Choose one of the Standards (8.1 or 8.2), then the corresponding strand, grade level, Content Statement and CPI. In your Blog, describe what students are expected to know and do. In your content area, describe a learning activity you could use with your students to accomplish what students are expected to know and do. This is a draft so there is no format for your planning. Think of this as brainstorming. However, be clear and thorough in your description. This will assist you when you begin to think about one of your PERFORMANCE TASKS - the Technology Integrated Lesson.
Standard 8.1 Educational Technology - All students will use digital tools to access, manage, evaluate, and synthesize information in order to solve problems individually and collaboratively and to create and communicate knowledge.
Strand A
Grade 8 - The use of technology and digital tools requires knowledge and appropriate use of operations and related applications.
CPI# 8.1.8.A.4 - Generate a spreadsheet to calculate, graph, and present information.
Students at the end of eighth grade are expected to be able to create meaningful charts in which they are able to extract or information to present to others. I would either have students choose from a variety of different global and environmental changes or have everyone follow the same one just in different ways. An example would be amount of rainfall per year, change in Earth's temperature, rise of the sea level,, or size and melting of the polar ice caps. The students would then create spreadsheet to show information on their topics measuring changes and from there they could create graphs and charts that show the changes over time to show what has happened to our environment. Each group could then present their data and if it was on different subjects maybe try to bring them all together to see if there's a relationship or correlation between all the changes that have occurred. My content being in Mathematics the charts and spreadsheet could use differences and percent changes to show amount of change. Arithmetic means, medians, and maximums and minimums could also be used in this project. Students would be learning about all these things and creating graphs and learning about the different axes, independent and dependent variables, and maybe even misleading graphs.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Week 3 Task 1
TASK 1: In your Blog, discuss the implications to districts, schools and you, specifically how your development and pedagogy are affected by these standards. This will be important for you. This technology class is only an introduction. How will you continue to develop? When you job search and interview, what will you look for in a district and in a school? Make sure you reference the video clips from the Notes section.
Chatham High School is probably one of the most technologically advanced classrooms I have seen. I believe that the school has gone too far into the technological side. There needs to be a balance between the two and having everything done by the computer takes away some of the personal feel of writing it yourself. Although writing on a computer is faster, easier to read, and easier to keep track of (sometimes) writing things down by hand helps to make what you write yours and helps to keep it in your head. Typing feels more distant and impersonal. than writing your own notes.
The use of spark notes should not be allowed. I understand the teacher saying the students when they grow up have access to information online and such while employed and should learn such a skill, but spark notes takes away valuable skills. It shows plot summaries of stories that students have to read so that many do not read the books. The student should be reading the books to form their own plot summaries because what the writers of spark notes may believe is important may be different than the reader's and the reader may see things in a different way. The website also contains information on plot, settings, and themes. The website takes away the creativity and analytical aspects out of reading. The student rather than forming their own ideas and opinions now chooses to use what's in front of them and use those ideas. Rather than helping the students gain skills to collect information the website then cripples them to be able to analyze information properly. I believe that a more proper way to allow for information gather would be during tests to allow open books. I have had this done for some classes and I believe that it is very effective. The teacher would make the test challenging enough that the answers are not right in the book but if you read the book you could find the information you would need to come up with an answer. This forces the student to read the material to be able to know what they can find in the book but also allows room for the student to come up with ideas and then back them through facts or ideas found in the book.
In the video clip Integration of 21st Century Skills: Hydrology rather than modern technology being the large factor I believe it was that he made each individual have a larger role in the work and be more interactive with the work. Although he used the computer to see satellite images to view his concepts I believe that the real world and small in-class activity helped more to engage the students in learning the subject. He used technology to fit into the project rather than have the technology do most of the work he used it to supplement his lesson and not be too major of a factor.
As a teacher I would want to work in a school district that supports the above ideas. Rather than having strict guidelines on teaching a more open classroom would help students learn. Students get bored in a classroom. The world has become very high paced with television throwing a new idea at you every couple seconds to people becoming more impatient when things take more than a second to either load to travel to. Sitting in a classroom for large periods of time feel like ages to students. Creating classrooms to be fast paced is not what I am trying to get at but rather the classroom has to reach out to the students and involve them and keep them interested more to keep their attention.
Chatham High School is probably one of the most technologically advanced classrooms I have seen. I believe that the school has gone too far into the technological side. There needs to be a balance between the two and having everything done by the computer takes away some of the personal feel of writing it yourself. Although writing on a computer is faster, easier to read, and easier to keep track of (sometimes) writing things down by hand helps to make what you write yours and helps to keep it in your head. Typing feels more distant and impersonal. than writing your own notes.
