Prezi

Technology Reflection : ipads

Description/Experience
The last seminar was a presentation of ipads in the classroom. The elementary school received grant money for firstly, ipads, and later on, for a number of ipod touches. The presentation explained how the ipads were shared, by teachers and students, and discussed a number of educational apps.

Application
I would like to use the History:Maps of the World app. It has a collection of maps that span across the world and centuries. This is a great app for comparing maps. For example, it can show the differences between the Eurasian continent in the 1600s and today.

Learners: 8th grade history class

Learning outcomes: The purpose of this activity is to familiarize students with world geography during the US Civil War as compared to what it is today and to show comparisons between the US Civil War and similar complications in other countries.

Assessment: The students are to pick a region and write a paragraph about why they think that region has changed according to their maps.

• Students are put into groups of 4 to share ipads. 
• Each group is shown how to use the app and given a few minutes to familiarize themselves with the functions.
• The students are then given 15 minutes to compare maps of foreign countries from the US Civil War era and today.
• They are then told to pick a specific map or region. Groups pick the same region, but will turn in separate papers.
• After picking their regions, the students are given about 10 minutes to write a paragraph discussing why they think these differences on the maps may have occurred.
• Then they may share with their groups what they wrote.
• The students will turn in their papers and a followup the next day will discuss what the real reasons were for these regional differences.

--Pedagogy-Content:

This assignment not only involves the history content, but is also a good way to build critical thinking. The critical thinking aspect begins when the students are given the ipads. Many of the students will probably never have used an ipad before and almost certainly never have used the History: Map of the World App. The students will be thinking critically when navigating through the maps. They will continue this critical thinking as they are creating their own stories about why the maps have changed; therefore this assignment allows a constructivist teacher who values critical thinking, to teach about history and geography.

--Technology-Pedagogy:

The technology aids the pedagogy by giving the students a better motivator to learn. The technology, ipads, is something new and fun for the students. This motivates them to learn and therefore will keep them seeking out knowledge on their own which supports a constructivist pedagogical approach.

--Technology-Content:

The technology makes a great connection with the content. Maps aren't always fun for children, especially when they come from an atlas full of them. A better way for students to look at maps is to use the ipads. It also allows them to compare more easily because it eliminates page flipping and instead lets them simply click on maps with their fingers.

--Technology-Pedagogy-Content:

The technology, pedagogy, and content all aid each other in this activity. The technology helps the students effectively grasp the content and helps the teacher's approach to the lesson be more effective as well. The pedagogy is reinforced by both the technology and content. Lastly the content is influenced by the technology by improving opportunities to learn with an ipad and it is helped by the pedagogy when the teacher uses effective teaching strategies to present it.

Technology Reflection : Ipads

Technology Reflection : Instructional Use of Edmodo

Technology Reflection Assignment

Description/Experience

Last seminar the Edmodo program was presented to my class. The demonstration showed me a number of valuable resources it has to offer. The first aspect I noticed was the familiar interface; it looks very similar to facebook. This familiarity is beneficial not only for students who have experience with facebook, but also for myself as an educator. The class also discussed the homework help benefits for students that Edmodo allows. Another thing I found important was the control the teacher has over the groups, specifically the ability to view all posts and option to reset passwords.

Application

An interesting activity that would be relevant to their curriculum is a “Guess Who” game on Edmodo. Students read short biographies that the teacher has posted and are told to guess who the biography is about with the use of several documents uploaded to the Edmodo library. Afterwards they are assigned to write their own anonymous biographies and post them for the rest of the class to read and guess.

• Learners: 8^th graders in a West Virginia Studies class
• Learning outcomes: The purpose of this activity is to review some of the famous people they have already learned about and to familiarize the students with famous West Virginians that have not yet been introduced.
• Assessment: Students are assessed on how many of the 5 initial biographies they can correctly identify. The second half of the assessment is upon completion of their biography writing assignments. Bonus points or reinforcement may be given to students who can be the first to correctly identify the biographies written by their peers.

-In order to make sure all students can participate, this activity will take place in the computer lab.

-Initially seven documents are posted to the library. Although they should not be biographies they should have vast biographical information about the important West Virginians I want to highlight with the anonymous biographies. Along with the seven documents, five biographies are posted, but the names of each person are kept a secret.

-Students are given up to ten minutes to read through the documents and use the new found information to determine the identities of each anonymous biography.

