Exit Slip 12/9

To start this day off rather confused because there is no week 14 agenda on D2L.  There is a link, but it goes literally nowhere.  Well ok, it actually goes to an empty google site.

In my middle school math classroom I would like to integrate an interactive whiteboard and possibly a SMARTTable so my students can have a more hands on way to learn their geometry than just drawing the angles on a chalkboard.  I would hope to be able to create more interactive games to make the subject more entertaining to the students.  I would use a networking site such as twitter, blogger, and/or wikispaces to list homework, answer homework questions and post notes for students to have access to outside of class.  I as a former student at that age has gone ahead and left out notes that I realized I needed later outside of school and did not have access to a secondary means of attaining important notes other than calling a friend/classmate.  Since I would like to use an interactive whiteboard (SMARTBoard) I would like to also create screencasts of the SMARTBoard lectures (if you would like to call them that in middle school) to post on my blogger site for students who were absent from class or even for my substitute to use in my absence.  Of course, being like 10 years from now I'll be asking Professor Boyer during Ella's parent teacher conference about newer technologies that I may have not been keeping track of as much as him.

I am really bummed over the changes that were "wikileaked" to us about changes not only to this class but also to our Professional Portfolio.  The changes on the book would've really helped me to complete the tasks on time without having to scramble to fix all the posts.

When I originally thought of technology in the classroom I really thought of the media of projector screens, televisions, calculators, and computers and really not about what is being used on them.  After going through this class I have learned probably more resources and got to try a new technologies I never would have heard of or tried before.  My new best friend is probably SMARTResourses with its collection of lesson plans on there.  Prior to this class I had one professor at University of Wisconsin Marshfield/Wood County who used the SMARTBoard as a whiteboard than for its actual resources.

Exit Slip 12/2

Miss Bobiash has integrated technology into her classroom and basically allowed her students to thrive by using it.  For instance, her SMARTBoard wasn't just a tool for her to use for teaching, but also for her students to actually interact with.  Her students also participated in online collaborative projects with students in the area and worldwide.  Miss Bobiash went ahead and started using blogging as a way to tell students what the upcoming assignments were.  No only did it preview but also reflected on assignments.  The blog also gave a chance to allow parents to see what was going on in the classroom.  She opens up a lot of technology like laptops to the students, but we were not sure if they were given to each student or offered on school grounds.
The Jigsaw conversation piece was a rather fun and interesting way to break down our discussion.  I was in group #2 and we talked about creative ways to gain technology (making it yourself, buying it yourself, spearheading fundraising).  My second topic was talking about not using your school computer at home for personal reasons.  I felt that using your work computer for personal reasons was a way for people to get a look at a personal side you may not want people to see.  I became long-winded in our group so then our group had to explain our piece to the class, oops.

BWP Chapter 9

Social networks are plain and simple to me as places you can meet people to stay connected.  A few of the popular sites that I have had contact with before this class and even before this chapter were MySpace and Facebook.  I use those sites for ways to connect with extended family and friends from high school and junior college.  I opened a MySpace account because it is easily customizable to show your character.  Another reason I opened a MySpace because at the time Facebook was still a eligible college networking site where you needed a valid school email address to join.  I only learned about another networking site before, Twitter, with everyone talking about tweets and Facebook making adaptions to their original format to mirror Twitter.  Ning is still a site that is rather new to me.  Ning is basically as customizable as a blank website where a teacher can develop it with posting personal profiles, photos, video links, groups, discussions, and blogs.
Before reading this chapter, I never really thought of any of these social networking sites being a tool I would use in my classroom, much less not knowing all of these (Ning) existed.  I could see using Facebook as a way to connect with fellow teachers in my school, in my state, in my content area, and stay connected with the people who went through the education program with me in college.  I guess because of hearing all the professional athletes using Twitter to make a joke of themselves I just found Twitter a public way to create a story.  I never really put thought into using Facebook/Twitter as a way to give students links on related content to class or even forwarding classroom/school news to parents and teachers alike.

