I have come to absolutely enjoy PowerPoint. My first experience with it was this past summer, which is just strange to me, that I never used it during my undergrad or even high school. It's such a hugely helpful program both for being a student and being a teacher. In the classroom, there are infinite ways to use PowerPoint. Students can present ideas or projects, either to the class, the the teacher or to other classes. Teachers can use it to present/teach ideas and lessons to students, and make it available to them at any time. (i.e. place it on the class website). Presentation software can be used with any subject and at any grade level and therefore makes it even more useful for teachers and students.
Bloom's Taxonomy is something that I have heard of many times, but really never had a chance (or a reason, to be perfectly honest) to actually look into it. But upon closer inspection, it seems like it's just a fancy way of saying "make kids think about stuff rather than let them get away with surface junk." It's more like the ideal of what any good teacher should bring to the table: ask deep questions; stimulate prior and new knowledge; apply these practices to activities that support the idea. The site that really helped me out was http://tinyurl.com/b8ld2. It had a plethera of sample questions and ideas that could be realistically translated to the classroom. I take solace in the fact that I've used a number of these activities and questions in my experiences in the classroom because I feel like Bloom's is a great idea, and the fact that I have accidently begun to apply the principles feels good. If I can do that much before learning about it, I only hope that what I can later apply will be even more successful.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Week Four
I really enjoyed researching and learning about home to school communication tactics this week. From what I found online and from what people mentioned in the class discussion I was able to gather some excellent resources for my future classroom.
I had done some limited work with Kidspiration in the past but this new exposure to Inspiration was an interesting experience as things were organized a little differently. There seemed to be more choices and more "add ons" so to speak and it was obviously a more grown-up version of the program. I can see many obvious ways to use this program in the classroom, both for the upper and lower grades. You can also take the program and make it work in different ways for any number for different topics and lessons. Having the other free resources for mind maps will make a big difference in the classroom because it's something free for the teacher and they would be more easily accessible to students.
The activity from the reading (students visiting the creek and recording data) is something I a) probably wouldn't have thought of to begin with and b) truly would not have made the connection to create a mind map from the information. It's one of those amazing lessons that really connects to all students, as it touches on almost all the multiple intelligences and even brings technology into the mix. The steps and troubleshooting that the article mention touch on obvious problems that could occur in the process and it's important to remember that students will have these same problems and I, or teachers in general, need to be prepared to deal with these issues.
I had done some limited work with Kidspiration in the past but this new exposure to Inspiration was an interesting experience as things were organized a little differently. There seemed to be more choices and more "add ons" so to speak and it was obviously a more grown-up version of the program. I can see many obvious ways to use this program in the classroom, both for the upper and lower grades. You can also take the program and make it work in different ways for any number for different topics and lessons. Having the other free resources for mind maps will make a big difference in the classroom because it's something free for the teacher and they would be more easily accessible to students.
The activity from the reading (students visiting the creek and recording data) is something I a) probably wouldn't have thought of to begin with and b) truly would not have made the connection to create a mind map from the information. It's one of those amazing lessons that really connects to all students, as it touches on almost all the multiple intelligences and even brings technology into the mix. The steps and troubleshooting that the article mention touch on obvious problems that could occur in the process and it's important to remember that students will have these same problems and I, or teachers in general, need to be prepared to deal with these issues.
Week Three
I think the most useful thing I was introduced to this week was Rubistar. I'd heard of the program before and was already signed up for it, but I hadn't actually explored the site yet. But now that I see what the site actually encompasses, I believe it will be an asset for the classroom. Having just the template designed would almost be enough help in itself, but there is also so much information already put in there for individual assignments or in general. You can easily take a rubric that already exists and use just that, or you can add to it and mold it to make it fit your specifications. I will certainly use this program in the classroom anything to make my life a little easier! I can definitely have students create their own rubrics with it as well, either to use on someone else or for someone else to use on them.
