Final Thoughts

Overall, I have found most of what we have done in TPTE 486 to be very helpful. This class has given me new resources to be able to integrate into my classroom. The idea of using more than just PowerPoint presentations is not quite as intimidating as it was before I entered this class. After completing many of these projects, I now have ideas for activities and lessons that I can implement in my own classroom. Integrating technology into the classroom can be sometimes frustrating as I have watched while observing in the schools as well as seeing in this class. However, when it is a sucess, some really neat things can be done. Students today are all about the digital world. Therefore, technology in the classroom is a great way to get them to interact with the material. Finding ways to use different programs with the content will help keep their attention on what they should be learning. Also, because so many students are very interested in technology, we can easily make material relevant to them, which I find to be extremely important to teaching. In addition, the students' interest in technology like the internet also needs to be addressed. As teachers, it is our responsibility to show the students how they are supposed to use this resource. We need to teach them how to properly evaluate a website's content, what can and cannot be used such as copyrighted music, and how to properly cite sources they have used from the internet. They need to learn how to responsibly use technology not just for the classroom but the real world as well. They will be long gone from my classroom when they are still using the internet, so it is important to teach them properly as early as we can. I am very optimistic about using technology in my class. I think it will be a fun and engaging way to conduct many lessons.

Adaptations and technology

I have been thinking a lot about the adaptations that teachers are required to make for students with special needs. After being in this TPTE 486 class, I really think that trying to integrate technology especially with students who may have a disability will help them be able to learn the material in maybe an alternate way. I have a few ideas about how to incorporate technology to assist all kinds of learners. Technology is so universal it makes it easier for teachers to supply accomodations for a lot of students. For example, the Inspiration Layouts that we made would be good for students with reading disabilities. They can actually see this digital graphic organizer and create it themselves. These kinds of projects have little wording, so they can get the gist of the information that is important. Another example of making adaptations could be presenting content in a very visual way. For students who are visual learners or even hearing impaired, digital stories would be a helpful tool to use during lessons. Even allowing students to make one as a project could allow them to become engaged very visually with the material. I really have worried about how I will be able to accommodate all kinds of different needs that make up a very diverse classroom. However, programs that I have used in this class have made me start thinking about all of the various possibilities. I am very excited to be able to use technology as a resource that will allow me to adapt to all kinds of learners. I think this class has quelled some of those fears, and I can see now options that I can take advantage of.

Building Websites

As a final project we have been building a website to showcase our projects from all year in TPTE 486. Using Google Sites has been pretty easy to figure out. I like the fact that things are so simple to use in order to make a workable site. There's no having to spend hours building html code and it still looks nice, neat, and professional. There are also decent layouts to choose for the design of the site, but it doesn't totally limit you there because you can go back and change colors too. There are a lot of choices that you can make without all of the extra work of building a site from scratch. That would be way too time consuming especially with our busy teacher schedules. So, I really liked using this site and if possible would like to use again.

Depending on the amount of internet that my students have access to, I would like to be able to use a site similar to this to create for the classroom. I think a site for the class would be good for parents, as well as students, to access because it will allow them see what I am like as well as what we are doing in class at that time. It is important to be able to communicate with parents on a positive note, and not just contact them when there is an issue with their child. Establishing positive relationships with both the students and the parents is very important to make a learning environment successful. Also, if the students wanted to get a head start on make-up work, they could to get assignments from the website and do not even have to wait until the next day. It is also kind of a fun tool that the students can interact with and engage actively in the class. I really hope that enough of my students will have access to the internet so that I may use a classroom website. It will be fun!

More Observation

So, I have finally completed my high school observations. I observed an Economics class. During his lectures, he used technology in the classroom. He required students to take notes from Powerpoint, the overhead, and the Smartboard simultaneously. I really like the Smartboard. He was easily able to provide practice problems to go along with the notes the students were taking. However, it would have been nice if he allowed the students to be interactive with it as well. For example, giving problems and then letting them come up to the board to do them. I think it might have engaged the class a little more actively.

In my high school, we didn't have Smartboards. So, I am not really familiar with this technology too much. In both of my school observations, I saw it implemented, and I would like to try it out in my classroom. I think it would be a good interactive way to get the students involved with the content. I know when I was in school, everyone liked to go up to the whiteboard, so I think that students would like to use the Smartboard. With this tool there are all kinds of activities that are available.

