Student #2-Devon

Student #1-Barkel

Website

My husband and I own a summertime business.  We have been working on the Softball World website below for the past 3 weeks so this assignment came at a great time.  As you can see, we still have a lot to add to some of our links. 

Website

http://www.playsoftballworld.com/

Graphic Organizer

Graphic organizers are a great way for students and teachers to be on the same page.  You can take any piece of literature and breakdown the rationale into multiple areas to show its relevance.  The one that I created was based upon a story where teenagers learn about senior citizens and their contributions to life.  The organizer is visual learning tools that allows for everyone involved in the assignment to see the importance of the assignment and how it can impact learning.  Organizers are used frequently in my classroom when we dissect literature themes, etc.

Mapping - The Moustache

https://bubbl.us/?h=e3fcb/1b1ac5/93AuGPWWtg0X6

Haiku Screencast

Charles Hackley Assignment

Below is a copy of the Google Map assignment I would do in Michigan History class.  Charles Hackley was instrumental in building Muskegon and left  many wonderful gifts for the residents to use and enjoy.  Students would have to map: Hackley Public Library, Hackley Park, Museum of Art, Muskegon High School and Hackley Hospital.  The students can easily add this to the research project that they are already required to do in the Michigan History class.

Charles Hackley Assignment

View Charles Hackley Contributions in a larger map

Reading Rocket Podcast Link

http://www.readingrockets.org/rss/itunes_experts.xml
Teaching a child to read can be challenging. It is important for teachers and parents to be enthusiastic about books in order to get children excited about reading. Dr. Maryanne Wolf discusses some of the behaviors all parents can employ to help their child become a successful reader. Wolf also emphasizes how important it is for parents to realize the positive impact they can have on their child at a young age, because they are their child's first teacher

Muskegon Map

View Larger Map

Audrie's Art

Roaring '20s

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowen2/?saved=1

Week 5 - Reflections

Christine Bowen    Week #5

                First of all, real learning occurs when a student knows the end objective and the teacher presents the means in which the student can reach that end objective.  Referring to behavioral objectives, maybe the teacher didn’t make the learning objectives know.  Just because students have access to technology 24/7 doesn’t mean that they understand what the objectives are.  Chapter 3 states that sometimes teaching objectives are too vague to impact student learning.  I actually can see that.  We need to tell them the big picture right up front and then give them the small pieces that make up the big picture.  I have been in classes myself where the teacher assigns work without telling us how it relates to anything.  Do this because this is the assignment.  Maybe that is one reason why the project failed.  If the teachers were giving daily work and the student’s didn’t know their big picture it could explain the fact why it had such a small effect.   

Secondly, I think that recent developments in technology over the past decade could actually be a legitimate reason as to why the project failed.  It is hard to change teachers and their practices.  Especially, when they are technologically challenged.  Teachers are used to having 100+ students looking up to them on any particular day as the one who has all the answers.  Many teachers are not big risk takers when it comes to trying technology in the classroom.  They let their fears get in the way and teachers take the easy way out.  As the teachers in the project were all core class teachers this could be the case.  I am learning some valuable tools in this class and I know some veteran teachers could use this same information but they are afraid to challenge or change their ways.  It could also be the district’s failure to provide teachers with adequate guidance as to how to integrate the new technology.                                                  

 Thirdly, a reason why the project failed could be related to the section in the chapter about instructional television.  The teachers may have required the students to watch videos without any assignment to go along with it.  If teachers are showing video for instructional purposes then the teacher must have an assignment to accompany it or the student will not apply anything in the video to their learning.  The teachers may have thought that they were assignment the greatest video as class work and it will not have any significant impact if there is not some type of assignment to hold the student accountable for their learning.                                                                                                                                                             

 A strategy that would have made an impact would be using technology to present and share information among students and teachers.  There is a variety of projects and assignments where students can create answers to different questions. Homework could be posted into folders and projects could be shared on-line.  The objectives in the core classes would have to be clearly defined so the student could understand how the little assignments all relate back to the big objective to the unit.  Teachers could send messages quickly at any time of day so that students could check in and see where they are at and what work was due the next day.  I think it would be great to link students to a forum where they could post questions and students could answer each other (similar to this class).  I think it would be great to post video for students to watch with an assignment.  I would do this now if students had access to the internet at home.  It would help the students who take longer to do assignments to have more time and it would certainly help with an absent student where they could come back with some of their missed work completed.  I believe that these are just a few strategies that could make 24/7 access more effective. 

