Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Free Technology for Teachers
So, I just spent some time perusing this wonderful little blog called Free Technology for Teachers, and I found a couple of tools that may be very useful for a future English language arts teacher such as myself. The first thing I found is a site, Toasted Cheese, that offers a monthly calendar of daily writing prompts. If I attain my own class in the future, I definitely intend to have my students begin each day with a quick free write - it's an awesome way to get the brain warmed up and ready to go. While I don't see myself using this site everyday (because that takes the fun out of creating your own writing prompts), I think it would be great to have handy for the days I don't have a prompt ready, or when I'm not feeling super creative. Some of the prompts on their calendar look really fun!
The next great tool I found is this site, AirPano, that allows you to take 360 degree virtual tours of famous landmarks and cities throughout the world. This site - a lot like Google Earth, in a sense - is tons of fun and very easy to use. It's also very easy to burn a lot of time on their without even realizing it. I spent forever playing on there, checking out the places I've been to, like Athens, Greece (they have a great view of the Acropolis). This site would be fun to use in the classroom so that the students could take tours of the locations that they are reading about in their books, and get an actual visual of the scenery.
And finally, one last quick site that I found really neat, was this map called "Mapping the World of Mark Twain." The site is a map of every location that Mark Twain ever wrote about. It's a map of the world, and every location that Twain wrote about has a blue dot (there are tons of them) that you can click on, and it gives you the line of the text and the work it's from. You can also choose to read the entire passage. I don't know that I would ever really use this in a classroom, but it could definitely be something that you show to your students and let them mess around with.
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Monday, February 17, 2014
A Work Product for My Future Classroom
One work product that I could see myself implementing in my classroom would be a student-created, class blog. I think this would be a fun and creative way to get students engaged and to expose their work to an authentic audience. In the world of today, there is no better way to get students to experience an authentic audience than to have them share their work on the internet.
The class blog would be a place for students to share and reflect on what they have learned. The great thing about a class blog is its multifarious uses: students could use it as an open discussion forum, posing any questions or ideas on the subject material, and receive feedback from their peers, or even students throughout the world; students could upload their projects or essays to be shared and commented on; I could create assignments designed specifically around the blog. There really are plenty of creative ways (and reasons) to use a class blog.
The class blog would be a place for students to share and reflect on what they have learned. The great thing about a class blog is its multifarious uses: students could use it as an open discussion forum, posing any questions or ideas on the subject material, and receive feedback from their peers, or even students throughout the world; students could upload their projects or essays to be shared and commented on; I could create assignments designed specifically around the blog. There really are plenty of creative ways (and reasons) to use a class blog.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Some Valuable Links on Integrating Technology into the Classroom
I must admit that, as a prospective teacher and more of a traditionalist, the rapidly changing world of technology and its integration into the classroom has made me a bit anxious. However, over the past couple of semesters I have been learning a lot about the usefulness of technology in the classroom, and my obdurate resistance has begun to weaken.
My biggest concerns were with students wasting time on sites like Facebook and the such. As a student myself, I've witnessed first-hand just how distracting those types of things can be in class. I can't count the number of times I've seen students spend an entire lecture perusing Facebook. However, I've come to realize that this is only a minor concern and it can be controlled, for the most part, pretty easily. There are many positive reasons to use technology in the classroom, and I shouldn't let my personal distaste for social media hinder the opportunity to create an engaging and effective lesson.
I'd like to use the rest of this short blog to share several informative and helpful links that I've found online recently that pertain to the subject at hand. For instance, this slideshow that I found on slideshare.com gives 10 reasons to integrate technology in the classroom. You will notice that their first reason listed is that 'students love it.' This is such a simple idea, but it couldn't be more true. Teaching to the youth's fascination with technology is a great way to successfully get them engaged in a lesson.
Where as the slideshow offers reasons to integrate technology in the classroom, this short youtube video I discovered suggests different methods and ways to use it, specifically in the language arts classroom, which is what I plan to teach.
And lastly, I found this progressive and highly informative article on scribd.com that discusses the importance and implementation of technology in the classroom in great detail. It posits that a classroom transformation needs to take place, in which we move away from the teacher centered method, to an interactive, student centered classroom with the use of technology.
My biggest concerns were with students wasting time on sites like Facebook and the such. As a student myself, I've witnessed first-hand just how distracting those types of things can be in class. I can't count the number of times I've seen students spend an entire lecture perusing Facebook. However, I've come to realize that this is only a minor concern and it can be controlled, for the most part, pretty easily. There are many positive reasons to use technology in the classroom, and I shouldn't let my personal distaste for social media hinder the opportunity to create an engaging and effective lesson.
I'd like to use the rest of this short blog to share several informative and helpful links that I've found online recently that pertain to the subject at hand. For instance, this slideshow that I found on slideshare.com gives 10 reasons to integrate technology in the classroom. You will notice that their first reason listed is that 'students love it.' This is such a simple idea, but it couldn't be more true. Teaching to the youth's fascination with technology is a great way to successfully get them engaged in a lesson.
Where as the slideshow offers reasons to integrate technology in the classroom, this short youtube video I discovered suggests different methods and ways to use it, specifically in the language arts classroom, which is what I plan to teach.
And lastly, I found this progressive and highly informative article on scribd.com that discusses the importance and implementation of technology in the classroom in great detail. It posits that a classroom transformation needs to take place, in which we move away from the teacher centered method, to an interactive, student centered classroom with the use of technology.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
An Experience with Technology in the Classroom
When I think of teachers in my academic career that incorporated technology into their classrooms, my high school English teacher comes to mind. I'm not sure that I would describe Mrs. H as tech-savvy, per se, because this was back in 2001 and most of the technology use was your average movies in the classroom or going to the computer lab for research. However, there was one assignment that Mrs. H composed in which she creatively and effectively incorporated technology that still sticks with me to this day.
The assignment was just another boring, old vocabulary test, but Mrs. H energized it with the creative use of technology. We picked groups of three students or so, and then each group was given a list of vocab words and was assigned one of them. Our task was to make a short video that captured the definition of the word assigned to our group. (I think we were supposed to use our own video cameras if we had them, but if we didn't, we could use the school's.) So each group made their short video, and then Friday we presented them to the class and then took the test.
The incorporation of technology made the assignment incredibly fun and engaging. Rather than just memorizing a list of words, we were able to actually get creative with it and make it unique. Creating and visualizing the videos was very effective in my grasping the vocab.
The assignment was just another boring, old vocabulary test, but Mrs. H energized it with the creative use of technology. We picked groups of three students or so, and then each group was given a list of vocab words and was assigned one of them. Our task was to make a short video that captured the definition of the word assigned to our group. (I think we were supposed to use our own video cameras if we had them, but if we didn't, we could use the school's.) So each group made their short video, and then Friday we presented them to the class and then took the test.
The incorporation of technology made the assignment incredibly fun and engaging. Rather than just memorizing a list of words, we were able to actually get creative with it and make it unique. Creating and visualizing the videos was very effective in my grasping the vocab.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)