Internet Safety Interview: "Doing"

~I talked to a very close family friend of mine who is my little sisters best friend. She is 14 years old and in 8th grade.

~ We discussed some of the things that she liked to do online. She said she usually goes on AIM and checks her brothers facebook. I asked if she went into chat rooms as she said she did at times, but did not talk to anyone she did not know. I shared with her some information I learned about the dangers of going into chat rooms online as well as the terrible effects of cyberbullying. She shared with me something she had read in a magazine about a girl committing suicide after being cyber bullied. I talked with her about how hurtful cyberbullying can be (explainging a story about my friend who's little sister is moving to a different school because of being a victim of cyberbullying), and how important it is to make sure never to get involved in any type of gossip about others, especially online. I also told her about the importance of staying out of chat rooms and never revealing any type of personal information online to anyone. She understood the dangers and watched the cyberbullying video, " You Can't Take It Back" on nesmartz.com. She took all this information very well, and was shocked by some of the information I had learned of from the class videos about the online predators and bullying. This was a very positive conversation, in which she said she learned a lot of important things that she can also remind her friends about.

What I Learned From the Class Presentations

There were a lot of great examples of how to use technology in the classroom, but I definitely had two favorites:

1). The first was a topic on math and fractions. In this lesson, the student teacher used the digital screens ( I have no idea what it is called), to direct the lessons. On the screen, the kids were able to see her start out with a piece of chocolate bar. Then, she would say that she wanted to take away 1/8 of the chocolate bar. The piece would disappear, but could be filled in again with a different color, representing what fraction of the chocolate bar was taken away. I thought it was a great idea to use this board because all the kids could see the example and could visually see how the piece is taken away and the fraction that is left over. After that, they worked on their own, doing fractions.

2). The second idea was amazing as well. This student teacher had been asked to read a St. Patrick's Day book the day before the big day. Unfortunately, the teacher told her only a few days before the assignment, and all the St. Patrick's day books were gone in the library. She got creative and decided to make her own St. Patrick's day book about. Leprechaun. She found pictures for the " book" online and made a photo story book, with music and text, about the Leprechauns on St. Patrick's day. She made the story move slow enough so that the kids could read the story aloud with her. After that, she said they did an activity about this special day. She said that even the ELL were asking her more about Leprechauns; they wanted to know everything. They completely understood what a Leprechaun was and what it looked like. She was very impressed with their interest and understanding. I loved her idea. She took an unlucky situation and turned it into something magical for the kids!.

Online Article about the Internet: #4

1.What article did you choose to read for your fourth article?
The ariticle that I chose to read for my fourth article is titled " Fighting Internet Filth" by Mario Hipol.

2.What were the most important things you learned from the readings? Th most important things I learned in this article was to put the computer in a high traffic area and check the history often to see what sights have been entered. By setting a specific day, maybe once a week, where you check and delete history, you can keep track of your families viewing material and also will recognize if deleted history occurs before you have done it yourself. This would be cause for possible concern.Putting the computer in a high traffic area makes it easier for family members to not be tempted to look at inappropriate material online. The screen should be visable for anyone walking by to see.

3.How will what you have read influence your actions as a parent and/or teacher of children and youth? This article helps me as a future parent to recognize the many things I can do to prevent inappropriate material to enter my home via the internet. It helps me to know of the importance of monitoring my children's viewing to keep them safe from the many terrible things that can be viewed, even by accident.

4.How can you use what you have learned from the reading to have a positive influence on family and friends?I think by implimenting these precautions in my future home, my family will be more aware and better protected from potential internet danger. I realize that I will have to continue to keep up on new technology considering how quickly our youth learn to use technology. We should never think that they don't understand or know how to use technology. They will find a way to learn from friends, at school, etc, and could end up viewing bad material if we don't teach them how to protect themselves and take precautions against it.

What I learned about using Technology

On Krysten's technology presentation, I learned that technology should be used in conjunction with hands on learning. I think this is an important thing to remember because simply allowing kids to hop on the computers and play with some of the computer activities in not facilitating learning. We need to first teach them concepts and give them hands on examples. The computer should be used as an additional tool to explain or emphasize what was already taught.

Technology in ECE: Power Point

Technology[1]

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Teaching Literacy in ECE

Teaching Literacy in ECE

Content:

Standard 4
Phonics and Spelling-Students use phonics and other strategies to decode and spell unfamiliar words while reading and writing.

Objective 2
Use knowledge of structural analysis to decode words.
b. Identify sound patterns and apply knowledge to decode words (e.g., blends, digraphs, vowel patterns, r-controlled vowels).

