Yes!!

The semester is over, I'm so excited!!! Happy Holidays everyone! Have a safe and happy break.

Thanksgiving

What I did over thanksgiving...well, to start off, I ate a lot of food, which was wonderful. I watched the colts play! Go colts! I took a nap. I actually had two thanksgiving meals on thursday. I was really stuffed that night. On Friday, I went shopping! I got up early, but I had a good time. It is so fun listening to people complain and see the crazy people running to get the deals (no deal is good enough for me to run and push someone out of the way). In Kohl's there was this guy there with his g/f-fiance-wife complaining about the crazy lines to "what, save like maybe $5" he says. The lady behind me and I agreed that she should have left his butt at home and found someone else to come. Poor girl. Like I said, it is so comical! Saturday was another Thanksgiving meal. I did a lot of eating..I told you. Sunday was not very exciting. It was church and then homework. Oh joy. I did go to Fort Wayne for a little while with a friend though, but that was short lasting. Well, I can't wait to hear about everyone else's exciting breaks!

Ch Twelve

Chapter twelve is about technology in social studies. Before reading the chapter I thought about all the ways technology would spice up learning history and social studies. I can remember being in history classes that were strictly lecture or just reading from a textbook. I don’t remember anything from those classes. As I was reading through the chapter I checked out some links I thought might be helpful to students in my class. My favorite website was www.gis.com. I could type in my zip code and it brought up articles about the lifestyle of the people who live there. It also shows numbers and statistics on the population, the population by race, the population by sex, and the households by income. Along with the local numbers it also compares to the national numbers so students can see how their city compares to the whole United States. This would be a helpful website to integrate into a lesson about our city. There are also websites with virtual trips that would help take the students to a certain place or time of current study. The technology that can be incorporated into social studies instruction goes way beyond just watching a video from the history channel.

Ch Eleven

Chapter eleven is about technology in science and math. I felt that a lot of what I was reading for the math pertained to the upper elementary and more for middle and high school math. But what the book did say about elementary math programs, I thought it was helpful. I liked the virtual manipulatives the best because a teacher could project this in her classroom, and show the students how to use the manipulatives. Better yet, the teacher could let students use the computer and show their classmates how to do the problems using the manipulatives. This would work better than an overhead because it shows colors along with the shapes.
My favorite part of the science technology was the exploratorium because I thought this would be a good supplement to a solar system project (space project). The student will be able to use this to explore rather than looking at pictures in a book. Unfortunetly science does not always receive the funding of math and language arts, so attaining some of these materials for integrating technology may be out of school budget after they purchase the other technology such as the microscopes.

Smartboard

I was subbing Friday and a teacher showed me how the smart board worked. It was pretty amazing. I have to say I am impressed.

Lesson Plan 3

I used the Willow web podcast about ants for my lesson plan. I have the students listen to a non-fictional book about ants. They have to come up with facts about ants from the book and record them as a class on a chart. The students then go to the computers a research more about ants from two websites I have supplied and by listening to the podcast about ants. Then the students will add more information to the chart and finally, as assessment, the students will complete a graphic organizer worksheet to show what they learned about ants.

Ch Nine

Chapter nine is about technology in english and lanuage arts instruction. I think this chapter is a good supplement to my children's literature class I'm taking right now. This chapter provides examples of how to integrate technology into the classroom work. I especially liked the part of the chapter where is talks about software based and online systems for developing reading skills. I just completed a project in my children's lit class where we had to evaluate 10 websites or software that develop reading skills. I wish I would have come across this chapter sooner, because I wouldn't have had to look so hard to find those websites. I also really like the Inspiration concept map on page 300. Filling this map out online would be the same as filling out a map on paper, but it would change it up some in the room. Students may enjoy the online one more for the simple fact that it is not just filling out another piece of paper. I will have to keep this in mind when I have my own class someday.

Introducing Radio WillowWeb!

I listened to the Podcast the week of Radio Willow Web. Starting Tuesday, I listened to one Podcast everyday. The first one I listened to was about the American Revolution. The students explained the American Revolution and they had segments titled: poems, amazing facts, interview with famous person, did you know?, vocabulary, and wonderful website. The next podcast was about sound. The students included riddles, poems, did you know?, vocabulary, wonderful website, and what's that sound. I also listened to colonial times and ants. These were all done by different grade levels. It was a really neat wrap-up summary project for units. I would reccomend listening to one if you get a chance. Here is the website...http://feeds.feedburner.com/RadioWillowWeb

Ch Fifteen

I liked reading about how technology can fit into special education because I am going into special education and I found it very relevant. I thought the Quicktionary Reading Pen was amazing. I think that would be very helpful for not only special education students but every student in the classroom.

Lesson Plan 2

I hope you like Clifford! When I was reading the chapters, I saw the interactive books and ebooks (p. 191). I liked the idea so I checked out the website and I ended up deciding on using it as my lesson! This is the website for the book I used for my lesson... http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/flash/story_1.htm. This is the website for the activity I used for my lesson... http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/flash/phonics/index.htm. They are for the lower elementary grades but they are still fun and engaging.

