers would have planned in lessons. It is important that software meets curriculum goals but also fits the classroom needs. I think that when the students are engaged in a program they have the ability to learn beyond what we can show them. They have the opportunity to go beyond their goal and learn at their own pace. When given the task of this assignment I immediately thought of SuccessMaker. SuccessMaker software is geared for grades K-8.

                SuccessMaker offers reading and math tools for grades kindergarden through 8^th grade. Reading activities stem from vowel learning to comprehension excercises. Math lessons also offer a variety of tools that can help students learn each step through math problems. SuccessMaker also offers teachers the ability to manage their students work and progress. This tool can offer SPED teachers a means for keeping data on students IEP goals.

                I am currently not a teacher but I have used SuccessMaker in the classroom as a substitute. One teacher used it as a center for his elementary students. Each student has their own username and password. This was used as both a reading center and a math center. Students were assigned a specific exercise during that center. In my future classroom I hope to use this as more than just a center. Most of the classrooms in my school district have Smartboards. I plan to use SuccessMaker on the SmartBoard as with whole group lessons. Students will have a chance to use the software as well as the Smartboard.  Successmaker has lessons in which books are read to the class. I will use Successmaker to introduce new concepts by having a group reading lesson in which we use the Smartboard. We will complete one activity from the book on the Smartboard as a group and then each individual student will complete another activity in center time later that day/week. This will help the students get started with each new lesson.

                Successmaker has demo on their website that will walk you through any grade level that you are interested in. There is a lesson for each grade and it will demonstrate how each lesson plays out. If you have a chance to check it out please do so at http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZk99

Ms. McBee's Webquest

http://questgarden.com/129/72/8/110801070941/

This weeks assignment was especially fun! I had never heard of a webquest and in research I found so many great ideas. The webquest I created is geared for students that are ages 7-10. I decided that as part of science we could make our room into an ocean aquarium. This project will take several weeks of researching different fish and ocean life to put into the aquarium. The goal is to get students to learn about different species and become aquarium experts. After our aquarium is completed we will share with other classes. I have the idea that each classroom can complete a similar project. Other classroom habitats can be safari, rainforest, freshwater aquarium, typical forests etc... Each class will have the chance to showcase their habitat and teach theirs peers about those habitats.

To start I decided that each student will have both partner and individual work. The task page helps students get started by letting them gain a little knowledge before completing any work. The process page has 3 assignments that will be done within a week’s time. Each student is asked to draw a picture of their favorite shark. At the end of the week will choose 6 pictures that will be displayed in the classroom. Those students will be responsible for teaching other students about that particular shark. This webquest is a fact finding mission. This webquest will lead into other webquests about other fish and creatures of the sea.

I really had fun creating this webquest and think it is a great way to get students excited about what they are learning. I tried to make it simple but at times it seemed the wording I used was a little above grade level. I originally had more assignments but after looking at what I felt the overall task was I felt it was best to keep each webquest short because we will have many others to come. I really didn’t understand some parts of the webquests such as the standards page. Since I am not actually teaching yet I am not sure what curriculum standards this meets and the webquests that I referenced back to all had some type of curriculum standard. I thought that Questgarden was very easy to use and had everything I needed to make a good webquest. I think there could have been more designs to choose from and inserting pictures exactly where I wanted them was a little difficult. Other than that this was a really fun activity and I plan on implementing webquest’s into my classroom. I am exicted to share them with student’s in the future!

Online Communication Tools

Online Communication tools are tools that we don't even think about how much we use. Most people use some form of online communication everyday perhaps through email. In the business world email has made communicating with others easy and fast. I use email everyday and when our network is down I feel lost many times. I would rather email than pick up the phone many times. I feel that I can get more accomplished that way. I also always have a record for reference. This can be a downfall to online communication tools because we begin to depend on them too much and can lose important communication skills. There is a balance but in the classroom it is important to teach students different ways of learning and communicating.

Since I am not teaching yet I am referencing another online communication tool that I use on a regular basis in my classroom as a student. Blogs and discussion boards are a great online communication tool that can involve every class member. Blogs also allow us to debate our views on topics and learn other views as well.

In the future I plan to use blogs in the classroom as tools to communicate with students and parents. Homework assignments as well as discussion board topics will be links in which students will use to communicate with myself and their peers. I would like for the students to be involved in creating the blog at the beginning of the school year. I would like their input in what they would like to see and what would be helpful for them. This will give the students an opportunity to control part of their learning environment and motivate them to take pride in the blog site. Parents can also benefit from the blog because they will be able to see their students’ progress. They can check homework assignments and calendars that will have important dates. This can be a help in keeping parents involved in the classroom.

Using online communication tools helps teachers follow with KY teaching standards by implementing a technology enriched curriculum. There are many benefits to using this technology in the classroom beyond learning. Teachers can better monitor what students are doing and how well they are doing it. It makes a better learning environment for both the students and teachers.

