ALL DONE!!

I completed all of the surveys and checked my grades to make sure everything was ok. Thank you for a wonderful experience. I learned a lot in this class and I really appreciated how quickly you got back to me when I emailed with questions.

Internet Safety Reflection

1. I chose to read the article "Mixed Signals" from the New Era
2. I watched the PBS documentary for my video and it was VERY interesting. It focused on a little town in New Jersey and showed different uses of the internet by youth. The parts I watched talked about how various youth use the internet, how schools try to use technology. It had a few specific situations where it went in depth into what certain students used technology for and how their parents had no idea what they were doing online. It talked about parents that are trying to be more safe with the internet... it was very interesting and somewhat eyeopening.
3. Take Aways:

• Don't fall for the virtual world perks... things are never anonymous and once it is on the internet, you can't take it back.
• Virtual vs Real - need Real relationships with people, yes life can suck sometimes but it will continue to suck if your whole life is online
• in families be careful with the internet, have the computer in an open area where it is easily seen, educate your children on how to be safe on the internet. 

 4.  I taught my little brother over the phone about internet safety. I asked him what he already knew about internet safety. My parents have talked a lot to him about not going to a site unless you know the content of it (and that the content is good) and being careful not to click on any adds or blinkies. He is pretty smart when it comes to the internet. I talked to him about being careful with information you put on the internet and not giving confidential information to people even if it is people you know. I also talked to him about the importance of having face to face relationships and not using texting or chatting as his only means of communicating with friends.

He was pretty attentive and also had some comments himself. I shared with him the article by Elder Bednar, I don't think he will actually read it... he is 15 and has lots of other things that keep him busy.... but I did share the main message with him. I know he will be smart with the web. I know my parents are very careful when it comes to the internet and they have taught their kids to do the same.

TPACK assignment

For the speaker notes click here

Week 10 & 11 - Lesson Plans

English
math
Weather

Week 10 - Video Response

The most important thing I learned from these videos is that you can teach the necessary content to the students and simultaneously help them to develop important life skills. In each of these projects, students were able to explore, create, and learn about a certain content area. By doing all of these things, the teacher allowed the students to access higher level thinking. Another thing that helped students develop higher level thinking was creating a way for students to share the knowledge they learned with others. This gave students experience in sharing and presenting information to others, as well as allowed the families and communities get involved.  Another important skill students were able to learn about and develop was how to work with other people. As the students worked on these projects, they worked in small groups, or as a whole class to put together websites, presentations, and books. This allowed them to have experience in collaborating and problem solving within a group.

Week 9 - AKA Week 1 of Practicum

I have completed the mid course evaulation and the consent form.

The classroom I am in is fairly tecnological. More so than when I was in school. There are 3 computers in the back of the room that are fairly new and are used daily for centers or testing. The teacher also brings in 3- 4 mac laptops for the centers/testing. The computers have various learning programs and internet access. The teacher also has her own personal lap top and a printer in the classroom. AND the coolest part, they have a promethean board! It is basically a giant touch screen that the teacher can project on and draw/write on. My mentor teacher gets frustrated with hers because it likes to misalign itself almost every time she uses it... HOWEVER it is an awesome tool to have in the classroom.

Week 8 Part 2 - My Thoughts on the Science Challenge

I watched:

Stephanie's
Ali's
and
Cassy's
 voice threads

I learned that integrating technology is actually quite simple and very beneficial. I really liked seeing how other students used kidsperation to analyze and classify  data. I think I would frequently use kidsperation with my science lessons. I also liked the celestia program that allows you to observe the night sky without having wait for night time. I think this would be a lot of fun to use in the classroom.

Week 8 Part 1- My Science Experiment Voicethread

Week 7 Part 1 - My Science Challenge Plan

CONTENT
4th Grade Standard 1: Students will understand that water changes states as it moes through the water cycle
   Objective 1: Describe the relationship between heat energy, evaporation, and the condensation of  water on Earth
      c) Compare the Processes of evaporation and condensation of Water
      d)investigate and record temperature data to show the effects of heat energy on changing the states of water.

