Integrating Online Sites and Apps

I think online resources can help enhance the science experience. My teacher uses Youtubekids videos for everything. She will sometimes use them for science to help explain a concept. She also uses computer games for mathematics in her classroom.

I think the science experiments could not be duplicated on the computer. You could watch a video of the science experiment, you could even do an online version of the science experiment, however you cannot get the genuine experiment of being able to walk through the experiment process. 

I think something that can be done with the computer is you could go on virtual field trips that you would never be able to take your students on in real life due to money or distance from you. For instance, on a unit on space you could have a virtual field trip where students explore NASA and watch a rocket launch.


I also think the computer could be used to replicate some experiments.  For instance, a lot of students get squirmy at the thought of dissection.  Dissection is also expensive for schools.  Therefore, you could have students perform a frog dissection on the computer.

Students could be given time to play science games which could help them study for upcoming tests. It could also enhance what they are already learning. 

I think the computer is a great resource to be used when it comes to enhancing learning. It can enhance learning and help give students new experiences they would otherwise not get to have.

Picture from:
Wall, M. (2018, March 23). SpaceX Rocket Launch Created Shock Wave 4 Times Larger Than California. Retrieved October 14, 2018, from https://www.space.com/40063-spacex-rocket-launch-shock-wave.html

Content Vocabulary

My classroom has only done one science experiment while I have been there. During this lesson she did not cover vocabulary. She set up a science experiment and said they would come back to it. Therefore, I am going to talk about strategies she uses in Language Arts.

My teacher regularly uses matching pairs. She will regularly give them a sheet where they cut out the vocabulary terms that are from their book of the week and have to glue it down beside the vocabulary term. The students like doing this and try to race each other as to who can do it first. During these races, they usually end up doing the vocabulary correctly so it does feel like they are learning using this method.

My teacher also regularly uses word of the day. Each day, the students learn a new vocabulary term. The teacher leads them through figuring it out based on the words pieces. They put these terms into their word journal which they can regularly look at if they forget a definition.

My teacher needs to be more consistent in using different models. The students will just write down one word in their journal that can be used as a definition of the word. I think it would be more beneficial if they were using a frayer model. I think this would help the students better understand the word because you can tell that the students are sometimes still confused about the words that they are learning for word of the day. I think a frayer model would work better because they have to do the definition and do examples and non-examples.

I think Realia would also be nice for my teacher to use because she has many English Language Learners and this is supposed to be very helpful for English Language Learners. It would be cool for her to incorporate this strategy into her lesson.

Anchor Charts

Anchor charts are a tool used for whole group instruction. They are made during a lesson to create a visual representation of what is being taught during the lesson. These charts are then left out so that students can regularly reference them. 

Anchor charts allow students to help join in the lesson. Students are allowed to interact with the teacher as they move through a lesson. Students help the teacher create the chart. Anchor charts are very helpful because they allow students to understand the vocabulary and be able to use it, it allows students to have a visual that they can regularly reference in the classroom and it helps students in being able to synthesize the vast amounts of information they have learned. This can be useful for science because a lot of times students will read about something but not be able to explain it. Through the use of anchor charts students can demonstrate to the teacher that they do know what they are talking about when it comes to a science concept. The creation of this chart can help them better understand the concept because they are building the chart with the teacher. They have to consolidate their thinking into a chart and when they get stuck the teacher can guide them along since she knows the content well. They are also left on the wall as a visual. Science concepts can involve many parts, for example parts of the cell or the water system. Through the use of an anchor chart left on the wall, students could have regular exposure to the material. This can help them better retain the information.

I will use anchor charts in my science instruction. I think they are a valuable tool. The students get to help you build the visual cues that they need. They are then in a place that the students can see everyday. I think they have many valuable positives that outweigh any negatives. I feel I will most often use anchor charts in science and math. In science I think they will be super helpful when it comes to bigger science concepts with many parts. I wish my biology teacher would have made one of these when we were learning about how cells make energy. This would have been very helpful. I will definitely be using anchor charts in my future classroom.