Week Four- PowerPoint Presentation

Since I am not a teacher yet I created a PowerPoint and showed it to my own children. I wanted it to be something that would create their attention. I took in consideration that all three have different interests and I wanted to make it fun. I made a game of sorts on PowerPoint. I added pictures of their favorite things so they would remember the pictures. The first slide had 3 pictures on it. A car, Taylor swift and SpongeBob. After showing the slide to them I asked them to remember the pictures. The next slide I still had 3 pictures except I changed the Taylor swift picture to one of Justin Bieber. After showing them the second slide I asked them to tell me which picture was different. I asked each child individually. They got all got the answer correct. The 3^rd and 4^th slides progressed to having 4 pictures with one picture different on the second slide. We continued this until we got up to 8 pictures. The last 2 slides had 2 pictures that were different.  I noticed during this exercise that as the slides progress it was harder for them to recognize which pictures where different. I think it also got more exciting though. They really had a lot of fun doing this. I could see them excited when they figured it out each slide. Who new mom’s schoolwork could be so much fun?

I am proud of this idea for the presentation because I needed something that would be fun but also something educational that I can use in the future with students. The point of the pictures was to give them a little brainteaser. Brainteaser’s opens our minds and stimulate our excitement for learning more! I think that for my kids as a fun brain teasing game it was an excellent idea. Using pictures they were familiar with the subjects helped with their memorization and got them excited to see new and exciting pictures of their favorite people and characters. If I use this idea in the future in a classroom I think I would change a few things about the presentation. I may add some more depth into the game by asking questions about the differences in the slides. Like how many pictures are the same? How many pictures are different? What picture do you like the most and why? Etc… I would also add more differences as the slides progressed. After the 8 slides they were left with wanting more so I would also create more slides.

Week Three - Desktop Publishing

Since I have never had to make a newsletter or any other document that requires desktop publishing this was a first for me. I tried to think about something that I had seen from another teacher in my substitute career or something that my children's teachers had sent home. I remembered that last year my son's teacher sent home a weekly newsletter.

The newsletter was always organized the same each week which made it helpful to find certain information like homework assignments. The best thing about the newsletter is it was the only communication I had to really go through each week besides his behavior agenda. It had all the information I needed to know about the next week without having 5 papers to go through. The only downfall to the newsletter is that there was too much information. I thought about the newsletter and ways to make it better. Items covered on the newsletter included what they were learning each week in each subject, homework assignments and due dates, list of important dates and other information about events that were going on in the classroom. Sometimes the newsletters had too much information on them like detailed descriptions of activities for the each subject. I think the newsletter should have been a little more simple and left information open so that communicating with their children could be prompted. Instead of including a detailed description for each subject a title of each lesson could prompt parents to say “So Jane I see that you are working on Rounding numbers this week, how is that going?”. The homework assignment was always on the back of the page and I think that with reducing some of the information all of this could fit on the front. This way parents won’t miss any information if they don’t turn the page over. Also the newsletter was in really small print (all of it). I think by reducing the information there will be more room to make for a bigger font. The bigger font makes important information easy to read.

So after thinking about what I wanted to improve I created my own newsletter. I chose a template that was offered in Microsoft Publisher and went from there. I put the date in bold and listed information for the main subjects. I made sure to include what are working on or a the title of the assignment. I didn’t share any other information. I believe that this could prompt parents to wonder what “Who has made the world better” about. This will engage the parents and students to communicate about things that are going on in the classroom. I listed homework assignments at the bottom in bold and also listed due dates. This way all academic information is in large fonts and can easily be seen. The other information I added were important dates and special notes. I left the newsletter with this information and didn’t include a lot of pictures. I think it is simple and a clear informative document.

Week Two: Spreadsheets/Databases

In this week’s lesson most of the focus was on spreadsheets and databases and programs that provide them. The most familiar software that I use on a regular basis is Microsoft Excel. I have used Excel in the past to jobs that I have had for many different purposes. Currently I use excel for quoting at work. We have different templates that are used and formulas are already entered. It saves a lot of time when marking items up. (Saves on the math I have to do as well) I have also used Excel to help create a behavior logs for my children (especially my oldest) for home behavior tracking.

After doing a search on the internet for spreadsheets used in classrooms I quickly found Belmar, NJ K-12 website. http://www.belmar.k12,nj,us/public/everyday-spreadsheets/ This website is used as a resource for teachers. Within the website there are several links that have both resources for teachers to use for grading/assessing purposes as well as resources for them to use for lessons.

I found the travel budget lesson very interesting because this could be made into more than a travel budget. Teachers can change this to a fundraiser/class party budget. Students could work together to fundraise to have a class party at some point in the year. They would start from the beginning gathering data for how much they will need and what they will do. Each week they can track their progress towards this goal.

Other spreadsheets that were great ideas that I hadn’t thought about were homework schedules. Like a calendar the homework schedules clearly state what is expected of students and can prepare them for one week or one month worth of homework lessons. 

Teaching some math concepts can be enhanced with spreadsheets. Take multiplication tables as an example. Other spreadsheets that focus on averages can also be very useful in teaching these concepts.

I think the main idea here is to not only teach student the concepts but also get students to learn how to use the technology that is out there. Getting them to interact with technology and use opportunities such as Poll taking to input into spreadsheets. These spreadsheets can help make charts and graphs and further the lessons we design.

It really surprised me when I started immediately thinking of ways to modify the lessons that were given as examples. I find myself being creative and thinking how can I incorporate this into a lesson that will be appropriate for all grade levels.