Powered By Blogger

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Reflection on Techs of the week, webquest, GE

One of my favorite activities that we have done in class is the webquest. I really enjoyed making an activity for the students to do. The main reason that I like the webquest so much is because of the Internet aspect. By using the Internet to research data the webquest teaches students how to use credible sources. Also the webquest provides teachers and students alike to gain new information in a fun and interesting way.

The Google Earth project was very similar to the webquest project in that we made a worksheet for students to find the answers to using Google Earth. Google Earth is a very powerful tool and contains many cool features that I previously did not know about, like 3D models and the ability to view mars and the mood. While I found it challenging to incorporate a math lesson in Google Earth, I still feel that it is a valuable tool, just perhaps not the best for a math class.

As always our class explores a new technology each week called technology of the week. Recently we have gone over primary sources, jing, and Iclicker. Of these three technologies I find that Iclicker is the technology, which best fits the math class. While jing (a screen capturing tool) and the primary sources on the Internet may be great tools for an English or history class, they have very limited use in the math classroom.

Iclicker is a way for students to take quizzes and answer questions electronically and anonymously. A math teacher could make a quick quiz to test the student’s knowledge about definitions or terms in math and ask them to either pick true or false or just pick the correct answer. The Iclicker certainly has its limitations with only being able to do multiple choice or true and false questions, however I feel that it is a very powerful tool. One of its advantages is that it is completely anonymous, so students wont feel pressured and worry about getting the answer wrong in front of their peers. Another advantage is the games that come with Iclicker. Although they were not talked about in class there are games that students can play either separately or in teams. These games bring a new aspect to learning which should act to increase the students interest level.

All in all I continue to be amazed with all of the new technologies we learn in class. I can see myself using a majority of these technologies in my classroom in the future.

1 comment:

Andrew Werkema said...

I agree that all the new technologies that we have learned about are really amazing. it is truly shocking how many new technologies are directed towards the needs of teachers