Jeopardy ppt

A powerpoint presentation of Jeopardy was shared with the BPC class by Jaclyn and it was great...

http://angel.baypath.edu/AngelUploads/Content/SPE542Z1-201002/_assoc/FAC9559E7668DF119535005056855A04/jeopardy.ppt#289,3, With

Powerpoints...

I love doing powerpoints it helps me organize my information and be able to do an "oversee" of what information I am trying to convey to my audience. I think for those students who are visual learners a power point could help, if it is done in a manner that catches their attention and is not to 'wordy' or overpowering. Powerpoints could have both positive and negative benefits to education, as I stated it could be an aid for those visual learners and it could also help to just highlight the most important items in a subject matter. However, it could have a negative effect if the powerpoint is too overly broad, doesn't necessarily highlight the important information or is too 'wordy'. Overall if done in a 'fun' manner for students it would be a benefit.. This is a website that I found which was very informative and showed alot of different ideas and tips, http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/classrooms/Classroom_Presentations_and_Lesson_Plans.htm and this article, http://classroom-audio-visual.suite101.com/article.cfm/power_point_presentations_in_the_class_room shows the difference between the proper use and the improper use of visual technology. One statement that was made in the article, which I thought was very interesting was, "Too often, the power point becomes a poor substitute for instructing. In many ways, the power point has replaced the endless mimeographs and later worksheets duplicated on Xerox machines. Yet the results are often the same: instruction is depersonalized and student interaction is limited."

Teachers have to make sure that if they are using a powerpoint that it is as an aid and help as a tool to enhance the curriculum and not to mainly teach all of the curriculum.

What are the purposes of the assessments?

MS Word - Discussion

In my limited technology experience, the only word processing software I have used is WordPerfect and MicroSoft Word, so for me I would have to agree that it is a valuable educational tool, just based on my use of this software. I try to integrate this software into my writing class, by picking three students a week to use the computer to draft and finalize their work. This helps a student to get away from their desk and learn something new, I found a few kids even thought of better ideas as they were typing instead of writing what they were thinking. However, I have two opinions on whether it hinders a students editing work. I think it is a great tool to show a student that either a word is spelled wrong or their grammar is incorrect, however, the idea that MS will spell it for them is somewhat of a hinderance. I personally prefer students to use a dictionary and look up the word so they can have it in memory instead of letting the computer do the work for them.

Jing...

I could see this tool being used in a classroom, especially as so many children are visual learners, I think it could be beneficial for them. It could help students to 'walk through' a subject or description of something that they would otherwise have difficulty trying to understand with just reading or being taught.

Podcasts...

I had a little difficulty opening the Willow Web, but once I did I was amazed at how interesting it was. My sons would really enjoy this and since they are more visual learners, they would benefit greatly from this type of podcast. As for the Education podcast service, I found that a little 'busy' I like user friendly and easy to navigate sites, although there was alot of information and was sectioned into the different categories, I found that no matter what I clicked on, I had to keep going to find exactly what it was I was looking for. ITunes is something I used to be more familiar with, unfortunately I hadn't been on Itunes in a while but yet I was able to manuever around the site in order to still be able to find what I was looking for. I never looked through the podcasts before, as I mainly went to Itunes to download some music. I was amazed at how much information was there, wow how technology has changed in just a few short years. While I was researching on podcasts I came across an article that was very interesting, as I was not very familiar with the podcasts prior to this class. http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/

Favorite and Least Favorite Web tools

Well to begin, I just recently started a FB account, I have been able to find old friends and school mates and are enjoying keeping in touch with them. Facebook could play a role in the classroom, if a FB account is set up as a whole classroom participation and has tabs for upcoming homework, projects, save the dates, sport, and many other valuable things that parents to keep track of. It may also be helpful for those students who are stuck on homework or forgot something, because maybe a classmate can help them, it may help in forming unity as a class and everyone can talk to the other, although strict monitoring is definitely recommended. As a parent I would enjoy having regular Tweets about my children and the class in general. However, at some point it may become burdensome for teachers to find the extra time to Tweet, however I know many teachers have a student of the week, and one of their jobs/responsiblities could be to make sure one Tweet a day is done and completed for parents. The Library Thing could be useful if you have to organize books or items and Flickr could be useful in trying to manage photos of the students and their time during the day, however this does come to an important issue and that is recommendation to photograph and the permission of the parents and school of distributing any photos online. Classroom Learing 2.0 http://ctapcl2.blogspot.com/ this site had some great ideas, tips and websites to visit in order to follow all types of organizational tools.

Web 2.0 organizational tools...

Since I am very new to teaching and I don't have alot of technology experience, I am looking to this course to point me into the right direction in how to prepare and organize many aspects of my educational career. I think and organized teacher is a one that can teach students to do the same and it will help them to find what it is they are looking for without wasting valuable time. I found one website: Web 2.0 for the classroom teacher - an internet hotlist on Web 2.0. This site is http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listweb20s.html this site categorized links that would help any teacher K-12 to find Web 2.0 tools that would be useful in their classroom. I found this website to have a ton of really interesting and informative resources on not only organizational tools but alot of things in general.

