Thursday, March 29, 2007

Learning with ebooks

Hey Guys,
After sitting in my Computers in Education class for the past semester, I have come to realize more everyday about how important technology is today, and how much it will influence the future. In my class we are being assigned to make an ebook, a picture book using the computer. I have found out that this type of technology will benefit students in the lower elementary grades. I am unsure whether or not the students in the upper levels will be willing to sit down and listen to a story. They might have more things on their minds. I am currently making an ebook for the upper level elementary grades. I will be incorporating the fifth grade world geography curriculum into the book, so that the student will have a chance to learn something as well. I hope this project is going to turn out as well as I hope.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Commenting on Cathy L's Blog


While I was scanning some of the blogs that I am a part of I ran across one that seemed like it was similar to mine. Cathy L wrote in her blog about the same experience that I had to go through for the same class. We were assigned to interview a elementary school student and show them an ebook. I chose a fifth grader, the same one I mentioned in "Close Encounter". She decided to interview a child who was a lot younger than the ten year old that I interviewed. We both thought that the experience was a great one. I am glad that so many people have decided that technology is important in the future of the students. Ebook are helping bridge the gap.

Teaching History with new technologies




Hey guys,

I found a really cool article about a book that I had never heard about. The book is called Histroy.edu. This boook helps teachers learn about how technology can affect their history classroom, from email to the World Wide Web. The chapters are broken up into several different essays, seventeen to be exact. John R. Moore wrote the article about how they enjoyed the book. They mentioned, "As described in the introduction, the essays are intended to "help further the discussion and formulation of successful practices" in using technology." This book can actually help teachers become more aware of the growing technologies around them. Teachers will be more likely to use the technologies used in the book after reading, now that they know what they are doing.
As a future history teacher, I hope that i will be skilled in knowing most of the technologies that the year has to bring. I also know that the technology world is growing faster and faster than ever before. Teachers would have to pay a lot of attention and plan ahead of time in order to compensate for some of the new technologies. Many of the students would most likely already know how to work the technologies to some extent. Teachers on the other hand will have to deal with their normal daily work, plus the extra time needed to turn a regular classroom into a technologically advanced classroom. Some day in the future, everything will be virtual and instant, but until then teachers and student will just have to make do with what they have.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Using Blogs with Social Studies


Hey Guys,
While I was cruising the Internet I found an interesting article that caught my eye. It was entitled "Using blogs in the classroom: a new approach to teaching social studies with the Internet". It was written by a teacher by the name of C. Frederick Risinger. Risinger goes into detail in the beginning of the article about how much he thought he used to know about technology. He then admits that the technology world has been flying right past him. He then goes into detail what blogs are. He admits that he never had heard of these new technologies. He mentions very interesting things about blogs. They can be an interactive tool used by both the students and the teachers. Blogs also keep the students entertained and interested throughout the lesson. Some students will even go online and contribute to a blog after school. Risinger believes that the safety of the blog is very important. Most blogs these days, in schools, require a password or a pin number entry, which the teacher should give out. Later on in the article there is many different websites that help the students and teachers learn how to create a blog together in a safe environment.

This article gave me the inspiration to create a homework help blog for my future social studies class. I would create a blog and have my students act as contributors to the blog. I would offer an assignment and answer any questions that the students may have in class. If any of the students have any questions, they can come in contact with either myself or other students, who may be able to help them out with the answer. The only problem with blogs in the classroom is time. Time is an important thing for teachers. It may take some time to set up the actual blog. Time will also be an issue with the students. I might assign homework on one day, and a student might have a question, and his or her peers might not have time to respond to the posting. That is why I would only assign the students to work on the blogs over the weekend, when they have more time.

