Thursday, July 26, 2012

Standards - Final

      The concept map goes with standard 3d. Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning. I chose this strand because the concept map uses current and emerging digital tools to support the students learning. I would like to use programs like this in my classroom because it has great techniques when making concept maps and the students could even use it to make their own concept map. I enjoyed this program and thought it was a great idea; it takes something simple and makes it more interesting.
      The introduction goes with the standard 2a. Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that
incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. I chose this standard that because in the introduction video we used digital tools like the flip camera and allowed us to learn more and be creative. I would use something like this in my classroom because it gives the students a chance to use new digital tool and be creative with it. I really enjoyed the movie, while I am not the best public speaker, it was fun.
      The movie goes with standard 1d. Model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments. I chose this standard because the movie making engages learning in a virtual environment. I would use this in my classroom because it will help me communicate information in other ways and help the students communicate information and show what they have learned. I really enjoyed making my movie and thought that it is an interesting tool to use in the classroom.
      The vokie goes with 3d. Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning. I chose this standard because the vokie is an emerging digital tool and can help other people evaluate and analyze information with all the different options including languages. I could use this in my classroom to help students who may speak English as a second language. I did not enjoy making the vokie, I just thought that it could have been simpler and I think that the final production is a little distracting the eye.
      Web 2.0 also goes with 3d. Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning. I chose this standard because in the web 2.0 my websites were word clouds and a texting response website and I thought these both were great examples of emerging digital tools that help analyze and evaluate information to support learning. I would definitely use these types of things in my classroom, both the word cloud and the text message response system; I think it would get children really interested in the subject matter. I also enjoyed researching my Web 2.0 websites and was glad that I chose to learn more about the ones I did.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Wordle

Wordle.net is a create your own word clouds website. You can create it by using a url or typing in text. It lets you change all the different aspects in the word cloud, such as color, font, direction, style, and shape and then print or save it to the website to let everyone see your work! I really like this website and think it would great for a little decorations or to get children's interest in vocabulary lessons or other topics you are teaching.

Socrative

Socrative.com is a smart student response system that empowers teachers to engage their classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. Teachers and students can use Socrative on any device with a web browser (tablets, smartphones, laptops, iPod Touches, etc.). Teachers login at t.socrative.com by entering their email and password. Students login at m.socrative.com by entering the "virtual room number" provided by the teacher. Students will then see "Waiting for teacher to start an activity...". Teachers initiate an activity by selecting it on their main screen (e.g. Multiple Choice, T/F, Quick Quiz). Students respond on their devices. Students' results are visible on the Teacher's screen or sent in an email. I really like this website, because it allows the teacher to get students attention by using tools that the students already have and use everyday and put a purpose behind it.

Gaming to Reengage Boys

This video is basically about boys being at a disadvantage in every aspect at school. Ali Carr says that everything we have in schools today works against boys and that is why they are falling behind in everything. She thinks we take the "manliness" out of school such as ruff housing and playing with toy knives and guns. She says that we need to have more gaming in our schools to help keep the boys interested in what they are learning and readjust our attitudes about these things. I do not really agree with her at all and I think that her reasons do not really explain the boys behaviour.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

"Love"


World Peace Game


I think that John Hunter has a good idea with his would peace game. It is a good way to expose children to a real world problem and give them the opportunity to fix it themselves. It gives the children a chance to get up and moving and talking to each other about real life situations. I think it is a good idea to do in the classroom and it should probably be incorporated in schools everywhere.

Educator's Guide to Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats


This article describes cyberbullying and cyberthreats. It defines them and gives the different types of cyberbullying, and it also reminds school officials that what they think might be a threat they need to remember that children do joke, have rumors, or set up. It tells you that cyberbullying or cyberthreats material could be text or images and they could be posted anywhere or on anything. The impact of cyber bullying is also mentioned in the article. It gives a great definition of bullies, targets, and the bystander, which are very important to know about so that you can distinguish which one is which. I really like this article, it is a little too long and to detailed, it is very important information that all educators should be well informed of so that they have help students who may be at a disadvantage and are being bullied. This is definitely something every educator should have to read before being put in a school environment.

