Good Ideas

I thought it was a really good idea to use a powerpoint presentation to show lines of symmetry. This is a good way to show large groups of students at the same time.
I also learned more about smartboards. I didn't know really what they were, but the presentations showed some good ways to use them.

Internet Safety

I chose to read the article by William C. Porter entitled "How can our family take advantage of what is available on the internet while avoiding objectionable material and people of questionable character?"
The article mentioned three particular things that can help protect families:
1. Parental awareness
2. Family rules
3. Filtering
As I have gotten older it seems like there is more and more filth on the internet. I will make sure I teach my children and students that although the internet is an amazing tool, they need to be careful. In the article it mentions that the parents need to make on-line use a family, not a private, activity. I think having computers out in the open both in the home and in the classroom would help.
I don't know if everyone knows how dangerous the internet can be. Too many people think they can say and do whatever they want on the internet and no one will know. I think more people need to talk about the good things and the bad things about the internet. As a teacher, I think it is very important to teach not only the students about internet safety, but the parents as well. I plan to help instil internet caution in my students.
I talked to my mother about internet safety. It was interesting to talk about it with a parent to get her perspective. When I was growing up I didn't feel like their rules were too strict, but some people would have thought they were. As I have gotten older, I have realized why they had those rules and we have been safer because of them.
I really enjoyed seeing other people's presentations. I liked how different each of us made our presentations even though it was on the same topic. This shows how each of us is so different, and we need to make sure we teach using a variety of methods and technologies to help our students.

Technology

Technology: What works for ECE

View more presentations from Naomi427.

Technology for Teaching Literacy

Kindergarten Content Standard 1 Objective 1A Listen Attentively.

Pedagogy: In this lesson children will listen to the story and be able to read the words as they are shown.

Technology: We will be using the story The Kindergarten Concert by Robert Pottle from the website http://www.gigglepoetry.com/ .

Technology for Teaching Mathematics

Content:  Standard 2 Objective 2B Duplicate and extend simple repeating patterns with numbers and shapes.

Pedagogy:  In this lesson children will be taught repeating patterns through this website.

Technology:  We will be using the website http://mathforum.org/mathtools/ and the game called color patterns under the Kindergarten Patterns and Sequences section.

ECE Technology Inventory

I interviewed a lower grade teacher, Miss DeWitt who teaches at a local elementary school.  Miss DeWitt said that her classroom has several technology tools available for her to use and for the students to use.  In her classroom there are two computers that the children get to take turns using.  There is an overhead projector that she uses on an almost daily basis.  There are a set of classroom calculators that the children can use for math assignments.  The classroom also has a television with a DVD/VCR player.  The teacher also has a digital camera that she uses occasionally.

Miss DeWitt said that there are several technologies that she wishes she had in the classroom.  She would like to have more computers so the students could use them more frequently for assignments instead of going to the computer lab.  Miss DeWitt also wishes that she could have a visualizer and a Smartboard.  She says that would help her in her instruction and she would use it every single day.

Miss DeWitt also said that she uses technology every day when she prepares materials for her class.  She also uses some form of technology every single day in class and often times uses several.  Miss DeWitt is a big proponent of using technology in the classroom.  She believes that all teachers should incorporate technology as often as possible.  And she gets ideas on how to incorporate more techonology from the internet and other teachers.

Digital Camera

Content: 1st Grade Standard 3 Objective 1C

Pedagogy: Hands-on

Technology: Digital Camera

The children will grow a plant in the classroom throughout the school year.  Every couple of weeks (or when the plant reaches a new stage) a picture will be taken.  The pictures will be put into a powerpoint presentation to reinforce the information learned.

Ich will alles

Using technology in the classroom can range from short and simple lessons to being an integral part of long-term projects.  Technology should be used in addition to hands-on learning, and should not take the place of important tasks children need to accomplish during their early years.

Technology can help children improve their social development, their language development, their cognition and general knowledge.

Technology can support educational goals and support content standards when used in a planned, guided manner.  It can help with students' language development and emergent literacy and mathematics.  Adult participation and guidance are important.

When selecting software for young children, it is critical to choose software that is DAP.  It should:

Encourage exploration, imagination, and problem solving

Reflect and build on what children already know

Involve many senses and include sound, music, and voice

Be open-ended, with the child in control of the pace and the path

Hardware that can be used in the classroom:

Tape recorders

Video cameras

TV/VCRs

Fax machines

Portable keyboards

Digital microscopes

Computers

For choosing technology to be used with younger children, the best choice for a particular situation may be no new technology, or just simple tape recorders and cameras.

