A Blog About the Glog

I LOVE IT.....or I would if I could figure out how to get my students to log on and start creating. Setting up my page was super easy, but I ran into a wall trying to figure out how to have my students log on and change their usernames and passwords. I will need to take this home and play with it to see what I can figure out I guess.

Similarities and Differences

Benefit of this technique is that it helps kids make new connections, correct misconceptions and helps kids understand content at a deeper level.

4 generalizations

-presenting students with specific guidance gives them knowledge...teach them how and we will help them.
-when we ask kids to use sims and diffs in whatever they are doing it helps to build understanding
and they need to be able to self select the tool they are going to use to do this
-use graphics or visuals to build understanding
-there are 4 specific ways to do sims and diffs
1) comparing
2) classifying
3) creating metaphors
4) creating analogies

Thinking Maps

The double bubble is used all the time in my classroom. We use is to compare and contrast the stories from Harcourt as well as all literary elements. It is used in math to compare algorithms. We use it in Social Studies as well as social behavior. I encourage group work, cooperative learning and integrate Smart technologies as often as possible in my classroom.

Week 3, Tier 2

What did I do this past week? Hmmmm? I know that one hting I did was to take back to my room what was said in class last week. The smart boards are for the children, not for us. Over the past week, whether it was legible or not, my students did everything on the Smart Board while I watched. No me or my partner teacher in front of the class using the smart board to lecture. Nope :) It was straight up children up there, doing the work, creating thinking maps, click and drags...as much as possible. With each passing activity, the level of engagement grew. Overall a fun week.

End of Day Reflection

I am experiencing information overload right now. There are so many amazing things that can be done using technology, and I want to remember them all, but without time to work and play I know they will be gone shortly. I love the Word Clouds. I am already planning on how to best use this for developing character traits. I also like the memory games and am trying to figure out a time in the schedule when my students can do these activites. Yay Mozilla...any possibility of Google Chrome? So much to move to my long term memory...gonna get on it now.

Session 2....

....for most, but session 1 for me.

My SmartBoard is used daily in my room, all day long. This week it was used for vocabulary development. Students worked in groups to create Thinking Maps to demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words. Each Thinking Map contained: their definition, dictionary definition, synonyms, antonyms, a sentence and a picture of each word. Once the work was completed, they would go up to the Smart Board, create their circle maps and share them with the class. Within that single lesson my students used graphic organizers, they compared and contrasted, we integrated technology into the lesson and worked in small groups. Every week is a lesson for me in new ways to use the Smart Board. The kids are learning as quickly as I am, and in many ways they are teaching me as well.

Final Thought

I loved seeing how EVERYBODY seems to be moving away from paper and pencil. I mean, it does have its place, but seeing so many interactive lessons and hands on activities was great.

I plan on continuing with DVTech Pro next year if it is available. I realize that we merely scraped the surface of what is out there, and I am excited to dig deeper.

You were all amazing and patient instructors. Thank you so much for all you did.

Final Class

I enjoyed my first experience in Tier 1 of DVTech Pro. I have always considered myself to be comfortable with technology but never truly a pro. With the things I learned during my first session (blogging, wikis, movie maker, smart board) I do feel like I am better than I was before. I have long believed that in order to teach children, we need to teach them in the ways they learn. Today's children live and breathe technology. It is what they know, understand and enjoy. So, knowing this, it seems that in order to keep them engaged and interested in what they are learning, technology needs to be a major component in the classroom.

I am concerned about losing the knowledge I gained in this class. I am worried I will forget how to do many of the things I learned. I guess I just need to keep doing the things I learned so I don't lose the knowledge.

I would have liked to have done more with the Smart Board. It would have been nince to see more way to integrate it into lessons and into my classroom. That is the only thing that I would have liked to have had more hands on experiences with.

Rubric for Graphing Activity

Click me to see the Rubric.

Backward Design Lesson Plan

Create a Graph

Wiki

With practice a wiki spaces could be fun for the students in my class. I am creating one right now for my class which will provide information on lessons for the week, homework, study guides and information for upcoming tests as well as a links page for educational websites.

What is a cue?

A cue is a precursor. It is a hint or a clue as to what is going to be learned, what the important information is that needs to be watched for, and will often try to pull in prior knowledge. KWL charts are a tool that works well for organizing cues. Questions are used to check for understanding.

Will I Use it?

There were many interesting tools introduced to us today that are foud on our laptops. In trying to think of which I would use and how I would use them in my teaching...well, Windows Movie Maker is a given. There are so many cool things students could do with that. Picasa would also be nice for taking pics and putting them into ppt or other programs.

Almost Done

As we get closer to the final session I feel more stressed about completing my work, remembering what I have learned and finding ways to implement it in my class. I am still very unsure as to what videos are expected from me, whether my videos have to be my backward design lesson plan being taught, whether or not the videos of my students have to be the same lesson being practiced that I was taped teaching. Add to all this the fact that I am the master procrastinator and I am feeling the stress. Sadly, with AIMS prep, parent teacher conferences, spring break, then AIMS I had no time to do any of the summary frames or the consensogram. We are back into social studies and science this week, so I do plan on trying them out. I just hope that I can get all my work done on time :(

Application #2

Definition frame: Beneficial in learning new terms for content areas across the curriculum. I could see myself using this in math for learning geometry terms.