Why Flipped Classrooms are Here to Stay


This article was basically about flipping the classroom around. You do lectures that you would do in class for homework, and hand on activities and homework in class! The article talks about a school that tried it out in their science class and it had wonderful results that they saw in the classroom and on test grades. I think this is an amazing technique! By the time children reach middle school, especially high school, they are burnt out. They are just done and over with learning and want to sleep the whole class day away. If they already know that they are going to be working on in class ahead of time from watching the lecture at home then they know what to expect and are excited to do something hands one that they will probably encounter again in the real world! I do not think this would work to well for all subject areas, but for science it is obviously perfect. It changes up the learning and gives the teacher and children more time to interact with each other.

Cutting-Edge Video Games Play On


The article is about the University of Austin Texas having an Archive of old video games and they also want to migrate as much information as they can from media like floppy discs and CD's into a digital repository. The Archive is more of a hands off museum and you cannot just go in and walk through the museum and play games. While they do allow people to play some games it is only on special occasions when they have events. Personally this article does not interest me at all. I do not have any sort of interest in old or new video games on consoles or computers. I think it is good that they want to preserve the memory and the technology that they used, but as for have an Archive for it, I do not think that is necessary.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Concept Map

Real Numbers

I.       Irrational Numbers

1.real number that is not rational: any real number that cannot be expressed as the exact ratio of two integers, e.g. v2 and p.
Numbers that cannot be expressed as an exact ratio are called irrational numbers; numbers that can be expressed as an exact ratio are called rational numbers. For instance, 1/2 (one half, or 50 percent of something) is rational. 1.61803 (), 3.14159 (p), 1.41421 (2 ), are irrational. History claims that Pythagoras in the sixth century b.c.e. first used the term when he discovered that the square root of 2 could not be expressed as a fraction.

A.    Decimals to not end or repeat

B.    They go on for infinity

II.   Rational
Numbers

1.whole number: a whole number or the quotient of any whole numbers, excluding zero as a denominator. Rational numbers contain everything except real and irrational numbers. They contain proper and improper fraction, terminating decimals, and the denomination cannot be zero, but fractions are allowed.
.

A.    Fractions

1.    Denomination cannot be zero

2.    Proper or Improper Fraction

B.    A termination Decimal

III.    Natural Numbers

The whole numbers from 1 upwards: 1, 2, 3, and so on ...
Or from 0 upwards in some fields of mathematics: 0, 1, 2, 3 and so on ...
No negative numbers and no fractions.
The natural numbers are the ordinary numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc., with which we count. They are sometimes called the counting numbers. They have been called natural because much of our experience from infancy deals with discrete (separate; individual; easily countable) objects such as fingers, balls, peanuts, etc.



A.        Counting
Numbers

B.    Does not include zero

IV.    Whole Numbers

1.number without fractions: a positive or negative number, including zero, that does not contain a fraction or decimal. Whole numbers are also known as your natural counting numbers, they are the numbers that most children learn first when learning their numbers.

A.    Include Zero

B.    Counting Numbers

V.     Integers

- any rational number that can be expressed as the sum or difference of a finite number of units, being a member of the set …-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3…
- an individual entity or whole unit.
The integers on the left side of zero (0) are called negative numbers, and are represented by a negative sign (-) placed before them, as in -5, -10, and -15.* The integers on the right side of 0 are called positive numbers. Examples include 5, 10, and 15. The positive integers are known as counting numbers or natural numbers. The positive integers and 0 are called whole numbers. Zero is an integer but it is neither positive nor negative.

A.    Positive Numbers

B.            Negative Numbers

Classroom Introduction

A Future Full of Badges

With the badge system students will be able to customize learning goals within the larger curricular framework, integrate feedback, and tailor the way badges and the meta data within them are displayed to the outside world. The badges movement is based on the idea that people should be able to gather useful evidence of what they have learned. This seems like a great thing for university to use for the students that they are educating. I would not mind using the badge system especially since the winners of the badge competition were people like Disney and NASA. I think our schools really need to look into participating in this and encouraging their student to also.

