Chapter 6: Teaching with Educational Websites and Other Online Resources

Focus Question: How might educational websites provide interactive and engaging learning experiences for students?

In today’s generation of children, they are not simply entertained with playing outside all day, or playing card and board games without being “bored.” With the advance in technology children are more intrigued by staring at a screen and using the simple motion of the swipe of a finger, and can remain entertained for hours on end. So if children are now more interested and entertained with touch screens and fictional characters, don’t you think we should bring that into the classroom?!

Since children are so interested and entertained in technology based games and apps, people have figured out that educational websites would be a great addition to the internet. With the creation of educational websites you provide an array of opportunities not only for the students but also for the teachers. By a teacher providing the students to learn not only through classroom verbal lessons, but also provide the students with the opportunity to learn the lessons with fictional characters, and fun interactive games. (Example: Jimi-Rocks: under the sea adventure, interactive website) 

With these games and characters it allows the students to make connections to the lesson while also getting to play an educational game. Also it provides different aspects of a lesson providing different ways to interpret and understand the lesson. Educational websites are also beneficial to teachers. It provides somewhat of a breathing time in the classroom as well as provides the students with different and fun ways to learn.

Tech Tool: An Interactive Online Field Trip: The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-D’Arc

This website was amazing. It was very cool to take an “online field trip.” This website was very interactive, and you can also tell that it is maintained and well kept up. This would be the type of website I would definitely use in my class room as a future teacher; I think students would love it.

Summary and Connections:

This chapter made me realize that there are more resources now for teachers and students in order to keep students interested in learning and teachers excited about teaching and changing lives. Technology provides a whole new way to learn and teach, and since it is always changing and expanding, it makes the classroom continually change, and with that there are more and more ways to entertain and teach students. 

Resources:

Underwater Learning – Interactive Educational Site. (n.d.). Educational Technology Blog | Think Online Education. Retrieved February 22, 2013, from http://thinkonline.smarttutor.com/underwater-learning-interactive-educational-site/

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2010).Transforming learning with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon.

Chapter 5: Researching and Evaluation Internet Information

Focus Question: What are search engines and how do they work?

Students today, definitely in middle high school and college, have to have access to computers and the internet in order to succeed. Most research now is done online and without access to technology students have a higher chance of failing. But when students need to write a paper or start a project, how do they know where to search and what to search for?

What most students and teachers do when they need to research something or look something up on the internet, they immediately go to a search engine. A search engine is a software program that combines many different networks to retrieve information that is being researched from different databases (Maloy,p.119). The tricky and convenient thing about a lot of everyday search engines, is that they are very fast, but bring up hundreds and thousands of results which can be very accurate and scholarly or can be written by someone next door with no expertise on the topic. This makes search engines convenient but problematic.

Search engines do bring up many links on a specific topic but again, you have to be aware to what to look for in order for the website to be a scholarly or appropriate. It is important to be able to analyze and retrieve the scholarly websites for the search. (Maloy, p.199) Teachers also have access to many specialized websites.

Tech Tool: 5.2 Customizing Your Web Browser with iGoolgle

The tech tool is one of the coolest so far, I think. iGoogle is a completely customizable to the user, based on interest or what they want readily accessible every time they come to page. They can add features such as the weather, news, and links to favorite web pages and other fun features!  This can be very useful for teachers in order for them to keep their favorite and important websites along with news and other things and not have to waste time pulling up the websites, it’s all there on their customizable page.  Below is an example of a customized iGoogle page.                  

                                                                                                                         

Summary and Connection:

I found this chapter to be very helpful and insightful. I now realize how important it is to understand search engines and how they work. Also how to interpret scholarly websites in order to write a scholarly paper. Search engines have become second nature, brought on by the internet, therefore it is important for us to know how to use them appropriately!

Resources:

 Haselton, T. (2012, July 3). Google to Kill off iGoogle | TechnoBuffalo. TechnoBuffalo. Retrieved from http://www.technobuffalo.com/2012/07/03/google-to-kill-off-igoogle/

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2010).Transforming learning with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon.

Chapter 4: Integrating Technology and Creating Change

Focus Question: How does technology promote educational change?

Technology promotes educational change on an array of levels. First off, technology, for mostly every person, is a daily thing, whether a child is playing a game on their parent’s Smart phone, Tablet or computer, everyone is engulfed in technology. With children being fully submerged in technology from the time they are born makes for a new way children are and must learn. Since technology is everywhere around us and most children can operate technology better than most adults, should not we incorporate technology into the classroom, more than used for A.R. testing?

