Directions:
Present basic information on the video you watched.
Present the link and title of the video you watched.
Present a summary of the video you watched (brief).
Form a response based on the following questions:
Describe some strengths you saw with regards to the teacher using technology (e.g., strategies, uses of technology, etc...).
Do you consider these uses exemplary or meaningful? Why or why not?
Has the way this teacher used technology shaped or changed your ideas about meaningful technology integration or the way you might use technology?
Discuss how you might use these ideas in your own classroom, even if the ideas presented are not in your content area - find a way to apply them to your future classroom (be creative).
Response:
Video Title: Graphing Linear Equations
Video Location: http://www.intime.uni.edu/video/015mohs/0/
Summary: Teacher Pam Maclin leads her ninth grade students in Missouri through a lesson on graphing linear equations. She first has the students review basic graphing skills along with manipulating equalities. The students then are able to practice their skills in groups before moving to a computer lab and playing "Green Globs and Graphing Equations." This program plots points and then the students must find linear equations that contain the points. Last, the students are directed to gather research on the Internet of real life applications involving points and linear equations. By graphing the points and finding a linear equation to represent the points, the students are suppose to see connections to their own world.
The teacher did an excellent job preparing the students with the knowledge they needed to be successful while playing Green Globs. She also worked the students up to the level of mastery though a variety of learning techniques including individual work, group work, class work, research, games, and paper and pencil work. Her lesson plan did not solely rely on technology but instead used it as a tool to help reinforce the skills by repetitive random questions. Having the students gather their own research and numbers to graph is an excellent technique for helping students relate math to the world. Both uses of technology are meaningful because Green Globs provides randomness in questions and will evaluate the students for the teacher. The Internet research is important because it provides up-to-date information the students can collect on a topic that interests the group. Math books provide "real life" exampled and data but usually seems a bit silly to the students and is rarely actually interesting to students. The Internet also makes obtaining a large collection of data easier while a math book can not provide a life-like amount of data. The technology integration by this teacher was minimal yet sufficient. She used the computer to help reinforce ideas and concepts after teaching the material. I always imagined integrating technology by having the technology do the teaching or assist in the teaching. Instead, this teacher taught the lesson without technology (besides the graphing calculator). She just used it at the end to help the students practice the new skills. This is the way it seems technology should be integrated. In my own classroom I could closely follow this plan of teaching and using technology to reinforce ideas. Even now as I am teaching my students how to graph linear equations next week I'm considering trying to find Green Globs online. I know the problems in the book from which I teach are not excellent problems and would love to be able to integrate some graphing programs into the class. I also love the idea of having students research for math. Requiring the students to do a "research project" and apply a math skill helps pull math and other subject matters together. I hope to have my students do research projects that require writing papers and perhaps some science.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Lab Observation Day Two
Directions for Lab Observation:
Set-up the video camera to observe a class period.
Review the videotape at a later time.
List, describe, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of technology use, as well as the strategies used for teaching and learning.
Bring the videotape to the following class so we can discuss your reflections together.
Technology Used in Lab:
~www.freetypinggames.com was used today as one of the main websites students were directed toward for practicing typing. Each student was able to work at his or her own pace and play whatever typing game was thought the most entertaining. Most students used the time to practice correct typing and some students were surprisingly serious about learning how to type correctly. A few students already seemed decent at typing and a few refused to learn correctly. The students who were only pecking at the keyboard to type got bored quickly and caused some behavioral problems. In general, the students really enjoyed the typing games.
~Headphones were used to allow each child to hear his or her computer sound. Although quite primitive, headphones were a technology that was necessary for this activity. There were too many students in the room for each computer to be producing sound through the external speakers. The students also seemed to enjoy being able to hear the music.
Other Observations:
This lab initially seemed like a boring activity. However, the students enjoyed being able to play games and most of the students were able to stay focused for the hour. It was also pointed out that this activity was nice because the activity leaders had little planning for it and instead things ran smoothly as a result of the games designed and organized by other people. This lab also gave the instructors a break in observing the students. Most leaders took time to sit down and play the games with the students. In general, there was little to observe this day because the interaction between students and adults was minimized.
Set-up the video camera to observe a class period.
Review the videotape at a later time.
List, describe, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of technology use, as well as the strategies used for teaching and learning.
Bring the videotape to the following class so we can discuss your reflections together.