The use of spark notes should not be allowed. I understand the teacher saying the students when they grow up have access to information online and such while employed and should learn such a skill, but spark notes takes away valuable skills. It shows plot summaries of stories that students have to read so that many do not read the books. The student should be reading the books to form their own plot summaries because what the writers of spark notes may believe is important may be different than the reader's and the reader may see things in a different way. The website also contains information on plot, settings, and themes. The website takes away the creativity and analytical aspects out of reading. The student rather than forming their own ideas and opinions now chooses to use what's in front of them and use those ideas. Rather than helping the students gain skills to collect information the website then cripples them to be able to analyze information properly. I believe that a more proper way to allow for information gather would be during tests to allow open books. I have had this done for some classes and I believe that it is very effective. The teacher would make the test challenging enough that the answers are not right in the book but if you read the book you could find the information you would need to come up with an answer. This forces the student to read the material to be able to know what they can find in the book but also allows room for the student to come up with ideas and then back them through facts or ideas found in the book.
In the video clip Integration of 21st Century Skills: Hydrology rather than modern technology being the large factor I believe it was that he made each individual have a larger role in the work and be more interactive with the work. Although he used the computer to see satellite images to view his concepts I believe that the real world and small in-class activity helped more to engage the students in learning the subject. He used technology to fit into the project rather than have the technology do most of the work he used it to supplement his lesson and not be too major of a factor.
As a teacher I would want to work in a school district that supports the above ideas. Rather than having strict guidelines on teaching a more open classroom would help students learn. Students get bored in a classroom. The world has become very high paced with television throwing a new idea at you every couple seconds to people becoming more impatient when things take more than a second to either load to travel to. Sitting in a classroom for large periods of time feel like ages to students. Creating classrooms to be fast paced is not what I am trying to get at but rather the classroom has to reach out to the students and involve them and keep them interested more to keep their attention.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Teacher Web Pages
Looking through many district web pages showed the lack of the use of technology in schools. Many sites did not contain teacher web pages. After looking through many school districts I came upon Cranbury School. This website caught my eye because it was easy to navigate and right in the front I found a link to teacher web pages. Almost every teacher had an email and a web page. Some even had phone number extensions to reach them. I specifically looked at Mr. Simonelli's web page. It was very colorful and caught my attention right away. It was a friendly easy design that allowed me to see what grades he taught. He has a helpful link page that shows information for his students to look textbooks and other sites for students. His about me page is very thorough. He writes about himself and gives more information about himself than any student could ever possibly want to know about their teacher and he has his email in an easy to find place to contact him.
Why Teaching?
I had not originally planned to go into education. I was originally a Pharmacy major for my first two years of my undergraduate years. During my second year in college I decided that I really did not really like what I was studying. At the time I was also tutoring high school students in math. I had a lot of fun getting students to learn. My junior year in high school inspired me to become a math tutor. I enjoyed math before my junior year but I did not fully appreciate and understand it. My math teacher kept the class interesting while at the same time challenging to get students to see the bigger picture with math. Some of my friends that did not understand the material as easily and I helped them to understand it and through that I understood the satisfaction in helping other people learn. I have always had an interest in math choosing a subject was easy for me and my previous experiences helped me choose to go into education.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Week 1
I pretty much grew up with technology. In elementary school we used to use Macs to learn typing. In middle school my house got its first computer and soon after we were connected to the Internet. Although my family was a little late getting connected to the Internet than most in my neighborhood I quickly became accustomed to using it for many parts of my life. I recently also got a smart phone that I have been learning to use. I use technology constantly and believe that I have a good background in technology that I have used. I have a facebook page but this is my first blog that I have ever created and written in.
My feelings are that technology is good for the most part. Technology in the classroom has greatly improved. From projectors for teachers to show videos and computer programs much more clearly because the visual can be much larger to computers for students to gather information or write their paper. With the improvement of technology though also comes the abuse of technology. It is now easier to steal ideas from other people with a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard, but now there is also programs that check for plagiarism.
My expectations for the class is to understand how to bring in modern technology into the classroom and how it can supplement the lesson. Another expectation is to learn how technology can not only improve a student's lesson but also improve my own views and usage of technology.
My feelings are that technology is good for the most part. Technology in the classroom has greatly improved. From projectors for teachers to show videos and computer programs much more clearly because the visual can be much larger to computers for students to gather information or write their paper. With the improvement of technology though also comes the abuse of technology. It is now easier to steal ideas from other people with a few clicks of the mouse and keyboard, but now there is also programs that check for plagiarism.
My expectations for the class is to understand how to bring in modern technology into the classroom and how it can supplement the lesson. Another expectation is to learn how technology can not only improve a student's lesson but also improve my own views and usage of technology.
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