Arumentation frame: Science hypothesis and I could see it working when doing the persuasive elements of writing. Take claims made my people about products and justify them.

Problem/solution frame: Expository text for science and social studies alike. Beneficial for world events as well.

Converation frame: Analyzing conversations in fictional text and drawing conlusions and making inferences based on those conclusions.

ahHa moment...essential questions are difficult to write.

Application

Kids love surveys. They see them all the time in their teen magazines. Using a consensogram would be an amazing tool to use in order to allow students to express their beliefs or opinions on a subject prior to learning about it fully, then providing them with the opportunity to show a change in opinions or beliefs, if ne has occurred, after a topic is covered and explored.

The notetaking stategies we covered show me the way that they engage students by giving them the chance to play up to the learning style they favor by expressing their understanding of content in a variety of ways.

Reciprocal Teaching

In my class, I use reciprocal teaching whenever a new concept is being read about, or when a new story is being tackled. I have the roles, descriptions of the roles and lead ins for questions for each of the roles printed up on card stock and connected on keychains. Each group receives their keyrings, reads sections of text and assume their roles within the group. It is necessary to make sure that a strong person is in the clarifying role at the beginning of the year, as it is the toughest role to fulfil, however, roles do need to change within each group as the year progresses.

Rule Based Summarizing

I could see myself using this in class during almost all subjects. During language arts, in order to summarize the story, during social studies and science for quick notetaking and during math when combining definitions on terms within a unit.

*Note to self* strikethrough is in the format tab of word!!!

Summarizing and Notetaking

Notetaking is a skill that has to be taught, and I hit it hard in the 5th grade. I use as a means to identify main ideas and supporting details as well as a place to keep thoughts together for upcoming tests. The narrative frame would be a wonderful tool to use when helping my class to identify story elements. It makes it very easy to identify the expose of a story as well as the "somebosy wanted but so" which is the conflict, climax and resolution to a story. The restriction illustration frame would be great for social studies and identifying what the main idea of each section of a chapter is about.

In regards to my overall state of mind....why did we schedule AIMS when we did? And why are we taking a week off right before the test? I could really use this upcoming break as an instructional week, then a week off after the test is over. I am stressed about it this year, more so than other years so for the first time, I am not truly looking forward to a full week off. I would rather be in my classroom helping the kids get ready. On the upside, this class has made me comfortable enough with some aspects of technology that I have decided to create a wikispace for my class :D

Uploading PPT

Through gmail,click on documents in the upper left hand corner. In new window that opens click on Upload button. Once the document you want to upload has been selected, name the document and click upload again. Under share tab click publish as a web page. A code will be posted in a box in the corner, copy and paste that code into the html box of your blogger new post window.

Past, Present and Future

So far in DVTech Pro, I have to say that I have experienced many successes. First and foremost is the fact that I have managed to keep most of my usernames and passwords in the front of my mind so that I may log into all the places we go. I am also happy with the fact that I have learned to do so many new things in an electronic manner. My biggest challenge so far, and one that I am still struggling with, clearly more so today simply keeping up. I am doing "ok" but I would like to do better. Wishes...I wish I had a better idea of how to use more of what I learn in my 5th grade class for my kiddos.

What's my password?

While I learned quite a bit today, I also experienced many frustrations. I have so many emails to remember now, and so many passwords....Also, United Streaming says I don't exist. Add this to my list of things to do.

I plan on using or creating a new Rubric before we meet again. They are amazing tools to use, just because they provide students, as well as teachers, with set expectations and instructions for obtaining a desired grade.

Thought for the day...sorry, suffering from information overload. I see to be braindead.

Early Saturdays!!!

Another Saturday up early, and it went much better today. Unfortunately, years of working nights in health care have my body fighting this like no other. It is worth it though. Working on a campus that has never had a great deal of technology for the students, it is going to be nice to be able to put something in my classroom for the kids to use. So excited to get it done :) I have also considered myself to be fairly tech savy, but I am learning so many new things in here, i now realize that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. I am excited to get in here every week and learn more.

Day 1 Reflection

As I leave today there are many things I am taking with me. Backward design is amazing, as in it truly works the way things do in real life. As we go through life, we set a goal first, then we come up with ways to achieve it and generate a plan for how to get there. Why should our students be any different? The activities were great too, but I need to sit down and figure out ways to build them into my classroom, especially the "Tea Party". It not only provides for the opportunity to allow kids to interact and move around, but encourages them to use higher level thinking skills and accomplish multiple tasks within one activity. My Woo-Hoo moment...easy...FN/F8 function keys to get my projector to work. Oh, the camera is also amazing.

Amazing Start!!!!!

From the get go, things haven't gone right, so they can only get better right? I signed up for the class in August, but wasn't enrolled. According to eschools I am not enrolled in any classes so I can't see assignments or blackboard. My camera application wouldn't work forever. THEN I overslept on the first day. Oh yeah, forgot my user agreement as well. I hope it gets better. Worse case scenario, I accidently crash the district server rendering us all encapable of completing the class. Personally, I hope to come in for the Feburary class ready to go and truly one of everybody :P