As I sit here and think about this upcoming school year I think about the struggles with math of past students. The biggest problem is students not knowing multiplication facts. My son is currently learning his facts. This is what we are doing.
First make a goal: Jo's goal- learn his threes by the end of June.
Then practice: I started out quizzing him on 3 x 2 thru 3 x 5 for only about 5 minutes.
Practice some more: When we remember, we go through the ones we practiced and add the rest of the fact thru 9 x 3.
This is totally awesome! Photosynth allows you to see a “stitched” view of the world. The website takes still photos of the world. They take insects, museums, and just about anything that you want to look at and puts it in an interactive web environment. It is very similar to Google Maps. You can click on an image and it will link you to another image that follows.
You can also be a contributor to the website. You need to install some software to your PC and then you can start stitching the world together.
I can see this being used in the classroom by students who just took a field trip. Often as a teacher I refer back to the trip to teach. “Remember when we saw,” can now be accompanied by a realistic trip back to the location of the trip.
Awesome!!! I loved this website. The characters are created. The ease of use to manipulate the scenes is simple. The best thing is that the students are able to use their own voice to make the characters come alive.
On a slow Friday after the normal tests were completed I had the students go into the computer lab and create some comics. They loved it. Usually when I take them in to the lab and tell them that we are going to do some creative writing, the boys begin and minor revolt. I usually have trouble keeping them focused on their tasks at hand.
This time it was different they went into the lab and I shared with them a quick tutorial about the website, and turned them loose. It was great. They were trying to outdo each other and spent some serious time developing their characters. Now can I just get a reproduction of this on ISTEP!
The best part is once the students finished the projects they just emailed it to me. It also required them to put the first and last name, something I rarely get on any thing turned in to me.
I have found that PowerPoint presentations in the classroom have really spiced up my teaching. Currently our classrooms have a dukane in the ceiling that allows the teacher to present materials through the teacher's PC. To be honest, the students are already tiring of my PowerPoints and are drifting. Thank you for that Nintendo. My students have the attention span of a Labrador.
If you are in the same boat as I am you might want to try PREZI. This is a presentation tool that will spark up your classroom presentations. The program takes some practice to get the hang of. But, if you stick with it you can make some fantastic shows. It is like PowerPoint meets the creative software of a Mac. Sorry PC users this will not take the place of a quality Mac machine but it will help you add some flavor to you drab presentations.
The Basics
You can upload pictures in to a presentation and add text. Then you create a flow to your presentation. I quickly sat down and created or started a show about my son. I think that PREZI will be the cheese that I can dangle in front of my students to get them to Spring Break.
Mary Scroggs Elementary is ready for the 21st Century Skills. Good thing too, in case you didn't know we are already 10 years into the 21st century. This school is not find ways to use technology as an aide to teaching. It is use technology to as a tool for learning. The students don't just go to the computer lab to type papers, or learn a new form of technology. Rather the students are immersed in the technology as it is being used in the real 21st century world.
The technology is being use to understand, evaluate, and analyze their world. The technology is being use to apply knowledge and create a rich learning experience for not only students, but teachers and parents as well.
I looked at the title of this article and my liberalism came flooding out. How dare someone take away the right of free press. Then my conservative right side of my brain began to fight back. In the blog post Grace Rubenstein stated that a school newspaper was not allowed to print an article about a recent superintendent's resignation. The school stated that inaccurate details and lack of evidence were to reasons behind the restriction of publication.
Grace points out that the school should let the students publish and if then the article is indeed invalid the students will learn how to retract a statement. She compares it to trying to learn science with out experimentation. Good point, but do we just give the student a chunk of uranium and say have at it?
What are the ethics behind your experience with digital media? Or what beliefs did this video challenge about your thoughts of digital media?
When I listened to Mr. Gardner share his thoughts about the ethics in digital media. I thought about the what is now a yearly experience. I usually get a letter, email, or phone call from a parent informing me that another student in the class posted something threatening on the web towards their child. The problem is that the two students don’t see each other face to face until they get to school. At home online, muscles seem bigger, bravery skyrockets, and friends peer over the shoulder encouraging the bullying.
So where do we teach the students the ethics about digital media. Well from Mr. Gardner's point of view we need something like a cybermentor. I think that teachers should be cybermentors in social networking sites. Teacher's and parents should be the digital role models for the students. When the students witness the ethical use of digital media by adults in their real world, they can then apply those ethical skills to the ambiguous digital world.
MY GOAL: Teach netiquette to the students in my class. I will be their cybermentor on Facebook and other sources of digital media.
