Reflection #9

In our final presentations for Instructional Design, one presenter was teaching a unit on shapes. To show us the different shapes she made a Smartboard presentation with pictures for us to identify. Unfortunately, the pictures worked on her laptop but not on the Smartboard in the classroom. In order to get the pictures to show up, she had to put the laptop under the document camera and open the document camera on the Smartboard. It was kind of ironic that she had a technology related problem, and then solved it with a different type of technology.

Reflection #8

Today I had to do a final presentation in Instructional Design. We could include an anticipatory set to introduce the lesson for the day. My lesson was on the unit circle, so I went on youtube to try and find a cool way to introduce the unit circle to my class. I was able to find a funny song about the unit circle that another teacher had made. Using technology to introduce my topic with a video and song seemed to be more interesting than me trying to explain it using pictures and logic. It ended up being more fun for the students and they were more energetic and excited to do the activity after I showed them the video and they heard the song relating measurements to the unit circle.

Week #14

I looked at a few articles relating to technology and education. However, since we have been talking recently about digital citizenship and I presented on social media, I found this article to be very interesting:
Social Media and Education
Basically, there have been many studies recently that linked using social media in the classroom with higher retention abilities in students, especially in the first years of college. Using social media as a form of digital engagement seems to be the way education is headed, and educators and students alike are using social media at an increasing rate. I think using social media to engage students can be a powerful tool as an educator, but we also have to be careful that we don't start integrating technology for technology's sake.

Reflection #7

I was talking to my sister today about the new inspire graphing calculators that they use in the Issaquah School District. She told me that one of the new things you can do on an inspire that you can’t do on a TI84 is type in logs of different bases. If you were using a TI you would have to use the change of base formula to accomplish this. Because the entire district uses inspire software, students in the Issaquah School District don’t know the change of base formula. It was strange for me to think about the way technology can actually change the content of a class and the material that students learn.

Week #13

Word-typing, spell check, tables, bullets and numbered lists, outlines, subscript and superscript to write equations, inserting symbols and equations

Excel-I don’t use Excel on a regular basis, but I have used it before to make and edit schedules

Power point-slideshow, pictures, different layouts and backgrounds, linking videos to slides

 

3 projects I could use to help teach students

-Students could use excel to complete a project involving compound interest. By using features in excel they could make a spreadsheet of a mock budget.

-Students could use Powerpoint in the technology project I am already planning to use for this class. They would present geometry theorums and real life examples in a powerpoint presentation.

-Students could use word to complete their IA projects. They would be explaining in words and mathematical language the process of a specific problem. They would use a normal word document but also learn how to use the math tools in word to use exponents or subscript.

Week #12

Teaching with Interactive White Boards was Dr. Marzano article I found. It basically summarized a study involving teachers using or not using interactive white boards. The classrooms that used the white boards to present the information was associated with a 16 percentile point increase in student achievement. One thing I learned is that even though the teachers used the technology, it was not a guarentee that the students would achieve more. The technology had to be integrated with the essential content, rather than the technology and graphics taking the focus away from the actual lesson. Something else that was mentioned was that it is important for teachers to explain why an answer is correct/incorrect when taking polls of student responses. This is something that I could apply in my classroom. I sometimes have a tendancy to acknowledge correct answers and then move on, but that first of all, isn't engaging to students, and second of all, isn't going to help anyone who wasn't correct. Going along with that, what he said about pacing the classroom is also something that would help me to engage more with student responses.

Week #11

Blog Comment -(at the bottom-currently awaiting moderation)

The blog I read was about double-dosing algebra classes. The basic idea is taking students that are struggling and placing them in a second algebra class in addition to the normal algebra class. In the second class, they solve word problems and explain processes to the class. One interesting thing that resulted from this program is that not only did the math scores eventually increase, but ACT verbal scores increased among these students as well. My comment basically stated that even if our students might not use algebra after high school, this program has other benefits and for that purpose alone it is beneficial to the student.

Week #10

Bloom's Taxonomy

http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Bloom%27s_Taxonomy#end

Bloom's Taxonomy is basically a teired model of cognitive levels of complexity. In order from lowest to highest, the levels are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Integrating technology into the classroom can help to create a more individualized learning environment for the student. This relates to Bloom's Taxonomy by allowing students that are ready to move on to the higher levels of thinking to move on at their own pace. Using technology in the classroom also provides an opportunity for students to take the time to make sure they understand the first levels before they move on.