After having been placed in the technology pilot classroom, I was able to witness a lot of different technology content-area tools in the classroom and one of the student favorites was Kidspiration. I was not personally familiar with this program going into this learning experience, but was amazed at how many different things the students could do and how easily they seemed to be able to use it. I asked one of the students in the class what Kidspiration is for and was told, "you know, everything." So I thought it would be better to look into the program myself so see how useful it can be in the classroom.
Looking at the website for the program, I realized my practicum student was being pretty truthful in saying Kidspiration could be used for everything. Kidspiration has programs within it for reading/writing and editing, science, math, and social studies. I had only seen the program that allows the student to create concept maps as prewriting and the program to create food webs. But there are so many more programs within Kidspiration to help students generate visual representations for a variety of concepts and content within what they are learning.
One of the most interesting was the program that has math manipulatives on the screen for the students to work with to create and begin to understand a variety of math concepts within the abstract ideas behind computing with fractions. This can be a hard topic for students, and the ability to have a program on the computer instead of/in addition to hand held manipulatives could really help foster learning with such a difficult topic.
Kidspiration is also relatively inexpensive, for a 5-computer license, the cost is $310.00. Which would be able to create at least a center in the classroom for use of the programs. Which, from the looks of it, would be highly valuable.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
WebQuest Review
One of my favorite topics to learn about and teach about is history, thus I found a WebQuest on United States history to see if I thought it measured up as a good method for teaching on my favorite subject. I found a WebQuest titled "Discovering America" about historical landmarks in the United States.
The introduction for the WebQuest is very brief and while it does describe what the activity will be about, it does not really engage the students or seem like an exciting or fun activity. Instead, that comes at the beginning of the task section.
The WebQuest does seem to be a proper use of the internet however. It has lots of pictures and four links for each of the research topics (each of the national monuments). The links all take the students directly to the sites and they are of a variety of sources. The worksheet that the students are to be filling out is even found on the site.
The questions on the worksheet are appropriate and while most of them are knowledge based and lower level thinking, there are some questions that require more than just searching the site for the answer. Some require the students to make connections between the material and their own lives, thus engaging prior knowledge.
The directions are very detailed and follow in an orderly fashion for the students. All the links tell the students what topic they are looking for on the sites to save time and decrease frustration when using the sites to answer the questions. The links appear useful and appropriate as well as the subsequent tasks.
The conclusion does provide a good wrap up of what the students should have accomplished and completed by the end of the quest and ties into the task. The conclusion does not however provide anything for further inquiry into the subject matter.
The WebQuest was posted by a Miami University student and she does describe what the students should be able to get out of the assignment. It does not really provide any supplemental materials or ideas however.
Overall, it is not a bad WebQuest, but there is definitely room from improvement.
The introduction for the WebQuest is very brief and while it does describe what the activity will be about, it does not really engage the students or seem like an exciting or fun activity. Instead, that comes at the beginning of the task section.
The WebQuest does seem to be a proper use of the internet however. It has lots of pictures and four links for each of the research topics (each of the national monuments). The links all take the students directly to the sites and they are of a variety of sources. The worksheet that the students are to be filling out is even found on the site.
The questions on the worksheet are appropriate and while most of them are knowledge based and lower level thinking, there are some questions that require more than just searching the site for the answer. Some require the students to make connections between the material and their own lives, thus engaging prior knowledge.
The directions are very detailed and follow in an orderly fashion for the students. All the links tell the students what topic they are looking for on the sites to save time and decrease frustration when using the sites to answer the questions. The links appear useful and appropriate as well as the subsequent tasks.
The conclusion does provide a good wrap up of what the students should have accomplished and completed by the end of the quest and ties into the task. The conclusion does not however provide anything for further inquiry into the subject matter.
The WebQuest was posted by a Miami University student and she does describe what the students should be able to get out of the assignment. It does not really provide any supplemental materials or ideas however.