Technology Used in Lab:
~www.freetypinggames.com was used today as one of the main websites students were directed toward for practicing typing. Each student was able to work at his or her own pace and play whatever typing game was thought the most entertaining. Most students used the time to practice correct typing and some students were surprisingly serious about learning how to type correctly. A few students already seemed decent at typing and a few refused to learn correctly. The students who were only pecking at the keyboard to type got bored quickly and caused some behavioral problems. In general, the students really enjoyed the typing games.
~Headphones were used to allow each child to hear his or her computer sound. Although quite primitive, headphones were a technology that was necessary for this activity. There were too many students in the room for each computer to be producing sound through the external speakers. The students also seemed to enjoy being able to hear the music.
Other Observations:
This lab initially seemed like a boring activity. However, the students enjoyed being able to play games and most of the students were able to stay focused for the hour. It was also pointed out that this activity was nice because the activity leaders had little planning for it and instead things ran smoothly as a result of the games designed and organized by other people. This lab also gave the instructors a break in observing the students. Most leaders took time to sit down and play the games with the students. In general, there was little to observe this day because the interaction between students and adults was minimized.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Lab Observation Day One
Directions for Lab Day One
1. Set-up the video camera to observe a class period.
2. Review the videotape at a later time.
3. List, describe, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of technology use, as well as the strategies used for teaching and learning. Bring the videotape to the following class so we can discuss your reflections together.
Response for Lab Day One
Technology Used
~ Smartboard
This was the first time I'd seen a smartboard. The idea of a smartboard is wonderful. The board was used to quickly show the students how to create a formatted letter in Word. I have to admit the smartboard was fun but there were features it lacked like a keyboard and the ability to right-click. To perform these actions the instructor had to return to the computer many feet away. However, it was nice being able to follow the instructors hands to see where she is going to click. This appears to be the main advantage of the smartboard over feeding the computer screen to a TV monitor or projector.
~ Flashdrive
Each student has a flash drive provided by the school The students were instructed to leave the flash drives so their documents saved on them would be available next week. No instructions were given regarding the flash drives and it appeared the students had prior knowledge of how they worked. However, the problem I had with the flash drives is that things didn't seem to function normally. After the students left I had to hook up through the USB port my flash drive and a reader for the digital camera memory card to copy the pictures from the day. I hooked both up at the same time to the front of the computer through the 2 USB ports. The computer only had the capability of reading one. I could not drag the pictures directly onto my flash drive. So I had to remove my flash drive. Until recently I did not know about the "Safely Remove Hardware" option (it always appears on my personal computer because of my external hard-drive and my Internet card but I never used it for those so thought it was just a useless program my dad installed). However, I now know that removing a flash drive without stopping the processes first could potentially cause it to crash. The computers at the elementary school lacked this feature. Actually, the "safely remove hardware" existed but it said it was locked and could not perform the action. I don't understand why the students are using flash drives if they can't use them properly. Maybe a disk or Internet location would be better for saving if the students can not be taught proper use of the flash drives.
~Word
Microsoft Word was used for this project. Each student created a template for a letter so all they needed to do was type the body of the letter. This was interesting to me because I didn't know of this feature. In my past computer classes we learned to write business letters formatting them by hand. The kids seemed to be familiar with Word which helped things run smoothly.
Teaching and Learning Strategies
One particular strategy that I found exciting was the male instructors use of his body. He never spoke to the students standing up. He knelt down and sat to position himself at the level of the students. I'm more experienced with teaching older students where kneeling down would put me below their level so I was impressed to see this different strategy geared toward younger students. I was also intrigued by some of the instructors doing parts of the project for the children. Each ch id was given explicit written instructions to assist them in the process and one student was continuously asking me questions about what he should do next. I felt he wasn't using his full capability since he was asking me what to do instead of reading the instructions. However, it appeared as if other students were doing the same thing and the instructors were telling them what steps to perform. Even more interesting though was that at one time I observed an instructor actually reading in front of a student to type and move the mouse. I was not close enough to see everything that was going on but I am curious as to why the instructor was manipulating the computer for the student. There are certainly times when the expert should fix things for a student but it seems like the student should have to experiment with helping him or her self also.
Other Notes
Although not required, I want to include personal notes about the experience here to help myself remember what events occur ed and perhaps have someone help reflect upon my own problems.
