Week 5 Web 2.0

Flickr- http://www.flickr.com/

Flickr is my favorite photo sharing website.  I am really particular about having my pictures all over the internet so I like that you can set it to private. It is also a community of sorts.  You can share with your friends, tag your photos, and comment on them.  You can also access it from anywhere and on any device that connects to the internet like your cell phone.

A teacher could use this for any grade level or subject.  If you set it to private and only allow your students and their families to have access.  You may have to monitor the comments though. As a parent I would love to have seen more pictures from my child’s school day.  You could also have a student photographer of the day or week.  There are many options to incorporate this into your classroom.

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/

Now many of you may be thinking that Facebook does not have a place in the classroom.  I disagree to an extent.  I do not think it should accessed into the classroom, but it is going to be outside the classroom, like it or not.  My guess would be that Facebook is the website that most students are on after school more than any other site.  Coming from personal experience I do not like to have to check 7 different websites each day.  Like right now I have my UWA email, my work email, my personal email, black board, and Facebook that I feel like I have to check each day.  If a teacher created a Facebook group that would eliminate at least 1 additional site a student or parent has to check. For elementary school it may be geared more towards the parents, but let’s face it (no pun intended), everyone has a Facebook. I could see this as a plus because when one person asks a question, often times others have the same question.  If a student or parent could visit the group page and see the question then the teacher wouldn’t have to answer each parent in different emails.  Another HUGE plus to the groups would be that you do not have to be friends on Facebook to be in the same group.  This solves the problem of students being friends with teachers on Facebook. A Facebook group would also be great for teachers too! 

Multimedia Use in the Classroom

Again as I have in many posts, I would like to say I am so glad to be taking this class in the summer where I have actually had time to research some things that are going to be useful to me in the near future. 
The first activity I will be describing, I found on a blog from my Google Reader.  The link is http://educationcloset.com/2011/05/26/great-software-for-kids-and-arts-integration/.  This will take you to the specific blog post that I read.  The multimedia part I found interesting is how she uses Google Earth in her classroom.  (http://www.google.com/earth/index.html)
I have some minor background with this site because my husband is obsessed with it! He is a big deer hunter and is constantly looking at the aerial views of his hunting land and deciding the "path" that the big buck may be taking.   His other love (besides God and our family) is fishing.  He also uses Google Earth for the aerial shots to see where the hidden honey holes are on rivers and lakes he fishes. Even though as an adult I have seen it be very useful, I never really thought about using it in the classroom. 
The author/teacher of this blog uses Google Earth in all subjects.  She uses it for map writing, measurement of streets, and determining how waterways go with the division of land.  This would not be a site I could not just turn the students loose on, but with modeling it can be done.  My first thought would be to make a few "student experts" who have background and possibly experience with different websites and computers.  This would make my job much easier because I can't be everywhere at once. 
To use this in my classroom, I would like to take an aerial shot of downtown Tuscaloosa and have the students draw and write a map on how to get from 2 different places.  I would use a rubric or checklist to grade their map and would include the information being correct as the largest portion of the grade.  I think the students will like how the aerial shots come from a large distance away and zoom all the way in.  Even with all the use of technology, this project reminds me that we still have to expose students to the old fashion ways of doing things as well.  It would be ideal if I could locate a paper copy of downtown Tuscaloosa to demonstrate with or have the students’ double check their work. 
The second one may be complicated to follow, but I will try to make it clear by citing every click I took to get the information. The blog Tech the Plunge (http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/) is another one I am following in Google Reader. On one of his posts titled 7 Fantastic Free Social Media Tools for Teachers I found out about the website Kidblog.org (http://kidblog.org/home.php). I am so excited about this site! It seems extremely user friendly, but more importantly safe!  Their website says that it was set up for teacher to allow them to have complete control of each student's blog, and it doesn't require any student emails.  I have not run into that problem yet, but just the thought of setting up 18 emails seems like it would be a nightmare, so this is definitely a plus! From what I can tell the classroom will have a home page and each student blog will have a link from there.  Each of the student blogs are automatically set up as private and can only be viewed by the teacher and other classmates. 
I think this would be an amazing thing to do in my 3rd grade classroom.  The blogs could be used for a variety of things instead of just one assignment.  One thing could be to have writing prompts during writing time.  Another would be to use it as a reading log and have the students put the title, author, their page number, and how many minutes they read the night before.  I could also have them to do free writes about their plans for the weekend, what their interests are, etc.  Our the great thing is the blog could be used for all of the above ways simultaneously!  The students could blog in the morning when they finish their morning work, during snack time, during writing time, and also from home.  This would be a great way to keep parents even more involved by giving them access.  If I did the reading log this would benefit everyone greatly.  The parents and I can keep track of the child's reading progress and it will also help the students to see where they stand compared to other classmates as well. 
As with everything, I can think of a few cons.  The number one issue would be for the students to have access to that many computers at the same time.  If I wanted to use it for a writing assignment I could always reserve the computer lab.  Another con may be that some students do not like to share their writing with their classmates.  Some posts may be too personal and I would hopefully be able to find ways to keep some posts private where only I could read them.  Now that I am thinking about it, their website said teachers have control of the publishing of all the blogs so I could simply choose not to publish certain ones, yet they would still be there.  A con of keeping the reading log may be that students may get discouraged by comparing their progress with other students. 
I also look forward to reading my classmates blogs on this assignment.  I have enjoyed gaining more tools for my classroom! It ROCKS!!