You can access the article mentioned Here

New Technologies in K-12


Hey Guys,
One magazine article that I found online, spoke of a new technology device that is sweeping the nation, and I have never even heard of it. The article was entitled, "Hardly a blank slate -- Electronic whiteboard technology enhances classroom learning." It was written by Kirsten Nelson. The article discusses a new technology called electronic whiteboards. These devices are currently beign used in many school all across the country. Part of the artilce goes into great detail about how important technology is in the lives of students. Students should be able to incoorperate the technology that they use outside of the home into the classroom. The electronic whiteboard is one of these technologies that is allowing them to do just that. The new device brings fun and entertainment to the classroom. It is an educational tool for both the teacher and the student. Phil Bannister, who works for the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, was interviewed and quoted as saying, ""Observations of the nature and the frequency of talk within the classroom during lessons which used interactive whiteboards revealed that there was actually a faster pace of teaching during those lessons," he explained. "There was a higher level of interaction between the teachers and pupils during those lessons generally. They also found that teachers actually asked a lot more open-ended questions of the pupils, and when the pupils responded, the teachers actually engaged in a lot more discussion of the pupils' answers. They would also repeat questions to really probe their understanding more. There is potential there for reshaping some of the ways in which pupils learn." I thought that this was a very powerful statement. It states that technology is basically essential in the classroom, which I agree on.
I beleive that using technology to help the students is very imporant. The attention spans of soem students today is very limited. I believe that if more technolgies, such as the electronic whiteboard, are incoorperated in more classrooms, that the standardized test scores will sky rocket. In order to make a student learn, they must be having fun in the process. I hope that I can be the type of teacher who loves to teach history with technology in every lesson. The magazine article can be found here

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Close encounter with a 5th grader


Hey Guys,
The other day in our Computers in Education class, we were assigned to go and interview a child and show them some Ebooks online and see what their reactions were. I interviewed my boss's child who was in the fifth grade. We read two ebooks together from the Tublebooks website ( which by the way is an awesome website). One problem that I encountered when we were reading the ebooks was a lack of attention. He was watching the first part of the longer ebook, but then he quickly started messing around with the settings. This indicated to me that he was very bored. The ebook was about 8 minutes long, and it lacked bright colors among other things. The second ebook that we read together was much shorter. This ebook also had a enthusiastic narrator and bright colors. He seemed to like the second one much better. He kept commenting on the pictures and the animations throughout the duration of the second ebook. He later stated that he preferred the ebook which had much more color and energy. I really enjoyed this project. It gave me a one on one opportunity with a fifth grader ( the grade that I hope to teach). It taught me that if i make an ebook for a fifth grade class I will have to make it entertaining and educational as well. This may be harder than I thought.

Technology for Science Teachers

Hey Guys,
While I was looking around the Online Internet Database for my school, I noticed an article that can relate to teaching science and using technology at the same time. The article was entitled " In Sync with Science Teaching". The article was written by Michelle Scribner-MacLean, Andrew Nikonchuk, Patrick Kaplo and Michael Wall. This article was in another database called "The Science Teacher". The article talks about how handheld computers can aid in teaching science. The article states, "Handheld devices have long had the potential for applications in the classroom, but recent advances and affordability in wireless technologies have enhanced their applicability in schools and created opportunities for educators to improve on process and management efficiencies". One of the reasons why the authors say that these devices are important is because that they can help in grading student's work, since this can become a very long and drawn out process. Grades can instantly be brought up for teacher viewing and records. These devices can also be used in Parent/Teacher conferences. The parent can instantly look at the progress their child has made through the semester or term. Attendance can also instantly be inputted into the device, which will save class time.
The article then explains that Microsoft Excel offers a tutorial for the device and programs that go along with it. Docks are also offered with handheld devices. This allows the teacher to input notes into the device and then connect it to the teacher's main computer. The final part of the article goes into what these types of handheld devices cost. The median range for these devices is six hundred dollars.
Overall I thought that this article was worth reading. The layout of the overall article was easy to read and easy to follow. I also think that the article had many good points in figuring out why handheld devices are almost necessary. Time is a major problem for some teachers. I agree that the handheld devices will free up some of the busy teacher's time. The article can be found in Florida Gulf Coast's Library in Online Databases. This article was under the Academic OneFile Academic journal.

To connect directly to the article click here