 PEDAGOGY
I found my lesson plan in the Let's Go! Investigating Temperature book that goes with the temperature probes.
Observation: Students will observe as water changes from ice to liquid to gas. They will observe the physical changes including changes in temperature
Acquiring and Processing Data: students will record the temperature changes that the water goes through as it changes states and answer questions as they observe and record their data.

Through observing and aquiring and processing data, students will be able to better understand the water cycle, specifically what physical changes happens when water changes states. This activity goes well with the content because it allows the students to observe as the water changes states and then transfer the knowledge gained in this experiment to things they observe in nature, like rain, snow, evaporation, vapor, etc

TECHNOLOGY
The technology I plan to use is the Go! temperature probes. This fits the content and pedagogy because it allows students to observe and acquire the temperature changes that occur as water changes states due to heat energy.
 

Week 6 - Part 2 - My Thoughts on the Virtual Tour

I watched
Ali's
Stephanie's
Cassy's
Virtual Tours

I really had fun with this assignment!

Some upsides are that it is a more exciting way to learn about many subjects like history, and cultures, and geography. It's more interactive and fun. Another upside is you can "visit" places that you would not normally be able to. You can see the surroundings and pictures, and all sorts of things.

Some downsides are it is time consuming to make these tours, especially if you want it to be a quality tour. I think if I were to use these I would try to make a couple every year and just build up my reservoir of tours. Another downside is that google earth takes a while to acclamate to, so I would probably do the tour as a whole class on a projector to familiarize my students with it and then walk them through google earth in the computer lab.

I loved this activity. It was probably my favorite thus far.

Week 6 Part 1 - A Virtual Tour of the Moon

My virtual tour was a trip to the moon! Refer to my last post for the curriculum standard it fulfills. The tour explores various physical features of the moon and then compares it to the physical features of the earth. It is for 3rd grade.

I uploaded my kmz file to my pbworks page. You can find that here: click me

And below is my embedded tour (as you can see)

Week 5 - My Virtual Tour Plan

My Virtual Tour follows the:
3rd Grade Science Standard 1: Students will understand that the shape of the Earth and the moon are spherical and that the earth rotates on its axis to produce the appearance of the sun and moon moving through the sky
Objective 1 Describe the appearance of the earth and the moon
a describe the shape of the Earth and the moon as spherical
c List the differences in the physical appearance of Earth and the Moon as viewed from outer space.

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1.Earth	Remember the geometric shapes we went over last week? What shape does the earth look like? Can you identify other items that are the same shape as the earth?	Picture of geometric shapes Link to wikipedia information about the earth
2. Moon	The moon is also in the shape of a sphere, just like the earth. But it looks different from the earth. List 5 main differences that you see. For one difference measure the diameter of the earth and the diameter of the moon to compare their sizes.	Link to wikipedia information about the moon
3. Plato Moon Crater	Explanation of moon craters. Does the earth have any craters? Research earth crater's on Google to see if there are any. If you find one, write down its name and find a picture for your blog. If there aren't any write on your blog why you think there are no craters on earth	picture of moon crater overlay
4. Sea of Tranquility	Is there water on the moon? There aren't oceans like the ones we have on earth. Descriptions of what the "seas" are on the moon and why they are called seas. What are some seas that we have on earth? Find an ocean or a sea on the earth, write down where it is and 5 interesting facts about it.	picture of moon "sea" overlay

I chose to do a virtual tour of the moon because I thought it would be so exciting for the students to "travel" to the moon like the astronauts do. I think it is much more exciting for them to learn about the craters and "seas" on the moon through google earth because they get to explore and look around at the different features of the moon. They can even see "the dark side" of the moon - which is never seen from earth. AND they get to watch little video clips from satellites that went around the moon!

Kids love space, so any type of lesson you do on the moon would be fun for them. But I think google earth lends more to the imagination and really let's students see what the moon is like.

