Thursday, April 15, 2010

My Wiki

I've finally customized my Wiki site. It is a summary of this class. A modification I have done was to add a picture. This adds a lot to a site and creates interest.

WEEK 12 PLE: Technology with Young Children

When using technology it is important to make it educational, and not just entertaining. In Mrs. Parkinson's I love Spiders lesson, though it was a fun activity, she used disposable "spider" cams for educational purposes.
In the Brown bear lesson plan, students were to create. This allows the student to think for themselves and communicate in some way what they have learned. Drawing on the computer gives interest to the lesson. It is exciting, especially for a kindergarten student.

An aspect I liked about drawing on a computer, for example, is that the technology is easily used. The student does not need to have amazing computer experience and skills. There is no extra learning time wasted. Mrs. Robinson also mentioned that using the computer allows the child to experiment and discover and learn to utilize this tool.

It was also interesting to think about the child’s availability to technology outside of the classroom. This video clip is outdated, but this idea applies to any type of technology. They don’t usually have tons of amazing educational technologies at home. So, time used at school with these technologies should not be wasted. At school may be the first opportunity for the child to use the tools provided.

Also, An important thing that both of these lesson plans embraced was the application of the technologies.

WEEK 11 PLE: Reflection on TPACK

After reading this, I learned a lot about what TPACK actually is. It stands for Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge. Three different frameworks come together: TPACK = PK + TK+ CK. These 3 frameworks together is the best when teaching, because the teacher has the ability to effectively get the message across to the student, knows the facts, and can utilize technology to further enforce learning.
I thought it was interesting because technologies are referred to as tools. And that is exactly what they are.

I used to tutor math in high school. I was used to using a graphing calculator since I was in Calculus, thus I had TK(Technological knowledge). I also had knowledge of the topic I would need to teach (at least most of the time, when I hadn't forgotten a certain concept haha). That is CK (content knowledge). I don't know how good I was in using my PK (pedagogical knowlege), but I attempted to present the material in an understandable way. so that the student would not forget quickly and be able to do math problems on their own. I'm not sure how successful I was as a peer tutor, but I would try my best to apply TPCK.

In this class, some technologies we have used are:
Imovie: If a student watches this, then it would be a visual representation and auditory representation.
Google Earth: This is multimodal representation.
Blogging: This is a dynamic way to assess a student.
a temperature probe: This is a dynamic representation.

Internet Safety Assignment

1. I chose to read the conference talk by Elder Ballard.
2. The video resources included interviews with youth about the internet. I thought it was interesting how some people had nothing to do with the internet (at that time), and others used it quite often. However, many were not knowledgable about the dangers included, because they only think of the internet as such a great new thing. Some videos highlighted kidnappings and rapes initiated because of the web.
3. I think it that the internet and technology and the ability of the media to get to many people is wonderful. So much good can come from technology and the internet. However, it is extremely important to be cautious of the potential dangers that are increasing every year. Elder Ballard focused on how Satan's goal is to destroy the family, which is the central focus to Heavenly Father's eternal plan of happiness. With the growing internet, it is easier for bad things to corrupt a family from the inside.
4. I asked my mom what she knew about the subject or what her thoughts were relating to the subject. She completely agreed with everything I had told her, and she said that she knew it was a modern day problem. She added other things that she thought was wrong with the media and how it can destroy families, for example, pornography. She knew personally some families it had really hurt. This reaction from my mother was completely expected. She has taught me about dangers in media and in the internet so that I would not get into trouble. I think that she will be reminded of internet dangers and be more careful. My sister goes on the internet often, especially now that she has that feauture on her fancy new phone. My mother will probably be more inquisitive about what my sister spends her time doing on the internet.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

PLE Week 10

One of my technologies used to help students learn prefixes, suffixes, and common root words is the Jellyfish game on the internet. Students can have fun while learning as this is a game with pictures. The student puts together prefixes with roots and suffixes with root words.

Another technology I plan to use for my social studies lesson is Google Earth. The students can explore landforms anywhere on the globe.

Another technology to help the teacher teach science is Youtube. I search for videos on fossils and found many good options of prime videos to interest the students.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010