Ch. 16 - Math Supported by Internet

When I read this chapter, I was impressed and quite shocked by the amount of opportunities provided with the use of internet within the classroom. My previous thought was that the internet could only really help with creating a course website that students could view from home for additional help with classroom material and expectations of the course. I never realized that there were so many websites that have interactive math activities on them. This could provide a great way for students to participate in a fun activity that will keep them engaged throughout the lesson. This is also a helpful tool for students outside of the classroom as well. When they are having trouble visualizing their homework problems, they can go back to the same websites that were used in class and redo the activities to better understand the material. Using the internet creates an accessible way for students to learn math and how it applies to real life situations. Some of these websites incorporate different ways to analyze data that is prevalent in today's society such as earthquake activity and marine data. This can allow the students to research a topic that they find interesting and report back what they found out by looking at and analyzing the data. This is a great way to implement group projects that require the students to not only learn the math concepts required to analyze data, but also learn how to work as a team to accomplish a goal.

Math Supported by Internet

This chapter describes the opportunities available to educators and students through the Internet. Many resources are provided that have lesson plans, curriculum materials, and interactive activities. These websites are very valuable in helping educators prepare lessons. The section then gives examples of data resources that give way to data sets, real-time data projects, and collaborative and group projects. These Internet sites help support mathematics learning in the subject of statistics, but also in other subject areas to show how mathematics works in everyday situations. As we have noticed in our class already, access to videos can make learning entertaining while still being educational. Also, the Internet provides opportunity for students who miss class to watch the lesson via video. Finally, similar to our Wikis, this chapter talks about the opportunity for teachers and students to publish their work online. This allows others to benefit from it, as well as the producer to benefit from criticism of others.

What I was most surprised by was that as I went to the various websites suggested in the chapter, I realized that in all of my 'google' searches for our previous class topics, I have not come across even one of those resources. I am actually bothered by this. I would expect to find reliable sources when searching the Internet. However, it seems that the unreliable sites come up instead of the good ones. Thus, I am glad I now have a list of reliable sources and I like the advice given in the chapter about selecting Internet resources. 

Did anyone else find it odd that all the book's supposedly well-known sites are not ones that come up in searches?

Chapter 2 - Videos in English Classrooms

I found this chapter to be particularly interesting. It describes the benefits of using videos in English classrooms, as well as the steps to take to allow for maximum creativity. I really like the idea of allowing the students to get into groups and figure out their ideas for themselves. By allowing the students to create different projects for the same concept, the students' creativity is sparked and brought to full capacity.

In addition, the students all learn vital skills about the roles involved with making a movie and the process that comes with it. For an English classroom, there is also a great opportunity for writing. Writing a script for a video not only is a great way to get experience writing, but it is also more fun for some students because it allows them to write something other than traditional prose. Without realizing it, students are getting even more experience than they realize. Using videos is a wonderful way to get students involved in the creative process and turn on thoughts about English that they would have never tried before.

Chapter 12

The idea of using technology in the Elementary classroom is great. Learning at a young age will help the students in the future. I had never thought about using blogs in the Elementary classroom, but it really does seem like a great idea. Everyone can get their ideas out, and it's a much better way to communicate outside of the classroom. Blogging is something that I never did before college, and I really think that I missed out by not using it before. It opens up so many different worlds that are not readily available.

Email is another valuable resource for the classroom. The statement about teachers being able to only send it to certain students really stuck out to me. We all know that students are at different levels in the classroom, and it would be nice to put students in different groups and have them working on different projects. The age of technology really helps to get each student involved and have his/her ideas heard.

Bookmarks are another very valuable resource. I never thought about the fact that each time you want to add a bookmark, it would take hours to add it to each individual computer. The websites that help organize these are a great idea. All of these websites are very helpful, and it's nice that they are available for everyone to use.

Chapter 8 focused the improvement of writing in elementary grades with the use of word processor. Teachers and schools are looking of ways to improve their writing lessons and styles. This chapter talks about text to table conversion which I thought to be a very innovative and possibly very beneficial way of teaching writing skills.

While I was shadowing, I actually witnessed a teacher using the smartboard to better enhance writing skills. She had placed sentences in to a table and then used the tools of the smartboard to point out sentence structure and sentence errors and corrections. It proved very helpful and the children in the classroom had fun while learning.

It is important for teachers to keep up with not only the new and different ways to teach writing skills, but how to teach these writing skills, for the skills and technology keep evolving.

Chapter 8; Word Processing to Improve Writing

This chapter stressed that by using word processing, younger students can greatly improve their writing. Younger students need time to learn the organizational patterns of writing. This is especially important now that state testing is increasing. It is also important that childrens' voices are not stifled and that it communicates well.

I thought it was very interesting reading about how schools are using computer software to help students organize their thoughts. The color coding of all of the components of a well written paragraph also struck me as a good idea. I can remember writing journal entries everyday in first through fourth grade. We also color coded our entries, but with highlighers. Word processors can make this process much easier and quicker. This is very helpful because it helps student realize where they can make improvements in their writing and whether it is organized well. It was also interesting to read about the text to table conversion. Students can convert their paragraphs to one-column tables where each sentence has its own cell. This seems like a very effective way for students to learn. Students can assess their writing even further and add more sentences whenever they feel necessary in a new column.

This reading really opened my eyes to new ways of using technology in the classroom. I had never even thought of using word processors as a way to improve the organizational skills of childrens' writing.

Chapter 8 Word Processing to Improve Writing

I really connected with the last paragraph of the chapter. It said that, "Teaching the writing process to students intimidates many teachers who don't consider themselves strong writers. Using technology to help students evaluate and improve their own writing has given Lenski teachers more confidence as they work with students of the writing process." (114) I know that I am not the strongest writer, and it really makes me more confident to see that other people have the same problem and that there is a tool that can help us out. Not only is it beneficial to us that we have something so wonderful to help us teach, but the book also pointed out that students need to have consistency when they learn to write. If everyone used this program, then all students would have the exact same information at hand. Our schools did not stress writing as much as other schools, and I feel like it has definitely effected me. I would feel a lot more confident if we had all learned the same things.

Another really good suggestion I got out of this reading is the use of color-coded writing. Having students use different colors to differentiate between opening, topic, and supporting sentences is a great idea. I'm a very visual person, and would have loved to see the colors when I was learning to write. This color-coding technique is also great because it teaches students to plan ahead when writing. Too often, students will just begin to write a paper without thinking about what they are going to say. Having to come up with a red opening sentence, then a green topic sentence will really help the young writer to visualize the paper.

Another aspect of writing that needs to be emphasized more clearly is the revision of the paper. Too many students just write the paper and are done. If the teacher makes them do revisions, they will simply correct the simple things like spelling. They need to be taught that revisions include adding more onto the paper, and making sure that there is enough support for each main idea.