End of the year thoughts

Well it is the end of another semester! I honestly cannot believe it at all. This has been a really good semester (especially Coach Crowton getting fired!) I have learned a lot in all my classes but I feel like I have learned a lot in my technology class. I was thinking what I had learned after class today and I realized that I really have learned a lot about technology and how to intergrate it into my classroom. I however really liked the point today that technology should be used to get kids on the same level instead of dividing them. I hope that I have the accessibility to technology when I am a teacher.

Lesson Plan Overview

My lesson plan is for 10th grade geography Standard 1 Objective 2. My plan is for the students to make a mental map of different countries information using Excel and the internet. Since the internet is apart of the project the main worry is finding a website and to copy/paste the information onto excel. To counter that I will require the students to use the CIA website (www.cia.gov) which doesn't simply chart the statistics of a country, and another website of their choice for the more cultural aspects of the country. I will make an example of what the excel worksheet with different countries information.

Ethics

I really enjoyed the activities for the past two weeks. I guess I had never really sat down and thought about how technology can be used to cheat and steal (that is really what breaking copyright laws is.) I liked working in different groups and being able to learn and discuss the different ways technology can be used to cheat. I felt like we were able to come up with a good lesson plan and a good wiki. I then liked on Monday us all getting together and teaching each other about what we had learned. I thought all the lesson plans were good and that I really learned a lot about the different areas. The wikis are nice tools to have to look at and learn a little bit more.

Lesson Plan Overview

My first lesson plan deals with Standard 2 objective 1 of Geography for life, a tenth grade course. My idea is to have the students look at human environmental interaction. They will be taking pictures using a digital camera of human culture as seen on the landscape. They will then make a presentation, via powerpoint, of what they have learned about human environmental interaction using their pictures. The example I will make for this class is a slide from the powerpoint presentation using pictures I have taken.
P.S. The template for the lesson plan is not coming up. Therefore I may need to adjust this when I can actually see the lesson plan. I don't know if there is something that you guys can do to make it upload? Thanks!

Technology in my classroom

So this week we are all suppose to post on how we will use technology in our classrooms. The only technology I can really see myself using at all is excel and powerpoint. I know those are simple but they are the ones I think could be used in a history classroom in a useful way. I have been wondering if any of you other social science people feel the same way as I do, that there just isn't a lot one can do with technology in a history class?

Technology Videos

My group and I watched two movies about technology in the classroom. The first was Project Pollution. The teacher I think made a very good point about technology in this video. She said that technology should be intergrated into the classroom slowly and it does take time. Technology should also be a building base for projects instead of taking over the entire project, which was one of my rule of thumbs. The technology that they used were simple, computers, scanners and the internet. I think the use of technology was effective. The part I liked most was how they interacted with other students across the nation. Especially since they were in Hawaii but they were able to interact quickly with other places. Also what I liked about that is that it made the students more responsible for their activities. They were not just doing it for a grade but to help other schools. The students were also very excited about the projects which I think really adds to the use of technology.
The second movie we watched was Navigating by Landmarks. The technologies they used were simple as well. They used the computer to make maps from their house to the school. They also used the internet to use search engines for landmarks and to find a map on mapquest of their house. I liked that idea because it really applied the technology to the children's life. The kids also seemed to like the projects and to be actively involved. The teacher used the projects they had done to aid in the class discussion and not as the entire focus of the class discussion. I think the technolgy was effective just because the students really seemed to be excited about geography. There was some group work involved, mostly just sharing computers though since each student had to make their own map.

Intro to technology intergration

This is my response to the articles that I just read about technology intergration and the comments that Mr. West made.
In elementary school the only time we used technology was to play games and learn how to type. I first elementary school I went to I went to a typing class everyday which I have found to be helpful to me still. The second elementary school I went to a computer class once a week and I just played games. In Junior High School I started to get more involved with technology. This is about the time the internet started to get big and I had a class in 7th grade that dealt with technology. I don't think it was that effective because I don't remember learning anything in that class. In high school my teachers started to use technology with powerpoint presentations(which I find very uneffective-really people just don't pay attention during those.) and I started having homework that was done online.
If I could give advice to my teachers I would say to focus more on using the technology as a way to help increase learning. I felt like technology was used to keep us busy for a little while and there wasn't much of a point.
Through the reading I just finished and through personal experiences I would like to offer these two rules of thumb. 1st only use technology when it does not take away from valuable class discussions and learning. 2nd use technology to support what children learn while exposuring them to new ideas. The most valuable experience I had with technology was my e-mail pal from Sweden. I got to actually become friends with someone from another culture and learn in-depth about another countries culture and ideas. My e-mail pal and I still e-mail and remain close. That is the kind of experiences students should have with technology.