The students did not seem pleased that we were there recording the lesson. One girl specifically told me she did not want to be videotaped and tried to cover her face every time I moved the camera past her (even if I was just moving from one direction to the other and she happened to be between the two points). One instructor (though I think she was a substitute) also expressed her desire to not be on tape. I think we will be more accepted once we are not taping. I do not blame them though. I certainly would not want to be taped either.
We arrived at the school about 30 minutes before the students and I still felt unprepared when the students arrived. I borrowed the video camera from Indiana University and it was not charged. With only 30 minutes before the students arrived I was only able to obtain about 18 minutes of charge (I believe it was 18) before the lesson began. Then I had to figure out how to format the DVD and put it on "extended play" and as a result missed the first few minutes of instructing. The low battery charge resulted the in the camera shutting off (when it said there was still about 8 minutes remaining on the battery) and me then having to stay attached to the wall for power. This drastically reduced my ability to record students since there were only two students near the outlet and one did not want recorded.
Technology does hate me. Although it is not recorded on my tape, my problems with the camera were recorded through a classmate's video. Toward the end of the lesson the camera I was using said there was an error on the disk and that it had to fix it. After the camera fixed the error, the message telling me about the error occurred at least one more time. I do not know what I did to cause the error and I am not sure how the camera fixed it.
My last concern after observations is with the requirements for my class. We are designing our own lesson and will eventually be teaching it to these students. I think we might be reaching for too much. In the 45 minutes (or was it 60?) that the students were in the lab none of the students were able to finish their letters. If writing a letter in Word is a 2 day activity, how many days will it take for the students to make a tour of their school with pictures and audio tracks and perhaps Google Globe? Are we going to be asking for too much?
1. Set-up the video camera to observe a class period.
2. Review the videotape at a later time.
3. List, describe, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of technology use, as well as the strategies used for teaching and learning. Bring the videotape to the following class so we can discuss your reflections together.
Response for Lab Day One
Technology Used
~ Smartboard
This was the first time I'd seen a smartboard. The idea of a smartboard is wonderful. The board was used to quickly show the students how to create a formatted letter in Word. I have to admit the smartboard was fun but there were features it lacked like a keyboard and the ability to right-click. To perform these actions the instructor had to return to the computer many feet away. However, it was nice being able to follow the instructors hands to see where she is going to click. This appears to be the main advantage of the smartboard over feeding the computer screen to a TV monitor or projector.
~ Flashdrive
Each student has a flash drive provided by the school The students were instructed to leave the flash drives so their documents saved on them would be available next week. No instructions were given regarding the flash drives and it appeared the students had prior knowledge of how they worked. However, the problem I had with the flash drives is that things didn't seem to function normally. After the students left I had to hook up through the USB port my flash drive and a reader for the digital camera memory card to copy the pictures from the day. I hooked both up at the same time to the front of the computer through the 2 USB ports. The computer only had the capability of reading one. I could not drag the pictures directly onto my flash drive. So I had to remove my flash drive. Until recently I did not know about the "Safely Remove Hardware" option (it always appears on my personal computer because of my external hard-drive and my Internet card but I never used it for those so thought it was just a useless program my dad installed). However, I now know that removing a flash drive without stopping the processes first could potentially cause it to crash. The computers at the elementary school lacked this feature. Actually, the "safely remove hardware" existed but it said it was locked and could not perform the action. I don't understand why the students are using flash drives if they can't use them properly. Maybe a disk or Internet location would be better for saving if the students can not be taught proper use of the flash drives.
~Word
Microsoft Word was used for this project. Each student created a template for a letter so all they needed to do was type the body of the letter. This was interesting to me because I didn't know of this feature. In my past computer classes we learned to write business letters formatting them by hand. The kids seemed to be familiar with Word which helped things run smoothly.
Teaching and Learning Strategies
One particular strategy that I found exciting was the male instructors use of his body. He never spoke to the students standing up. He knelt down and sat to position himself at the level of the students. I'm more experienced with teaching older students where kneeling down would put me below their level so I was impressed to see this different strategy geared toward younger students. I was also intrigued by some of the instructors doing parts of the project for the children. Each ch id was given explicit written instructions to assist them in the process and one student was continuously asking me questions about what he should do next. I felt he wasn't using his full capability since he was asking me what to do instead of reading the instructions. However, it appeared as if other students were doing the same thing and the instructors were telling them what steps to perform. Even more interesting though was that at one time I observed an instructor actually reading in front of a student to type and move the mouse. I was not close enough to see everything that was going on but I am curious as to why the instructor was manipulating the computer for the student. There are certainly times when the expert should fix things for a student but it seems like the student should have to experiment with helping him or her self also.
