Classroom Teaching, IWBs and More

This was a very busy week in the classroom. On Tuesday my group, TimeToast, presented our Web 2.0 along with Google Forms. We also spent a decent amount of time working with the Interactive White Boards and our flip charts, as well as learn about Animoto.

The presentation was not as great as I would have liked and came across fairly bland. As a group we did not do a great job splitting the information up and presenting to the class in a manner that showed all of our competence with the software. We could have prepared much better, especially because TimeToast will be especially useful with subjects like history.

I am excited about the interactive white board flip charts. The Promethean board looks to be a very useful means of teaching in the classroom. Whether it be for lecture or interactive activity it is definitely something I wish I had had in the classroom as a student. The flip chart I'm working on deals with the Great Depression and the cultural and economic effects it had on the American people. I'm excited to work on it and with the ActivInspire software.

Last but not least we worked with Animoto on Thursday which was actually quite fun. The 30 second videos aren't bad and it doesn't cost too much to upgrade to have more opportunities with it. Here is the video I made in class Thursday:


Make your own photo slideshow at Animoto.

Campus Hunting

The last couple of weeks we worked on a scavenger hunt themed towards our specific program areas. The scavenger hung I participated in was social studies oriented and involved finding items around campus that had political and historical relevance. We worked in groups and used either cameras or iPhones. My group used an iPhone camera and shared them with each other via a dropbox upload from the phone.

Once the photos were uploaded we individually worked on editing the photos and creating an album in Picasa Web albums. We organized the album and named the photos according to the scavenger hunt list. Once the album was complete we created a slideshow and uploaded it to our websites. We did a similar process with photos we found online to create a google presentation. The photos I used were of U.S. Presidents from the 20th century.



Scavenger Hunt

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Get your own

U.S. Presidents of the 20th Century

Wonderful Word Clouds with Wordle

This week began the web 2.0 presentations. The first group up was Wordle, which is a program where you can make word clouds. The program was interesting but I didn't see how it could be super useful in a classroom. The presenting group went over certain things you could use word clouds for like vocabulary lessons or listing student names. I'm sure there are more uses that I'm just missing but at first glance it Wordle didn't seem that useful. I'm sure the word clouds would be great for posters in the classroom which is helpful because I am lacking artistically. I suppose another use would be to use the word clouds to spice up assignments so that its more than just a sheet of paper with directions. I hate that this web 2.0 didn't really excite me too terribly much and hopefully I'll be more excited for the others to come.

Toasty Timelines: Using Timetoast

Timetoast is the Web 2.0 tool my group was assigned. The site is designed to help the user create timelines, which is especially useful for social science classes but also helpful with other subjects. For the Web 2.0 assignment our group split our wiki page into sections and we each completed it separately in a Google Doc. Once we checked each other's work and all agreed that it was complete, we transferred the data from the Google Doc to the wiki page. My part of the wiki page was the overview, as well as the strengths and weaknesses. As mentioned before, the site is designed for creating timelines and requires creating an account (a simple task). It had plenty of strengths, but also a few weaknesses. Any timelines created on the site can be uploaded to the server for all members with a publish button. Timelines can be printed off of the site by placing them into text view, a feature provided by Timetoast.

Creating an Inquiry Based Assignment

Once I switched the topic for my IBA I really enjoyed this assignment. The initial topic i chose, Federalism, was difficult since I couldn't really find a website that went with the topic whatsoever. Relying solely on the textbook really ruined the assignment since it was technology based. The topic I did use, the Constitution, worked much better. I was able to find an interactive website that followed the textbook really well. The assignment wasn't that hard once it got going and was very useful for learning how to do an assignment like this in the future.

IBA's would be useful in the classroom because they promote NETS•S standards and can encourage collaboration depending on how the assignment is done. It's also a nice way for students to learn about a topic by doing the learning and research themselves as opposed to having it lectured to them, which personally I think works much better. Also I feel that students would remember things better if they did the actual research themselves and would benefit from the hands on experience.

Rocking Wikis About Rocks

The rockstar trading assignment was really interesting to me. The assignment itself was not an arduous task. It was easily completed in class and really just involved finding the information provided on the website that was given. The point behind the assignment is what I found to be really neat. After each group had finished the class had the ability to study and learn about each different gemstone right there on the wiki. This would be especially useful in a classroom in preparation for tests and exams. Instead of a teacher putting together a study guide for students, wikis allow the students to create their own study guides with each others easily accessible information. As a prospective history and government teacher I see many uses for this technology. For example, when studying topics like U.S. Presidents, or Constitutional Amendments, or Supreme Court cases, students can be grouped and assigned individual topics and then through the wiki study the subjects as a whole. This also benefits the teacher because it easily shows what information or topics the students are struggling most with based on what pages are viewed the most, or aren't entirely complete with the necessary information.

Blog Post about Webquests about Webquests

Learning how to use a webquest was not a trying or difficult task. But it did involve taking the time to sit down and analyze all the different aspects of a webquest. It was important to make sure that the webquest emphasized the use of technology and actually functioned (i.e. had working links). The best webquests promoted students collaborating together and thinking critically. Nothing is fun or interesting if it is so simple that it becomes tedious and boring. Most importantly though a good webquest is efficient. There is no point in assigning students a lengthy webquest that will tire them out and need several classes to complete if nothing useful is going to be attained. Long webquests should conclude with a full and complete understanding of the covered topic. 

Webquests can be very useful in the classroom, especially with social studies. The example from the assignment on the Nixon-Kennedy debates was fantastic. The topic was interesting, it involved students working together and did not consume more time than was really needed for the subject. In the end students had an understanding of the role the visual media (television) has had on politics over the last five decades. The conclusion was also thought provoking because it leaves open the question would certain Presidents have been elected if there was the same television coverage then compared to know.