Pedagogy:

Explicit instruction will be used to teach the concept of a digraph. The kids will also be personally participating with their own computers on the Starfall website which has a lot of activities regarding phonological and phonemic awareness. This personal experience with the digraph " sh" will help them as they hear the sound, view this digraph in different words, and are asked the identify this digraph.
Technology:

The technology we will be using is the Starfall website. This site is a great resource for literacy activities. This kids will see the digraph " sh" on the screen. They will hear how it is properly pronounced and asked to identify the digraph in different words. This will be a great resource for them as they learn about one particular digraph and how it is incorporated into words.

Teaching Math in ECE

Content:

Standard 1
Students will acquire number sense with whole numbers and fractions and perform operations with whole numbers.

Objective 2
Use unit fractions to identify parts of the whole and parts of a set.

a.Divide geometric shapes into two, three, or four equal parts and identify the parts as halves, thirds, or fourths.

Pedagogy: The kids will be experimenting with different geometrics shapes as well as doing things hands on. They will also have visual representations of the shape. These are valuable pedagogies for this topic because the kids will be able to explore for themselves by splitting objects up on their own and identifying the # of parts/ halves in each shape. 

Technology: We will be using the Virtual Math Manipulative website. With the activity presented below, the kids will be able to divide a circle into two, three, and four geometric parts. They can then identify the parts, as the fractions shows up beside the shape. This will give the kids both a visual representation and allow them to experience making fractions on their own with an objects as they are also shown the fraction. This will be a very helpful way of understanding how fractions work, as they can visualize and explore independently. 

Technology Inventory Interview

I interviewed a teacher in the Preschool on campus. I have been taught by him before, and think he is a wonderful teacher. I asked him the following questions about his classroom technology:

1. What technology is available in his classroom?

2. What technology did he wish he had in the classroom?

3. How does he use technology to get ideas and prepare for lesson and class material?

4. What technology has he used with the kids that really got their attention?

In regards to the technology available in his classroom, he said that they were equipped with digital cameras, CD players, overhead cameras for recording students, and a class computer. 

He explained that most of the technology used in class was for the teachers. His reason for not having computers for the kids and other technologies available to them for the most part in class was that kids in his class are not new to technology.  He explained that many of them, even at the age of 4, already know how to text and use their i pods! Because of the resources that are already available to them at home, including family computers, he feels that he can use further activities to stimulate their minds. 

Though the children do not use technology often in his class, he does wish he could have an LCD player in the room so that he could download pictures taken in class of the kids, and show the pictures to them on the LCD player. 

He personally uses technology frequently to help with preparations for project work. He explained that the Internet for him, is full of an immense amount of resources that helps him retrieve pictures, ideas, etc., for project work.

For my last question, I asked what technology the kids have used in his class that they have enjoyed. He explained that they had once given the kids the digital camera to take pictures while they were, I believe, on a field trip. This allowed them to capture images that they found interesting. This gave the teachers a chance to view the experience from a child's perspective. 

It is amazing how much technology has changed, even over the last 5 years! There are so many resources that are available that can assist in making lessons more exciting and learning, that much more valuable. 

XO COmputers

The EO computers were really fun to use.

In the classroom, the children could learn to take pictures, chat, and do video recordings. With this they could practice typing as they chat with friends. With the video recording, they could plan a story/ skit before they record and then act out their skit. They can then show it to their friends and chat about their story. They can also take pictures in a story order, and make them into a slide. 

Using a Digital Camera

The content is under Standard 1 in the Kindergarten core curriculum. The objective is to describe and practice responsible practices for health and safety. The main objective is to identify harmful and helpful things for the body. 

The pedagogy involves hands on experiences as they find different objects that are safe as well as harmful for our bodies. Other use of pedagogy is collaboration with the students. They will need to learn to share the camera as well as help one another learn how to use the camera. 

The technology that they will be using is a digital camera. They will be taking pictures with the camera of things that are both helpful and harmful for the body. 