                                                                                                                                                                      

Delicious

http://www.delicious.com/cbowen2

Week #4 Reflections

Christine Bowen – Week #4

Chapter 1
Chapter 1 was an okay read because it reinforces the fact that technology in general is always changing and education is trying to keep up with what its role should be.  Educational technology seems an appropriate name to me. 

I pulled my district’s policy on students using the network.  It is a two-page agreement that the student and parent have to sign.  There are 20 items in the agreement.  Our technology department titles their course Business Systems & Technology.  I copied the course description below straight from the school’s website.   It is interesting to compare it to definitions in Chapter 1.  

Course Description:

BST I provides basic computer training for all students that are either post-high school education and/or entering the workplace. Students will use a variety of software in Windows, including Office 2007, which features Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet),, PowerPoint (presentation slides), and Publisher (desktop publishing). Units include Internet activities, document formatting, and business presentation skills. The curriculum used follows criteria in Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Exams. Students may also use digital cameras and scanners. Open to grades 9-12. Credit .5.

Social Bookmarking

I have worked with delicious in the past in a professional development meeting.   At work, I just save sites to, “My Favorites”.  A pro to delicious is that you can access all of your favorite sites anywhere.  Therefore, I have started to play with the delicious account to see how often I go to it. 

It is valuable to see what sites other people are using.  I really like that it lets you know the number of people that have bookmarked particular pages.  Now, that doesn’t mean the page is good but usually the numbers let me know that there must be something about the site that could be useful as so many people have bookmarked it. 

I am not sure about using this with students.  I don’t know if I trust some of my students (I teach Alternative) to drop sites into delicious from anywhere.  I don’t think they would mess with the Wiki because that posts assignments but I am a little apprehensive about the delicious. 

I did a search on delicious.  My next unit is the Great Depression.  I entered it into the search box and came back with 170 hits.  I will look at some of these this week.  I think it does a better job of filtering things for educational purposes than Google does.  Most of the posts seem to have been done by educators.

Bowen's wiki link!!!

Christine Bowen     Week #3

I had an immediate idea as to what I would use a wiki for.  I am going to try and use a wiki for book reviews of the 20 most popular books in my classroom.  I am going to have the students take a picture of the book in the classroom, this will help with their digital camera experience, and then upload it with a review to the wiki.  I will have to play with this and see how it goes.  This week is conferences so our schedule is too hectic but I think I am going to start it Monday. 

I didn’t know what a wiki was before this week.  I assumed it was related to Wikipedia.  After I discovered how easy one was I searched the internet for teacher wikis.  There are some amazing teaching wikis out there!!!  I searched everything from elementary to secondary level.  I found teacher posting videos of science experiments, field trips and written work.   

I was confused as to the difference between a blog and a wiki so I had to search that also.  It appears that a blog can only by altered by the author of the site where a wiki can be altered by anyone.  This could make for some really interesting assignments.  If we were doing an economics lesson, I could have someone from a local bank make posts onto the wikis about checking accounts and where students could go locally to sign up for me.  Another idea I really like is a, “What Do I Think Will Be on the Test” section.  Students can post what they think they will need to know for exam time under this section.  I think this would be awesome if I can get them to post quickly where it doesn’t take up a lot of classroom time.  Maybe, once a week or every other week they could have some time to post what they thought was interesting or important from a unit.  Again, I need more time to play to see if this would be a problem. I didn’t have any problem making my wiki link live in my blog so it looks like the two work well together.     

About a year ago, I tried to set up an English facebook page.  They did not go well.  Some of the students did not have appropriate profile pictures and I wanted the site to strictly be used for English.  This appears to be a good replacement.  I am concerned if my students are mature enough to handle the flexibility that a wiki will provide.

The O’Reilly article was a bit descriptive for me.  I tried really hard to understand all of it but I only understand the popular items such as Google, Amazon, etc. However, if the point was to understand that technology/software is changing then I got it.  The videos were pretty good but I was nervous about the wiki assignment.  However, after doing some reading and looking through other teacher’s wikis I can see why they are so popular. 

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