Week 13 Happy Thanksgiving

 Teachers are always acting like designers. By creating lesson plans for class activities, they are designing what the class is going to do and what learning activities that take place. Not all students learn the say way, teachers have to design specific lessons to fit the needs of each student. Sometimes lessons don't go as planned so teachers must quickly come up with something else to when the original plan doesn't work out. As a P.E. teacher, I will create various movement skills and games to keep my students engaged in physical activity. Hopefully, this will help students realize that P.E. is not just a blow-off class and you do have to work to achieve physical benefits.

As a P.E. teacher I would not use any of the tools listed in Chapter 8. However, a Science teacher would benefit from the Trebuchet Simulator. This tool is good for lessons that deal with physics and math. "Trebuchet Simulator is software that simulates a throwing device and the students have to manipulate it" (Jonassen, 2008). This is a perfect activity for students to engage in for a science lab. Scratch would be great for theater or music. This tool has programming graphics and sound tools to help students create scripts. This would really come in handy when rehearsing for musicals and theatre plays.

"Digital Storytelling is a software or program that put more focus on the activity than the technology" (Jonassen, 2008). With this software, the students work as a team and come up with a story to put together. As a P.E. teacher I would not use Digital Storytelling because my focus is on physical activity. However, this would be great for a reading teacher and an English teacher. This gives students the opportunity to be creative and edit their own work. They are learning to write, read, and correct mistakes while becoming more familiar with technology.  

Visualizing formulas with graphing calculators and tinkering with data sets are other tools that can help make math more real to students. Using graphing calculators has always helps me understand linear equations and functions better. You can play with the calculator and see what certain equations and angles look like. In the tinkering with data sets, the data is visually represented by mobile icons. According to our book, "Students develop mathematical understanding of attributes, logical relationships, place value, and plotting and learn to perceive the stories and patterns that lie within the data they collect" p 200 (Jonassen, 2008).

 

I think that it is possible to learn from watching TV instruction alone, but I don't agree with just using TV to learn how to do something. By just watching TV alone to learn how to do something limits students ways of learning. Students should be able to use computers and hands on experiences to help them learn how to do stuff. It is a good idea for students to learn how to do something just by trying to figure it out. There are times when technology is not around to use so it is good for students to experiment and learn on their own as well.

Jonasse D., Howland J., Marra R. M., & Crismond D. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Chapter 3 Assignment

The three principals that I think would be important for education are Committed Learning Principle, Discovery Principle, and the Practice Principle. The Committed Learning Principle gives learners alot of effort and practice. In this principle students get to experience the best of both worlds. Some commitment is still involved in order for the student to accomplish a task. The Practice Principle gives learners a chance to master a skill. For example, in P.E. students have to practice shooting free throws in basketball in order to perform it accurately. The skill or context should not be boring to the student and it should keep them engaged in learning the task. The Discovery Principle is the most important in my opinion. Students should be allowed to experiment and make discoveries in order to enhance their learning experience. Students should participate in varying hands on activities that relate to real life situations which will allow them to get a better understanding of what is being taught.

The activity that I would support for my simulation would have to be related to physcial education. If I was covering muscles of the human body, I would give a simulation where students become a professional body builder performing different types of weight lifting exercises while describing which muscles they are using in the process. My focus would be to teach the students what muscles are being used during each weight lifting activity. This will give students a better understanding of the muscles they use during physical activities.

To conclude, Gee's principles and simulations can play an important role in education. They both focus on keeping students engaged and experiencing hands on and real life situations. As a physical education teacher, I may not use simulations in my classroom but they are useful for other subject areas such as biology or anatomy. 


Jonasse D., Howland J., Marra R. M., & Crismond D. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Chapter 7 Assignment

  After reading chapter four, I would use the concept maps in my classroom to help students write out their ideas. For P.E. I wouldn't use it much but since I want my class to write a research paper on a sport of their choice then the concept maps would be the most useful. Using the concept maps, the student can list the sport and then branch off different concepts and iformation pertaining to that sport.

I think that PowerPoints are great to use in the classroom. However, they can cause distraction to a classroom if there is too much sound effect or too many pictures. Having to many pictures and colors in your slides can distract the students to pay more attention to those details than to the information that is provided. If you have to much sound on your slides then that will distract the lecture and cause disruption in the classroom. Sometimes font style and size can be a distraction because it might be hard to read or understand. Students will then be focusing on trying to comprehend the slides and asking other students what it says. As a teacher it is very important to consider these things especially with younger children.

To conclude, I am very excited about working with PowerPoints this week. Its been awhile since I have created slides and I am excited to see what I remember. I will now keep in mind some of the distractions that can occur when creating slides and try to avoid them.

Chapter 2 Blog Assigmnet

Personal digital assistants are also known as handheld computers. Cell phones, I Pods, digital cameras, audio recording, USB port, and even an integrated Global Positioning Systems receiver are considered personal digital assistants. Personal digital assistants are used in the classrooms and they run on the Palm operating system. Students can use these handhelds to work on math problems, create graphs and tables, transfer Microsoft Office files between a computer and a handheld, and use Bluetooth to send applications and files from one handheld to another. These handhelds are a great tools to use in the classroom and more schools are choosing to use them.