Work Cited:

M. (2015, August 18). THE BEST ANCHOR CHART PAPER EVER & A GIVEAWAY! [Web log post]. Retrieved September 29, 2018, from http://www.teachingwithamountainview.com/2015/08/the-best-anchor-chart-paper-ever.html

Moses, E., & Lee, H. (2014). Imitate and Innovate Anchor Charts. International Reading Associations Essentials,1-15. Retrieved September 30, 2018, from http://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/member-benefits/e-ssentials/ila-e-ssentials-8065.pdf

States of matter science anchor chart for kindergarten. (n.d.). Retrieved September 29, 2018, from http://indulgy.com/post/2gzbEKp4b2/states-of-matter-science-anchor-chart-fo

Scientific Method vs Engineering Design Process

The scientific method is a time tested way of learning to do experiments in the classroom. The engineering design process is a different method that I had never heard of before today.

The scientific method is a series of steps that can be followed to answer a question. This process begins with a question. The user researches the question and comes up with a hypothesis. The user then experiments to test their hypothesis. The user than analyzes that data to come up with conclusions. 

In the engineering design process, the user is striving to solve a problem. They research that problem, and they along with their team, come up with all possible solutions to that problem. It is then narrowed to the best solution. A prototype is then built and tested. The user than works to improve the prototype until they feel they have the best possible solution.

In the classroom, the scientific method is most often used. Students are given the experiment by their teacher, told to come up with a hypothesis. They then follow the steps of the scientific method until they come up with a conclusion. This is very teacher led and the students are more or less following a template.  I imagine that in the classroom, you would begin the engineering design process by putting the students into groups. You would then present them with a problem and the students would follow the engineering design process until they came up with the best prototype. They would then build that prototype and keep working on it until they have almost perfected it. In this classroom, the teacher is playing more of a boss role and the students are playing engineers. The teacher assigns them a task that she needs done and ultimately it is up with the students and their creativity to solve the problem.

I think teachers should use the engineering design process.  I remember in middle school I had one teacher, in a robotics class, who used the engineering design process. I, at the time did not know this was what he was using. However, he told us we needed to build something that could move our pencil from our side of the table to the other side of the table We then were broken up into groups and had to come up with something. My group ultimately built a robot. When it failed to get the pencil to the other side of the table we kept working until it could.  I remember this being so fun and unlike anything else I had ever done before. Our teacher did not give us solid help. He would ask questions that guided our thought, but he would not give us any hints. We learned a lot that day. I feel I learned more that day then I have in any science class following the scientific method. That is why I believe the engineering design process is the way to go in our classrooms.

The scientific method has its strengths. For instance, it helps students follow the process and ultimately get the experiment done. It was never a big deal if your hypothesis turned out incorrect, you could just make a new one and try the experiment again. This gets students into the science process and helps them become actively engaged in it. I think a weakness is that it is very teacher led.  The teacher is still doing a lot of the leading. Often times the teacher will show them the experiment that they have to do. It takes away a lot of creativity.

The engineering design process has a strength of letting the children's imagination run wild.  They ultimately have to constrain themselves to work with the resources that they have.  A weakness of the engineering design process is that it could require more resources than the scientific method because students have to be able to build their prototype that they feel will best solve the problem. It can also be more time consuming because they have to spend a lot of time thinking about what prototype will work best before building it instead of following a previously designed experiment.

Overall, I feel that both the scientific method and the engineering design process have their place in today's classrooms.  However, if you have the resources and the extra time, I feel the engineering design process is the way to go.

Citations:
[Jessica Maxwell]. (2016, August 25). Design Process vs. Scientific Method [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrlswrq5aIs

The Scientific Method. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bscsd.org/Page/991

TeachEngineering. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.teachengineering.org/k12engineering/designprocess

Final Reflection

When I started out this semester I was knew that technology needed to be integrated into my classroom. In the current world we live in everything is changing so fast and students need to have advanced computer skills in order to succeed in the classroom and beyond the classroom in life. I knew that it was my job, as the teacher, to help them develop these skills. However, I had no idea on how to integrate technology into my classroom.

I learned a lot of valuable things that I think will make me a better classroom teacher because I will be able to integrate these resources into my classroom. One thing that I found extremely helpful was the SAMR model. I like this model because it carefully details the ways in which to integrate technology into your classroom. Through the use of this model I now understand the ways in which to incorporate technology into my classroom.

I also learned about digital citizenship. I think this is important for us to know as teachers. I think we can use this knowledge in our own life to make sure we have a clean digital citizenship. I also think it is important that we teach this knowledge to our students so that they too can have a good digital citizenship.

