Blog #9

I like the idea of a flipped classroom. Where students watch informative videos on their own time and class time is used for discussion and interactive activities and exercises. The lecture videos can be recorded by the teacher or taken from different sources. One source I found that contained these educational videos is Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org/).

http://www.preschoolprintables.com/ is a great web resource that can be very helpful for teachers of many difference grades and levels. They have online games for students. The grades range from preschool and kindergarten all the way up to eighth grade. The site is simple and easy to navigate. The images are clear and colorful and this will make the students want to use the website. The website even has free charts and worksheets that teacher can print.

I really enjoyed making the interactive PowerPoint. I learned how to make hyperlinked buttons and I had never used sound in a powerpoint before. I think this could be very helpful in a high school classroom. The students often benefit from a break from the traditional classroom lectures. Mini jeopardy games can be created that make reviewing for tests and quizzes fun and interactive. Next time would improve the Powerpoint by taking screen shots of the images rather than finding the pictures on google. This is because some of the photos have lower quality and are slightly unclear at points. Overall I hope you all enjoy my mini TV show quiz.

Blog #8

Out of all the advancement I think that Cloud Computing

holds a lot of promise for education. Cloud computing is the storage of programs and user data over the internet rather than your computer hard drive.

It easily facilitates information sharing between students, teachers, the school, and parents.

 

The digital divide is the gap between people who don’t have and do have access to technologies and or the internet at home or school. I am on the side of the divide that has access to technology and resources to learn about getting the most from the technology. The digital divide will affect classrooms in that each student may not have the same level of knowledge about the use of these technologies. This will mean the teachers may have to tailor certain lessons to those students who don’t have a printer at home, or that don’t have internet access. I will make myself an approachable teacher. A person students feel comfortable confiding in. Then they will not feel afraid to tell me if they don’t have access to the technologies at their home, and then the school can compensate them.

I learned how to take the background off of images so the white does not show against the slide backdrop. I enjoy PowerPoint and I think it is very useful in a classroom setting. I like the amount of creativity PowerPoint allows you to explore. Next time I would figure out a way to make the font size of the words in the table bigger without making the table its self-larger. I will use PowerPoint while teaching a class, it will help explain the lessons they need to learn.

Blog #7

Adaptive technologies are used to assist students with physical and learning disabilities. I haven’t used any such technologies. My sister has a learning disability but she hasn’t used any of the computer input and output programs listed in the podcast. She receives extra time on her tests and flexible grading on assignments.

Adaptive technologies might pose a challenge in the classroom because not every student will be using it. This means that the teacher will have to increase planning to include that new technology. The teacher needs to figure out how to incorporate it into the classroom. However, it has been shown that adaptive technology can also be used as tools for students that are not disabled. If the technologies are used for all the students it makes the teachers job a little easier.

PowerPoint can be used to teach students about Blooms three domains of educational activities. One slide could show the pyramid with all the domains listed. This gives the students a visual to work from. The next three slide would be each domain broken down and shown with more detail. For example, there are the cognitive skills, also referred to as mental skills or knowledge. This slide could have an image of a brain to emphasize the cognitive aspects. The next slide could talk about the Psychomotor domain or the physical or manual skills we posses. This slide could show someone exercising. The last domain is Affective. This refers to the attitudes we hold about our self and our emotional growth.

Creating the Weebly was fun. I learned how to hyperlink words and phrases to make the information easily available. The site had lots of different images available to choose from. This was nice because it allowed us to use the images without having to cite our sources. The site did have some glitches. For example, at one point in the process, I was adding a new text box, and the site would not let me type in the box. The cursor kept jumping to the top of the page. I had to log out and refresh the page to make it work properly. Next time I will learn how to embed a calendar and I will add more information about the field trip locations. Knowing how to make a website is very important for future teachers because it allows them to communicate more effectively with parents and students.