Overall, it is not a bad WebQuest, but there is definitely room from improvement.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Education in the News
When I sat down to write about education in the news I first went to my local home newspaper, The Richmond Times Dispatch. Once I was on the website I searched with the term "education," just to see what came up. I was surprised and upset when I realized that almost every from the article from the last few days that came up was about budget cuts and cutting jobs. I had heard by word of mouth that budget cuts across the state were coming but I had not realized how much or even really thought about the implications.
The first three articles all references spending and job cuts in various counties around where I live. The county I grew up in and would like to teach in when I graduate, Henrico, is planning on having to make major cuts. "School superintendent Patrick Russo has proposed a $419.9 million budget for 2011 with $16.5 million in cuts, which include increasing class sizes and eliminating 118 positions through attrition. But with the additional cuts being discussed at the state level, the reductions could be about $30 million, school officials said."
This article, as well as the others that appeared in the same paper, are pretty scary for not only myself as a future teacher but also for the students who will be suffering as a result.
The rest of the article from the Richmond Times Dispatch can be found here.
The first three articles all references spending and job cuts in various counties around where I live. The county I grew up in and would like to teach in when I graduate, Henrico, is planning on having to make major cuts. "School superintendent Patrick Russo has proposed a $419.9 million budget for 2011 with $16.5 million in cuts, which include increasing class sizes and eliminating 118 positions through attrition. But with the additional cuts being discussed at the state level, the reductions could be about $30 million, school officials said."
This article, as well as the others that appeared in the same paper, are pretty scary for not only myself as a future teacher but also for the students who will be suffering as a result.
The rest of the article from the Richmond Times Dispatch can be found here.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Assistive Technologies
Every student in a classroom should have the same opportunity for the same access to learning opportunities, knowledge, and experiences. That is why different forms of assistive technology are so crucial for inclusive classrooms. But, when I thought about assistive technology, I have to admit my mind went right to the extreme programs and tools for those individuals with more far reaching handicaps. I thought about programs like the kind of thing Stephen Hawkins uses that records his eye movements to allow him to type and then reads what he has typed for him. I did not immediately think of the programs that are already installed in my own computer that are also intended to be assistive technology and could easily be integrated into the classroom.
When I began looking through the programs on my own laptop, I was fascinated by how many different applications and settings my computer has to accommodate for learning difficulties. One of the first things that struck me was the accommodations for the hearing impaired. I have a good friend who's older sister is hearing impaired. Laurie spent her time at JMU as a student in the Communication Sciences and Disorders department and then got her Masters in Special Education. Laurie was inspired by her sister and now works in an early intervention program with preschoolers with similar handicaps. I knew Laurie's sister was an interior design major and completed school, I also knew that Laurie spent time chatting online with her sister. One of the most interesting things I found under system preferences then universal access and the hearing tab was the ability to have the screen flash when it the computer would normally have a sound effect as an alert.
One of my favorite things from my practicum experience last semester was the use of iChat in the classroom to have the students share their problem solving strategies on their math problem of the day. An assistive technology as simple as the screen flash could allow a student to know their partner(s) is ready to share something with them. This assistive instrument is not the only option for those with with hearing impairments. There is also options to change sounds, volume for both input and output with recordings, and an option to minimize ambient noise. Some individuals with hearing impairments have difficulty with certain pitches or distinguishing which sounds they are supposed to be paying attention to from the background noise. These simple adjustments can mean all the difference for a student to be able to experience the same things, like iChat, informational videos, or any number of other things that would other wise exclude students with hearing impairments.
When I began looking through the programs on my own laptop, I was fascinated by how many different applications and settings my computer has to accommodate for learning difficulties. One of the first things that struck me was the accommodations for the hearing impaired. I have a good friend who's older sister is hearing impaired. Laurie spent her time at JMU as a student in the Communication Sciences and Disorders department and then got her Masters in Special Education. Laurie was inspired by her sister and now works in an early intervention program with preschoolers with similar handicaps. I knew Laurie's sister was an interior design major and completed school, I also knew that Laurie spent time chatting online with her sister. One of the most interesting things I found under system preferences then universal access and the hearing tab was the ability to have the screen flash when it the computer would normally have a sound effect as an alert.
