W200 Blog

Professional Uses of Technology

2010-04-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

We talked in class recently about how careful teachers need to be with their personal information online. We discussed several cases of teachers who were fired because of pictures or comments they posted online or on Facebook. Some schools do not even allow teachers to have Facebooks. I cannot decide if I agree with some of the very strict rules some schools have or not... I know teachers have to be very selective about what they put on the internet, but I think prohibiting Facebook for teachers is a little too much. I think teachers have a great responsibility to present a professional identity to their school and community, but I also think the community needs to realize that teachers are human too. However, this does not mean they are ever justified in acting inappropriately or irresponsibly, especially if that involves posting unacceptable photos or comments online.

Assistive Technology

2010-04-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

This post is about different options for assistive technology available on the computer. Assistive technology is any low- or high-tech items that help students with disabilities function easily and successfully in the classroom. After testing out some of the different options for computer settings in the Ease of Access program on my computer, I found these three settings that could be helpful for a student with a disability.

1. Make the Mouse Easier to Use

This section gives several different options for what the mouse can look like on the computer. The options include changing the color and size of the mouse pointer, and making it inverted so that it is transparent. This could be helpful to a student who has a vision disability because the student would be able to see the mouse pointer on the computer screen more easily if it were larger. Below is a picture of the options the Ease of Access panel gives for mouse pointers.

2. Hear Text and Descriptions Read Aloud

This section gives the option of having the text on the screen read out loud. There is also an option to turn on "audio description," which gives descriptions of what is happening in animation and videos through the narrator's voice. This option would be useful for a student with a visual impairment, because they could have the computer read a text to them rather than struggling to read it themselves. It could also be useful for a student who is simply more of an auditory learner than a visual learner.

3. Use the Computer Without a Mouse or Keyboard

This section allows you to use the computer through voice recognition or a joystick rather than through the mouse and keyboard. The voice recognition program means that you can speak commands to the computer to tell it what to do. The joystick would be used to move the mouse to point at points on the screen, rather than holding and directing a mouse. This would be useful to students with physical disabilities who are unable to type on a keyboard or use a regular mouse. These students could use a microphone to speak commands to the computer, they could use a joystick to direct the mouse, which would require less fine motor skills than a normal mouse.

KidPix Pictographs Station Example

2010-03-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

This post includes an example activity from a potential station for an elementary classroom. The station is about using KidPix to make Pictographs and interpret the information they show. I worked on this project with two classmates, Kiara and Mallissa. For this project, we actually did the activities that would be assigned to students and then thought about how they could be useful in a real classroom.

The scenario we were given was about a kindergarten class that completes a different graphing activity every day. The following activity was to teach about tally sheets and creating pictographs that display information. Click on the link below to see the activities.
Stations Activities (Parts 1 & 2)

I think this activity would be fun for young elementary students because they get to make information about themselves into a picture. As a teacher, this activity would be an effective way to get students interested in the activity because it uses a computer program with pictures that they can choose from, rather than just having them write out a tally sheet by hand.

Content Exploration Tool Review

2010-02-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Starfall.com is an interactive website that can be used for all levels of readers. The first part of the website reviews letters, while the other three parts encourage reading words and sentences. The website uses interactive activities to involve students.

This website is mostly Drill-and-Practice Content Exploration. There is a lot of interaction--students click on letters to hear their sounds and words to hear them read outloud. The student can click on different things to watch short videos or hear words or letter sounds spoken out loud. They can practice identifying letters, sounding out words, and reading along with the computer, and there are a few interactive activities.

I think this website has a very high education value because students can use it to practice reading at all levels. This could be used in a preschool, kindergarten, or first grade classroom for all students because it applies to all reading ability levels.

"Engaging Our Youngest Minds" Summary

2010-02-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

http://k12online.ning.com/video/engaging-our-youngest-minds

In "Engaging Our Youngest Minds," (from www.k12online.ning.com/video) teacher Angela Maiers shares her discovery of one young person's passion about animals. She tells the story of this five-year-old animal rights activist and encourages viewers to help all students find some strong interest in order to make them passionate about school and learning.

She talks about the importance of passion in education and of teachers supporting their students in their passions. She emphasizes the need for teachers to let their students teach them, rather than just teaching the students. Maiers also suggests that passion should be the heart of the classroom, and that everything else--technology included--should be used to support those passions rather than take over them.

Apples for the Teacher Evaluation

2010-02-05T10:54:00.001-08:00

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/

This is a great resource for teachers and students. Apples 4 the Teacher has tons of fun classroom ideas for teachers as well as many interactive educational games for elementary students. The games and ideas are conveniently organized by subject (math, creative arts, language arts, foreign language, science, and social studies) in order to easily find something that will work for you.

This is a high-quality resource because it can be used to enhance classroom teaching and learning. It is also very efficient and effective because it is organized well and easy to use.

Teacher Tube Evaluation

2010-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.teachertube.com/

This website is a great resource for teachers. It is a lot like YouTube, except all of the videos are educational, so teachers do not have to sift through everything on the web to find something useful. Plus, in addition to videos, TeacherTube also includes photos, audios, blogs, and documents. The website is easy to use and it has lots of great videos for classroom use.

Using this website is more efficient that searching on YouTube or the web as a whole because everything is posted for teachers and by teachers. The resources found on TeacherTube can be used to enhance learning in the classroom, making this a high-quality tool for teachers.

Elementary Teacher Resources Evaluation

2010-02-04T18:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.elementary-teacher-resources.com/

This website is an excellent resource for elementary teachers, created by an elementary teacher. The website consists of a large compilation of lesson plans, classroom ideas, education articles, book reviews, and links to other teacher websites and resources.

This is an efficient resource because there are so many great ideas in one place, so it is easy to use and easy to find interesting and academic lesson plans and activities for the classroom. The lesson ideas can be used effectively in the classroom to enhance learning, making this a high-quality resource for early elementary teachers.

Kideos Evaluation

2010-02-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.kideos.com/category/characters/educational-videos

This website contains lots of fun videos for kids. Although not all of them are educational, this link will take you directly to a page of educational videos. Also, the videos can be sorted through by age group. The videos intended for early childhood range from themes involving the importance of recycling to counting, recognizing letters, and reading.

This website is a nice resource for elementary teachers. The videos could be used to enhance learning about a variety of subjects, although most of the videos are very specific to a certain subject, so they might not always be useful in the classroom. However, they could be used in elementary classrooms as some sort of stations option for students to look at on their own time.

Math Playground Evaluation

2010-02-04T16:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.mathplayground.com/index.html

This resource is a website of math games for students from the beginning of elementary school through middle school. There are seemingly endless games for students to play and activities that reinforce mathematics skills from all areas and grade levels: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, percents, angles, etc. The website also includes a section of short math videos about many math skills.

This is a high-quality website because it features many different math concepts and can be used for almost any grade level. However, teachers will probably have to direct students to the specific math games and activities that are appropriate for them rather than letting students explore the entire site. This resource can enhance learning because students will enjoy playing the games while at the same time learning about math.

Everything Preschool Evaluation

2010-02-02T10:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/

This resource is a website full of ideas and lesson plans for teaching preschool. The site includes many links to great lesson plan and bulletin board ideas, crafts and activities, recipes, and coloring pages.

This is a high-quality resource for preschool teachers because it has lots of creative ideas for interesting lessons. Using this site is efficient because it includes many lesson ideas in one place. Also, the lesson suggestions would enhance learning in the preschool classroom through hands-on experiences for the students.