In the future I will look for more, exciting apps that I can use in my classroom. This can make learning fun, therefore making my students more excited about learning. It is also good resources for integrating technology into the classroom. I will continue to stay up to date on the latest software that is coming out. I will try to integrate technology into my classroom to the best of my abilities. I now know how to do it and I have always understood the importance of it. Overall this class has provided me with the tools to help my students be more advanced learners that use technological resources. I think this will come in handy during my time in my future classroom.
Learn more about what I've learned!

Sources:
http://hallr.com/benefits-of-technology-in-the-classroom/

Real or Fake?

For this assignment, I had to look at a photograph, two hotel reviews, and quotes by Thomas Jefferson and determine if they were real or fake. This was an interesting task. For the first task this photograph was shown:

This photograph is obviously fake. The plane looks much to big to be really present in this photo. It also looks very obviously photo shopped. It is almost as bad as the fairy picture that was used as an example of early fake photography.

Next I had to determine real vs. fake hotel reviews. This was actually a lot harder and it took me a bit longer to figure it out. Both reviews seemed real, however, I believe the first one is real because it provided insignificant details that would only be added if someone really had attended a trip and stayed at a hotel. I have read a lot of hotel reviews and I know that people usually like to provide random information about their trip. This is the main reason that I believe this one is real. I am unsure about the second one. I could easily see it being either real or fake. However, if it is fake I believe someone that works at the hotel probably wrote it to try to get people to stay there. This learning experience could be very helpful in the future. I read hotel reviews a lot and this one will help me in determining if a hotel review can be trusted.

The last challenge was to figure out if quotes were real. This was the easiest because you could google search to see if they were real or not. For the quote, "Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you." I learned that there is no evidence that Thomas Jefferson actually said that. The second quote, "That the obliquity of the ecliptic, when these elephants lived, was so great as to include with the tropics all those reasons in which the bones are found," is a real quote.  The third quote, “Gun control works great for the people who are law-abiding citizens and it does nothing for the criminals, and all it does is put the people at risk," is a fake quote.

My Reflection on this Assignment:
Doing this assignment was helpful in learning skills to determine if something is real or fake. It is important that I am able to do this in my future professional life. You need to be able to do this to determine if a source is real or fake. The helpful tips, such as looking for light lines and paying close attention to details can come in handy in the future. I will no longer be tricked by those fake news articles on Facebook that try to freak you out about a war that is soon to come or a disease that will wipe out everyone. With these tools I will be able to tell that those are just fake articles without needing to click on them. I will teach my students these skills by perhaps having them do a similar activity. I like the idea of letting them try to figure out which ones are real without giving them the answers until the end. I think this forces them to think critically and really learn what I am trying to teach them. I will definitely be incorporating this lesson into my classroom. It can help my students with smart internet browsing.

Reflection on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk

In this blog post I will be reflecting on Sugata Mitra's 2013 Ted Talk. Here is the video so that you can watch the video before reading my reflection.

In Mitra's Ted Talk he talks about how Britain created the school system to help build people into people that could be apart of the Bureaucratic Administrative Machine. In order to do this they must be identical to each other. They must know: good handwriting, the ability to read, and able to do multiplication, division, mathematics, and subtraction in their heads.  Today, school systems still use this same design. In Mitra's eyes the school system is making identical people for this machine that no longer exists. In his opinion the school system is obsolete. 

The jobs of the future are not invented today. We do not know the skills that they will need.  The school system is not preparing them for these future work forces because they are using the same system they have always used. I think this is very true.  Some of the jobs today were not even invented when I started school back in 2001. Therefore, it is a completely sane concept to me that the children that are entering kindergarten today will have jobs that have not even been thought about yet by the time they graduate college. This is where I think the school system is failing to help these kids. Why do kids need to be able to do math in their head if we can reach in our pockets and pull out a calculator in everyday situations? While I think these things are important, I feel we are wasting too much precious time trying to insert them into children's educations.  These children need to be better educated in the things that are actually going to help them in their future jobs. Therefore, I believe we need to be teaching them skills, such as technology integration, that are going to help them in their future careers. This would lead to less asking of the question, "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" and kids will begin to see that their education is valuable to them long after they leave the classroom. 

Mitra's decided to leave computers in places where kids that would normally not have access to computers would be able to use it. The children were able to teach each other how to use a computer despite not being exposed to one before.  I think this is important because it teaches us that these children are wired to be able to use these computers.  They are very adaptive and ready to learn how to use this technology. This curiosity can help them be interested in their learning and learn much quicker. 

Overall I felt this speaker was interesting and taught me the importance of technology in our present day students learning environment.