Reflection: eduTecher

            First off, I have to say that I really enjoy the look and layout of eduTecher. Clean, modern, oriented for teachers, I like it.

            While going through, I decided I would click on foreign language for elementary school students. It greatly narrowed down the findings for me and I found a site that it gave that looked interesting and appropriate for young students called “Conjugation.” Turns out, this website could be helpful for ALL students, not just ones who speak another language. What this website does is allows the person to insert any verb into the search bar and it will bring up all of the forms of that verb. Young students, because of their cognitive development, are not able to always conjugate verbs correctly and so having this resource will allow them to see how each tense is formed and said.

            I went back to the homepage of eduTecher and decided to look up Social Studies sites. Then I clicked on Altapedia, which contains full color physical and political maps and facts and stats about different countries throughout the world. It is also broken up alphabetically so students can go search by specific countries or use the actual map. This resource is useful in showing a whole class certain things about the world, but also allows them to go and do individual research.

            The last resource I found was under teacher tools. One of the first things that came up was “280 Slides”, which allows teachers (or students) to create great slideshows and rather than have them saved to a flash drive, they can be accessed from anywhere. It is video and picture capable and has numerous themes. This would definitely be useful in student projects, lessons, and would eliminate the problem of carrying flash drives around or not having the correct program installed on the computer to run the Powerpoint or whatnot.

            I think I enjoy this eduTecher site. Easy and chock full of resources.    

Reflection: Classroom 2.0

            After digging around “Classroom 2.0”, the first thing I discovered is that social networking really does have a huge impact on our society. As a society of teachers, we can now communicate much more easily and teach in different ways as a result of this communication.

            This website is incredible just in terms of the number of people that belong to it. When I was digging around, there were almost 54,000 people following this website. That means that so many people want to share their ideas and learn from others. I clicked on Steve Hargadon’s blog and just enjoyed looking at his posts, but I also liked how he gave dates and links to actual real life events so that teachers can expand their professional development in that way.

            This website also has many interactive tools that use Elluminate. This is a webconferencing tool where teachers can get on and watch someone talk about whatever subject “Classroom 2.0 Live” is talking about. Teachers can also access the archive of these videos and watch them whenever.

            On top of all these, there are 33 pages of groups (over 660). I clicked on “International Primary School Educators” just for fun and this took me to a forum where there are links to great schools abroad and discussions about education in other countries. Yep, 660 resources just like this that vary greatly.

Kan-ed Reflection

            Never have I ever seen so many resources in one location. And by resources, I mean things that seriously lessen the intimidation of the profession they call teaching. Kan-ed, thank you for being ridiculously cool.            

            Before I begin discussing my findings on the site, I just have to say that the thing that I perhaps do not enjoy in this site is the homepage. It is very cluttered with so many links and images. Now, I believe that the teacher can change this once they have their own classroom. When I have my own class, I will make sure that I organize it so that I am not so overwhelmed by all of the business going on in the homepage.

            The first link I explored was “Thinkfinity”, a resource powered by Verizon. It turns out that this website is designed to allow teachers access to innumerable lesson plans. The site is designed easily so that all the teacher needs to do is enter a keyword into the search bar and Thinkfinity goes and collects all of the lesson plans that has to do with that keyword. I entered “space shuttle”, and 9 lessons came up, each pertaining to various grade levels. If a search comes back with thousands of results, then the toolbar on the right allows teachers to narrow their search to specific things, a tool that I really like and will use often. What’s more is that this website tells which lessons are aligned with the state standards, something that all teachers today need to be aware of. It will even go as far to produce the indicator of the standard so that the teacher knows exactly which standard he or she is teaching for. What a brilliant idea. The unfortunate thing is that it does not have the standards for all states, for example Colorado, but it does have the majority of the states. After you do a search and look at the standards, it provides a link directly to the lesson plan from which you can plan your teaching.

            After I went back to the Kan-ed homepage, I decided to explore “Heritage Quest”, a database of census forms and other historical items relating to real people (kind of like an advanced geneology.com). I decided to look up people from both sides of my family, just for fun. You can look through census forms, newspaper documents, Revolutionary War data and other things to try and find information on a certain person. While I did not find any information on my family (I mean I’m not sure, I do not know my relatives from the 1880’s, sorry), it was very interesting to go in and do searches and look at documents. It is hard because the earliest forms they have are from the 1930’s.

            The other resource I checked out was the “Kansas Education Resource Center (KERC)”. What is nice about this website is that all of its links and resources are read over and approved by actual educators who know what teachers are looking for. Kind of like Thinkfinity, KERC allows you to go in and choose what subject, like math, writing, geography, etc., you want and then it gives you the standards and if there are lesson plans for that particular standard and subject, it will give you a link to it. Seriously, these sites are so useful and convenient.

            I cannot wait until I am a teacher and can customize my Kan-ed to the things I want, but all of these resources will definitely be on it because they are beyond useful.  

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Podcast Reflection #8: Response Systems in Netbooks

            I had been finding a lot of resources for things dealing with iPods and iPads, and finally Tony Vincent, in “Four Students Response Systems”, gives educators great resources to promote interactive learning in the classroom through computers!

            The first resource I will discuss is “QuestionPress”. This is an assessment and response tool that can be used on any device that is connected to the Internet. It allows teachers to enter pre-created questions or create on-the-fly questions that will be instantly uploaded into the server. It also has more than just multiple choice questions; QuestionPress allows teachers to utilize true/false, fill in the blank, check all that apply, and even short answer. On top of that, this resource can make the job of a teacher easier because it can grade the students responses based on what the teacher told it. This is also beneficial for the student because the score can be seen immediately, which is something other programs do not do. This resource would be great in a formal assessment setting as well as an informal setting.

            Another resource Vincent recommends is “Google Docs”. Having used Docs before, I know how cool of a resource it really is. He talks about how Docs has a way to collect responses, for a quiz or test or attendance, called Forms. Like QuestionPress, Forms allows teachers to ask questions of the students and then have the students answer them in multiple choice, short answer, essay, and more. Once the student submits his or her responses, the information is compiled into a spreadsheet that is easily readable by the teacher. Now, I think that Forms may require more post-test work because the teacher has to go in and access the results, but I think that Google really made it teacher friendly, and people friendly as well, because all of these resources are free whereas QuestionPress required a subscription.

            With these new resources that can be used on computers and used anywhere with an internet connection, I have more ways to get students really involved in technology!

Podcast Reflection #7: Video in the Classroom

We all remember times, say during sex education, when teachers show films that were created back in the 1970’s. Not only are these movies outdated, but also they do not capture students’ attention or engage them in learning. “Video in the Classroom” discusses ways for teachers to catch up with society and use videos effectively in the classroom.

            Matthew Needleman, an elementary teacher, describes many useful ways to incorporate film/video into the classroom. The first thing he says is to use updated videos or films. Children today have grown up with really advanced technology, and that includes advances in films. Therefore, he says they will be turned off and disinterested in the old videos and not learn as much from them.

            The next part was what I found most interesting. Mr. Needleman says that students may learn better by actually creating their own film. He has been doing film making in his classroom for years now. When incorporated correctly in a lesson, filmmaking allows students to begin thinking critically about subjects, a higher-level form of thought. In addition, they have the opportunity to work on their writing skills (writing a script), and understanding how media can influence peoples’ knowledge of something.

            In terms of resources, Mr. Needleman said that Skype was an okay resource, but he said that if students have access to computers with a camera in them, preferably Macs, then iMovie is a great way for students to go in and create movies easily. Another resource is VLC, or Windows Movie Maker on PCs.