Watching Technology in Action

In completing our pre-service teaching, I have completed observation in a middle school 7th grade classroom. In this setting, I observed the teacher use technology in a way that provided a more actively engaged class. I witnessed games played on the Smartboard and the making of Key Note presentations.

The games that they played on the Smartboard allowed the students to interact with material they were reviewing. The students really seemed to be interested because they got to go up to the board and answer questions individually. Nearly every student was completely engaged. I think especially in a middle school, this was a good way to get the students involved and having fun. She offered rewards for the winning team, and I think at this age rewards still really seemed to have worked. It gave them incentive to participate, and once they did, they were enjoying themselves.

In addition, I also helped the teacher give the students aid while making these Key Note presentations in the computer lab. Now, many of the students were unfamiliar with how to make these presentations, which made it more time-consuming. While all of the students seemed to be engaged with the activity, I am not sure they really delved into the content (which were the different types of government and world leaders) as much as they were worried about completing the task at hand. I also think the teacher was feeling the same way. She did not require the students to cite any information and many of the students just copy and pasted from Wikipedia. This made me think about the challenges and obligations I will have as a teacher. One one hand, we want these students to learn how to use these kinds of presentations, and we also have to make sure we do not waste time in the interest of fulfilling standards. However, we also need to make sure that we are instructing them correctly on how to go about doing research. I realize they were only middle-schoolers, and as they advance in their schooling they will have much more practice in doing it correctly. I do think though as a teacher, it will be my responsibility to show them the correct manner to use technology appropriately, even in the interest of time.

Digital Story

This is a video that I have created using Windows Movie Maker. I created this video as a tool that I can use in my classroom in order to study the Civil Rights Movement. It is a brief 2 minute video that introduces one of the most well-known figures associated with this time, Martin Luther King Jr. It doesn't go into a lot of detail, but it does highlight the big events that he was associated with. I would use it most likely at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement unit.

Making this video was rather time consuming. Going into this, I really had no idea what I was doing, but as I played with the program I began to figure out what I was trying to accomplish. Trying to sync audio, video, and text all together is not difficult. However, it does take a while. If I was to do it again then I may be a little quicker. While knowing how to do this is pretty handy, I do not think I will create a lot of videos for my class like this. On the other hand, I would like to make students create them if they all have computer access. I realized making this you have to engage with the material you want pretty well in order to summarize it briefly as to highlight the main points. Assigning something like this can allow the students to figure out what things are most important as well. After doing this, I would like to make them present them to the class.

Above is a screen shot that I developed for my 486 class. It is a quiz over World War II. At first, the formatting was a little difficult to get the hang of. I worked through it, and now, if I did it again I could be much faster at it. I do not think it is very hard to learn, but you do need to know some things about excel such as how to do functions. The result though is worth it because you can pop out all kinds of quizzes like this to get your class motivated for the day.

These kinds of quizzes I believe would be good to get the class started at the beginning of the period. A short quiz like this can just get their brain in gear for the material that we are about to be engaged with. I find Excel to be more beneficial than I thought. I really did not know you could do stuff like this with it. I figured it was more for like math people or grades. However, a simple quiz like this can be used across the curriculum and various grade levels. I just think it is kind of a fun way to get things going.

I would definitely like to make these for my classroom. I think it is a good way to integrate some technology into the classroom. It is not that difficult to make or for the students to use. However, it still uses technology to an extent more than just viewing a Power Point every day. They can actively do a quiz like this on the computer and get immediate feedback. This is another useful tool that we have discovered in this class that I hope I will be able to use in my own classroom one day.

Web Inspiration Layout

This is a web diagram that I have created using Inspiration 9. The content is about the Civil Rights Movement. It is designed for a high school U.S. History course. This will be a useful tool to use while integrating technology in the classroom because it is a nice visual instrument. These kinds of web diagrams will be a good visual for the students especially ones who are visual learners.

Using this program is much neater than using for example a white board or something like that. It is clear and concise, making it easier to grasp main concepts. I definitely would like to use this in my classroom. This kind of tool can be used across grade levels and content area, making it very flexible. Also, they are fairly simple to create and still look visually pleasing. These kinds of programs could be used for notes, or you could even have the student construct one as a project. I really liked making this because it was simple, quick, and useful. I think that students will really be able to understand material presented in this simple manner.