BWP Chapter 8

Chapter 8 covers various ways to present materials through audio and visual means through your computer or other devices.  Originally when I heard the term podcast, I seriously thought that it was something that can be only played on an ipod and nothing else.  The chapter not only points out that a podcast is more than just an audio file that can be played on anything that can play an mp3 audio file.  I knew that a podcast was basically an informational audio file prior to reading the chapter because my favorite baseball team Chicago Cubs announcers have been doing podcasts for the last season and a half so I have become aware what it is about.  The video features talked about in the chapter of screencasts and streaming video were rather simple not only by name and popularity.  Screencasts are simple to figure out just by the name that it would be a telecast basically of what is on your computer screen.  Before reading the checking the chapter I really wasn't sure of how it worked, much less what can be used to make a screencast an effective school tool.  A couple tools that I feel are popular for not only home, but also school use are youtube and even live streaming audio.  Many of my colleagues use youtube as a way to show samples of lessons they are presentations they're doing basically being the lead example of how youtube can be used in schools.  I use youtube to post videos of events I have attended that I would like to share with the public.  I listen to live streaming audio shows of music that my friends have produced and put on their respective outlets.  When it comes to live streaming video, there are outlets like the sample of ustream from the book where you could use in class for news students can use.  Other outlets I have seen are Stickam and Justin.tv.  Some television networks offer tape-delayed video on their sites while some even offer live feeds of their news casts.

BWP Chapter 7

Chapter 7, Fun With Flickr highlights the positives and advantages of using a media sourse like Flickr to post, edit, customize, and label pictures for use with the students or parents.  I am more inept with a similar program photobucket to post and share pictures for others to see or use.  As the chapter points out that Flickr can use a RSS feed to give me as a teacher a way to tag a topic and if someone posts a picture with that topic, I'll know about it.  I think that would be way easier than just going ahead and using  a search site like Google to constantly try to find a picture on a topic.  I really like the option to be able to tag portions of the photos and give a description through text for viewers to understand what is going on in the picture.  I would find that helpful describing what was done on a field trip to explain to incoming students, fellow staff members, and other teachers inquiring about the field trip location.  Not only can you post/view pictures but also video to describe what was going on.  That also can be done on describing pictures taken on lessons in the classroom.  As a future teacher, this chapter really opened my eyes to using visual media like Flickr to show my parents different aspects that they can't see on a daily basis.

BWP Chapter 6

Chapter 6 The Social Web: Learning Together showcases the new ways of communicating and sharing between people over the Internet.  After being prefaced in the chapters before about wikis and RSS feeds, the chapter starts off with ironically a combination of the two in Twitter.  Twitter is essentially a free RSS feed that people can get information about other people and their interests.  Before reading this chapter and discussing the topic I really had no use for Twitter over Facebook.  I would only use Twitter as a way to post assignments for my students and to keep parents updated on in class tasks.  Facebook started out with short ways to communicate much like dry-erase boards on doors in college dorms with ability to show pictures and I would not want to use that as a educational resource over Twitter which can use pictures but is more based on the limited 'microblogging' Twitter offers.  Another feature of this chapter was the topic of social bookmarking.  I really never thought anything like social bookmarking was around.  I was one of the people prior to using Delicious in class that if I didn't have the bookmark from my laptop to my disposal I would have to search and hope I found the right site.  I will more than likely retain my Delicious account after completing it for the assignment because it is way easier than to just transfer favorites from machine to machine as you toss out computers.

BWP Chapters 4

Chapter 4 is simply titled Wikis and talking about its nuances.  When I heard the term wiki tossed around in this and another of my classes, the first thing I thought about is wikipedia.  I couldn't figure out why we needed to make a wikipedia page but of course that was all my knowledge of anything termed wiki.  I found it rather interesting that in the chapter it said that a purposefully incorrect post on a wikipedia page was corrected and edited to become correct in a matter of hours.  I never thought that a wiki was like a blog version of a live encyclopedia when it comes down to wikipedia.  Oddly enough the chapter points out that people find wikipedia to be the most accurate encyclopedias.  Some other people are more skeptical because of the ability to easily edit posts.  But much like encyclopedias, wikipedia is made up mostly of siting sources.  Wikis are more that just known as wikipedia, but in the classroom teachers and students can create a wiki to list their knowledge on a topic related to a task in class.