5 effective ways for young children to use technology
1. Make and display a graph
- build a physical graph with objects, then a two-dimensional one on a spreadsheet or graphing program on a computer
-use meaningful topics for the kids (clothes colors, transportation to school, etc.)
-helps with transfer from concrete to abstract understanding
2. Explore with digital tools
-investigate the familiar world from new perspectives--close-up photos digital microscopes or cameras
-record scenes and sounds (and other senses or feelings) while exploring for later reference
3. Tell a story in pictures and words
-create stories and pictures with background voices that the kids use their creativity to make--they will love that they can see their creations
4. Write, record, and revisit
-use digital photographs, captions, drawings, voice recordings, etc. to record class activities
-make an electronic slideshow of a class book with individual contributions about the curriculum
5. Share and document learning
-chronicle and document learning progress
-take family portraits at Open House to display and send home

Other information: http://caseyelle.blogspot.com/2009/03/notes-from-research.html

Un giorno, sarò frei

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. New Zealand	Watch and do Maori Dancing	Terrain, 3D
2. Tonga	Watch and do Tongan Dancing	Terrain, 3D
3. Samoa	Watch and do Samoan Dancing	Terrain, 3D
4. Tahiti	Watch and do Tahitian Dancing	Terrain, 3D
Details of image overlay / path / polygon: We will show movie clips at each island demonstrating the different kind of dancing that is native to that island's culture.

Virtual Tour

One Inch Tall

Digital Storyboard

The content core that was chosen is Kindergarten Standard 1 Objective 2A, where the children will view a variety of media presentations and Standard 3 Objective 1B, where the children will identify and create a series of rhyming words orally.  We are using the pedagogy of poetry interpretation with the use of PhotoStory.

The Tech Savvy Teacher

Young children are very curious about the world around them.  They wonder about many things: why the sky is blue, why does the weather change seasons, and what does earth look like from space?  The advancements of modern technology make studying these questions readily available and applicable to the child’s world.  The Tech Savvy Teacher takes advantage of the resources that technology provides to enhance the teaching of their students. 

A mind-blowing technology used widely today is Google Earth.  We used this resource to meet 1st grade content core objective 2b to describe physical features surrounding the child’s home, school and community.

Before using the website, we asked the students to brainstorm what they thought they would see if they were to look down on their community from space. 

After making predictions, the children were asked to compare them to what they actually observed on Google Earth.

We started out by looking at the aerial view of our school, Wasatch Elementary.  We took note of the surrounding physical features and landmarks from this view.

We then zoomed in closer to look at our school's playground, a view of the school from the street,and also nearby places like the Brigham Young Univeristy Creamery and the LaVell Edwards' Stadium.

  

After viewing these sights, we invited the children to suggest other areas of the community to explore. We also discussed as a class if they have ever been to these places, where they are in relation to the school, and size comparisons.       

Overall, this was a fun and informational activity for our 1st graders.  They were able to enhance their science skills by forming predictions about their surrounding community and making observations about their world by viewing images from Google Earth.  It was fun for the children to recognize familiar sites that they see each day as they ride to school.  Using the technology of Google Earth, the children were able to view their community from a unique perspective.

Week Three

This week we learned about the acronym TPACK. There are three kinds of knowledge: pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, and technological knowledge. There can be a couple combinations of these knowledges, with assorted acronyms. The point is to try to be proficient in all three of them, thus combining all of the initials into a super-acronym: TPACK.
If teachers are fortunate enough to be proficient in TPACK the will be able to better teach their students and incorporate new experiences that will benefit the class.
This week I also had the chance to explore some science/math technologies available to teachers on the internet. I enjoyed exploring Google Earth.

I don't remember what I am supposed to put here

So I am kind of annoyed at this class.  I am on the lame moodle web site and the IPT website and I can find most of what was due this week;  I am pretty sure we have to blog about something, but I can't find where it actually says we do.  If they just told me what they wanted, I would be more than willing to comply, but when they make me do one hundred random things every week and have assignments posted on a million websites, I just can't do it.

So here is my blog this week.  I set up a good reads account.  That is kind of a neat site.  And I learned about RSS feeds.  I don't see me using that much for school but possibly for me personally.  Anyway, that's all I want to say this week.  And now I have to remember how they want it tagged.

My Background in Technology

I don't consider myself overly tech savvy (but I do love words), however I have had some experience with various technologies over the years.

I rememeber when I was younger we had this huge printer that would often spaz out and I became pretty adept at fixing it.  I am currently a secretary on campus, and am rather known for my printer-prowess.  Whenever one of our printers' "attention" light flashes the professors come and tell me that I need to give (insert printer name here) attention.

I have also been using a computer relativley frequently at home and in the workplace for the better part of my young life.  Because of said experiences I have grown accustomed to using such programs as Microsoft Word, Power Point, Excel, etc. etc.

As a side note, I often consider myself the master of Paint.  Some people are important enough to use lame programs like Photoshop, but if you can't do it in Paint it's not worth doing at all.

I have recently got into a video editing program on my computer.  I have only edited one film, but it was amazing.  I could cut, paste and rearrange with reckless abandon!

As many people do these days, I have a cellular phone.  I feel rather successful at using it and correcting any problems by having AT&T send me a new one (I have gone through at least 5 in the past 2 1/2 years through no fault of my own, but that is another tale for another day).  I can text at a moderate pace, call people, take pictures, record and even download music.  All on a phone.  Imagine!

And as I have been typing this my wireless has been kind of dodgy, so I am improving my skills in connecting to the lovely World Wide Web.

I am sure that I have had much more experience with the lovely world 0f technology, but that is all I can think of as of right now, and if you are still reading this, good for you.