PLE Week 14

*I completed steps 1-3 of the PLE

I chose to read the media and entertainment portion of the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet online. I watched a bunch of video resources. A few of my favorites were the FauxPaw Techno Cat Video, Real Life Stories-Cyber-bullying video, and Private World outside Parents Reach video. They all taught valuable things that are important to know with internet safety. The FauxPaw video was a cartoon made by a BYU student and it was geared more towards children. It gave 3 main points at the end. They were: Never give your name, address, phone number, or name of your school to anyone online, never meet someone you found online, and if you ever feel uncomfortable about something you see on the computer, run and tell a parent. The cyber-bullying video was interesting to watch because it showed a kid who really regretted his decision to participate in the cyber-bullying because his sister ended up being involved. This video just showed how hurtful using the internet in this way can be, and not only to those who are victims but even to the people who actively participate. The Private World outside the Parent’s Reach was maybe the most interesting of all for me to watch. It was about a girl who was anorexic and she went online to foster her problem. She could find support groups online where people would praise each other for not eating at all in a whole day among other things. There was even a site where anorexic people could go and basically worship the idol “ana” and make confessions to her and whatnot. This really surprised me. I could hardly believe that things like this went on. When this girl was asked how much her parents knew about her anorexia she said they knew nothing at all. They were completely oblivious. She viewed the net as a place she could go to be herself and talk to other people who are “like her”. This opened my eyes a little bit to other dangers that the internet can bring. If she did not have this anorexia support group online she may actually believe that she had a problem and that she needed to seek out help rather than to find new strategies to make herself look skinnier. Some more things I learned from the other videos I watched that I did not mention were that sometimes people say things online that they would never say in person, it is easy to say things you don't mean when you are online, there is a culture of internet involvement, many children who are involved in things they shouldn’t be are not necessarily bad but they are at risk of doing bad things, kids think that when they are in their home they are safe but internet predators are just as dangerous as the ones that are lurking in the dark, it is important to have your kids give you their passwords, and we need to think of kids less as victims and more as participants. It is the kids who go out looking for a thrill that get into trouble. One thing I learned from multiple sources was that it is important to only have computers in public areas where use can be monitored. This is a great preventative measure. The For the Strength of Youth pamphlet gave a lot of guidelines and outlined a bunch of things to watch out for when it comes to media and entertainment. I learned that everything we read, listen to or look at has an effect on us whether we realize it or not. It teaches that we should not only avoid the things that we know are bad but only look for things that uplift us. It talks a lot about pornography and how it is so important to avoid it at all times. It is likened to a poison that weakens us.
The person that I talked to about internet safety was an 11 year old girl. When I asked her what she already knew about internet safety she said she knew nothing at all. She said she only uses the internet for school projects. Her parents have a password block on the computer so she cannot get into any sites that seem at all sketchy. I was surprised how little she knew about internet safety. Her little use of the internet would explain a lot of that though. A lot of the content I had to share with her was about chat rooms and corresponding with people online. She did not even know what a chat room was. So I decided to teach her more basic things that I learned like what to do if something comes up on the computer that makes her feel uncomfortable. She accepted everything I said and agreed with me. She was easy to teach. I am not too worried about this girl but I think that now she will be more careful when she is on the internet to only go to sites that she knows are safe and she will tell a parent if anything comes up that she shouldn’t see or participate in.

TPACK Project

PLE Week 12

My mentor teacher did not use a whole lot of technology but she was good with using the things that she had. She could have done more with PowerPoint presentations or videos. It would have been fun for the students to see their own work projected on a slideshow of some sort. But she made great use of her document camera. She used it more than anything and it was very useful in helping the students to see the things she was demonstrating. She also used the internet to find a lot of cool astronomy pictures to show the students. It was fun for them to see those and talk about them. It would have been fun for the students to go to the computer lab every so often to do projects but I can see how that would have been hard for a second grade class. My mentor teacher used the internet to find the daily weather for the students to graph. That was a useful tool. She would also type things on the computer and project them up on the screen. The technology that she used was always very helpful.

PLE Week 11

Bookends of War http://etec.hawaii.edu/etecvideos/videos/bow/?page=ft_small
Inside Kapunahala http://etec.hawaii.edu/etecvideos/videos/kap/?page=ft_large

In the first video, the children were so excited to see their actual work on the computer. They think their website looks really cool. The technology got them excited about what they were doing in class. The students seem to understand what the website is all about. It seems like they understand the content more when they are displaying it in a fun way on the website. The children are eager to come to class and can’t wait to get down to the computer room. They think it is fun, not just busywork. The technology allowed the children to collaborate with each other and it allowed the children to problem solve. The students felt a great sense of accomplishment as they completed something that was a challenge. In the second video students were just as enthusiastic about technology. Students get the opportunity to be on a news program. It made students feel like it was a privilege to work with technology and to work on school projects.

