ILP 2 "Design"- WebQuest

     For my second independent learning project I chose to make a WebQuest. At the beginning of the semester we had to do a WebQuest as an assignment. I think WebQuest assignments are a good idea because it helps students with learning the course content as well as how to search the internet to find good sources and answers to the questions asked. I found that the lesson that went along with my technology class, about how different words can control the results you get, was very helpful. I definitely would modify it and only go over a few of the options with my students. Giving them this tool could really help them on their WebQuest's. I was unable to figure out how to attach the document to the blog so I copied and pasted what was in my document.

Ms. Sultzer’s Second Grade Social Studies Webquest

SS.2.A.American History

Instructions: For this assignment you will choose a search engine like google or Bing and use it to find answers to each question. Make sure to put in an answer for every question. This assignment is meant to not only help with understanding of American History but also help with how to search the internet to find good sources.

Question	Website and key words used	Answer to question
1.       Where there more Native American Tribes on the East coast or the West coast?
2.       Find a primary source from the civil war. What makes this a primary source?
3.        What is a prominent Native American tribe on the East coast? What states were they found in?
4.       What happened to the Native Americans when the immigrants began to arrive?
5.        Find a secondary source from immigration to Ellis Island. Why is this a secondary source? How can you tell?
6.       What is immigration and what caused immigration to the United States?
7.       How did immigration affect the cultures in the Unites States?
8.       What was colonial America like?
9.       Do we still have immigration today?
10.   Find a picture from immigration to Ellis Island? When was it taken? Is this a primary or secondary source?

ILP "Design" - Edmodo

     For my first independent learning project I created a group for my kindergarten classroom on Edmodo. I believe Edmodo would be good for any grade level but would be easier for students in second grade and above to use alone. Students any younger than second grade may have issues reading or understanding what is to be expected of them without help from an adult. I am not sure if I would use it if I taught kindergarten or first grade only because I believe that it would require a lot of involvement from families and the schools where I am from have a very hard time with parent involvement.

     There were some things I really liked about Edmodo and others that I believe could be fixed. I really liked that they offered the ability to create polls, quizzes, assignments, and snapshots. I created a poll, and assignment, and a quiz for my students to take all on a recent book that we read in class. The objective of the assignment was to get the parents or adult in the student's life to help them create a show and tell project from them to show the class. The quiz was just a short little quiz to test student's knowledge of the stories main characters and what they did. The poll was just to ask students what they wanted to look into next. Asking them what they want to read next would help them feel like they have a say in the class. It also gives me a look at which book interests them more.

     The issues I encountered with Edmodo were that I wanted to try and do a snapshot but the youngest grade available was third grade which would be way about my students level. I also had issues with finding a URL that took you to a page that actually showed my kindergarten group page. The URL given under the settings took me to a page with an error message. I know this would be different with a class because each student would have their own account but it was still frustrating with trying to get everything set up and ready to go. Another issue I had was that we made an Edmodo account for our EME2040 class so when I went to create one strictly for my class I was unable to because it recognized my email address. This caused me to work from the Edmodo account that I already had and I created a group for my kindergarten class.

Click here to go to my kindergarten class edmodo page.
Group code: cra3fh

10 Power point, data collection, and blogs

     This weeks assignment was to create an interactive power point. I chose to make  a game for my future kindergarten class. The game I made would allow them to review the basics on adding and subtracting. I enjoyed making this power point because I have played similar games in my classes in high school and even in college. The only thing is that I never knew how they were made. I always just assumed that the teacher or professor just had an application where they put in the information and it automatically generated a jeopardy game. I didn't know that they had to go through and edit an entire power point for a review. I found this assignment really fun. Power point does not give me issues with formatting like word does. When I run into formatting problems in word it always makes me feel discouraged and frustrated. If that occurs then I end up just mentally giving up on an assignment because I know it will not be as good as I know it could be. I definitely could see using this in my future career. I find it fun to make and I am sure my students would find it fun to do. It would get them interacting with each other. I could even put them into teams. That way they would have to collaborate and discuss their answers with each other then finally decide as a group what they think the correct answer should be.

    



     Data collection can be used in many different jobs. In education it is extremely helpful with keeping track of grades. I believe I would use excel to keep track of my grades. I would be using this for my kindergarten class. With teaching kindergarten it means that I would have to have grades for all subject areas. That is a lot of grades for a class of 18-22, but with excel I could have one document with different sheets. Each sheet of my document would be a different subject. Of course I would still keep a paper copy of my grades because I would be paranoid that my computer would crash and I'd end up losing all of my grades or that I would make a mistake entering them in the computer.
     I really like that we started taking time to read others blogs during class. If we did not do that I probably would not have the time to go and read them. Usually I just click on whoever had their blog done for class that day and read their blogs but today was different. Today we went to each others blogs to take surveys and gather data from one another. In this process I enjoyed seeing everyone's home pages. Everyone had customized the background of their blogs. Reading each others blogs shows how everyone would take the specific blog criteria and put their own spin on it, but looking at the backgrounds of everyone's blogs showed everyone's individuality. Another time I really enjoyed looking at the blogs was when we all chose different videos to show proper power point techniques. I specifically liked Jessica's mainly because of how she named it. After looking at it I enjoyed it even more because it helped me with an aspect of power point that I struggle with. I always feel like I should be conservative with animation because I do not want it to look cheesy buy without I figured it looked boring. Here post about "Getting Steamy" helped me see different techniques to give a new look to my power points.
     There really is not any technology that I would like to learn about next. I really would just like to take what we have talked about, read about, and used and continue to learn more and use it more. That way I feel confident in my abilities with it. I really would enjoy going more in depth in learning about blogs and class websites because I really would enjoy using them in my class. When it comes to technology sometimes it does not work the same from a mac to a PC. I would like to learn about everything on both a PC and a mac that way I would feel confident no matter what kind of computer I am on.
     I would achieve my future technology related goals by looking into more technology classes or by showing more interest in technology that I don't know how to use and watching videos on YouTube or webinars and learning how to use it rather than just ignoring it or learning just what I need to know to get by.

