2/17/11 Update

Today we met with Mr. Steffens, we wrote down a few things to not about the class but I'm not sure how useful they will be. Things about the overall class was useful but specifics about the students will not be. On March 7th they will start a new unit and students have the choice of selecting a new class/topic. Tomorrow morning is a faculty meeting, that I will be attending on behalf of my group, to plan for the new unit. Our teacher suggested that one of us attend as a way to make sure our project is kind of "planned into" the lesson. Hopefully, after tomorrows meeting we can create more concrete dates for meetings and have a better idea of what we will be doing, as well as the class.

*B.C.*

Sitation Report 1, for (02/09/11)

Thursday February 10th, 2011 was the first time my partner got to meet and get to know our students. We were able to visit the students during their reading block and see them at work. They were working on a very intriguing activity about the trail of tears. Although I knew their assignment wasn’t relative to ours in any way I still went around to the students and asked them to explain what they were doing. The purpose of this was to get a feel for the different students, their work ethics, and anything specific I may want to know about individual students when working with them. There was on student that I spoke to that was extremely organized, had great handwriting, and the language skills of a mature student. Another student I spoke to seemed to have a rather attention span, I was able to note that it wasn’t the best idea to interrupt him while he was working because it becomes the hardest thing to get him back on task. I saw some students working on computers, I met a girl that was a good writer, and another student that was good at proof reading. In the hour and a half that we spent in the class I was able to think of a number of different jobs the students could have in order to help with our project.
Currently our project is still under construction because the 4th/5th grade team is finishing a unit and getting ready to plan a new one. Cassie Bell and I spoke to the teacher about the realistic time frame we would have to work with the students, but he stated that that was unclear because it was still dependent upon the way the next unit was designed. He mentioned that their meeting to plan the next unit was next week Friday. He said that we were welcome to sit on the meeting to find out exactly what we would be happening in the unit and find out where our project would fit best.
My preliminary findings were that, even though they are older you still have to work just as hard to keep their attention as you do for young children. Our next step would be to determine if one of us could make it to their unit meeting as well as collaborate with the other forth/fifth grade classes. The next unit that the teacher will be planning for is learning about the constitution. The social madia network that the students has chosen will be used to basically translate The Constiution in a more kid friendly manner and more relatable to a younger audience. The reason we felt that this was a good idea is because not people know what the constitution is about because it looks intimidating and looks as if it wouldn’t relate to many people. Hopefully, we can gain more insight from the forth/fifth grade team meeting and be able to make more concrete plans for our projects’ next step.

EME Synthesis Journal

I feel that social media will continue to play a huge role in the 21st century, as scientist and technology specialists find more ways to use technology in order to enrich or simplify our lives. We are living a time change that some may not even notice. With what I have seen, I don’t believe that cellular devices are made without installed applications to Facebook and Twitter, even if you don’t have one. Social media like the two preciously mentioned are some of the fastest ways for information to travel across campuses as small as secondary schools, up to campuses as large as the 50,000 students at the University of Florida.
Every step of being a teacher is about actively and continuously teaching and learning. In order to teach you must be able grasp and keep your audience’s attention. In my middle school ESOL class I heard a few of my students asking each other if they had a Facebook. Since Facebook is not a requirement (outside of a social requirement) there must be something about the social network that attracts its users. This is where learning becomes a factor for teachers; teachers must become interested in what keeps the students’ interest and find a way to use that to their advantage in the classroom.
My goal for this project is to create a project that will involve the students not only physically, but also intellectually. I will feel that this is accomplished if there are students asking questions and genuinely engaging in the topics we discuss. I would also like to see students that are willing to do more than is asked of them simply because they want to contribute to the final product of the project.
What I plan on contributing to my group is being more of a liaison between my group and the students. If there is someone that needs to visit the school in order to give the students updates or to get updates from them then I can be counted on to do those. Also, if there is something that the students need to be taught in order for them to contribute to the project then I will be the person to teach the students and help ensure understanding.


*B.C.*

Reaction to Stop Motion Animation

It didn’t take long to do the Stop Motion Animation at all. We went outside to film and I was the camera man. Both the girls (Morgan and Danielle S.) were in sun-ware and I directed them on when to stop and when to go. It just got to the point where I would flash the camera and say go. I had tried clicking the camera continuously and allowing it to just flow that way with the flashes catching up to the actual amount of pictures the camera would take. Later on I found out that that wasn’t the best idea because the pictures were distorted, flipped, colored, angled, etc. and we had to film the scene all over again. We didn’t mind filming over again because it didn’t take long at all. I believe we had about two or three hundred frames and it took no time at all to do it. Honestly I feel that it was more of a pain in the neck to do the editing than to do the actual filming itself. It wasn’t hard to actually edit, it just took us a bit of a minute to learn how to navigate the program we were using which I think was iMovie. Over all it was a good experience that I would have never tried on my own essentially meaning I would have never found out that I could do it. Im glad we were forced/given this opportunity! =)
*B.C.*

Chapter 10: Assessing Meaningful Learning with Technology

Chapter ten is about assessing meaningful learning with technology. In reading this chapter I revisited a lot about assessment like authentic assessment along with performance and alternative assessment. Prior to this class I had explored these types of assessment so there wasn’t much that I learned in this chapter. Assessing growth through portfolios is something that we learned in the paper form so this chapter just explained how to transfer them into electronic portfolios. That was one of the forms of technology-based assessments that the book explores. A benefit to doing the E-portfolio is that they are easy to update and show the progression made from the beginning to the end. There are also technology based rubrics and even Clicker assessment tools which we were able to use in class. These are very beneficial, especially since students have the option to submit their answers anonymously. There wasn’t much to learn in this chapter since our previous classes had covered so much on assessment, it was just more on how to convert them into electronic documents.
*B.C.*

Chapter 9: Visualizing W/ Technologies

Chapter nine is about visualizing technologies. One of the major focuses on this chapter is how to use technology as a visual benefit. A lot of the ideas offered in this chapter are beneficial to students that need to visualize problems or work in order to fully understand the message being conveyed. One of the programs discussed is “Visualizing Geography With Geographic Information Systems”, students can use manipulative in order to express a number, compound, or possibly an entire equation. Students can solve just like they would with a pen and paper and writing out numbers and calculate them but with the manipulatives students can get a better understanding and can learn what it is the numbers are representing. Visualizing with technologies can be used in so many more ways than this, however; computers and computer programs can be used for maps, Google Earth, and for more mathematical ideas like on a graphing calculator. On a more contemporary level, this chapter explores visualizing with digital cameras and mobile phones. Cell phones, cameras, and cell phones with cameras are steadily becoming a commonly used item across the board and that includes our elementary school students. Finding ways to use these in a classroom will help to grab the students attention and become interested in more ways they can use their cell phones. Recording students presentations and allowing them to watch them back can be extremely beneficial because students get to see their own work and can help give constructive criticism to themselves. Also, it gives students new areas to learn and possibly specialize in like filming, editing, production, etc. This is beneficial because this is not a commonly explored area in classrooms so some students may actually have a knack for this but they are never really given the opportunity to explore it. This chapter was very informative and helpful, I even saw things that would help me as a teacher like video modeling and feedback.
*B.C.*

Exit Slip 4/6/10

Todays class was information packed and I was able to catch all of it as I conducted the “what we did in class wiki”. There was a lot of interesting information used in each chapter and I learn quite a few things from chapter that may be useful in my classroom. We worked on out Stop Motion Animation that is almost complete and actually was rather simple.
*B.C.*