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!