Survey: Parking

https://fsu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6RwQpak7PXYBJSB

9 Flipped classroom, professional development and a series of unfortunate events

     A flipped classroom  is a model used in not in K-12 but also in secondary education. The students in these classrooms have there students listen to videos about there homework before they come to class, what used be done in class and is now done at home. The idea of doing what used to be done in class now taking place at home is how the idea gets its name as being a flipped classroom. This website shows different resources that are available for a flipped classroom as well as instructions on becoming a flipped classroom.

     A great web based resource for professional development in education would be a blog. Blogs are a great source for teachers to use with professional development because other teachers can get input from other schools and see how each school handles professional development. That way they could use different tools and activities to make theirs better.

     This blog is for teachers and is supposed to be on different professional development ideas. The teachers respond back to the different topics and stories posted giving their take and how they handle them in their own schools.

     This week our assignment was to create a power point on a lesson we would teach for class. I chose to do a lesson for kindergarten on the beginnings of economics. Of course they would not completely understand the idea of economics and how our country uses it but its just a small overview of the things they already know, trying to have them make the connections between the two. I really enjoyed this assignment. I did not seem to have problems with figuring out all the parts that needed to be in the power point I did on the other hand have problems with my computer. My plan was to start my project during the week and finish it on the bus ride to Clemson. This part of the plan did happen. The part that did not was that on Sunday we were headed back from the trip and it was pouring rain. Around 20 minutes into the trip the roof began leaking, not just a little drop here and there, a steady stream of water. This happened the entire five hour trip back. Needless to say I enjoy power point but I will never plan to work on it on the bus ride ever again.

8 technology advancements

     I believe that the biggest advancement in technology that will greatly affect education in schools is 3-D printing. After going into the digital sandbox last week with the class and reading about it in chapter twelve I believe that it will change the way things are done not only in the younger grades but also in the upper grades. Being able to have kids learn about three dimensional shapes can be a hassle but if classrooms had 3-D printers then it would allow teachers to have their students get online and create cubes, cylinders, pyramids etc. that were perfect; rather than having them try and cut, fold and glue paper to make 3-D shapes. In older classrooms the teachers could have students create artifacts that they were talking about during their history lessons. the options with 3-D printing are endless.

     A future technology that I think would help class rooms would to have the tables of desks be a tablet that the teacher could control and monitor. Teachers would have to have control of them so that the students would not be on them all the time during class. Having the top of the desks be tablets would allow all students to have access to the internet without the class having to go to the library or having students take their phones out (not all students have phones).This would really allow the classroom to be very involved with technology because the internet would literally be right at their finger tips.

     The digital divide is something that is very prominent right now. It is the gap between those who have access and knowledge of technology and those who do not. If it is possible I believe I fall on both sides of the digital divide. I have access to the technology and i have access to learning about it but I do not utilize the access to knowledge of technology as much as I should. I struggle with the technology that I am given, but since I am given it I guess that I am on the side of this digital gap that has the technology and access even though I do not really know what to do with it. I believe that in my classroom the digital divide will be smaller than it is now. I won't be in the classroom for another three years so by then I believe many people will get on the side of the gap that has technology. I do not believe that the digital divide will be completely gone though. No matter how advanced we get with technology there will always be people who financially are unable to afford it. For students in my classroom who do not have the access to technology at home like the other students I will try and get them a tablet that they are able to check out and take home with them so that they are not put at a disadvantage compared to the other students.

7 Bloom, Adaptive technology and New skills

     Blooms taxonomy has six different levels: create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember. These concepts and the order they go in can be hard to remember. Using PowerPoint I believe it would be helpful to go in order and gradually build the idea up as a pyramid. So start out with an empty pyramid with just the words blooms taxonomy. As you progress through the slides add in each idea. An example would be to start with remembering because it is at the top of the pyramid. After you add it into the pyramid discuss the important facts like that this step is for recalling facts and basic concepts. The next slide would then show the next layer of the pyramid understanding and like with remembering we would talk about what this level is supposed to be about, explaining ideas and concepts. I would do this until I filled in the entire pyramid and finished with the top of it which is create.

     Adaptive technologies are specifically used for students with disabilities but also can be used for students who do not have disabilities. These technologies include, speech recognition software's and audio books as mentioned in the podcast. These two technologies are helpful to both disabled and non disabled. Students can use speech recognition software if they struggle with dyslexia or have problems with writing. The computer hears what they say then puts it into words. Audio books can be used by everyone. They are incredibly helpful for students because it allows them to look at books that can be above their reading level without having to have an adult there to read it to them. I know many people who use audio books while they drive because they enjoy books but do not necessarily have time to read them on their own. Like anything technology based I would worry that there would be technology malfunctions with the input or out out parts of the adaptive technology and being someone who is just coming around to understanding technology I would worry that it would break on me.

     New skills that I learned from this assignment was basically the whole assignment. I never thought that making a website could be so easy. I enjoyed getting to play around with the different pictures and try to imagine what it would be like for me to actually be creating my classroom website. They only part that I did not like about the website was that I had to publish it. I was uneasy about doing that so for peace of mind just in case someone stumbled across it that was not in our EME class I added that it was a class assignment. This link will take you to my web design assignment. http://bridgeteme2040.weebly.com/