I think students in my classroom may have experienced technology differently than me on either end of the spectrum. In some places, like the school I worked at previously, technology was not financially available to a large portion of the school, and therefore their technology, and especially computer use, was limited only to what we did in school and therefore I was the technological God to many students. On the flip side, the school where I work now, the average student has probably at least one computer at home, a cell phone better than mine in their backpacks, an iPod in their pocket and GPS in their cars, thus meaning that their technological experience is far above average. These students can't remember a time when they didn't have all these new, advanced piece of technology and so they count on them more than some. I can look back and remember a time when I didn't have a computer in the classroom for student use, when I didn't have one at home, when I didn't have a cell phone and a boom box with batteries was my only source of portable music. Students are just surrounded by technology at a much younger age and are therefore taking it for granted more than the generations before them. I think this changes learning because while it IS vital for them to learn new technologies and harness that power for good, it's also important for them to be able to survive without technology. And by that I mean, they should be able to handwrite, spell without a spell checker, save their friends numbers in a phone book in case their phone dies, do math without a calculator, etc.
A perfect example of this is found in this weeks reading:
“Now, when I make a mistake, I
don’t use an eraser or rewrite the
whole paper. My handwriting is
messy, but with the computer my
paper looks really nice.”
—1984, John, Grade 3, Apple2e
48K, Bank Street Writer
(page 4)
Once computers started to come along students began to give up on hand writing and just type everything. It makes me think about my own experience with writing. My younger brother and I are only three years apart and my mom always comments on how handwriting got lost somewhere right around his level in elementary school. In 3rd and 4th, and even some 2nd grades, I was taught handwriting, and cursive was a main focus but by the time my brother hit those same grades, only 3 years later, writing was no longer a focus and they began to do more typing. It was something I saw in 6th grade with an amazingly technologically inclined teacher, but to this day my brother can't write worth a lick because he was never TAUGHT how. I think it's turning around to some extent now, at least in the classrooms I have witnessed, but it's entirely individual based on the teacher.
I think students in my classroom may have experienced technology differently than me on either end of the spectrum. In some places, like the school I worked at previously, technology was not financially available to a large portion of the school, and therefore their technology, and especially computer use, was limited only to what we did in school and therefore I was the technological God to many students. On the flip side, the school where I work now, the average student has probably at least one computer at home, a cell phone better than mine in their backpacks, an iPod in their pocket and GPS in their cars, thus meaning that their technological experience is far above average. These students can't remember a time when they didn't have all these new, advanced piece of technology and so they count on them more than some. I can look back and remember a time when I didn't have a computer in the classroom for student use, when I didn't have one at home, when I didn't have a cell phone and a boom box with batteries was my only source of portable music. Students are just surrounded by technology at a much younger age and are therefore taking it for granted more than the generations before them. I think this changes learning because while it IS vital for them to learn new technologies and harness that power for good, it's also important for them to be able to survive without technology. And by that I mean, they should be able to handwrite, spell without a spell checker, save their friends numbers in a phone book in case their phone dies, do math without a calculator, etc.
A perfect example of this is found in this weeks reading:
“Now, when I make a mistake, I
don’t use an eraser or rewrite the
whole paper. My handwriting is
messy, but with the computer my
paper looks really nice.”
—1984, John, Grade 3, Apple2e
48K, Bank Street Writer
(page 4)
Once computers started to come along students began to give up on hand writing and just type everything. It makes me think about my own experience with writing. My younger brother and I are only three years apart and my mom always comments on how handwriting got lost somewhere right around his level in elementary school. In 3rd and 4th, and even some 2nd grades, I was taught handwriting, and cursive was a main focus but by the time my brother hit those same grades, only 3 years later, writing was no longer a focus and they began to do more typing. It was something I saw in 6th grade with an amazingly technologically inclined teacher, but to this day my brother can't write worth a lick because he was never TAUGHT how. I think it's turning around to some extent now, at least in the classrooms I have witnessed, but it's entirely individual based on the teacher.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Week 2
I can not believe the utter usefulness of the Google doc tools we learned about this week! Who knew all that amazing stuff was under my fingertips this whole time and I never knew. I don't currently have a word program on my laptop and I would have to email myself papers to print them out on the house computer but now with Google docs I have all that information saved for any place I need to access it. I've used the presentation and spreadsheet programs through Google as well and they work amazingly well. I'm just in awe of how helpful and perfect this program is! I also learned, after forever and ever of wondering in the back of my mind, what in the world bcc: meant on emails. Granted, if I had ever thought about it I'm sure I would have been able to find out what it meant, but finally that nagging question is answered.
The reading this week, "Teaching for Understanding"
The reading this week, "Teaching for Understanding"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)