I looked at this blog for the assignment and was very intrigued. The blog outlined and housed a project centered around the book The Guerrilla Season by Pat Hughes that over 300 students participated in. They had weekly discussions with a structured reading schedule. The coolest part that I found was interaction with the author! He was on the blog too and commented and wrote entries! They had a specific part of the blog where they could ask him questions. Additionally, each student had to do one of the five options for a final project and post it on the blog.
This site was a cool resource for sharing insight on one book that all the participants were reading. It was an excellent tool to inspire discussion and bring student's together. I would love to incorporate something like this in my classroom. However, if I did I would want the blog to be a bit more organized. In this example all the entries were in a big list causing any reader to scroll down without any organization in the content. I would make different tabs or links to direct readers and writers to different aspects of the project.
Overall using a blog to bring student's together in reading by using technology is a great idea. It takes the assignment of "book discussion groups" to another level that, in my opinion, would be more enjoyable for students young and old.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Week #4: SMART Board Reflection
After watching most of the presentations last week, my knowledge of the SMART Board and it's features increased greatly. I was fascinated that you can link sound and video to different aspects of the presentations. Throughout this whole process I learned to move from page to page, use the different pens and eraser, move things across the board and manipulate links to the Internet.
Some things are still in the shadows however. I still have questions about the voters and how that could be incorporated into a SMART Board lesson and I would like to know how to save a screen that the students or the teacher wrote on with pens. I'm sure there are more things the SMART Board has to offer that I have no idea about so I am excited to continue this exploration.
Some things are still in the shadows however. I still have questions about the voters and how that could be incorporated into a SMART Board lesson and I would like to know how to save a screen that the students or the teacher wrote on with pens. I'm sure there are more things the SMART Board has to offer that I have no idea about so I am excited to continue this exploration.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Assignment #2: SMART Board Presentation
-In my SMART Board presentation today I will be giving a little lesson on Alaska and the Iditarod.
-Here is the link to the presentation: Alaska and the Iditarod
-Two of the many SMART Board features I will use are the magic pen feature to focus on a compass on the map, and the button link to a video online.
-The NETS that apply to this activity are:
-For students: 1a--"apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes."
On one page of my presentation I will have my students apply their existing knowledge of
directions to figuring out which route the Iditarod takes on certain years.
-For teachers: 2a--"design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and
resources to promote student learning and creativity."
Throughout my presentation I use videos, pictures, and interactive tools to keep students
interested and engaged all while giving them a relevant learning experience on Alaska and the
Iditarod.
-An interactive white board will improve student learning in my future classroom by increasing the attractiveness of the material to my students by presenting with something they can feel and manipulate. It will help them own their learning and take responsibility for their knowledge.
-Here is the link to the presentation: Alaska and the Iditarod
-Two of the many SMART Board features I will use are the magic pen feature to focus on a compass on the map, and the button link to a video online.
-The NETS that apply to this activity are:
-For students: 1a--"apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes."
On one page of my presentation I will have my students apply their existing knowledge of
directions to figuring out which route the Iditarod takes on certain years.
-For teachers: 2a--"design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and
resources to promote student learning and creativity."
Throughout my presentation I use videos, pictures, and interactive tools to keep students
interested and engaged all while giving them a relevant learning experience on Alaska and the
Iditarod.
-An interactive white board will improve student learning in my future classroom by increasing the attractiveness of the material to my students by presenting with something they can feel and manipulate. It will help them own their learning and take responsibility for their knowledge.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Week #3: Interactive Whiteboard Article
I read an article this week from the about interactive white boards and specific examples of how they affected learning in the classroom. A link is provided below for the article. Focusing on an urban elementary school in the southeast, the author mentioned the use of interactive whiteboards in a special education class. It is easy to see how using interactive whiteboards can help those with special needs learn better by feeling the learning space and being able to interact with it at their height and interest. The author mentioned benefits of the board for students with vision and hearing losses but did not go into detail. I would be interested to see how specifically these students learned better with the new technology.
For other classrooms I learned that the interactive white board is used to show multimedia presentations to everyone at one time. At first I thought, "yea, we have been able to watch DVDs and such in classrooms for a while..." but then I realized that we could use one screen to quickly jump over to the Internet and pull up the additional resources a textbook has online or a YouTube video that would be of interest. You could even write comments on a side notebook space while watching the video. The interactive white boards have taken resources we've always had and made them more accessible and easier to present to the whole class.
The last comment I would like to make on this article was the discussion of teaching search engine validity with an interactive whiteboard. In the example, the teacher was going through an Internet search process on the whiteboard and voicing her though process. She modeled a poor search and an efficient search. I remember learning how to search the web as being a difficult thing to understand in my school years. It would have been easier to obtain this all-inclusive guide rather than the "figure it out on your own, I'll walk around if you need help" approach.
In summary, all the examples I read about increased my attraction to interactive whiteboards. I believe they are an excellent way to involve children directly with their learning in an attractive (almost sneaky!) way, and help them feel and touch and manipulate the things they need to understand an objective.
Article Link
For other classrooms I learned that the interactive white board is used to show multimedia presentations to everyone at one time. At first I thought, "yea, we have been able to watch DVDs and such in classrooms for a while..." but then I realized that we could use one screen to quickly jump over to the Internet and pull up the additional resources a textbook has online or a YouTube video that would be of interest. You could even write comments on a side notebook space while watching the video. The interactive white boards have taken resources we've always had and made them more accessible and easier to present to the whole class.
The last comment I would like to make on this article was the discussion of teaching search engine validity with an interactive whiteboard. In the example, the teacher was going through an Internet search process on the whiteboard and voicing her though process. She modeled a poor search and an efficient search. I remember learning how to search the web as being a difficult thing to understand in my school years. It would have been easier to obtain this all-inclusive guide rather than the "figure it out on your own, I'll walk around if you need help" approach.
In summary, all the examples I read about increased my attraction to interactive whiteboards. I believe they are an excellent way to involve children directly with their learning in an attractive (almost sneaky!) way, and help them feel and touch and manipulate the things they need to understand an objective.
Article Link
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