One of my favorite things from my practicum experience last semester was the use of iChat in the classroom to have the students share their problem solving strategies on their math problem of the day. An assistive technology as simple as the screen flash could allow a student to know their partner(s) is ready to share something with them. This assistive instrument is not the only option for those with with hearing impairments. There is also options to change sounds, volume for both input and output with recordings, and an option to minimize ambient noise. Some individuals with hearing impairments have difficulty with certain pitches or distinguishing which sounds they are supposed to be paying attention to from the background noise. These simple adjustments can mean all the difference for a student to be able to experience the same things, like iChat, informational videos, or any number of other things that would other wise exclude students with hearing impairments.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Meeting the standards with iPods
One of the most interesting parts of my practicum experience last semester was the integration of technology into the fifth grade classroom. My class had access to a laptop each at any point throughout the day as well as a cart of ipod touches for not only the fifth grade class but the rest of the school to checkout and use as well. The students used these tools everyday to foster their learning in both technology use as well as standard curriculum. I watched the students use the variety of applications on the ipods to practice skills in math fluency. Apple offers a large number of applications that students can use to practice skills such as multiplication facts in game formats. The students also used games on the ipods to practice spatial recognition through tangrams. I have never seen students to excited to practice math fluency and skills as when my practicum teacher gave permission to get the ipods out.
The ipods were not only useful in math fluency activities. Prior to my experience in this classroom, I barely even knew what a podcast was and these fifth graders were writing scrips in teams, editing them, recording podcasts and sharing them with classmates and other students in the school. Often the podcasts were instructional. The students would provide a "how to" on different topics such as how to round decimals or multiply fractions and then share them to not only reinforce their own understanding as well as help others understand topics in a way other than the teacher explaining it.
The students were not the only ones creating podcasts though. For science experiments, My practicum teacher would create a podcast detailing the steps of an experiment. Each lab group uses an ihome to play the experiment instructions so they can pause and rewind as needed. That way the whole class does not have to stay on pace together and no groups has to just sit and wait as a group catches up or the class can be performing several different experiments at once and then report their findings back to the class.
Not only are the students learning and practicing skills in math, spatial reasoning, writing and reading with fluency and inflection, and scientific methods but they are learning to use the technology around them to their benefit and better than many adults around them, myself included. An ipod always seemed like a luxury for listening to music, but it is actually a very useful and exciting learning tool and instrument.
(News story on my technologically savvy fifth graders.)
The ipods were not only useful in math fluency activities. Prior to my experience in this classroom, I barely even knew what a podcast was and these fifth graders were writing scrips in teams, editing them, recording podcasts and sharing them with classmates and other students in the school. Often the podcasts were instructional. The students would provide a "how to" on different topics such as how to round decimals or multiply fractions and then share them to not only reinforce their own understanding as well as help others understand topics in a way other than the teacher explaining it.
The students were not the only ones creating podcasts though. For science experiments, My practicum teacher would create a podcast detailing the steps of an experiment. Each lab group uses an ihome to play the experiment instructions so they can pause and rewind as needed. That way the whole class does not have to stay on pace together and no groups has to just sit and wait as a group catches up or the class can be performing several different experiments at once and then report their findings back to the class.
Not only are the students learning and practicing skills in math, spatial reasoning, writing and reading with fluency and inflection, and scientific methods but they are learning to use the technology around them to their benefit and better than many adults around them, myself included. An ipod always seemed like a luxury for listening to music, but it is actually a very useful and exciting learning tool and instrument.
(News story on my technologically savvy fifth graders.)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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