Digital Images Slide Show

This is a slide show created by using the google version of powerpoint. These are various images that we used in our 486 class. They were just uploaded in different formats, so there is no real significance to them. However, there is significance in knowing how to upload various pictures through various methods. Scanning, pictures from the web, digital photos you took, screenshots, understanding all of these different ways of getting a picture to upload is very useful to know. I think if our students do not know how to do any of this, we should teach them how to do it. It will be something useful for them both in and out of the classroom.

If there is no access to Microsoft Powerpoint, or maybe there just needs to be a quicker way to do a slide show presentation, then this google version is extremely useful. It is quick and very easy to use. In fact, I have used Microsoft Powerpoint many times, but I still think this was much easier to learn. Maybe it is not quite as fancy, but I think it will get the job done especially if their are time constraints to the project.

It would be very easy to implement something like this in a classroom. I could think of many things I could make my students do slide show projects for regarding History or Geography on the high school level. Even if they are not very computer savvy, I think they could still be able to use this program. Also, making students do these kinds of projects will allow them to engage in the material a little deeper. For example, if I require them to do a project on WWII, then I can ask them to provide all kinds of things. I may require a picture, information about it, or some kind of video or audio from the time period relating to the war. You can do all kinds of things with these presentations and make it fun and interactive.I definitely would like to try it out in my classroom and see how it would work.

This week in 486

First, I found the scavenger hunt we did to be pretty simple. I am pretty familiar with the various ways to upload pictures. However, I did learn new things about Macs and how to make those photos jpegs. I thought this would be something that I could actually use in the classroom if I wanted to show my students how to upload pictures in various ways. Since I will be a history teacher, I figured I could use historical images instead. For example, I could make them upload only images concerning the Civil Rights Movement or World War II. This activity would help them identify history as well as learn about technology. This little scavenger hunt could be an effective activity that might give students who do not have much computer access a chance to learn how to use them better.

Also, this week we covered word processing. A lot of that material I already knew because I have had a lot of interaction with programs such as MS Office. However, I didn't really know about the other processing software that helps students with disabilities. I think that those programs seem really useful and interesting. It is sometimes amazing to me on exactly how far we have come technologically speaking. So, I like knowing that technology can be used in such a way that might help students learn material they otherwise may have never been able to before. I just hope that more schools will be able to afford this kind of software because I doubt that all of it is free or easily affordable. Though, there are some processing programs available on the web, which is nice for those who cannot afford them.

Lessons

Lesson planning I have come to like pretty well, which is good since I plan on being a teacher. I think they will help keep me focused and organized, as well as be able to know what standards I am wanting to cover. As a future teacher, we have been required to make some of our own. In preparing for this lesson plan for this technology class I found it to be pretty useful. We prepared our activities prior to the actual lesson planning and I found that to be easier than the way I have been doing it. Usually, I come up with the idea and form an activity around it. I liked creating the activity first I think it made the actual lesson plan go quicker. From now on I think I will try to do that instead. I felt like I could complete it easier because I already knew what activity I wanted to do for the lesson.

As part of integrating technology the activity involved doing research on the internet based on the Rockstar activity we did making a sort of WebQuest project. I think that using these in my class will be a great way to implement technology. I think my students will be able to get somewhat more of an intimate knowledge of the material I am covering if they have to look some of it up on their own. Also, by doing this there are other resources they can look at such as images, video, and audio by actual people during different time periods. As a history teacher, I believe getting some primary sources in the lesson or other perspectives of an event are extremely important. Plus these different kinds of media can also reinforce what I have taught, am teaching, or will teach. I really look forward to doing lessons such as this one that I have prepared for! I think the students will enjoy these activities as well by getting to find material on their own, with of course some guidance by me. These web-related activities will also help me teach them how they too can properly evaluate websites on their own for future use. Therefore, they will be able to be more self-sufficient in doing research projects, which almost every student will have to do at some point in their education.

Frustrations....