Lesson Plans

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg58m5bb_6dzrww5cr
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg58m5bb_5hm65tfj2
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg58m5bb_4hpgqrmfx

PLE Week 10

In the spider lesson, the teacher uses a video to teach her students about spiders. She also has the students use cameras to take picture of spiders. I watched as the students became engaged during the camera activity. This same teacher also uses internet communications to correspond with people from different states. Technology is the only quick way you would be able to exchange pictures. This is a great way to engage the students. Technology is the only effective way to accomplish this type of task. Technology provides students with experiences that they could not otherwise have. In another classroom they used technology to put together final products. Using the computer to make the finished product allowed the teacher to be able to send the student’s work home in a more exciting way. It gets old sending books and papers home. It is so much more exciting for the students to go home and show their parents something on the computer than a worksheet that they filled out. The computer also allowed the students to be able to easily draw and erase without too much trouble. This can be especially important for younger children. In the last classroom had the students make their own PowerPoint presentations to show to the class. The slideshows gave the students many tools that they could use to demonstrate what they were learning. So many things could not be provided without technology.

PLE Week 9

I was was pleasantly surprised with the technology that we have available to us in my classroom. We have 1 computer and some other simple technolgy. The technology that I find the most useful is the document camera. It works as a projector and it makes it some things can be viewed on the board. This is a very useful tool. I have already used it in a lesson. There are two seperate compter labs that can be scheduled at the school. They have various programs available to the students.

I completed parts 1 and 2 of the PLE.

Science Activity

1.Teressa
2.Sabrina
3.Krysta

I think there are many reasons why implementing our science activity idea would be good. We used kidsparation and it is a fun way for the students to experience technology. It is easy to use and it demonstrates the science concept (in this case the weather changes in the four seasons) very well. One disadvantage could be that some children might have a hard time figuring out how to use the technology but with some instruction they should all be able to get it. They also may think that since it is a fun activity that they can just put the pictures wherever they want. The teacher would need to emphasize that it is still a class assignment even though it is a fun computer activity.

VoiceThread

Week 7 PLE - Science Challenge

1. We are using the kidsparation technology to teach about the weather and how they change with the seasons. We will have an intro activity where the teacher will hold up 4 different items (sunglasses, coat, etc) and will ask the students when it is appropriate to use each of the items. The students will raise their hands and give their ideas (i.e. coat in the winter when it's cold). Then the teacher will have the students get onto kidsparation and instruct the students on filling out a concept map about "Weather and Seasons". There are four empty boxes in the concept map that are labeled Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. There is also a box that is designated for a state. The students will drag their home state into the blue state box and label the box whatever state they put (i.e. UTAH). Then the students will be able to drag pictures of different weather features into each season box (i.e. drag snow into the winter box). After the students have put their weather features in the correct boxes we can have a mini class discussion about what everyone did and why. The children will share their ideas and the teacher will teach more about the weather changes with seasons as is necessary. After doing this the students will go into a writing portion of the kidsparation application and write about the weather for each season.
2. i. Content- 2nd Grade Standard 3: Students will develop an understanding of their environment.-Objective 2-Observe and describe weather. a)Observe and describe patterns of change in weather.
ii. Pedagogy- We are going to use concept mapping as our pedagogy. This type of pedagogy is good with the contect that we are teaching because it allows the students to classify information that they have been taught about the seasons. Since there are 4 specific seasons it is easy for the children to visualize how to divide up the characteristics if they have a concept map laid out for them. They will have already dicussed the seasons a little bit before the concept mapping so it will be more of a way for the teacher to check for understanding rather than teaching a new concept. This gives them the opportunity to work independently to demonstrate their knowledge. This is also good in teaching our objective because the objective is for the students to be able to "describe patterns of change in the weather" and that is exactly what our pedagogy activity is having them do. They are classifying and defining the different weather features for each season.
iii. We are using kidsparation as our technology resource. This is a concept mapping tool. It is a fun, interactive program. It is good for our content because it allows the students to see the feautures of the weather. It is one things to talk about the sun, and the snow but it is another thing to see pictures of them and know what they look like. Our pedagogy is all about classification and putting the correct weather features with each season. Kidspration is a perfect tool for this. It is clear and easy to understand and it is fun for kids.
iv. I would describe the representation of the content produced by my technology as multi-modal. It is a visual representation which helps the students to see that there are 4 different categories and they need to put characteristics in each one. It is easy for them to see the weather feautures with this visual representation. It is also a dynamic representation. The students can switch from a pictoral view to a writing view in the application. The students are involved in demonstarting the concept. This is helpful because it really makes it so the students are able to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject. It is a great tool for learning.