Ch Six

Again what I liked the most about this chapter was, first of all that it explained to me what hypermedia was because I did not know what that was, and on pg. 194 it showed a chart on criteria for evaluating multimedia products. I thought this was very helpful because it tells how to judge whether or not they are good for the classroom and the learner. What I did not like was that I did not see a lot of relevancy to elementary students with out a lot of teacher help and interaction. I do not think especially the really young students could do this by themselves. The equipment is too expensive to have break easily too.

Ch Five

I have decided to change this a little and I am going to tell what I liked the most and what I liked the least from the chapter. What I liked most was learning about the materials generators (espically the IEP one) and the electronic gradebooks of the data collection and analysis tools section. What I liked the least was the that when I went to the flaming text website, I could not figure out how to get the free fonts. I also did not like to think about all the technology out there that I do not know how to use and some I have never even heard of before. That was frustrating.

Ch Four

So I would say I am familiar with microsoft word and excel, but I have to be honest and say I have never opened access until I read this chapter. I have never even heard anyone talk about it. I love keeping track of my information in excell. But I love math and am a very organized person. I liked the suggested steps for teaching these programs to the students. I thought they were very helpful. They gave a place to start and broke it up into smaller chunks for teaching. I wonder how I will use any of these 3 in my classroom as a teacher?

Ch Three

I thought the different instructional software were interesting. I was not as familiar with the tutorial, problem solving, and the ILS compared to the others. I thought this type of technology would be good as a supplement in the classroom to engage and encourage the students. I always enjoyed playing software games when I was younger. The only part I did nto like about them was that sometimes it took so long for the game to be completed, I would get bored with it. I remeber playing Oregon Trail too! Does anyone remember playing any of the games with they were younger?

Lesson Plan 1

I did my lesson plan using the book Click Clack Moo Cows that Type.
My online technology was a movie of the story with a person doing American sign language with the book. I also had an online game. this is the website. http://pbskids.org/cgi-registry/lions/cor-who.pl/click it is through the PBS site. That is where I got the video too.

YouTube Video

This is my YouTube video on why I want to be a teacher.

My Dad!!

So my boyfriends mom does cake decorating and this is a cake I decorated for my dad for Father's Day. It looked a lot better in real life. I was proud of my first cake. My dad and I are really close. We get along great because we have very similar personalities. So back to my boyfriend's family...his mom decorates cakes and his sister is a floral designer. Score! If we get married (which I hope someday we do (but not until I'm done with school)!) I already know who will make the cake and do the floral designing. Plus since it's family, I'm thinking that will cut the expenses down some. But if anyone has a wedding coming up or knows someone getting married and they need someone to do their cake, let me know. My boyfriend (Josh, sorry I forgot to introduce him)'s mom can hook you up. I have seen some of the cakes she does. They are awesome. She is reasonable in price usually too. Anyways this was supposed to be about my dad and it sort of got away from me.

Ch Eight

Wow it is definitely getting late and I need to get this done because tomorrow is not looking good for me. For some odd reason, I can concentrate better at night when it is dark outside and get a whole lot more done then, than all day long. I'm not sure why that is. I decided to add some personal spice to these posts and not just have my thoughts from the chapter. This makes the post more fun to read. (I think?) I don't think many people read my posts because I am at the bottom of the list, which is fine with me. Sabrina and I will hang out together at the bottom! So to get to it, integrating the internet into the classroom, summing it all up...positives - makes for a better learning experience for the students...negatives - it can be unreliable and cost lots and lots of $$$$$!! And $$$$$ is always a hot topic in education and life for that matter. I mean Who wants to be a millionaire, Deal or no deal, the power of ten, just to name a few. All about $$$$!

Ch Seven

I feel like I repeat myself a lot and it is probably because I do. So if you have read some of this before I appologize. And so chapter seven...I felt this chapter pertained more to the college level course for me because I am more familiar with distance learning here. I guess I don't see how this could be incorporated into the elementary classroom as much as the college level. I have not experienced this type of technology in the classroom in the elementary setting though, so I know that has a lot to do with that.

Ch Two

On a technology side I would think that I constructivists would be more inclined to incorporate hands-on technology into instruction for the students to learn and grow past the guidelines of the standards of what is needed to be taught. So on the other hand, I would think objectivists would not want to incorporate hands-on technology because that would be opposing the view of learning being teacher directed if the technology was doing the teaching. If anyone has a different opinion or I could not be understanding this concept of constructivism and objectivism please fill me in! That way i don't look like a fool. :) (thanks!)

Ch One

Chapter one was like all first chapters in a book - an overview of the rest of the book and what you can expect to read about. I liked to see the timeline on pg. 10-11 on how technology has progressed through time. I could see that even after 2000 and beyond there have been many technological advanced that were not mentioned - one being the ELMO used in many classes at USF.

First Post

Well I don't know for sure how this whole Blogger goes, but I will give it a whirl. Here I go I hope this works right! (fingers crossed)