Instructional Software

I was excited about doing this post because during the school year I didn't have a lot of time to sit around and do research on the different resources out there available to me. You will see below that I did use some of the ones I listed, but also I was able to find some new ones. 
Drill & Practice-Multiplication.com (multiplication.com) has several different types of ways for the student to practice their multiplication facts.  It breaks them down in to factors and also combines them for different ways to review.  This would be a great site to let your students on at anytime throughout the day.  It has a feature where it will correct the quizzes and allow you to print them. 
Integrated Learning System- IXL (http://www.ixl.com/1b) is an awesome math site.  We just started using it this year in the county where I work.  If you are not familiar with the site it isn't free, but the county purchased it for us. Each student has their own log in information so you are able to track each student's progress and class progress as a whole.  This is a great tool because it lists the state standards and you can have the children work on specific ones they need help on or the one you are currently teaching.  An easy system to use was to make index cards for each student and write the standards and specific bullets under each standard they needed to master.  It would also send you emails where your class had completed so many hours in math, answered so many math questions, and mastered so many standards. It is a great way to also review for standardized testing at the end of the year.  Another great thing about this program is it provides feedback instead of simply correct or incorrect.  This gives the students a chance to see how they got it wrong or why they got it right.  A term that I learned from our reading is also something IXL does.  Branching drills are the way it is set up so the students will be able to back up to easier problems if they are getting them incorrect before moving on to mastery. 
Often times I would take my entire class into the computer lab during our math intervention time because this allowed the strugglers to have more one on one time with me, yet the advanced students were able to be exposed to more complex stuff. 
Tutorial- Math Live (http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/me5l/html/math5.html) was a site that was recommend to me from another teacher this year.  It has video tutorials on many different math topics.  What I did this year was to use it as a review of area and perimeter before taking the ARMT.  It works nicely because you can go as slow or as fast as you would like.  Also at any point in the lesson you can stop and give the students more examples on the board before moving on to the next part.  In each lesson it gives several examples where the class has to figure out the answers and I would let students come up to the computer and put in the answers.  The lessons are animated and present a problem at the beginning that the students can relate to.  They area and perimeter one I did was where children were playing hocking in the snow and the dad suggested they build a wall around the area to keep their puck in, but first they had to find the perimeter of the area.  But throughout the video is teaching or reviewing with them the topic
Simulation- Edheads (http://www.edheads.org/) is a site where it offers many different interactive simulations from knee replacement surgery to identifying simple machines.  This site is awesome because it has teacher’s guides and offers a lot of tips before beginning this with your class.  One that I would find useful in my classroom is where you design a cell phone.  The students have the chance to design a cell phone for a group of senior citizens.  It must be easy for them to use and have a good battery life.  The students are given the chance to change all kinds of different things on the phone before testing it and presenting it to the company. 
Instructional Game- Hooda Math (http://hoodamath.com/) is a site my students really enjoyed this year.  It was nice to be able to let them go on a site and not have to worry about them not being on an educational game or into something they were not supposed to be doing.  Often times some students would finish much more quickly than others and I would allow them to get on this site.  They were super excited to be able to play games and little did they know they were still doing math and still learning.  I like the roots of life game where it asks them for the square roots of numbers but also ties it into science because it talks about how it takes strong roots for a tree to grow. 
Problem Solving- Yummy Math (http://www.yummymath.com/index.php) looks like it has some pretty good tools and resources for different problem solving activities.  Their website says that they provide teachers and students with mathematics relevant to our world today.  I think my students would love the activity about Father's day and the muffin recipe.  The recipe gives different ingredients with different amounts needed.  The problem being is they can only find the 1/4 measuring cup.  Their job is to find out if they can still make the muffins and if so how.  I could also change this to be for someone’s' birthday to make it work when we are learning measurement.