Research Points

What Research Says about Technology and Child Development

Children from birth to age eight are learning at a rapid pace. During this time children learn and play across five developmental dimension:

Social and Emotional Development

Language Development

Physical Well-Being and Motor Development

Cognition and General Knowledge

Approaches Toward Learning 

• Large amounts of research focuses on the use of computers to " enhance social, language, and cognitive skills" ( NREL). 
• Social Development:Computers and software can serve as a vehicle for interaction related to the child's work. 
• Proper placement of the computer in the classroom can strike conversations between peers as they work together on activities on the computer as well as talk about new things they have learned. It can also be a motivation for children's cognitive and social dev., enhance improve their attitude about learning, increase spoken communication and cooperation skills, and initiate interactions with peers more frequently. 
• Language Development: Encourages longer, more complex speech and the development of fluency
• Children speak out loud and narrate as they read on the computer of draw pictures.
• Children learn to cooperate with peers as they share, take turns, and talk about what they are doing.
• Physical Well-Being and Motor Development: Computers allow them to write freely without having to had completely developed good handwriting skills. They should not sit in front of the computer too long. Limit time to 1 hour a day, balancing it with physical activity.
• Cognition and General Knowledge: They are able to manipulate things that they could not have outside the physical world. Use open ended software, do not drill and test them. 
• Approaches Toward Learning: They are a good way to learn and reveal hidden strengths as well as a good way to assess. 

What Research Says about Technology in Child Development:

Using technology in the classroom can range from short and simple lessons to being an integral part of long-term projects.  Technology should be used in addition to hands-on learning, and should not take the place of important tasks children need to accomplish during their early years.

Technology can help children improve their social development, their language development, their cognition and general knowledge.

Technology can support educational goals and support content standards when used in a planned, guided manner.  It can help with students' language development and emergent literacy and mathematics.  Adult participation and guidance are important.

When selecting software for young children, it is critical to choose software that is DAP.  It should:

Encourage exploration, imagination, and problem solving

Reflect and build on what children already know

Involve many senses and include sound, music, and voice

Be open-ended, with the child in control of the pace and the path

Hardware that can be used in the classroom:

Tape recorders

Video cameras

TV/VCRs

Fax machines

Portable keyboards

Digital microscopes

Computers

For choosing technology to be used with younger children, the best choice for a particular situation may be no new technology, or just simple tape recorders and cameras.

• 
  

5 Effective ways for Children to use technology:

1. Make and display a graph: physical graph with  actual objects that are meaningful( collect info, fav. colors, how they traveled to school) 

2. Explore with digital tools: explore things with a new perspective ( ex: use magnifying glasses, pictures off line etc. save so children can refer back to them)

3. Tell a story to create pictures and words: make one on the computer

4. Write, record, and revisit: take pictures that you have taken along the way and turning them into a book; power point, online, have them write captions, drawings etc. 

5. Share and document Learning: Make sure they you send different pictures in the books home with the kids so they can talk with parents about it, enhancing communication. 

Lewis & Clark Expedition

Tagged under the Delicious header

TPACK: Virtual Tour

For this activity, I took my content from the Utah 5th grade core curriculum. The content is in standard four, objective one. This content consists of teaching the children about different events that helped in the expansion of the U.S., one of these important events being Lewis & Clark's expedition.

The pedagogy in this project involves the children discovery how to use a new piece of technology that is very useful in the classroom. Using Google Earth is a good fit for this project because it allows the children to track important events that happened in history, contributing to the expansion of the U.S. They will have the opportunity to look up different sites and pictures as well as write journal entries, reflecting on how the travelers must have felt after accomplishing such a great feat.

As for the technology used, the children will use Google Earth. This is an amazing tool that is new to me, that allows us to view 3-D pictures of places all over the Earth, as well as find out information about these places. By using this tool, I believe the kids eyes will be opened to an even bigger world of technology than they have ever experienced.It was very exciting for me to learn, and I believe that they will have the same positive, enlightening experience as they discover the wonderful possibilities this technology has to offer.

Virtual Tour: Starting Layout

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1.Missouri River	The students will look up the length of the river on the wiki link and write a journal entry about how they would have felt as explorers knowing they would be traveling along such a huge river.	A wiki link that directs them to info. about the Missouri River.
2. Sioux Territory	Journal entry: How they would have felt during a first encounter with the Sioux Indians	Click on a link that will bring up a journal entry from someone in L. & C's group, explaining the first encounter
3. Mount Hood	Journal entry: What would they have carved in this mountain after such a long journey?	Wiki information of what Clark carved in Mount Hood near the end of the journey
4.Fort Mandan	Draw their own map of the U.S. as if they were Clark at Fort Mandan, marking the different rivers and large terrain they crossed. This map would be sent to Jefferson	Wiki a picture of Fort Mandan where a group left from to go back to Jefferson with the map of the U.S. and info. of the plant life they had found
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:

Digital Storytelling: Breakfast in Bed

In case you didn't see it the first time ;)




TPACK: Storyboard

Pieces of an example Storyboard are as follows:

Standard 8, Objective 6b

For our 2nd grade lesson, we decided to focus on teaching the children about a different creative form of writing; poetry. After they have created their poem, we will be using Photo Story to help them interpret their poems through pictures they have either found online or drawn themselves. They will also be narrating the interpretation. 

