Blog #5 WebQuest 1

WebQuest
I had never heard of WebQuest before, so it was confusing to me at first. I thought that it would be more of a burden than a tool, but the more that I look at it and try to understand the system it's pretty cool. If they were to do WebQuests when I was going through elementary school I would have loved it! Having everything on the computer easily accessible for your homework is great! The students love using and learning all they can about technology.

This is a good way for teachers to scaffold their students. They put an assignment with some links on the computer and let the students go for it. It gives the students freedom to have fun with the assignment, but it also gives them only the good websites that you want them to use. I like how you can put the links right on there so that the students know where to go for their information.

I imagine that WebQuest will be a part of my classroom and teaching style. I think that I'll try using WebQuest for big unit projects in my classroom. I believe that it would be a good idea because some of their assignments will be homework and others they'll work on in class, but if you have the whole unit on the WebQuest then they are able to go through and do the assignment that have been assigned for homework at a particular time. It will help them to stay organized and remember what they've done throughout the unit.

Surface Computing Video
Wow! Surface Computing is so cool! It makes me wonder what else they are going to be able to come out with in the future. We are really going to have to be educated about technology or else the students will be teaching us about technology. I feel that they are coming out with some really amazing things for technology, things that will be able to help us to connect even more with the world around us.

Blog #4 Podcast & Vidcast

Wow, I didn't know that making a podcast or vidcast was so simple! I loved learning how to make vidcasts and podcasts. I had heard about a podcast before, but I had never really known what they were. I feel that having these technological skills will help me to better my classroom such that the students will become familiar with technology, if they aren't already.

The students will use podcasts/vidcasts to learn the processes of new material. As a teacher, you could use podcasts by explaining the steps to certain math problems or the format of projects, etc... Then you could post them on your classroom website and if the students needed to refer back to math problems or project formats they are able to access them easily through the internet.

I am going to use the podcast that I made in our classroom for sure in the future. Prerecording a podcast or vidcast would ensure that your presentation/lesson could turn out the way that you would like it to. It would take the stress off of you, as a teacher, and you would already have part of your lesson on video and ready to go, as long as you have a back up plan as well in case something didn't work right.

I think that posting podcasts and vidcasts on the classroom website would be a great idea for a student to refer to if they happened to miss a day in class. This would work best if the teacher put something on from each day, which I think is a valuable tool to use. Then the student would understand a little of what was taught at school that day so they wouldn't be as far behind on their work.

Why Let Our Students Blog?
The video clip made me think through all of the things that blogging can help children learn and accomplish. I had never thought of blogging as a source of education, but now I see it as something that could be very useful within education. I think that it would be fun to have each one of the children do blogs, as we do. Have them do weekly reflections like a journal, but instead on the internet. Give them a question that they can answer. I think that it would be interesting to do blogs and then give them questions about a topic, but a week before it will be taught, so that you can see before hand a little of what the students know already, like a pretest.

Blog #3 Google Presentation

I was very impressed by Google. The Google presentation is a wonderful tool that can be very helpful within your classroom. I like it because it's so simple for you as the teacher or the children to put together a quick presentation. The presentations don't have aren't as fancy as other presentations but it does the job, and that's why I like it. This tool assists in teaching children how to make a presentation with just a few basic steps.



I watched the movie "Man Behind Morse Code" on YouTube. I actually learned more about the Morse Code than I thought I would. This movie would be a great addition to a lesson about the Morse Code. It's more of an information video, but I think that the children would still think it was interest, at the appropriate age.

Blog #2 Everything Google

I enjoyed the lessons on Google. I didn't know that there were so many tools that you can now use from there. I will definitely use these tools within my classroom as well as start using them in my every day life. I liked how the Google documents worked. This will give the students a better chance at working on group projects and having everyone participating. I was blown away at the Google sites. I had never set up a website before, but this makes it quick and simple to share classroom information with all of the students and their parents. I'm excited to start using the Google Calenders to help as a managing tool for my life as well as within my classroom.


Mr. Duey Video
I thought that this movie was a fun way for students to be introduced to using fractions. Putting the information to music perks the interest of the students so that they are more willing to learn about the topic presented. I liked how he kept repeating the process of changing improper fractions into mixed numbers over and over again. It reminded me how that process works.