End of Semseter Blog

It seemed like the semester just flew by this year. I did finish everything before the end which was great. I was so busy teaching and coaching it was a real time juggle for me. I did learn a lot about different technologies and how they can be used in the classroom. Digital stories are a good tool if you have time in your schedule to put them together. I feel if I were to make digital stories for my classes it would have to be done over the summer. I am glad that they introduced engrade to everyone Before i used engrade it would take me hours to do students final grade reports with averaging grades and dropping grades. I tell the other teachers that I work with about engrade and how easy and effective it is for the classroom. The group work went much more smoothly then I thought it would have. The only think that was a drawback was that sometimes there was a delay between when I would talk and when everyone would hear me. Overall though this semester was a success not only in getting work done but also in seeing how there is a lot of online help for teachers. This summer when I am reviewing my curriculum I will be trying to add in more technology for the students.

Digital Story

This project was a little frustrating to me. I had a topic about the life of a baseball player. I had all the pictures I wanted and a few clips. When I tried to create the video, I could not get my videos to download into my movie. Worst of all I tried to record my voice and could not. There is a narrative feature on the program but it would not work at all. So I tried a few other voice programs online but those still did not work correctly. So I ended up just adding music and some title slides to help explain my video. I wish that the process when more smoothly but it was tough to get it to work and I wanted to try to hand something in at least. I guess this is what happens sometimes with technology. In the video I was looking to show how baseball is Americas past time, that players have a wide variety of equipment to pick from, then how a career in baseball starts in little league. Next the skills learned young can be turned into outstanding plays when the little leaguers grow up and become big leaders. I wanted to show that there is pain involved with greatness and showed some people getting injured while playing. But then at the end having them over come their injury to win a championship and hold that trophy high over their head.

WoW Project: Finally Finished

I have finally finished my WoW project. My WoW project was on using interactive technology in the3 science classroom. I thought this was a great topic for me since I am currently a middle school science teacher. Technology provides many different learning experiences for students. Most times schools are not going to have the equipment that is necessary to do experiments because of the cost. So by using online tools, students can still do the same experiments just virtually. This helps to reduce costs to the school without sacrificing learning for students. Some of the online tools that I found were virtual operations. I thought these were great. Students can perform hip replacement surgery, a heart transplant, or even brain surgery. Without these programs students would never have the opportunity to do these types of experiments. By doing these it may inspire some students to become doctors or go into the medical field. Dissections are an important part of the learning experience but some students are against cutting into a dead animal. This is where online dissections come into play. Students can go online and see the inside of an of an organisms without having to touch it or without having to have an organism die. Also technology can be used to show videos of complex ideas or of experiments that could take years to do. When doing my project I did a PowerPoint in which I used different colors, moving pictures, and different links to demonstrate how technology can be used. The links will allow the class to do different short activities and view different videos. The presentations will be a general overview of the different types of actives that can be blended in to a typical science curriculum. Below is the link to my wiki page which has the link to my presentation. Frank Snyder Wiki Page

Setting up My litacme21 Page

I only found out that we needed to create a page about 1 month ago. I requested accesses to the website and it took about 2 weeks to get a confirmation. I finally got a chance to set up my page. It was hard finding time right now to sit down and work on my page since I have been preparing my students for the up and coming state exams and baseball season has been in full swing. When setting up my page I found it pretty easy. I included some basic background information about my self. The picture I picked was myself holding a rattle snake that I had caught at one of my jobs. I then went into a brief detail on my personal teaching philosophy. I believe that studetns learn best by doing hand on activities that require them to use their problem solving skills. The only way that problems get solved in the real world is through critical thinking and insight. So it is vital to have students practice these skills in a controlled classroom environment. I then added links to most of my work that I handed in through out the year. I still have to complete a few assignments this weekend and then my WoW presentation.

Engrade

I love using engrade. I have actually been using engrade all this year in my classroom. I found that it makes doing grades at the end of each quarter much easier and quicker. Engrade allows you see in real time how a grade affects a students overall performance. Engrade also allows you print out students grade reports. This is a good feature in that it allows students to see what they are missing and if you send it home it allows parents to see where their son or daughter is struggling. Engrade also allows you to give parents access to their students grades. Each student has their own id which can be turned into an account that the student or parent can see from their home computer at anytime. Engrade has a calendar feature in that every assignment you put in is placed onto a calendar. Engrade allows you to post quizzes and wikis online. Parents can also send you messages on your engrade account. This feature acts like an email acount for the teacher. Engrade also allows you to archive your previous classes or quarters. In engrade you can also print out your grade book if you need to have a hard copy for your records. If the teacher wants, they can make flash cards online for students to help them learn vocabulary.  I find only positive things with engrade. It is a great tool to use for the teacher to help keep them organized and to keep the students organized (by giving them a grade print out). It also is a great communication tool for teachers to use with parents. I like engrade and will keep using it in my classroom.

Class on Creativity

Lasts week class was all about creativity. Now many different people had their own opinion on what creativity is. To me creativity is being able to take normal or average information and change it in a way that can better benefit a student. Whether that is with old fashion paper and pencil drawings or with new high tech computer animations. All that matters is that students are able to obtain information and then use the information later on.  Our teacher is hosting an international conference which we were asked to attend. I would like to attend the conference but it is at 10 am and I have a teaching job and can not get off to go to the conference.  Hopefully later on in the semester there will be another conference that is at a better time for me so I can attend. I am now trying to start my digital story. I have been looking through the videos and articles on the digital story telling and do not think it will be to difficult. The hard thing that I am experiencing is finding time to complete this task. I have just taken on another class at my job, my coaching job, and my transition B work have taken up a lot of time. Hopefully I will have time to complete this task by the end of the week.

Week 8 5 E Lesson Plan and Group Project

This week was a group work week. This week the group worked on constructivism. Constructivism is the theory that the teacher will guide the students through learning instead of directing them. Many times teachers are just the vessel for passing and telling students information. In this model students are passive learners. In the constructivism model, students are active learners. The students are provided with activities that enhance their learning making them actively think and use new information. This helps the students to get a better understanding of the material and how it cold be used in the real world. In our group my job was to a 5 E lesson plan. The 5 E lesson plan is  a constructive science lesson plan. I picked a lesson on how viruses would spread. In the lesson students will simulate how one infected individual can pass on the infection to other in the class by sharing a drink. Student will observe how infections can quickly spread among populations.  I also have to create a few popwerpoint slides for our groups presentation. My slides will be on the lesson plan just giving the class a brief outline of what the lesson is about. Overall the group worked well again in preforming the tasks of the webquest.