What my future classroom might look like.

Even though this is for tech task 18 offically, it is somehting that is always going through my mind. It is not limited to this class, or other classes, but to my everday life. So what have I discovered in this class that will be in my classroom? The first thing I want to talk about is Google docs. this is definitely going to be used in my classroom for things like the first day getting to know the students in poll form, as well as group work. I will use podcasts for educational purposes, as teaching aids or hooks to get the students engaged. I am goign to be honest in saying that I don’t know how much blogging will be involved in my classroom. I will probably have a class blog so that I can be in contact with the parents of my students, but as far as blogging goes, it wont be too extensive. This could all change however, but as of right now this is how I see my classroom. I will still use paper (please don’t hate me), but I will also use technology. I see it as a collaboration of the two, to enhance my lessons and the learning of the students. I really hope to have a smartboard in my classroom, as it would definitely be a great tool to have.

This is simply how I see my classroom today. I fully understand that tomorrow my views can change. In fact I expect them too. I am constantly thinking about what is best for my classroom and for my future students and as such I value all opinions. It is the opinions of others that open dorrs for me to change my views. So I will continue to contemplate this question, now as a student pre-service teacher, and later on when I am a teacher.

Tech task 12 and 16

Well here is my Tech task 12, which is four pictures describing me. I decided it would be cool if I created a podcast explaining the picture so I will give you the link to my podcast. I had a lot of trouble with podcasting, but after hours of working at it I finally was able to come up with something. I  used audacity and podango.com. So without further ado, here it is.

This is me pretending to be at Abbey Road

 Podcast link.

Podcast review 2

I have to say that I am a bit of a nerd, and love to watch the discovery channel. So when I found the discovery channel podcasts, I was a bit excited. The one I am going to review is called Space School Episode 6: Mars. It is also a video podcast. The iTunes description is as follows:Rolling mountains, four distinct seasons, and polar ice caps. Is it possible for micro-organisms to inhabit the red planet? And might humans be able to live there?

It explained Mars as only the discovery channel can. It was facinating, giving only valuable information and great video aids. It raises some good questions. I must say that I feel foolish admitting that I was so excited with this find, but I just couldn’t keep it to myself.

This has made me appreciate podcasts much more than before, partly because before I really didn’t know what they were, and partly because it is something that interests me, and I can see myself using something like this in the classroom.

Podcast review 1

The educational podcast that I decided to listen to was actually a video podcast. It is called Teaching with SMARTboards by David Sladky and Scott Miller. The episode I watched was episode 14, Magic squares and saving to My Content. www.ncusd203.org/central/html/what/math/smartboard/ Here is the link they gave on their show. What it dealt with was using the smartboard to allow the students to work on magic squares together. It is a good idea but I think it needs to be adapted for each teacher that is going to use it. They simply presented the material, and allow the teachers who watch it, decide what the best course of action is. They also showed how to save things into My Content which will be used in the lessons. This was useful. They have already posted a number of lessons, mostly to do with math, but it is a great resource to have. I feel better knowing that there is something like this out there to help me along my way with smartboards. The good thing is that they present at a good pace and make sure all of the bases are covered. Overall, I am glad that I found this podcast and look forward to using this information in my career.

K12 online review 3

The third presentation that I am reviewing is the one that I found most valuable. It is called Asking bigger questions about assessment by Gardner Campbell. He starts off by explaining how Shakespear is very concerned with assessment. He looks at A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and shows how in each case, the character is concerned with proof. For example, King Lear is concerned with proving family love. Proving, is a term that is important for education and is often seen as something the teacher does for the students. The teacher is a bringer of information and as such has the proof. This should not necessarily be the way that we operate though. Before the presentation get deeper into this point, Gardner discusses a little bit about the history of assessment. Historically, proof happened orally in a large communal setting. It was very public and social. Compare this to today’s notion of assessing where it is written and private. How do we explain this shift? Well according to Gardner, scale and time are the causes. The amount of students and the amount of time required to go through the assessing process orally is simply not “doable”, so these problems lead to written assessment, such as exams. So then assessment becomes not meaningful in a social manner. So what does this tell us? It tells us that we need to rethink our method of assessing. It is impossible to go back to an oral way of assessing. To do so is a Romantic way of thinking (Romantic in the way that it longs for the past, not romantic in the way that it deals with cupid and hearts etc.), not that Romanticism is undesirable, but we as educators cannot limit ourselves to a specific model of assessment. Therefore we need to develop our own forms of assessment fitting into today’s model of education. Gardner mentions that “god teacher” are those teachers who do think about assessment in different ways than the standard testing that is in place today. He goes on to discussthe problems of what he calls scientific educational assessment. The main thing here is that this form of assessing limits ourselves to what we have and know, and does not allow the things that we don’t know to play a role in learning. He then proceeds to explain assessment and what it should look like. A great idea here is that students work should be shared and showcased with the entire class, the entire school, the entire community, and possibly on a larger scale (though he sees the larger scale a little problematic). What is more is that teachers should NOT be the ones to “prove it”. Nor should the students be the ones to “prove it”. So where does the proof come from? The proof should come from a collaboration between both teacher and students. He discusses the notions of play and metaphor. Metaphor is how we as humans think. We take what we don’t know and classify it as something we do know. Play is where we practice creativity and develop our minds, using metaphor to classify the things we are learing. Play leads to self assessment. Witness as understood today is meaningless. We should understand the term witness as, having a testimony. Having a testimony means that we have the ability to prove. Therefore witness, in this new light, should be used in the classroom. He concludes by talking about Shakespear again, more specifically the Tempest, and shows that we have short lives, or a very little amount of time to make a difference. What is important is, the time we spend together. This is how we can prove the worth of our lives.