                With the technology today a simple PowerPoint presentation that I grew up with in high school can now be transformed into something that is more than words on a screen. Students could go up to the board and physically write on it and interact through smart boards. There are pens that can record lectures/ voices, along with recording every word that is written with the ability to plug it into your computer and transform those notes into a word document. Although it may be financially “impossible” for a school to buy a classroom set of tablets, it may be something tax payers and county/state officials may want to reconsider, because this is the generation we are in, one that students learn through this technology, because humans have made things so advanced that a paperback textbook just will not and cannot hold the interest of a fifth grader. Without a change soon within the schools, by providing students with the technology they NEED,  we will soon find a decline in school interest and a decline in passing students, because we are not providing students with the materials, technology that they need.

Tech Tool: Online Technology Integration Resources

Edutopia:                                                                                                                                                      

I found this tech tool to be very interesting and helpful. Edutopia.org is a website that provides articles and blogs about how to integrate technology within your classroom to make it a fun and interactive way for your students to learn, and also for you as a teacher. It also provides grade levels, of what will and would not work technology wise in that specific grade level. There are many interesting articles and responses to explore.

Summary and Connection:

            I found this chapter to be very interesting and rather helpful. This chapter just showed me how important it is for technology to be welcomed and used within the schools and the classroom. It also made me think about how if change doesn't happen soon, where technology is not being used to its fullest potential how it could possible hurt or future students. Our world and definitely this country is turning, if not already, a technology based world/country, and if are students are being left behind in the schools by not having access to that technology; it can really push them back when they get into real life and real job situations. I just know I do not want to be a teacher that is holding my students back in any way possible, I want them to use technology to their fullest advantage!

Resources:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2010).Transforming learning with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon.

Roberge, M. (2013, January 23). Kids and Thier Computers. Salt Lake City Bookkeeping | Small Business Bookkeeper Salt Lake City. Retrieved February 7, 2013, from http://www.slcbookkeeping.com/blog/bid/112687/4-Piss-Poor-Excuses-For-Not-Succeeding-In-Business (Photo)

Chapter 3: Developing Lessons with Technology


Focus Question: What is meant by "lesson development using technology"?

Lesson development is the process in which teachers use to make/ create a lesson, the way the teacher teaches the lesson, and also the teacher’s evaluation process to make sure the student is understanding and grasping the lesson. By using various technology resources, the teacher can involve technology to help with each step of the lesson development.

                The first step of lesson developing with technology is figuring out what to teach, or the curriculum. A majority of the curriculum is provided to the teacher by different standards coming from national, state, local, and the school standards. The teachers are given the broad outlines of what must be covered in their specific grade and subjects, but they still get to choose the precise lesson and what they think needs to be taught to their students, based on the outlined standards. Technology helps teachers with this part of the development process because they can access the internet, where they can find the required curriculum, research the lesson more, and associate with other teachers getting ideas of what and how to teach the lesson.

                The second step of the lesson developing with technology is the instruction of the lesson, or how the teacher will teach the lesson. In this part of the development goals are set up in order to set what needs to be accomplished by the end of the lesson. The method of teaching then comes next, how will the lesson be taught? This is where the teacher can bring in the use of technology, the lesson can be administered through a PowerPoint, Prezi, SmartBoard, Interactive videos and games, and many other technology based programs or devices.  And finally the procedures the teacher uses in order to give them an estimated time that the lesson will take.

                The third and final step of the lesson developing using technology is the assessment portion, or the evaluation of what students have learned. The assessment is important to make sure students have learned and understand what has previously been taught to them. Assessments can be given before, during, or after the lesson, to evaluate what they know before starting the lesson, what they are learning during, and what they have mastered and know after the lesson. These assessments do not have to be administered through the expected multiple choice test, with the technology we have today, we can evaluate a student’s understanding by online testing, “digital portfolios, personal response systems, online surveys,” also through web based research projects. Technology provides students with mass amounts of information on any topic, in which they can research and learn more about through interactive games, etc. 

Tech Tool Links: Online Resources for Lesson Planning: Thinkfinity, PBS Teachers, and Gliffy

         

              I really enjoyed this tech tool, particularly the Thinkfinity website. On this website you can find lesson plans, lesson ideas, you can ask for opinions and help from other teachers, and also find links to fun and interactive websites.                                                                                             

                                   

This photo is from http://americanhistory.si.edu/presidency/home.html  , on Thinkfinity I researched how to teach the american presidents, and the link it provided me with, provided above, took me to a very fun and interactive website, which students can learn explore the lives of the presidents  and play games to learn more about the presidents. I would definitely use Thinkfinity when making up lesson plans.

Summary and Connection: 

          

           This chapter really opened my eyes on how much a techer has to consider and prepare for just one lesson. How much thought is put into a lesson is incredible, and something I never appreciated from my own teachers when I was younger, now I know how much they put into their lesson plans in order to keep us intrigued and inersted, while also learning new things. I can not wait to make fun and interactive lessons for my students, while using technology in order for them to connect more with the lesson. 

Resources:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2010).Transforming learning with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon.

Smithsonian American History. (2013) Objects from the Presidency. Retrieved from: http://americanhistory.si.edu/presidency/home.html.