Children's Internet Protection Act

Schools and libraries that will be affected by the CIPA may not receive the discounts offered by the E-rate program unless they certify that they have an internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. On the other hand it does not require the tracking of internet use by minors or adults . An authorized person may disable the blocking or filtering measure during use by an adult to enable access for bona fide research. With the changes the policy must also include monitoring the online activities of minors and must provide for educating minors about appropriate online behavior. The school district has to follow a process for document retention to be able to prove that the lessons were given to every student. These rules and regulations for schools to receive discounts from E-rate are a good idea. It is a good way to make the school educate their students on internet usage and I like the way that they actually have to keep records to show that the students have been informed and they also retained what they have been taught about the internet. If the schools are all up to date with their records then they should be good to go and our students will know even more!

Safe Social Networking Tailored for K-12 Schools

This article was about using social networking in schools for academic purposes  and enhance the material they are learning in the classroom. The programs are not like facebook, they are designed specifically for school use and only allows communications between student and teacher and not student and student. Some educators are worried about it though, claiming that you cannot control or predict the advertising or security and social interaction. On the other hand though some teachers really like it, saying that it helps draw out a higher level of discussion from the students. Most of the programs do charge the schools for their use, but claim that they do not release any of the student's information to their advertisers. I think that this is a fantastic idea for teachers to incorporate these programs into their lessons. I hope that when I am a teacher I will be able to use something like this in my classroom. I think that this is a great idea and if the program is specifiably made for students use and the school is paying for it then I am sure that it will be safe. It gives children a chance to see the informative way to use social networking. It also gives the students a chance to interact with the teacher other ways besides face to face, which for students is sometimes better because that is the way they do all their other communication with their friends.

Digital Citizenship

The article on digital citizenship is abou the nine themes of it. The nine themes include digital access, digital commerce, digial commerce, digital communication, digital literacy, digital etiquette, digital law, digital rights & responsibilities, digital health & wellness, and ditigtal security. The article describes each theme in detail and gives exapmles that fall under each theme. I think that digital citizenship is definitely something that we need to be teaching in our schools at a very early age. It would give children the opportunity to use everything digital that they have access to to it's full potential. They would be using it properly and if they used it improperly they would know and would be responsible for it. These nine elements are all important things to know in this decade when were using all sources of information. My favorite was the health and wellness, it even addresses eye safety! Were living in a technological world and it is best that are children know the proper and safe way to use it to their full advantage as early as possible!

Monday, June 11, 2012

Gamification

I think it is a great idea to use elements of games in the classroom for motivational purposes and to engage students. It will help students make friends easier and give shy student something to talk about, which will help them open up to their classmates. It will give teachers a change to see how the students interact with each other and will also help the hands on learners. It will give students a chance to study and learn new things while having fun. I think that it is an all around good idea and I will defiantly try to incorporate it into my classroom.

The Virtues of Blogging

This was a great article and it is different, because it is from an educator point of view. I thought he did a good job explaining the pros and cons of blogging and how it affects his teaching job and that his school supports it. I did like the fact though that he admits blogging has taken away from his actual writing and that does concern me. We are more technological now, but he is a teacher and needs to keep up with his actual written literature also. I feel that for the most part though he is doing a good job incorporating technology into the classroom which is very important.

A Vision on K-12

I really liked this video, it was very informative and it would be great to show to students. Most of the statistics did not surprise me except for these two: In 2008 teens text 2,200 a month and today, they text 3,339 a month! -- That is a lot of text messages, I did not think we texted that much! 76% of teachers do not use group email! -- The is just sad, and I knew that a few teachers probably did not use email in general, but that is a lot of teachers and that is sad, and I am embarrassed to know that they are teaching other people.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Web Literacy

Web literacy is obviously very important. Students need to know the proper way to look for research or just surf the web and be able to know what is legitimate information and what is unreliable. Most students will just google and take what they get, not know that what the get might be completely wrong information. If students were taught web literacy in school at a young age they would be able to receive the full benefits out of using the internet properly. I also think that the common core makes a lot of sense and will help the students with web literacy. It will have the students being required to do more things with computers and the web which will help them utilize there resources and when taught in school they will know how to use it properly.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Introduction




My name is Lauren Quakenbush and my major is Elementary Education. I am a junior in college and when I graduate I hope to find a job teaching, I am not to worried about what grade, just as long as I get a job. I work at Regions Bank as a teller and I really enjoy it. I do not have very much free time, but when I do I like to catch up on my sleep or go to our river house with my boyfriend.