BWP Chapters 1-3

Reading the beginning of chapter one I really had to laugh that the beginning of the Internet started back when I was only five-years-old back in 1989.  Not to mention that Internet became simpler when I was in the second grade.  I found that interesting because we didn't get our first computer in our house until 1995 because my older sister could use the resource in high school.  I want to say that we got our first dial-up Internet connection under two years later.  Of course then Internet was much slower and I didn't consider it a teaching/learning resource because it was faster to just page through books than crawl on the Internet.  Not to mention I didn't know what a blog, wiki, or podcast was and even when I heard about them I imagined tech nerds with their glasses, pocket protectors, and DOS manuals.
One thing that I found helpful in the chapter was the fact that it provided tips on what is a good website and what is not for research.  I always thought that the .com sights were not effective and the sites like .gov were.  I'm glad I know that a little better now.  I found it interesting to use blogging for many concepts of in-class work and providing ideas, for instance, the AP Calculus class the book used as an example.  The teacher can post ideas about the new chapter to give the students something to prelude/reflect on.  Of course, that is very much similar to what I am currently doing for this class.  Of course for younger students it is best to go through what is expected on the weblog and even the security settings.  It would even be smart to keep parents and administrators in the loop about what is going on and expectations of the blog.

Rethinking Chapter 9

Chapter 9 talks about how technologies that children use are usually not understood by their parents.  One of the technologies that they mention is the video game Madden football.  If I told my parents that I was playing Madden on Super Nintendo, Playstation, and Playstation 2 while I was in middle and high school as homework, they would've taken the systems and hid them in a closet.  Believe it or not, but I actually used Madden and football in general to help become faster in my multiples of 7 to do better on my times tests when I was younger.  One of my friends mentioned how the sevens are just like scoring touchdowns.  So then the next time I played the video game I was more aware of the score and became faster on my seven multples.  Of course growing up as technology has increased from being like a one dimentional video to being two dimentional and now even three dimentional video.  Many of the games can be used as simulations for missions like the new video game Call of Duty Black Ops.  Between the systems of Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii there are many games that can be used to help aid in curriculums, even physical education with the latest advances in all three systems.  Not only video games, but also just watching tv has been benefical to academics believe it or not.  As the book pointed out that people can watch their favorite shows and then post on fan sites or blogs related on the shows.  That is where the students practice their writing skills and interpersonal skills.  With these various skills it leaves the schools in a place where they can impliment technology inovations as a suppliment in education or be replaced by more progressive schooling.

Exit Slip 11/18/10

Well, today's class started out with going over the grade updates and I found out my cool tools screencast bombed.  The outline I decided to use wasn't very effective because as I transitioned between points I used the "uhms".
Discusssion plus/Delta on Chapter 10.
One positive we used in our presentation was right away we broke into a jigsaw discussion groups.  The group made serious effort to make colors and shapes to divide the groups.  A related delta to using the jigsaw is to actually call it a jigsaw discussion to improve our terminology vocabulary.  The group did a positive job using multiple tools like the interactive whiteboard and using the document camera instead of focusing on one tool.  A delta is to watch the "uhms" again, which I find to be a problem with myself.  Another positive that they went over the directions prior to moving into the groups to avoid confusion and getting off task.  They also had good movement roaming between the group but a change would be to coordinate it differently so once one instructor leaves the group another doesn't arrive.

I found the media search rather fun when it came down to finding items to get one of the five topics of an online video, a podcast, a SMART Notebook lesson, a Scratch project, and an online game.  I found it kind of fun to do a quick search.  A lot of the material I searched to begin was just to get the ball rolling and that I wanted to get at least three, but instead I got four.  My topic that I would like to teach is mathematics in the Elementary or more likely the Middle School level.  I found it interesting that I found a person who posted youtube videos of homeschooling mathematics.