Other Notes
Although not required, I want to include personal notes about the experience here to help myself remember what events occur ed and perhaps have someone help reflect upon my own problems.
The students did not seem pleased that we were there recording the lesson. One girl specifically told me she did not want to be videotaped and tried to cover her face every time I moved the camera past her (even if I was just moving from one direction to the other and she happened to be between the two points). One instructor (though I think she was a substitute) also expressed her desire to not be on tape. I think we will be more accepted once we are not taping. I do not blame them though. I certainly would not want to be taped either.
We arrived at the school about 30 minutes before the students and I still felt unprepared when the students arrived. I borrowed the video camera from Indiana University and it was not charged. With only 30 minutes before the students arrived I was only able to obtain about 18 minutes of charge (I believe it was 18) before the lesson began. Then I had to figure out how to format the DVD and put it on "extended play" and as a result missed the first few minutes of instructing. The low battery charge resulted the in the camera shutting off (when it said there was still about 8 minutes remaining on the battery) and me then having to stay attached to the wall for power. This drastically reduced my ability to record students since there were only two students near the outlet and one did not want recorded.
Technology does hate me. Although it is not recorded on my tape, my problems with the camera were recorded through a classmate's video. Toward the end of the lesson the camera I was using said there was an error on the disk and that it had to fix it. After the camera fixed the error, the message telling me about the error occurred at least one more time. I do not know what I did to cause the error and I am not sure how the camera fixed it.
My last concern after observations is with the requirements for my class. We are designing our own lesson and will eventually be teaching it to these students. I think we might be reaching for too much. In the 45 minutes (or was it 60?) that the students were in the lab none of the students were able to finish their letters. If writing a letter in Word is a 2 day activity, how many days will it take for the students to make a tour of their school with pictures and audio tracks and perhaps Google Globe? Are we going to be asking for too much?
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
What is F500?
My name is Joanna. I earned my B.S. in Mathematics from Indiana University and am not working toward my M.A.T. Why do you ask am I spending 3 years of my life to obtain certification to teach? Well, the answer is simple. The math department will fund me to take classes and the School of Education will not. Therefore, I will still be attending Indiana University until my student teaching in 2009. The good news is that I'll have 5 semesters of experience teaching beginning math classes at the college level. Currently I instruct X018 MTWF from 12:20-1:10.
For the M.A.T. program, I take half of my classes in the Department of Mathematics and half in the School of Education. My math classes are quite standard. I am not forced to take as difficult math classes as those students working toward a masters or a PhD so the requirements are not horrible. My other classes are in the School of Education. That is where F500 comes into play. I took some education classes (working toward certification) as an undergrad and therefore was able to take the "old" requirements for certification. The School of Education seems to always be changing their requirements. My old requirement requires a computer class and F500 happens to be the only class left that fulfills the computer requirement. I am the only student in F500 but it meets with W210 in which 5 students are enrolled.
W210 is a computing class focusing on techniques to integrate technology into the classroom. This blog was built with the intention of recording my experiences in the classroom along with my weekly trips to an after school program at a local elementary school. How will volunteering at a local elementary school help me - someone who intends to teach high school math? Well, hopefully I will discover that soon enough.
For the M.A.T. program, I take half of my classes in the Department of Mathematics and half in the School of Education. My math classes are quite standard. I am not forced to take as difficult math classes as those students working toward a masters or a PhD so the requirements are not horrible. My other classes are in the School of Education. That is where F500 comes into play. I took some education classes (working toward certification) as an undergrad and therefore was able to take the "old" requirements for certification. The School of Education seems to always be changing their requirements. My old requirement requires a computer class and F500 happens to be the only class left that fulfills the computer requirement. I am the only student in F500 but it meets with W210 in which 5 students are enrolled.
W210 is a computing class focusing on techniques to integrate technology into the classroom. This blog was built with the intention of recording my experiences in the classroom along with my weekly trips to an after school program at a local elementary school. How will volunteering at a local elementary school help me - someone who intends to teach high school math? Well, hopefully I will discover that soon enough.
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