Week 4 - Part two - other's videos

These are the videos that I watched:
http://brittlayton.blogspot.com
http://rpeektechnology.blogspot.com
http://queenoftheworld-stephalumpagus.blogspot.com
http://ipt287sec5.blogspot.com
http://eduffieldipt.blogspot.com
http://meaganmilleript287.blogspot.com/

I thought this was a great project. However, it definitely would have its difficulties in a classroom. It would be easy enough to have students to write out a storyboard. Finding/creating pictures and writing out the narration would be do-able. I think actually digitizing it would be more difficult, especially if you only have an hour in the computer lab each week. Not only would the students need to put all their pictures on the computer, put them in the program AND narrate it, but they would also need to learn how to work the different programs and equipment that are required to do the project. It would be do-able, but it would take a lot of computer time.

Week 4 Part One - My Video

Here is my video for the digital storytelling challenge. The audio is a little fuzzy, I guess something was off with my microphone, please don't let it bother you.

Week 3 Part 2 - My Story Board

I am making an Africa ABC book using photos from my summer trip to Africa. Here is my storyboard:

Week 3 Part 1 - TPACK

What is TPACK? It is an acronym that stands for Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge. So it is basically combining your knowledge of technology, pedagogy and a certain content and applying that to your teaching, all at once. So if I was teaching let's say, history, I could have my students work in groups to create a documentary using a movie maker on the school computers. In the documentary students will not only present facts they know, but their views on that figure. This is essentially TPACK.

I believe it is important for a teacher to have this sort of knowledge for a few reasons. For one, using technology makes learning more exciting, and often makes the learning more personal. It allows the students to internalize their learning. Another reason is that the world is getting more and more technological. I have babysat for 2 year olds who can do certain activities on a computer. 7 year olds have cell phones. Technology is quickly entering into all aspects of our lives and is growing. Teachers need to know how to take advantage of this trend and help to engage their students in whatever content they teach by using technology.

Milleniata!

Cool name huh? Well, the actual item is just as cool, and was created by some faculty here at BYU! I read this article in the Daily Universe the other day and thought it was amazing. A milleniata is essentially a CD that is made to last a LOOOOONG time. So unlike CD's today, you won't have to worry about your pictures, or movies, or music, being lost in 5 years! I am excited to see what happens with these Milleniata (or is it Milleniati?) But don't take my word for it! Read the article HERE

Week 2 - Creating my Website

I really liked the assignment this week. There was a lot of good resources and sites that I learned about that I will definitely use in the future. I think that the most valuable thing that I learned this week was how to embed various items into my posts. The reason I chose embedding is because I know it is something that I will use often, and I would not have known how to do it otherwise. I can't make my class website as convenient as it is right now if I had not been able to embed the videos and lists and pictures. I love it!

Here is the picture of my synchronous chat with Stephanie:

And here is the picture of my asynchronous message to Brooke via Facebook:

yes, this picture is posed

YAY! My Webcam works!

So I got this webcam for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I was really excited about it. BUT when I installed it, I could only get it to work with Windows Messenger... because that was the software it was made for. So I rarely used the camera for the past two years until this class. My husband and I refused to buy a new webcam just for this class so we looked into the updated software and installed it and voila! it works! with any program! And the update was FREE!

It is possible that the problem wasn't the webcam, or the software, but me.... However, I spoke with multiple other webcam users and talked with a few people from India and it wouldn't work.... until I got the update. And I got the update because of this class. So thank you IP&T class, for getting my webcam to work!

My Experience With Technology

I would say I have a pretty average experience with technology.

I have my own laptop and do pretty much live on it. I don't know what I would do without it. I can usually figure out how to fix my computer if something goes wrong, and if I don't... I send it in to Dell.

I take great pride in being able to work pretty much any TV/DVD/complicated home entertainment system. I can thank babysitting for that.

I also can work any techno gadget you throw at me... just give me a few minutes with it to figure it out. (I am not trying to brag... I am just stating the facts.)

There is one aspect of my life that makes me slightly more tech-savy than most... and that is my husband. His future career is with computers and technology so he is always updating me on the latest nerdy inventions that emanate from the computer world.