The Difference a Semester Makes

Looking back on my first post, I can already see how much I have grown this semester.  After taking TPTE 486, I feel much more comfortable with technology and more confident in my preparation to use technology in the classroom.  All of the technology projects that we completed this semester can be applied in my own classroom someday.  I plan to continue to learn about how I can use technology in the classroom.  Technology is constantly changing and I want to stay up-to-date with these advances.

Classroom Website

Of all of the projects we have done throughout this course, I believe that our classroom website is the most beneficial.  I really enjoyed designing the classroom website because I knew that I plan to create a classroom website for my own class someday.  A classroom website offers information for students and parents, and can also showcase student work.  If a student misses school for some reason, I would have materials online so that the student can easily make up what he or she missed.  Although creating a website seemed like an overwhelming task in the beginning of the semester, it really was pretty simple.  I feel confident in my ability to create additional classroom websites in the future.

Computers in the Classroom

Many of the classrooms that I observe have, at most, five computers in the classroom.  In fact, I am currently observing a middle school math classroom that has no computers in the classroom.  With the increasing advances in technology, it is important that schools teach students how to use technology in addition to their basic curriculum.  The use of technology, such as computers, tablets, etc., in the classroom can not only complement the lesson, but can also help to engage the class in the lesson.  I know that some schools have computer labs that classes can use, which is wonderful.  In my opinion, it would be ideal to have a 1:1 computing environment (i.e., each student is able to use their own computer).  I remember when I was in high school, we only had five computers in each classroom.  Whenever we would use the computers, the teacher would divide the class into five groups.  Usually only one person in each group used a computer.  It would be more ideal if every student in the class had the opportunity to use a computer.

My Digital Story

I decided to use Windows Movie Maker instead of imovie for the digital story project.  I had some experience with Movie Maker before and felt more comfortable with this program.  Through this project I learned  how to find copyright free music, how to edit a digital storyboard, and how to post a video to YouTube.  Using short videos like this one in my future classroom could really accent my lesson.  This video was not very difficult to make and something like this could really engage the class in a particular topic.

Dazzling Digital Diagram

The digital diagram project was by far the simplest project so far this semester.  I choose to start my project by working in the outline mode.  Then, after I finished the outline of my diagram, I switched to the web diagram mode.  I would use Inspiration to create a digital diagram in my own classroom.  This is because Inspiration includes so many personalization options including changing the background color, changing the shape of text boxes, and adding images to enhance your diagram.  It is a very simple project that can really visually enhance any lesson.

Blogging in the Classroom

Blogging in the classroom is like electronic journals for students.  Students may even view blogging as more fun compared to writing out their feedback.  If I were to incorporate blogging into my classroom, I would use it in place of an exit ticket.  In other words, I would have my students write a blog post about the class at the end of the period.  Students would write about what they learned, what they are still confused about, and other comments on the lesson.  This could also function as an informal assessment.

Interactive White Board Activity

I created an interactive white board lesson on vectors via the Activinspire software.  This flipchart included a video introducing the concept of vectors, three different types of interactivity, and an extended inquiry based activity for the class.  The lesson covers finding a vector given two points, adding vectors, and finding the magnitude of vectors.  I really enjoyed this activity because I learned interactive activity techniques that I may be able to use in my own classroom someday.  These interactive techniques include "erase to reveal," "change color to reveal," and "order of objects."  All of these techniques are very simple to use.  With the increasing number of schools with interactive whiteboards now, I know that working with this technology now will benefit me in the classroom later.

Collaborative Resource Wiki

Our math and science resource page was created as a collaborative wiki.  While creating this wiki, several classmates took turns editing our wiki page and adding their own contributions.  This was especially challenging because only one person could edit a page at a time.  The benefits to a collaborative wiki include gathering the input and knowledge of several people and having several people look over and edit your contributions.  Overall, I enjoyed working on the collaborative wiki.  We now have a complete wiki filled with great math resources.
I could use a collaborative wiki in my own classroom someday as a group projects.  I may divide the class into small groups and have each group create a collaborative wiki page on an assigned topic to present to the class.

