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October 28, 2009

Education with Technology Music Video



This is a short video I made about education with technology. I added the pictures and text. I also sang and played the guitar for it. It was a lot of fun.

October 27, 2009

INTASC Principals

There are two INTASC standards teachers need to meet in order to graduate. They are listed below.

INTASC 4.13
The candidate knows how to enhance learning through the use of a wide variety of materials as well as human and technological resources (knowledge).
  • Podcasting and yodio.com can be used to record children reading aloud for parents to view at home, or even during lunch breaks.
  • Skype can be used to have guest speakers present to classes when they cannot physically come to the classroom.

INTASC 6.35
The candidate demonstrates proficiency and appropriateness in utilizing a variety of media communication tools to enrich learning opportunities (skill).
  • Substitute teacher lesson plans can be put into video form with tokbox so that students can still receive directions from me, even if I cannot come to school.
  • Googledocs is a useful collaboration tool. It makes sharing documents, such as lesson plans and templates, very easy to share with other teachers and principals.

October 14, 2009

Meeting Technology Standards

There are five standards described in the National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Teachers. These are standards about how to incorporate technology into the classroom and increase digital learning. Below is a collection of my ideas about how teachers can meet these standards.

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
  • A good way to engage students in using technology to learn about real-world issues is to teach children how to search newpapers online. Start a lesson by bring in a recent newspaper. Then have children pick articles out of the paper and cut them out. After that, use a search engine to see how many articles the students chose that you can find on the internet. If possible, your computer screen could be put on a projector for the entire class to easily see.
  • Create a class website that allows posted questions. Teach students how to log into the website and post questions for both their peers and the teacher. Questions can even be asked while they are at home!
  • Yodio can be used to inspire children to read aloud. Children can be very inspired to read aloud knowing they are recording themselves and will have the ability to let their parents listen to their recordings at home or even over their lunch break.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessment
  • Student Surveys and math. Use spreadsheets to quickly make graphs about topics related to the students. Teach students how to input answers into a spreadsheet. For multiple choice questions, students can enter their answers and then quickly be able to analyze a pie graph created by the spreadsheet. This could be a very engaging way to teach students graphs without having to use examples from a textbook.
  • Students can also input their homework answers into a spreadsheet. This could be another way to engage more students, plus it can give teachers instant, in-class assessment about their students' understanding of concepts.
  • Students can create podcasting to see if they can explain learned concepts.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
  • Create a class website. Invite students to post questions and add information to the site. Children can learn through Vygotsky's theories of social development by asking each other questions and responding on a class site. Then the teacher can bring up topics for discussion from the website when in class.
  • A class website can also be a great tool for parent collaboration. A class site can be a great way for parents to be informed about what their children are doing in class. The site could also let parents know how they can help their children with class activities.
  • Tokbox is another great tool for parent communication. It can be used to make an online video of yourself...perfect for a short message about what the class is going to be doing next week!
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
  • Create a private class website. This can be done with google sites. Discuss what is appropriate to post and what is not. Teach students that what is posted on the internet is available for everyone to see. Practice identifying postings that are not appropriate, such as posts including last names. Then have the students make appropriate posts to the cite. Be sure to have parent consent. It may be a good idea to make sure posts are approved by the teacher.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
  • This can be done with the class website as well. Discuss any issues that arise with the entire class.
  • The class can use Skype to speak with an expert in the field. Children could potentially ask the author of a children's book questions immediately after reading it. The author could even read his/her book from home to the class!

October 12, 2009

Photo Story 3 Presentation

Photo Story 3 is going to be a great tool to use during the beginning of the year as I am getting to know the children. It could be used to create an awesome slide show to help with class bonding, as well as getting to know names. This has been just the tool I have been looking for.

Below is the photostory I created with Chelsea, Kristen, and Katy.

October 7, 2009

Enlightening video

I found this video on teachertube.com. It is all about using technology in the classroom. I thought it was enlightening and motivating!

October 6, 2009

Spreadsheet

The following is a link to a spreadsheet created in education technology. It can be used to compare student's scores to the class average. This is a very useful tool. I created it in such a way that the first sheet is the raw data a teacher can change. When information is updated to the raw data, the second sheet automatically updates to the new raw data.




All of the below average students showed some improvement in their individual test scores. Some of the students showed much more improvement than others. A couple students hardly show any growth in their scores.

The names and scores in this spreadsheet were made up for viewing purposes of this spreadsheet only. They are not students and this particular spreadsheet does not contain any real information about students.

Here is the URL for the spreadsheet to view in a larger window:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AluIGppdYlabdGRjOGFvd0xWeEdjRmVlaXBOMDJJbHc&hl=en

October 5, 2009

Skype Thoughts

Skype can be a very useful educational tool. It can be used to have adult figures give presentations to a class when it is not physically possible for them to come in person, such as a cultural presentation from another continent. Skype could also be used at the end of the year to meet pen pals. It could even be used for student-parent communication while children are in school, even during lunchtime! Possibilities are endless!

google sites presentation

Here is a presentation about how to use google sites: