Survey

I completed the final survey and course evaluation.

Science Teaching Challenge

The Tech Savvy Teacher has always focused on how technology can enhance teaching.  In today’s fast-paced and technological world, it is vital that we as educators provide our students with the latest information and do so in a manner that is most accessible and convenient for them.

 Technology can be used at any grade level to teach any subject, given the right preparation and materials.  However, it is especially important when teaching science because so much of our scientific world depends on tools and gadgets.  Science instruction, like science itself, should be real and exciting, and above all, it should allow children to interact with their world.  In my 3rd grade class, I used Google Earth, a virtual tour program that uses digital satellite pictures to construct up-close views of the whole earth, to teach my students about ecosystems and landforms, as well as how to use and read physical maps.

My students have not always been interested in science.  Most of them had workbooks for their 2nd grade science curriculum, and I received many new 3rd graders who dreaded science each day as a result.  However, I found that by using a little creativity, as well as the computer lab at the school, I could reengage my students to want to learn science, and I found teaching it much more enjoyable.

       With the Google Earth tour, I created waypoints, or stops where the students would find pictures, instructional videos, and textual information about the area on the map.  After viewing the media and following the steps at each stop, the students would then click on the next point in the tour and be “flown” to that point on the globe.  Rather than using a textbook and worksheets to teach the students about our physical world, this process not only helped the students make observations about the various biomes by giving visual, 3D representations, but it also enhanced their learning experience because they were able to manipulate the scenes and viewpoints and use multiple senses for informational input.  The program also allows students to create their own virtual tours of interesting places, historical sites, capital cities, major landforms or parks, etc.  I feel that the more involved children can be with their own learning experience, the more valuable that experience will be for them. 

This is a top-view of the school at the start of my tour, where the students will be briefed on their assignment before undergoing their virtual journey.

Here is shown several pictures of wildlife living in a tundra biome, as well as an instructional video describing caribou migration.

The tours allow users to zoom in or out at areas of interest.  This view of the Florida Everglades waypoint is zoomed out so the user can see the borders of the Everglades National Park. 

Here is a quiz I put in a link at the end of the tour.  The students are able to click on the link and are taken directly to this page.  It is an easy way of assessing students’ knowledge and experience with the tour.

This is a horizontal view of the simulated terrain of the Grand Canyon.  Notice the detail of the topography, which can be very useful in helping students recognize certain landforms. 

Link to Google Earth tour

Here's the link to my Google filing cabinet with my Google tour.

Filing Cabinet

Internet Safety

READING
I read all of the reading requirements for this internet safety assignment. For the project, I chose to read an article from the June 2001 New Era entitled "Mixed Signals".

Some of the things I read I already knew a lot about or had already planned to use in my own home. However, I was taken aback by Elder Bednar's talk on seeing the world as it really is and treating our bodies with respect. I had not thought of using internet chatting or online gaming and such as particularly destructive to our bodies, but when I thought about how it affects relationships and the potential good people could be engaging in out in the real world, I understood why we are so adamantly warned against "losing ourselves" to the virtual world. It was also very helpful for me to review the guidelines about protecting my family from pornography and instructing them about the possible dangers of the internet.

I think now that I am very aware of many of the constructive and useful tools tehcnology has to offer, I will be better able to instruct both my own children and the children I teach in a classroom. Not only will I be able to help protect them from harmful material, but I will also be able to redirect their focus to the positive aspects of the internet such as creativity, communication, and utility for a variety of projects and objectives.

As far as influencing family and friends, I know that my own parents were unaware of how to fully protect their family from the dangers of the internet for a long time, and although they did their best to instruct us not to surf the web or converse with strangers, there was much they could learn about internet filtering, instructional videos, and helpful guidelines for family internet use. I think that as I share what I have learned with them , they will feel more able to take action against hamrful forces that may threaten their family through technology. I also think that I can inform them about some of the constructive tools and resources I have found that will remind them that their is also much that is good and useful out there.

WATCHING
Some of the internet safety resources I used were the FauxPaw video, the Frontline PBS documentary on the revolution in classrooms and social life and protection from child predators. I also watched two of the iSafe webcasts, on cyber relationships and cyber harassment. I think they will be helpful in my teaching because I know that I can use resources online that are kid-friendly and that can help me teach my students about being safe on the internet.

DOING
I shared some of these resources with my mom, age 47, and she was very interested in some of the studies about online predators and social networking. Like some of the moms in the videos, she seemed a bit over-concerned for her children's (who are all grown and married) safety. I showed her the FauxPaw video as well as some of the documentaries and other online games and resources and she seemed to relax a bit upon discovering that there are many ways for kids to get educated about internet safety. I do feel like it was a positive experience because my mom seemed to learn a lot and to feel better about how to manage her won internet use.

Google Earth tour ideas

Here is what I plan to do for my Google Earth tour. It is tied with the 3rd grade Social Studies curriculum under the "Time" heading:

Standard 1: Students show how environments and communities change over time through the influence of people.
Objective 1: Predict how human activity will influence environments and communities.
a. Describe various environments; e.g., desert, plains, tropical, tundra, steppe, mountain, frozen, forest.

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
1. Florida Everglades	Students will view a short clip describing the wetlands biome and the organisms that live there.	path, picture, video
2. Siberian Tundra	Students will view a short clip describing the tundra biome and will then list 5 ways animals that dwell there adapt to the harsh climate.	picture, video
3. Sahara Desert	Students will view several pictures of plants that animals that thrive in the desert climate.	path, picture
4. Andes Mountains	Students will view charts of rainfall and plant growth in the mountains.	polygon
Details of image overlay / path / polygon:	Migration routes of animals, regions of high rainfall, pictures of plants and animals

TPK vs. TPACK

For me, it was a little hard to distinguish my technological pedagogical knowledge from that knowledge as it is content-specific because I am an elementary education teacher who will be teaching every subject each day. The difference to me is that with a general store of TPK, I will be able to develop a wide range of learning activities for my students that involve technology throughout the school year. I think that both categories of knowledge are particularly important for me, however, because not only will I need to know how children can learn using technology, but I also need to know several of the methods and tools I can use for each subject.

For example, a classroom I recently worked in had a computer projector mounted on the ceiling, which I used often to present online educational videos, demonstrate classwork, and involve the class in interactive science and math games found on the internet. It was useful for many subject areas because of the availability of internet connection in the school. To me, this was an example of general TPK. On the other hand, I also know that the school where I worked had a small collection of AlphaSmart typing machines that teachers could check out to help students write, edit, and save their compositions. The files could then be transferred by USB to a computer connected to a printer or print via a wireless connection. These AlphaSmarts were very useful tools for literacy and writing because some of the children who had poor spelling or handwriting were able to stay caught up with their projects. I also noticed that when my students were able to visit the school computer lab to explore online math manipulatives to help them work and solve problems, they remembered the concepts much better than if I had just told them. These were examples of TPACK because I knew how to use the machines and tools to help teach a specific subject.

Video Chatting Experience

Here's the asynchronous video chatting via Tokbox. This one was fine to use, but I think I liked the synchronous chat better because I don't really like leaving people messages and having to wait for them to respond later. Though I can understand why it would be useful in the classroom if we had class penpals or if I wanted my students to leave me video posts about their learning experiences that I could check later.


And here is my Jing video using Google chat with my father-in-law (Ok, not a class member, but it was the best I could do). I really liked using this tool and I think it would be very useful in the classroom when I am making a video presentation of my own or teaching the students how to use something on the computer. It was really fun!

Fun Technology Tools

I learned so much about web tools this last week! The most exciting one I found, though it may or may not prove to be the most useful, was the Jing application. I have always wondered how people make video tutorials with the live screenshots, and now I can see how simple that process will be when I want to teach my students how to do something on the computer. I also loved using Picnik.com to edit pictures for free and save them on my hard drive. I know for sure that I will use Google maps, maybe when I teach social studies units where I want my students to have the experience of making virtual tours or finding directions, etc. I don't think I will use video chat very much with my students because I'm not really big on chat programs anyway, but it is a very useful thing to know. I really liked learning about how to create a class website with all the fun little doo-dads, but I admit to feeling in over my head, so it will take some practice.

The most difficult thing to learn, for me, was the PB works website. I had a hard time figuring out the navigation in order to get back to the pages I created, rather than the default ones they give you to start with. I think I will just have to get used to posting things online and embedding pictures, movies, graphs, etc. so that I can become more comfortable with the process.

RSS Feed Experience

I actually learned a lot about using the RSS feed. Basically, all I knew before was that there was some way to keep up with changes on other sites, and that a lot of site had funny little orange sound icons posted on them.  I had no idea that the two were linked. :)  It's exciting to me because I know of several good educational sites that are regularly updated, but I often miss out on important articles or topics because I don't know when to check.  So learning how to use the RSS feed was really helpful to me.  I subscribed to Scholastic Book and About.Education on my blog so that I would be able to use the new resources or articles to aid in my teaching.

One way I might use the RSS feeds is with educational journals, for my own benefit, or (as with Scholastic Book) to update my class on a new book series they might enjoy.  I could also use it to give me ideas for book talks or read-alouds in the class.

Digital Storytelling Project

The Giant and the Englishman

I tried 6 times uploading it to TeacherTube.com, but when it was all done uploading, it said "Sorry! Errors found!" and wouldn't let me continue.  I made sure my file was small enough, but it still wouldn't work.  Oh well, here it is anyway. (7:49 pm)    --P.S. It's 68 MB in size.

update: 8:08 pm-- still hasn't finished uploading to blog

8:10 pm-- "  "

8:13 pm-- "  "

8:16 pm-- website timed out and stopped uploading.

8:27 pm-- attempt #4 to upload

8:31 pm-- upload complete, now processing...

8:40 pm-- still processing...

8:46 pm--upload finally finished! Yay! :P

Storyboards for Digital Storytelling

Here are my two storyboards for the multimedia project. It's kinda hard to read, but it's a fractured fairytale about the giant from "Jack and the Beanstalk".



My idea for this project is to retell a story based on a small part of Patricia C. Wrede's Searching for Dragons. In her book, she introduces a giant named Dobbilan who plunders and marauds towns not because he enjoys it, but because he believes that's what giants do. He always complains about young men named Jack coming up to his castle to steal his golden eggs. Cimorene, a clever princess and the main character of Wrede's books, then convinces Dobbilan to go into a consulting business for other giants who want to earn a living by pillaging towns. My project is a spin-off of this tale from the view of the giant.

Utah Core Curriculum

Utah 5th Grade Literacy Core Curriculum

Standard 8: Writing
Objective 3: Recognize and use features of narrative an informational text.
b. Compare and contrast elements of different genres: fairy tales, poems, realistic fiction, fantasy, fables, folk tales, tall tales, biographies, historical fiction, science fiction).

Technology Experience

I am generally fairly comfortable with computers and technology. I have been using the internet to chat and check e-mail since I was about 12 years old, and before that I often played games on the computer. I took a typing class in 8th grade which not only taught me to type well, but also taught me basic skills in Microsoft Word and Excel. I felt confident about using these programs to make projects or write papers. I don't remember where I learned how to create PowerPoint presentations, but I do remember being taught explicitly, and then practicing on my own. I have had several friends who were really techy and good with technology and I learned most of what I know about multimedia and computer hardware from them. I know how to install extra RAM and basis hardware components like external hard drives and wireless adapters. As far as other technology, I have a fundamental knowledge of how speakers, audio/video jacks, cameras, and media players work. I consider myself comfortable with most technology but only proficient with a limited amount.

First one ever!

So, this is my new blog for IP&T 286. I'll be posting all my assignments for this class here. Enjoy!