Picasa and Google Presentation

Both the Picasa presentation (below) and the Google presentation (above) involved putting a group of related pictures together into a slide show presentation.  In my opinion, the Google presentation was much easier to put together than the Picasa presentation.  So if I were to choose one of these to use in my classroom, I would choose to use the Google presentation.  This could be a great project for the kids to do.  I could have them work in groups to do a Scavenger Hunt (similar to the Geometry Scavenger Hunt done in class), and then put this presentation together to share with the class.  I also think that the Google presentation looks more professional than the Picasa presentation.

Geometry Scavenger Hunt

The scavenger hunt activity was interesting because it involved finding geometric figures in the real world.  I would definitely consider using this activity in my own classroom someday.  This would not only engage my students in learning geometry, but it would also help the students see how geometry exists in the world around them.  I could also use this scavenger hunt activity to assess my students on whether or not they can recognize these geometric figures in the real world.  After my students complete their scavenger hunts, I would have them present what they found to the class.  By doing this, the whole class could benefit from each scavenger hunt.

Why WebQuest?

Through this semester, I have grown to support the use of WebQuests in the classroom.  One WebQuest that I found was a Math and Sports WebQuest (http://www.mathgoodies.com/Webquests/sports/). What really drew me to this particular WebQuest was that it incorporated sports (everything from the Super Bowl to the Oympics), a popular interest for high school students, into probability and statistics lessons.  I would definitely utilize WebQuests in my future classroom and may even create one if I cannot find a WebQuest to meet a specific purpose. 

WebQuests can be incorporated into a lesson in order to engage students in Project Based Learning.  In my opinion, Project Based Learning is essential to learning in general.  It is important to be able to capture your students' interests in the material that you are presenting.  Three important components of Project Based Learning are group work, self-assessment, and reflection.

No Inquiries on Inquiry Based Activity

 My greatest challenge with creating the Inquiry Based Activity was the process of trying to find good, reliable websites that also have content that would challenge my students.  I definitely wasn't looking for material that is so challenging that my students might become frustrated, but I did want to find questions that would engage  my students and enable them to think outside the box.  Other than that, everything went well while creating this activity.  Formatting this worksheet into a Google document was simple.  I really liked that all of my work was automatically saved, every step of the way, while working in the document.  I was nervous about the name "Inquiry Based Activity," when I first saw this on the syllabus, but now that I've created one, I've realized that it's really not as scary as it sounds.  After successfully creating my IBA, I feel like I have more confidence to tackle the remaining activities and projects this  semester!

A Wiki Revelation

Throughout the past couple weeks, I have had the opportunity to create my own wiki pages.  Before doing the "all about me" wiki project, I would have thought that wikis were complicated or difficult to work with.  Before this class, I always struggled with using technology, so I expected my experience with wikis to be no different.  However, this was far from the case.  It was so easy for me to create my "all about me" wiki page.  The combination of having a clear set of step-by-step instructions and the fact that wikis are really not that complicated after all, helped me to breeze through this assignment.  In fact, I was recently given an assignment in my SPED 402 course to create a wiki page, and because of my positive experience with wikis in this course, I had absolutely no stress about the assignment.  I hope that there are more wiki assignments to come in this course!

Evaluating the Website Evaluation

After finishing the website evaluation, I realized that there were several criteria, to look for when evaluating a website, that I did not realized were important.  For example, one such criteria was the date that the site was last revised.  I would have never thought to check for a revision date, but now that I have gone through this evaluation process I realize how the revision date would be an important factor in a website's validity.  If the information on a website has not been revised in years, then it is probably out-dated.  I definitely feel more prepared to evaluate websites for use in my future classrooms.

Welcome and Expectations

Welcome to my Blog!

Hello, my name is Pamela Bryan.  I am currently majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Secondary Education at the University of Tennessee.  I will graduate in May 2013 with a Bachelor of Science degree and plan to graduate in May 2014 with a Masters in Education.  I am interested in becoming a teacher because I love working with kids and I want to make a positive difference in their lives.  I also like the work schedule because someday I would like to have a family of my own.  As a teacher, I will be able to work while my kids are in school and to be off while my kids are off.

I'm a little nervous about taking this course because I am not very tech savvy.  I do, however, expect to learn a lot from this course because of my lack of experience with technology.  I hope that I will be able to use the technology tools that I learn in this class in my own classroom someday.