So what do I think? This was a brilliant presentation where assessment is discussed as something that can change, and therefore is not static. I can see myself having a oral presentation week in my class where we act as the learners from history and practice an oral assessment, that is different than the mold that we have now. I especially liked the how he ended the presentation. “It is the time we spend togehter that is most important”. Keeping this in mind, our classroom assessment can become something that is more meaningful than numbers on a page. Assessment can be about learning as a community, and it can be something that is no longer private. I understand that I am sounding a little idealistic here and that this takes a lot of work to accomplish, but if I am willing to put the time and effort into it, my classroom assessment can become something that is meaningful to the students. I also like the idea of proof. Prooving that we know something is a lot different that being able to write words on a page. This is something that I will keep in mind in the classroom setting.

K12 online review 2

The second video I watched was What did you do in school, yesterday, today, and three years ago? by H Songhai. The main thing to take away from this presentation is that there is so much technoogy that can be used in the classroom available to us, and as such we as educators should be using it to enhance the learning environment. He starts off by telling the viewers of a trip he took to the Bahamas, and that he took pictures on a digital camera, and even set the camera up on a rock so that he could record himself talking to the camera. Why did he do this? One word, Proof. He had proof that he was there. A term that he used that struck me as pretty neat was “gadget play”. Most if not all students has high tech gadgets, and all they really do on them is text or listen to music. The thing that does not even occur to students is that these tools can be used to document their learning career as well as thier lives. These high tech gadgets can be used in a number of ways to ensure that learning is present in everyday life. The problem is that students don’t realize this. Therefore it is up to the educators to awaken our students to the seemingly endless possibilities that technology provides for the classroom. He goes on to explain that digital archiving begins with personal learning networks. In these networks, we have at our fingertips, and infinte amount of information. He goes on to explain that he has had a paperless classroom for the last three years thanks to the use of blogging. Blogging allows the students to take control of thier learning. There are no longer any excuses like i lost my assignment. But perhaps the most valuable part of blogging is that thier whole educational career is documented and availabe to the students, for their entire lives. Another thing that he does in his classroom is, he buys three newspapers a week and “digitalizes” them and stores them on a hard drive so that anyone in the school can use them. An impotant tool that he sugests is almost a necessity is screen capturing tools. They allow for the documentation of learning to flourish. For his conclusion, he listed must have tools for the classroom. They are as follows: Delicious, Audacity, Skype, Wiki, Twitter, Google Notebook, Google Book Search, and Project Guttenberg. He ended by asking the question, “What did you do in school today?” and stated that he hopes the answer is, We used technology in the classroom, but in a way that keeps track of our learning, and in a way that enhances the learning.

So what did I think. Again this was a very good presentation. The ideas that were presented make sense in his classroom. I must confess something, I am not a fan of blogging and I don’t kn ow how much I will use blogs in my classroom. That said, H Songhai made me rethink this postion I have. I understand the importance of blogging in the classroom, at least from an educational stand point. But I am still not sure of the use of blogs (ironic isn’t that I am telling you this in a blog). If nothing else this presentation opened my eys to a number of possibilites for the classroom. I have a deeper understanding now of why and how these so called high tech gadgets should be used in the learning process.