Online survey tools are used to collect data across a curriculum. Our SED 300 class took one of these surveys to test our knowledge about multicultural teaching. Other survey tool features include downloadable files for export to spreadsheets, sharing of results, and randomizing the order of answer choices to reduce bias. It helps us in the classroom by testing our knowledge to see what we know. When we get the results, we can see what areas we need to work on and obtain more knowlege of it. Two good rules for writing good surveys are to avoid long questions and avoid bias. Using long questions is not only time consuming, but it can cause the survey taker to lose focus. I know personally that I like short questions that are to the point. Avoiding bias is an important rule for writing good surveys because if you include bias questions then you will get bias answers. It will make an inaccurate survey because the answers will be predetermined.

In Conclusion, personal digital assistants are great tools for teachers to use in the classroom. Teachers can have an assignment for the students to complete on the handhelds when they enter the classroom. The only problem with PDA's is that it can be a distraction for the student because they might play games or text on it. Online surveys are also great tools to use in the classrooms. They help test student's knowledge over the curriculum and see what areas need improvement.


References:
Crismond, David, Howland, Jane, Jonassen, David, Marra, Rose M.(2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall

Blog Posting Week 4

I think that spreadsheets are interesting and useful. I wish I knew more about using spreadsheets because sometimes they are complicated to use, and they don't do what you want them to do. However, for the most part they are very useful. I would use the spreadsheets in my classroom for attendance and grading. Since I am teaching P.E., those are the only things that I would probably use spreadsheets for.

We as teachers, use spreadsheets to record data, create assignments and take attendance. For example, you can keep up with student's grades using spreadsheets. The spreadsheet does the math for you and averages out student's grades. You can also create assignments on spreadsheets such as matching or creating charts. According to the book, "spreadsheets have been used most consistently in schools management tools for accounting, but they are being used increasingly as Mindtools to support higher-order quantitative thinking pg. 89." Spreadsheets are also used for taking attendance. You can list all the student's names on the spreadsheet and use the boxes to check them off for attendance. The advantage of a spreadsheet over a calculator is that it can record more data at one time. For example, once you figure out the final average grade for one student in a certain row, the spreadsheet will average out all the other student's grades. It takes alot less time to do this on a spreadsheet than it does on a calculator.

The book states, "spreadsheets have three primary functions: storing, calculating, and presenting information pg. 89." I think that these functions can be very beneficial to teachers. Some teaching fields will use spreadsheets more than others, but they are used at some point in a teacher's career. Spreadsheets can also contain pictures that go along with the information presented. For example when I did my matching assignment for our class, I added two pictures to go along with my lesson. I thought that was really cool.
To conclude, Spreadsheets have alot to offer when it comes to certain criteria. I know that in the future, I will be using spreadsheets at some point in my teaching career.  

Crismond, David, Howland, Jane, Jonassen, David, Marra, Rose M.(2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall

Assignment 3 Blog Posting

After watching the website, I found that Inspiration Quick Tour can do multiple tasks in one program. It interests me that you can make diagrams, lesson plans, power point slides, create notes, use videos and web casts and much more. It is really convenient for teachers that you can move the work that you do on Inspiration Quick Tour to other programs such as Microsoft Word. As a P.E. teacher I could use Inspiration Quick Tour to create diagrams such as the food pyramid, or post pictures of muscles and bones. I can also use this program to help me write up my lesson plans for the year. I can post exercise and health videos and even post notes for my lesson.

The type of writing activities that would make the best use of technology in my classroom  would be organizing ideas with concept maps. Using this, the students will me able to arrange existing ideas into clusters. For example, if the main topic is fruits and vegetables then they can branch off from that and list specific types such as tomatoes, broccoli, etc. This way if I have them create their own food pyramid it would help them organize their information.
The way that I can have students help each other during writing since my time is limited as a teacher is by pairing up the students and having them proof read each other's paper. It is best to have multiple people read your paper in order to get different opinions and views. Also, less mistakes are likely to be missed if more than one person proof reads your paper. Students can relate to each other since they are usually around the same age so their opinion ususally matters more than a teacher's opinion. The technology tools that I can use to help support peer feedback would be SWoRD. As the book states "it is a Web-based reciprocal peer review system that is designed to facilitate peer review while providing mechanisms to ensure validity and the potential of student bias in providing feedback." This would be a good tool to use because you are getting feedback from multiple people.
The first time that I had to teach a new topic or skill was last semester in my teaching methods class. My teacher wanted me to teach hurdles in track and field and even though I run cross country and track, I knew nothing about hurdles at the time besides that you go over them. I really had to do some research on the internet about hurdles. There is alot of technique to jumping hurdles and form is very important. I definately know more about hurdles after teaching it. However, after learning more about it I am really glad that I don't have to jump hurdles. It is way too complicated for me.

To conclude, Inspiration Quick Tool is a great way to accomplish multiple tasks as a teacher. I think making lesson plans can be alot easier from now on since I know about this program. I hope to learn more about it and become more familiar with it so I can use it in my classrooms when I become a teacher.

Introduction

My name is Jamie Hays. I run cross country here at the University. I am a senior and I will be graduating in May.  I am not very familiar with using blogs but I am trying. I would not personally use this for my classroom but I do see how it can be helpful in the teaching field. I do hope to get more experience using blogs by taking this class so that I can use it when I need to .