I found another great article: Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0: Part 1, this article discusses: There are going to be three parts to the “Back to School with the Class of Web 2.0″ series: part one covering tools; part two covering office applications; and in part three, real cases of Web 2.0 used in classrooms around the world. http://www.solutionwatch.com/512/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-1/ This article has such great insight for not only a new teacher but a 'seasoned' teacher and it starts as if your starting the school year. I know I can definitely learn alot from some of the tips in this article.

What does the web mean to me...

Wow, I had no idea what Web 2.0 was before this class, let alone any experience with using it. Since I had no idea what it was, I really didn't have much of a definition of it to compare to what I read about this week. I found a site, http://www.paulgraham.com/web20.html, which discusses the origin, as well as some highlighted detail about Web 2.0. I also found another article called What is Web.2.0? http://www.rss-specifications.com/what-is-web-2.htm. It is described in here to be: Web 2.0 is said to be the technological evolution. I am still researching more on this topic as it is so new to me.

Wikis..

To be honest I never heard of the word wiki let alone what they actually were. I have heard of wikopedia and didn't realize it was a form of wiki. I found an article that was really informative, http://www.edutopia.org/using-wikipedia-classroom (Using Wikipedia in the Classroom: A Good Starting Point). I found this article very interesting and informative, one thing that definitely caught my eye was the sentence "It's what all of us skilled educators are all about", there you go, I am slowly coming out of my technology shell and figured this one of the reasons I didn't know about wiki. This form of education can become very useful as it was noted, this can be used to help students with their science fair projects, collaborative textbooks, student profiles, to name a few. Of course this is not the only means in which a student should use all of their information from, however as the article quoted it is a good starting point.

Designing

The information in the Williams book is very new to me as this is the first time I have done any type of website work or design. I think it is extremely important to apply the design principles to my work. Whether I am helpoing to create a website in the classroom, flyers, resume, business cards, any type of information that is being submitted to others to read should be in a manner that is easy to read, "refreshing" to read and be able to catch the reader's attention. The four basic principles of design that are discussed in the book are very important to how your document or website looks.

School Flyers

Although I am not a teacher I am the President of the school's PTO and I know when I do flyers I make sure they are on nicely colored paper so they stand out from the other information that the students are bringing home. I can honestly say that I am one of those parents that reads everything that comes home in my sons' backpack, however there are times that I look at flyers, brochures or information and think that it could be done differently to catch the attention of many of the parents who I know don't read the information. Sometimes to just take a few extra minutes to create a flyer or brochure that is pleasing to the eye, may help greatly in getting the parents to read the information. I think the design is key in this.

Educational Merits for Classroom Site

First, I am sorry for not posting sooner, I have had two very sick boys home the past three days, one at the ER and other just sick. So again I am sorry for not posting sooner…

I believe it is very important for a classroom teacher to maintain a classroom web site. I am not in a full classroom yet, I just started co-teaching a writing class. However, I am noticing that many of my students are on the internet chatting and “surfing”, I think it would be a great idea to get their minds working on a web site they design and can help maintain. Perhaps it can get their creative writing flowing.

I found an article: Using a classroom webpage to communicate with parents (http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/689). This article was great, it was about a first-grade teacher who created a webpage to communicate with the student’s parents.

The Website consisted of: welcoming statement including contact information and times that she checks email each day.
A link to her daily summaries page. The news for each day is posted in different fonts and/or colors and replaced daily with the corresponding weekday. For example, on the day I visited Kathleen’s class, she erased the previous week’s text for Monday, March 10 and wrote the date and news for Monday, March 17. The previous week’s Tuesday through Friday summaries remained on the site to be changed as the week progressed.
Each Monday, Kathleen sends home a weekly newsletter with students. This newsletter is also posted each week on the site. Through the newsletter, Kathleen sends information about curricular units, upcoming field trips, homework, and/or requests for parent volunteers.
At the beginning of each school year, all parents in Kathleen’s classroom are provided with a handbook outlining school policies and classroom procedures. Throughout the year, parents can access the handbook through Kathleen’s site. As the grade level chair, Kathleen is responsible for selecting appropriate sites to be included on all the first grade teachers’ classroom pages. Students and parents are encouraged to email sites to her for inclusion in this section.
Another section of the site includes pictures of students and samples of student writing. (Students’ last names are never used, only initials. Some parents have also requested that their children’s first names not be used.)
This website was a great way to get parent’s involved in their children’s day and classroom. This would be great if all grades were this enthusiastic about their teaching and the children’s learning.
I found a website: http://www.ehow.com/how_4531502_creating-website-teachers.html, which discusses and gives detail on how to create a website for teachers, it is quite informative.

Discussion - website

This was my first web site I ever created. At first I found it frustrating because many of the items I tried to post I couldn't view, but after alot of trial and error I felt a little better. As I am keeping my site up to date, I am learning more techniques and more ways around the site. I think web site design has the potential to be very useful for a special education teacher or any teacher if it is maintained properly and kept current. It also has to has to keep the focus of the "audience" being the parents and students.

Creating a Website for Teachers

Very imformative website in case anyone is interested in setting up a website for their classroom.

Great website...

this is a great website: www.teachers.tv/news

Many facets of being a teacher..

If a doctor, lawyer or dentist had 40 people in their office at the one time, all of who had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or desntis, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then they might have some conception off the classroom teacher's job.

Donald D. Quinn.