Technology Class

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Assignment #5

My Final Technology Project focuses on learning about the Oregon Trail. For students living on the West Coast of the United States, I think it is important to learn how the pioneers of this region came here. In this project, students will work together in groups to research, write a screenplay, and act out the script to make a movie. Having fun is important to learning, and students will enjoy interacting with history as they reenact scenes from the days of the Oregon Trail.
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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Week #9

The Tech and Learning article "Caught on Film" by Bob Sprankle is packed with great ideas of how implementing a video camera into everyday teaching engages students, enhances teaching, and encourages learning. I learned that creating videos often in class is a great way to help students remember what was taught -- they can review lessons via video, and they can make videos of themselves solving problems. Videos are also a great way to communicate with parents -- send them highlights of the class through videos. A video camera is also great for chronicling the year --videoing exciting learning moments and experiences throughout the school year so the students can remember highlights throughout the year. Another great idea that caught my attention was to, as a teacher, always carry your small video camera so that if you see something that applies to what you're teaching about, you can film it and later show it to your class. Another idea that Sprankle presented was having your students make tutorials for the next year's students on how to do well in the class. "Caught in Film" contained a lot of great ideas for incorporating video cameras into the classroom. It inspired me to, when I have a classroom of my own, invest in a small video camera to capture the joys and the processes of learning in my classroom.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

My First Flipsnack!

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Week 8 - Twitter

Twitter proves itself a helpful ally to a teacher in many ways. It provides an excellent medium for teachers to share experiences, blogs, and classroom ideas with each other. Presenting an opportunity for global collaboration between teachers, Twitter builds community between people with like interests, even though they may live across the world from each other. Twitter is also lends itself to a teacher by organizing tweets according to hashtags. Thus, if a teacher wants her students to tweet a reply to, say, a literature question, they can send their reply, all under the same, unique hashtag, and Twitter will collect the responses.

Reflection #6

I have been thinking of how, with technology and the internet playing such a big role in the classroom, there is so much more potential for unwanted information to infiltrate into the classroom and into the minds of young, impressionable children. Thus, it is very important for the school to have internet security and be able to monitor every website that is accessed by students. Although technology is amazing, it has its drawbacks, such as allowing access to the web which can be full of dirty things. But thanks to internet safety nets and security, children can be kept safe and covered.