Project 2

After being introduced to Photo Story, I am very excited about how our projects will turn out. As we viewed and listened to sample projects, I could already tell that this is another project that will come in handy in the future when we become educators. I can picture myself using photo stories to add variety in the classroom and to introduce topics in a fun and interesting manner.

I am a little concerned about my own project, however, because I haven't thought of any great ideas yet. I have a general idea of what I want to do, but I am having trouble being creative with it. My content area is elementary math, and I am thinking about doing something related to comparing whole numbers (greater than, less than, equal to) and comparing the number of objects in different groups. Hopefully it will come together for me soon!

I do believe, however, that this project will be very beneficial to us in the future, and I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Project 2 Thoughts

This past Tuesday in class, we finished putting together our contributions to our wiki site. It was good to see everyone had collaborated and put some useful information on the site. This is definitely a good resource to use if we ever need help with Smart Board in the future. We also were introduced to Photo Stories. As a class we used our headphones (these make me feel like I am a pilot, by the way) and listened to some stories done by local high schoolers. These were interesting to listen to because they discussed local histories of the surrounding areas in Bloomington, Normal, and Eureka. I enjoyed the ones about local theater and woman's athletics. We also got assigned subjects to compose our own photo story. The topic I am doing is related to physical education and the state of the body for elementary students. Personally, I find the body more interesting so I am gearing my story towards hygiene, drug use, and healthy eating. So far, those are the broad ideas. I also downloaded songs from Yo Gabba Gabba and The Wiggles on iTunes that pertain to these topics...AWESOME! I am interested in starting this project because I have never worked with the program before and am excited to see the final result. Happy blogging everyone!

Technologies of the Week

I have really enjoyed the technology of the week presentations we have had in class so far. The google earth presentation was cool because I never knew how many programs there were that went along with the initial program. The different programs will be very useful in a history or geography class since you can show different progressions, and 20 years from now when they have 20 years of pictures it will be good to show the students how much areas have changes in the past 20 years and it will give some prespective on how much the world has changed in the thousands of years of human history. I also have found a lot of help from the podcast presentation. Podcasts are also very useful for history, since many news sources are producing podcasts now and these will be good to use for current event issues, and it will also be good to show students how people were assessing history as it is being made now compared to how things end up in the future. I have even used the search engines provided with this presentation to help my smart board project. The Flickr presentation was also useful to me since I never realized how much you could actually use Flickr for educational purposes rather than just entertainment.

Podcasts, flickr...technology!

I did not know much about podcasts before having to research them for my presentation. I knew they were broadcasts you could download and listen to, but that was about it. While researching for my project I realized they were actually much more than that. Podcasts can really be utilized to be extremely important in the classroom. If your class has its own podcast, it is a great way to keep everyone on the same page and creates much less work for the you (the teacher) in being able to keep absent students up to date and struggling students more repetition. I know I mentioned it in my presentation, but I think it would really help take some stress off the teacher. Finding podcasts is fairly easy and therefore makes them accessible to everyday lessons. I had no idea podcasts could also come in video format, which is great for foreign language. Not only can the students hear about new stuff, but they can watch it as well. I know I found a great podcast on a specific vocabulary unit and showed images of the vocabulary words as it was said out loud. Also, the one posted on the website with Tulum is a great representation of the cultural possibilities. I never had much culture incorporated into my Spanish learning, and I think that in school today culture has a much bigger emphasis. Therefore, it is important in not only telling students about these cultural places and events but also being able to show them.

Flickr was also very interesting to me. I had never even heard of it before, but I think it can also be a great tool to use in the classroom. I can definitely see myself using it in the foreign language classroom.

I'm excited to learn about all of the future technologies of the week, because just with the past 3 I have learned so much and I feel like I am really expanding the possibilities of my teaching. I am really excited about that, because I love feeling like I can use all of the technologies to put in lesson plans that I know my students will react well too. I'm ready to use the technologies...now all I need is a class!

Technologies of the Week

For the three different technologies that were introduced to us, I think the Google Earth was probably the most useful technology I could see myself using in a classroom for math. The uses for population, geometry using real examples of land and space, and even creating your own buildings can be used to make math seem more tangible. Podcasts, as well, connect students to real life applications of math, as Bobbie mentioned about NASA having a podcast that could update daily about math they use. Flicker seems like it would be the hardest to incorporate into a mathematical lesson, however I think it would be the most optimal way to view how math is evident in the most basic parts of nature. I'm excited to see the future technologies to explore how I can use different technologies within my future classroom.

Reflecting on Technology

So far in class, we have worked with Smart technology, Google Earth, Flickr, and Podcasts. Some of these technologies I had been aware of previously, but others are completely new to me. Flickr is one I had never heard of before. I think there are some really cool opportunities there to manipulate and create with images that students can find about different subject areas, or even for art in general. I think it can really provide a hands on experience--which would be very beneficial for kinesthetic learners in particular. Plus, it would make projects in any area more fun. Flickr can also provide some good tools and activities for us to use in our future classrooms.

This past week I worked a lot with Google Earth, since I am focusing on Geography for my SmartBoard lesson (at the Elementary school level). I think that Google Earth can really come in handy for geography and science lessons. I was able to record a virtual tour of the U.S. looking at various land forms, such as deserts, mountains, forests, and wetlands. In my lesson in particular it came in handy to give students a visual on how many different climates and landforms with have just in our own country and where they are in relation to each other. It is more exiciting than simply looking at a map with texture because the students know that they are looking at actual satellite images.

All in all, my experience with all these technology has really opened my eyes to the endless learning tools that we have at our fingers. There are so many more options now to create activites that hold interest and present material in new, unique ways. I think that education can really benefit from all these different tools we have learned about in the past few weeks.

technology of the week

So far I have definitely found the technology of the week projects really helpful and interesting. I was immediately intrigued by the podcasts. I have never really used or listened to podcasts before, and doing my smartboard project I found that I could use a podcast of a reading of the novel I am teaching to make the exercises more engaging. Instead of just reading from the board or from their books, the students can hear the text. Without the technology of the week presentations, I don't think I would have even considered using podcasts in my project. I also like the idea of Flickr because it allows for more creativity in an English classroom. I think any time you can incorporate images and students can actually see something other than text in front of them, they are going to immediately be more interested and pay more attention. Flickr is a great resource to find writing prompts, share photos, create image projects, and much more. I am using both of these technologies in my smartboard project and am sure I will be able to use them in a future classroom.