The suggested topic for this week was about frustrations. I wasn't really sure if I was going to write about it or not, but then I came into some things that frustrated me and it made me think. As I was trying to convert some documents over to pdf format for WebQuests that we designed, I ran into some issues. First, my document became 2 pages when it was only supposed to be one, which really wasn't a big deal. However, the border that looked so nice surrounding my document was completely messed up on the second page. I tried adjusting the margins and playing with the border. Nothing worked, so I eventually just removed the border. It was very frustrating and the people at zamzar.com probably think I am crazy for converting that file about 7 times.

So, after that happened. It made me think about the future. While I think it is a great idea to use technology in the classroom because students can relate, and they need to know how to use it. I also realized that there will be times when things happen that I just cannot fix or solve in regards to this kind of thing. I thought about how frustrating this might be because I can't stop my lesson to try and fix a technological problem for 30 min. For example, in the class I am currently observing, they were playing a geography game using a Smartboard, but they could not get the pen to fix. The teacher had to take time out to try and fix it, but she was unsuccessful. Therefore, she had to make adjustments. These little hiccups really made me think about how I will have to always be adaptable to what is going on in the classroom with the lesson. Technology can be great, but it can definitely have some flaws.

These things will not deter me from integrating technology as much as possible. Though they did allow me to reflect on how my response would be as a teacher trying to hold the lesson together. With or without technology, I will still have to plow through those standards and lessons. Overall, these frustrations allowed me to maybe be a little more prepared about the future.

Webquests

I found a webquest this week that was in my particular subject area, which is history. The title was Causes of World War Two. It was developed by a student studying to become a teacher. The task was for students to get into groups and make a ten minute presentation on certain aspects of WWII. It provides some websites for students to use as well. I think that it would be an overall useful project to do in a U.S. History class. This point in history is important for students to grasp and understand, and this webquest would be a useful tool implemented in the class. The link to this particular quest is

I really like the idea of webquests. I had no idea what they were prior to this class. Webquests are really good tools that I will definitely want to use in my classroom. It gives me the ability to find fun projects that can integrate technology successfully into my classroom without being overwhelming or confusing hopefully. They can also be useful if I get stuck on how to plan a certain lesson or project by providing me with the tools or ideas I need. Plus, if there is a certain aspect I want to change, I still have the liberty to do that as well.

Websites and Wikis

This week I have been looking at different websites based on my content area, which is history. I found three different sources that were really interesting to look at. The best one I found was www.besthistorysites.net. They provide all kinds of sites that give lesson plans, activities, games and much more. I really think this site would be useful to any social studies teacher because it has such a wide variety of options for lessons. I added this site to our course wiki and I really think that it will be a useful one.

I believe that wikis were very interesting to learn about. I had never really knew what a wiki was other than Wikipedia. As far as integrating technology, I think it will be a very source for teachers to use. I would really be interested in this as a future teacher just like the PLNs. I think it is important for teachers to have as many resources to their disposal as possible. I am looking forward to using this more as a tool for future lesson planning.

PLN and websources

Since we have been discussing PLN and signed up for twitter, I have been taking a closer look at the people who I follow. I read some of their blogs. For example, tombwhitby's post about the purpose for #EdChat was mainly to discuss topics concerning integrating technology in the classroom. I completely agree. There was one blog I found that mentioned many people are unwilling to adapt to the integration of technology in the class or simply do not see the relavence for it in their classroom. I think that technology can be used in any classroom setting as long as it is available. In my classroom, I hope to be able to use it as a tool that will assist me in reaching students I may not have otherwise. Technology is here and whether people like it or not it isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Twitter seems like a great tool for teachers to use as a PLN type source. I think it will be very useful as a teacher because it will provide me with a vast number of resources from many different perspectives. As a teacher, I believe it will be very important to have a PLN. There will be those times when maybe I cannot come up with a lesson plan or I need help with forming a project. Having a network of people will help me not to limit myself or my students and provide them with a good education.

Also, this week we were to evaluate a website and I chose to do fun-science-project-lesson.com. This site was designed to help come up with science classroom ideas and projects. It seemed to me like it could be used as a tool in the classroom. However, it is also important to realize from this evaluation that many sites out there are not reliable. While I may have known that, it did make me realize that many of my students may not. Some of them may not have access to a computer very often, or they may simply believe a lot of what they read. I know now that it is my responsibilty to help guide them and provide them with accurate information about websites and also help them to discern whether or not a source can be seen as reliable.