-After they have submitted their answers they are instructed to write a biography in the same style as the ones they just read and post it for the class. They must send the identities to me, but their peers will not see this.

-If time allows students may read through each other’s posts and make educated guesses, but most likely this will be an optional activity for them to do at home.

Reflection

The use of Edmodo will support my teaching strategies because it enables me to guide the students without directly instructing them the entire time. This will allow me to devote time to struggling students who need more attention as well as keep the high achieving students engaged. This constructivist style of teaching will help build my students’ critical thinking skills.

The effective use of Edmodo will enhance the students comprehension because it will keep them engaged. Adding the element of a social-network, especially one so similar to facebook, will encourage the students to participate in what is actually no more than a reading and writing exercise. In addition, it has been shown that comprehension is improved when the student takes on the role of teaching the content which is evident in the second half of the assignment in which students must post a biography they write in class.

--Pedagogy-Content:

The content is found within the anonymous biographies and articles posted to the library. For example if one of the mystery persons was Anna Jarvis an article about the Mother’s Day Shrine in Taylor county may be posted.

The students may assume that the biographies and articles will not be interesting or fun to read because they have historical value; however I believe mixing in a more modern representative of West Virginia, such as Landau Murphy, winner of America’s Got Talent, may draw in their attention. I would take students to the computer lab for this activity so access would not be a concern, but I would be worried that students might be distracted by the opportunity to use other sites while they should be on Edmodo, or to use search engines to find the biography identities rather than reading the articles provided.

--Technology-Pedagogy:

The students all use Edmodo to read and post for the element of technology. The instructional purpose for Edmodo in this activity is to ease the process of sharing their biographies.

Using technology would support the way I teach this activity by graphically organizing all the material (the articles, initial biographies and student-written biographies) to be read. It will be easier to manage as computer documents and will generate less paper waste in the classroom.

Good time management will be important because the students make want to take much longer than they need to write their biographies. I also would want to make myself present to the class, most likely by roaming between rows, to ensure they stay on task even when I’m not directly instructing.

--Technology-Content:

Using Edmodo with enhance the representation of  content by making it more interactive, and therefore engaging for students. Without this technology the content may seem less interesting.

Students will understand the content in this activity better through Edmodo because it puts a familiar interface to the new information they are receiving. Without this technology the content may seem somewhat more confusing because Edmodo helps to aesthetically organize it.

--Technology-Pedagogy-Content:

Reading about important West Virginias will prepare the students for in class assessments and the Golden Horseshoe exam. Reading about them on Edmodo and providing an opportunity for the students to write a biography as well will get them more engaged.

The technology will enhance the content by providing the new information in an organized fashion and it will enhance the pedagogy by enabling the students to discover new information on their own while I can be available to provide extra help.

Choosing a constructivist teaching strategy for this combination of content and technology was an obvious decision to make because Edmodo is a great way for students to discover information on their own as well as with their peers, and learning about famous people from West Virginia is not the type of complicated concept that requires me to provide immense direct instruction. 

My First Day of 8th Grade

This morning was my first day at my PDS, Taylor Middle School. All week I've been a flutter with worries and anxiety about how it would go. My carpool group was leaving a little earlier than I needed so I had about an hour to myself in the teachers' lounge before the school day began. As I nervously sat with one of my text books, trying to busy myself, I was greeted over and over by the  friendly new faces of different teachers. After not too long I began to calm down and ready myself for my first meeting of my assigned teacher and her students.

Ms. Morral had a warm welcoming demeanor as I walked in and she began to introduce herself. I was relieved that she seemed so nice and excited to have me. We started right away by going over a social and study skills lesson that was for the first forty minutes of class. She had me read through it to familiarize myself with the time management assignment. The students were to create a calendar of their own school events, deadlines, and socials for the month of September. The students quickly began talking aloud and arguing over whether football was more important than cheerleading or if the high school games should count on their schedules. After some broad discussion the class brought it back down and completed their own calendars.

The next class was West Virginia history. I was really happy to be in this class because it's one of my favorite topics; I happened to take WV history myself last semester and decided to add a WV forestry class to my schedule this year. The students worked on brochures or pamphlets for any of the numerous fairs and festivals in West Virginia. Ms. Morral had a student write the assignment rubric on the board for everyone to see. There was a total of 40 points, 10 for data, 10 for color, 10 for a slogan, and 10 for creativity. This helped them to understand exactly what aspects to focus on. I spent the remainder of the class helping students pick out important facts and look up information.

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