Google Earth PLE

1. Teressa
2. Michelle
3. Krysta

I think using Google Earth in the classroom is a great idea when you are together with your class. Google Earth is an amazing tool and it can show you things that you could never see otherwise. Young students would be very interested in exploring it. Depending on the age group of the students, it may or may not be a good idea to have the students use google earth independently. I found it somewhat confusing to navigate around. I would not have my students use this tool independently unless I was absolutely confident in their abilities to navigate around it. If they are comfortable with it though, I think it would be one of the bets, most interesting ways to teach about certain topics.

Virtual Tour

Exploring different landforms on Earth and how they are formed...

I chose to base my virtual tour on 5th Grade science Standard 2 which says that "Students will understand that volcanoes, earthquakes, uplift, weathering, and erosion reshape Earth's surface." This virtual tour will help teach the students about 4 different kinds of landforms that are results of volcanoes, earthquakes, uplift, weathering and erosion. They will have links to videos, pictures and articles that will help them learn. The will also see where some real life landforms exist on the map.

I chose to do my virtual tour on this topic because different landforms can be seen all over the Earth's surface. Using google earth to see some of these landdforms could be very effective in helping students to understand. I would be able to demonstrate the concept by showing the students rather than just telling them. Several different representations are used in this virtual tour. These different representaions will help the students to understand not only the concept of what I am teaching but also visualize and internalize the concept.

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1.North Island Volcanic Plateau	Read the short article and look at the picture provided. Draw a picture of a plateau and list defining feature that it has.	http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/Rangipo.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plateau
2.The Matterhorn	Watch both videos and look at the picture. Explain in your learning journal in your own words how mountains are formed.	http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Mountain.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngV66m00UvU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzt_EBD3DDQ&feature=related
3.Grand Canyon	Watch the video about the Grand Canyon. Write in your journal how a canyon and mountains are different.	http://www.hikingtripreports.com/images/grand-canyon.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktf73HNZZGY
4.Great Rift Valley	Look at the picture of a valley and read the attached article. After seeing these 4 land forms, mold a sample of each with clay and give a short description of how each of them were formed.	http://img6.travelblog.org/Photos/50784/276534/t/2447772-Great-Rift-Valley-0.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley

Week 4

I think the most difficult challenge in implementing a digital storytelling project in an elementary education classroom will be just taking the time to make the project. There are other less interesting things I could do that take less time. But I think it will be important for me to take the time and to plan in advance enough that I will be able to use digital storytelling in the classroom.

Digital Story- Week 3

I chose to use 2nd grade Health Standard 1 Objective 1 C which says that students will learn to "Relate behaviors that can help prevent disease (e.g., hand washing, good nutrition, fitness, universal precautions)"
In my movie I will talk about some of the things children can do to stay healthy. The Digital Story will make the content that I am teaching more interesting because it will provide music and pictures for them to listen to and look at while they are learning. The images that they see may be helpful for them to recall what was taught. Creating this digital story will provide a multi-modal representaion of the concept. The students will have multiple representations to draw upon when they are trying to remember the things they have learned.

TPAC

In our day teachers need content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge in order to be completely effective. TPACK is all of the types of knowledge combined. It is knowing how to teach a particular content area using technology. Technology can often help to teach age relevant material in effective ways. TPACK is beneficial because it combines each type of knowledge to create the most effective environment and provides resources that the teacher can use to foster learning.

Week 2

This week's assignment was very interesting. The thing that I found most useful was just the practice that the assignment gave my with trying things that I have never done before. For the most part I didn't really use the tutorials. I just looked around the the wedsite and tried to find my own way of completeing each task. It was not too bad once I got the hang of things. Most everything was pretty intuitive. I hope I did it all right :)

Site Link: http://sites.google.com/site/nancyssite2009

Technology Background

I have experience with some technology. I have a personal blog and a Facebook. I also have a lot of experience with email and with blackboard.