All in all, it was a good presentation that has got me thinking again. It makes me try and figure out what kind of things I want to do in my classroom.

K12 online review 1

I watched Games in Education: Myths, Realities, and Promise by Sylvia Martinez. The main idea here is that since video games are such a big part of our students lives, then these games should be used in an educational way in the classroom. This sounds a little bit idealistic if you ask me, by Sylvia makes some great points. Games in general are used throughout history, and are even seen in the animal kingdom. A quote from here presentation states that “play is a child’s work”. Since video games are the games that teens are so concerned with in today’s society, then they should be used in education, or as a learning aid. Unfortunately, most games out there are usless for educational purposes. Educational games are often not fun, and having a game that is fun is key to including a game in the learning process. Three major things that she mentioned are: time, role of the teacher, and fun. Time is always an issue for teachers, and games take up time, especially if they are to be used correctly. Time is so important because students need time to play games to explore the game, and as such learn from the game. The teachers role is also very important beause the teacher need to be able to ensure that the students are headed in the right direction, as well as maintain a positive learning environment. Fun is of utmost importance, because without fun the game, does not serve the purpose of a game. The fun aspect is a necessity. Some pros that were given in the presentation are as such: they are professionaly designed, and they have compelling gameplay. Some cons on the other hand are as follows: the games are not necessarily accurate, they are not connected to the curriculum, and they are time concuming. So what is the teacher’s role? This was answered as well as follows: the teacher is in charge of adapting, correlating/connecting/assessing, classroom management, and reflection. A great point was made about the use of games and why they should be used. The focus is seen as learning versus test scores. the focus should not be on the test scores but on the learning that is occuring. the presentation ended with a brief discussion about programming, and having our students program thier own games, as a way to create learning.

So what did I think of the whole thing? I thought the presentation was very well done. Sylvia made some great points about the nature of our school systems, and the nature of learning. I think that these issues go far beyond games in the classroom, and I am sure she would agree. I do not agree however with everthing she was saying. developing games in the classroom with our students is a neat idea but I don’t know if it is doable. First things first is the game going to provide the learning that is desired? we can not be sure that by developing a game, that the knowledge that we want our students to obtain, is in fact obtained. There is certainly a lot of learning taking place, don’t get me wrong, but the learnig seems to be too narrow. the other issue is time. She brings this point up a number of times, but I feel that I must address it once again. Time is very valuable, and developing a game and programming it is extremely time consuming. I don’t see how developing a game would allow for essential learning to take place such as the raw facts that need to be presented. I could wrong here, and as such I invite anyone to do so.

Overall this presentation was both engaging and interesting. It gives us a lot to think about. Therefore, I believe that Sylvia has accomplished the goal of the presentaion, which is to get people thinking.

My Google Map

This is a map I made of my trip to see Paul McCartney in Quebec City. I figured it was a great thing to capture in a map. Well here is the link.

My final project

For my final project I had to do a complete turn around and do something different than I had originally planned. I made a video for nextvista.org. It deals with the divisibilty rules. Here is the link if it doesn’t play properly. I spent a great deal of time on this, pulling out my hair at times. But I wanted to make sure it was going to be something more than a video about Divisibility Rules. I wanted it to be a good resource for people to use. Whether it is or not is yet to be determined but I have high hopes for it. I had some difficulty with sending the project to Rushton and so he told me about a website that allows people to send large files to other people. It is called yousendit.com. As far as I know it worked great, at least on my end. I am still waiting to see if Rushton got my project. I understand that he is extremely busy, so I am not worried about it. Well here it is. Let me know what you think. What is good about it, bad about it, what could I change about it, etc. Please be brutally honest.

It’s that time

I think that I speak for everyone when I say that this time of year sucks. I have so much o do and so little time to do it in. When I was thinking about what to blog about, I found myself staring at a blank page for what seemed like hours. So what better to write about than my stress. I am sure none of you care about how stressed I am because you are all in the same boat, but at least I can get it off my chest.

I guess here would be a good place to update how my final assignment is going. Well this is one of the areas that is causing me alot of stress. It turns out my idea is not going to work after all. I had planned to combine this assignment with an assignment from EMTH 300. I had planned on working with a teacher who set up a wiki space for math teachers, but that assignment is slow going, and the communication with the teacher is almost non-existent. So call me crazy but I have decided to create a video for next vista.

The video will be about the divisibilty rules. I think that this will be really good to do. I taught a lesson on the rules already, and as such I think this is a great thing to put on the next vista site.

Well that is it for now. Talk at you soon.