#6 and still learning!

I visited a website for the "Lyme School" in Lyme New Hampshire. On this schools website there was many links to classes from Kindergarten to 8th grade with library pages, resources, and many links. Each of these pages contained all sorts of information. On most of the elementary class pages there was things such as the weekly homework, a blog with the lesson plans for the week, and newsletters for the parents. On the older grades websites there was things such as links to educational games, links to educational resources, and also calendars for different classes. All of these things are able to be viewed by anyone and do not require any sort of log in or anything!

There is so many great resources out there that can help make teaching easier and more children learn more efficiently and effectively. One productivity tool that I think would really help in my future teaching career is to first off all take full advantage of evernote for taking notes and creating lesson plans just because of all its great uses and its flexibility. I would also like to use evernote like mentioned in the podcast to keep a journal of my teaching reflections in the application. This way I could easily go back to what I would like to change about certain lessons and reflect on how to make it better. I already use my google calendar to insert important dates and times in so I think that would also help accomplish my professional responsibilities. 

This wiki assignment came as a challenge to me. I had never heard of pbworks and it was interesting to be able to learn about its different capabilities. One tool I found very useful was the copy page tool, this allowed my group to keep all the pages similar and with the same formatting. I enjoyed being able to work in a group and collaborate but it was very difficult to be able to get four involved college students together at one point to do the project. There was always a scheduling conflict or difficulty which added more stress to this assignment. I can see now how this wiki could be beneficial in creating a class website to keep students and parents up to date on the happenings in the classroom and it is definitely a good tool to keep in my repertoire! 

http://lindseyearp.pbworks.com/w/page/105242667/Second%20Grade%20Science

#5 This is a long one: beware!

A web 2.0 tool that is useful in the classroom is a class blog. I think that having a class blog can be a very useful in especially the K-5 classrooms because it is a way for teachers to be able to share and communicate what is going on in the classroom to the parents of the students. By using a class blog, parents can see homework assignments, important dates, and even their students work. From the teachers aspect, this can help in their professional development because it allows them to stay in close contact with their students parents without having to reach out to ever single parent individually, it can save time and make things easier and more interactive! I think that having a twitter is not useful in a classroom setting because there is a lot on twitter that is very inappropriate in a school setting and may cause controversy with in the classroom. In order to use a class blog all you need is a computer, with a motherboard and a monitor, and internet connection. It is not necessary to have other peripherals plugged in and the network needed is just the internet.

      In another one of my classes, a group was giving a presentation and instead of using a regular power point, they used Prezi. I personally have never actually made a Prezi but it looked very interesting to i decided to give it a whirl. In order to properly write this blog post I decided I must first dive into this web 2.0 tool Prezi and make a silly one myself just to see how it works. First of all, when you are making your account, with every answer you fill in, they give you a nice little remark such as "Nice name!" and "Sounds interesting!", these comments already sparked an interest for me, I want to know more!
      They started my (free) membership by first giving me a quick and not too in-depth tutorial about what Prezi does. It basically makes a huge concept map that zooms into detail so you can see relationships and keep your audience engaged, COOL. What I discovered while making a non-informational Prezi presentation is that the layout and they way you make it is very similar to creating a Powerpoint but there is already slide transitions built in. You can do everything you can do in a powerpoint on Prezi, just much cooler and more efficient. Also a cool feature I discovered in Prezi is that you can search and insert images onto your presentation within the website , without having to go to google to search and insert. There is so many more features in Prezi that would take me days to explain so here is the domain so you can try it yourself! https://prezi.com/

So last but certainly not least, I also had the opportunity to explore the fun and useful application Webspiration this week. I have always hated making concept maps. I found it difficult to draw everything and make it look pretty while still showing the relationships, but webspiration does just that. I learned how to make a neat, informative, and useful concept map at the click of a button. Also if you really aren't feeling the whole map thing, you can convert the information into an outline in a matter of seconds. I was just trying to figure out how to use the website for this assignment but for future reference I would like to color code it better and add more images into my concept map to make it prettier and more visual. I am  a very visual learner and this is definitely an awesome way to study for me and I can't wait to use it in the future.

#4 The internet and education, 2 peas in a pod

MAFS.2.OA.2.2 Fluently add and subtract within 20 using mental strategies. By end of Grade 2, know from memory all sums of two one-digit numbers. 

To help my second graders learn this standard, I would allow them to playy "educational games" as talked about in chapter 8. Specifically I would have them play the game "Baseball Math" located on FunBrain. This game is a very simple and straight forward and I think it would help learning addition and subtraction become fun! This game could be played during short media times for as little or as long as needed. It is just a good reinforcement tool that I think students could benefit from to practice their addition and subtraction skills! (Link to game: http://www.funbrain.com/math/index.html )

When I was in middle school, I remember one of my teachers explaining to me how to find a reliable source on the internet. She told me that websites with domains such as .gov and .edu are going to be the most reliable to use, this has stuck with me ever since. After listening to the podcast, I realized that this was similar to the ABCDT method, I am always checking the credibility of the sources. But the podcast also talked about looking at the website design to check credibility and that is not something I normally do, but it is definitely a good idea to use for the future! 

During my web hunt assignment as the assignment went on, I started to realize which websites were reliable and which ones were not going to give me the answers that I wanted. I was also very surprised to find that there is a wealth of online information and study games that teachers can use for free! Being a student myself, I still find educational games one of the most helpful ways to learn and use quizlet to study for every major test still to this day, it is so nice knowing now that as a teacher I have so much access and availability to find resources such as these on the internet. 

1. Your students are learning about Valentines Day, find a website that gives you reliable information about the origin of Valentine's Day
2. Find a website that gives you a tutorial of a fun Valentines craft you can do with your class


 

#3 Learning new things

I would feel most comfortable teaching the standard W/WHST.8 which is gathering information from different medias and determining the credibility. I am very proficient at the use of the internet so I would not have a hard time finding out what is credible and finding information from different sources. I would feel slightly unprepared if I had to teach SL.5 which is "Use Digital Media" but this includes audio recordings and such which is something I am not quite sure how to use. I would not know how to record my voice or anything of that sort and would definitely need more practice.

While reading chapter 9, I liked the idea of using a few medias mentioned in my classroom. I would utilize the use of email, and also the use of websites such as "go noodle". Email is the most efficient and easy way to communicate with students and parents. Since I would like to teach 1st graders, I would need to primarily communicate with my students parents about  classroom events and such and email is the easiest way to communicate with so many different parties. Also the website go noodle is a very great tool that can stimulate the students mind but also allow their brains to take a break and let go of some unused energy. I also thought the idea of having a class blog as mentioned in the chapter would be very useful. "The effect is a lively group discussion with readers able to jump from blog to blog via connecting links to see what others have to say". This can allow for some educational conversations happening online, this in the early childhood could teach students how technology can be used for mainly educational purposes rather than non educational purposes!

I have never created a newsletter before, so this was an all around new experience! I designed my newsletter for 1st graders so I could incorporate lots of colors and pictures and make it visually appealing. I learned that I can use microsoft word to make pretty things and not just boring word documents! I had a lot of fun with this assignment getting to be creative and using a lot of different tools.