Week 2- YouTube Clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn0_H-kvxkU&feature=related

Please click above to watch the clip.  The title of the clip is What Does it Mean to be Literate in the 21st Century?

I decided to add a picture of my daughter because I think it goes right along with the clip.  A comment in the video said that "media literacy wasn't going to be a luxury anymore, but a necessity"!  I find this so true for Shelby.  Now don't get me wrong, she is a tad advanced in her technology training (She has been texting for almost a year now.*), but learning technology will not be optional for her as it was for me growing up. 
After doing my initial research to find a video I came across this one.  It interested me because it says that technology is becoming another strand of literacy.  I think that is awesome! When most people think of literacy they mainly think of reading and writing.  The opinions of these teachers showed how that has changed throughout the years to include environmental print and simply being able to process all the information that is thrown at us in so many different ways. 
The clip also talked about how there is a new generation of teachers who grew up online and are begging to bring technology into the classroom.  Even though I didn't "grow up online" I do feel like I am one of those teachers.  I see that it is harder than it was when I was in school to get and hold students' attention.  Like the clip said it is because they spend more time in front of the television, computers and cell phones than outside so times are changing.  When I saw the more "experienced" teacher about to give her opinion, I was pleasantly shocked when she said that we are teaching the same strategies and skills, but are using different ways to teach it. 
Our text book rationalized the incorporation of technology in the classroom to "help students learn and sharpen their information age skills." It said that students who use these in school have a head start on what to do in the workplace.  (p15)  This goes right along with this entire course because we are going to be learning new ways to spice up our classroom technology. 

*DISCLAIMER- Shelby doesn't have her own phone she just uses other peoples to text us.  Randomly she will text her GiGi to see if she can spend time with her.

Transitioning what?!?,,,

You may be asking yourself what I mean by the title.  Well I always feel like our family is changing.  It seems like every time we get into a routine everything changes.  For example, I quit work and went back to school to become a teacher therefore for 2 1/2 years our schedules changed every semester.  Then I got a job teaching 3rd grade this past year and was pink slipped.  So here we go again, trusting and waiting. 
My name is Crystal Traweek and I am a wife, mother, teacher, and friend.  I am so blessed to have finally found my true calling in education after a short detour as a paralegal.  We live and have always lived in Northport, Alabama, which is outside of Tuscaloosa.  My goals for getting this online degree is to further my education and since I have a family and would like to also enjoy my summer with them I chose online.  I know it will be a lot of work, but at least I won't be away from them like I have been in the past when I was completing my undergrad. 
I am excited about taking this course because I want to learn more tools to use technology in the classroom! My favorite technology I had the opportunity to use is a projector.  Here is a link for Ten Ways To Get Beyond Powerpoint With Classroom Projectors. http://www.techlearning.com/article/17198