In our lesson, we will be focusing on the 2nd grade Language Arts core content. Standard 8, objective 6b focuses on creating poetry amongst other forms of writing. 

In this project of Poetry Interpretation, the children will create their own piece of work by researching different topics that interest them. They will also be using a specific format of poetry; AABB format. This pedagogy fits with the content because they will be researching a topic of their choice to learn more about it, creating a poem from what they have learned, and doing so in the assigned format; AABB. 

The technology we will be using is called Photo Story. Photo Story is a good fit for our content because it allows the kids to present their poems which they have created not only in oral form but in picture interpretations as well. Photo Story fits with our pedagogy because its allows them to display what they have researched, created into a poem, and have done so in the proper format. 

TPACK Overview

For our groups science lesson this week, we chose to focus on the different stages of matter. We also focused on how temperature has an effect on water changing from a solid, then a liquid, then finally to a gas.

The pedagogy we used in our lesson included observing, acquiring data, and analyzing data. I think these strategies were a good fit to use for this content because there would be observations done by the children as they watched the water change from one stage of matter to another. They also would acquire data from the chart on the computer, and then analyze the data that was shown. This would allow them to clearly see the influence temperature has on water and its changing state.

The technology that we used in our lesson was a temperature probe that allowed us to chart information on a computer, simply by holding the probe in the different temperatures. This technology is a good fit for this content because the stages of matter are an important thing to learn about, as is the way in which temperature has an influence on those stages. By using this technology, the kids would be able to quickly see results from the probe and its interaction with the changing stages of matter and the temperatures. This technology is a good fit for our pedagogy used because it allowed them to observe the stages, acquire the data from the chart, and analyze their findings. Overall, I think this technology was a great help in making this lesson a lot more exciting and interactive.

~Tech Savvy Teacher~

Welcome to the age of technology. Since entering this era, technology has become more readily accessible to both teachers and students. Teachers now have the opportunity to allow students to discover science on a first-hand basis rather than relying on the experiences of others. With the advantage of technological software and hardware, learning becomes more meaningful, appeals to different types of learners, and reinforces the concepts being taught. We took advantage of such technology by including it in the experiment we carried out to introduce the concept of physical changes of matter and how temperature affects the states of matter. We decided to begin with the most familiar substance: water. To display these changes, we began with a pot of frozen water. Using the digital temperature probe, we simply connected its USB cord into the computer and placed the probe into the pot of ice in order to calculate and record the current temperature of the ice. Leaving the probe in the pot of ice, we then increased the temperature of the burner. As the probe records the increase in temperature by graphing it on the computer, we observed how the water transformed from a solid to a liquid state. Increasing the temperature of the burner yet again, we left the probe in the pot to continue recording the changes in temperature of the water until it transformed into its final state, a gas.

We concluded the experiment by observing the graph on the computer and analyzing the correlation between the increase in temperature and each physical state of water.

Although basic experiments, like the one we accomplished, can be performed in the classroom in old school fashion, technology like the portable, digital probe provides more accurate data,graphs changes in temperature in real time and exposes students to the limitless possibilities technology has to offer. Furthermore, with the supplement of this particular technology, students are learning how to observe a set of data as well as analyze, identify, and describe the relationships involved with temperature and physical states of matter as shown on graphs.

Stellarium

Stellarium was an amazing source that allows you to view many things involving the sky including constellations, time zones, the phases of the moon, and much more. This would be a great resource for kids as we studied constellations, positioning of stars, and the different phases of the moon. I had a ton of fun learning about this program! 

TPACK

TPACK is an acronym for Technology, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge. Each section alone is very important but even more useful when all are incorporated together to make an effective lesson. It is important for teachers, especially for elementary teachers to have pedagogical knowledge, allowing them to know how to properly and affectively teach the children. Having a good hold on the content being taught is also important, as is incorporating technology to make the lessons more exciting and also allows for the kids to find new ways of exploring different educational avenues. 

What I learned about RSS, Goodreads, and Delicious

I found RSS, Goodreads, and Delicious to be wonderful resources. With RSS, I was able to copy feeds to my blog. With Goodreads, I was able to post books that I have read, rate them, and see what others in my network/ friends are reading. 

I would love to use Goodreads as a resource in my future classroom for the kids to see different things I am reading, as well as for me to keep track of things they are reading. It will also be a great way for me to see what interests them, and incorporate their interests into classroom material. Save Now

Background & History in Technology

I have experience in Power Point, Excel, and Microsoft Word. I am also proficient in navigating the world wide web.