I love what technology can do for education, but generally I prefer to see it used outside the regular classroom. Technology glitches (still!) end up costing lots of time. Also, computer-based sessions tend to be way too quiet for me. Nothing but the click, click, click of keyboards--but maybe some good learning. Or maybe not. Well how about it? Was today's session or not? Add here some more pluses and minuses about spending time with technology. How did you spend your time today? Will you be a better teacher or not as a result of today's session?
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Ghosts on the machines (for the end of class, Tuesday, September 16)
I love what technology can do for education, but generally I prefer to see it used outside the regular classroom. Technology glitches (still!) end up costing lots of time. Also, computer-based sessions tend to be way too quiet for me. Nothing but the click, click, click of keyboards--but maybe some good learning. Or maybe not. Well how about it? Was today's session or not? Add here some more pluses and minuses about spending time with technology. How did you spend your time today? Will you be a better teacher or not as a result of today's session?
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I spent the majority of today's class period by looking at the free technology for teachers website. I found some really good material on this site especially for teachers who might not be very confident with technology. I'm sure that there are teachers out there that would like to incorporate more technology into the classroom but are apprehensive in doing so. This site has really good how-to's as well as step by step videos that really make it simple to work with technology. One part that I found extremely beneficial was the how-to on making a Google Drive account and the advantages of having such an account. By having an account, the teacher can upload powerpoints, post quizes, share documents, and be able to monitor assignments by the students within drive. All the teacher has to do is sign up and have their students sign up too. I don't think that this would be an issue because I'm sure that most of the students would have a Goggle account already. I found that using this technology can make things run more efficiently outside of class. I think this is something that almost any high school teacher could find useful for their classes.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.freetech4teachers.com/p/google-tools-tutorials.html#.VBi1hbSwWaM
One website that I found useful was the "free technology for teachers," website. This website had hundreds of links that showed us ways to incorporate multiple site with multiple media's into our class room and lesson plan. One website that I found pretty interesting was http://www.classtools.net/_FAKEBOOK/gallery/index.php its a website that has fake facebook profiles of historical figures, and shows their "wall" and has fake accounts that interact with them. For example I looked at Malcolm X's wall and one post was his status saying he's taking a trip to mecca, another was a post by his wife saying that she was sorry to tell everyone that her husband had died, and then one of the comments on it was martin luther king. it was kind of a cheesy website but gave a good brief bio of some historical figures, and also showed that there are figures living in the same time period, interacting.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was researching for my blog I found the history channel has put together some teaching material for World War II. http://www.wwiimemorial.com/default.asp?page=education.asp&subpage=teachersguide
ReplyDeleteDo I think a teacher should rely solely on this information, no. However, I think it gives you some good ideas and tips on how to approach teaching WWII in the classroom.
In high school my teachers would use google docs and items like that for a variety of different things. I never found them very accessible or useful. On the Free Technology for teachers page I followed the power point on how to create a quiz on google. It would be pretty simple to create a short daily quiz on there, however, if you don't have it automatically grade the quiz itself, then I don't find it all that useful. However, there was a youtube video later on showing you how to have it automatically grade itself, then it might be worth using in a classroom. On this site as well there was a bunch of different things with googlemaps. In a geography class especially, googlemaps would be really beneficial in showing students exactly where it is and being able to use some of the special features that googlemaps has to show them specifics and actual views of streets and cities in an area they are studying.
I tried using Prezi today and while I think it's a nice, clean, simple way to present information, as Matt said in class I'd just use powerpoint. It does exactly the same thing and doesn't require internet access to be used.
Technology as a whole can be very useful in a classroom setting depending on what you do with it. There are endless sites that contain so much information on using technology in the classroom and different ideas that as a teacher we will have to find what works for us, continue doing research, and try different things before we know what will and will not work and be effective in a classroom setting.
I feel I will be a better teacher because of what I did today. The comic strips were fun, an for me is better than free hand.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.toondoo.com/createToon.do?param=openFullWindow
Merlot was interesting in that I could use this site as sort of an resume site for potential employers, Though I only set up the account and did not add anything beyond my initial homepage status. in addition I am still working with my blogger page and adding names though I have changed little I hope to have a good informational blog, over president facts. I learned a lot in todays session, and hope to learn more about these fun and educational sites.
Like I said in class, I like the free technology for teachers website has it has a lot of useful information, particularly all the "how-to" videos. The more I messed around with Prezi, the more I liked it. It may be easier for students to get work done if they don't need PowerPoint installed. I also like Matt's idea of using a blog as a "This day in history" tool. It would be something you could have up on the projector right before class gets started. I really like having easy access to all of this information and technology easily. One of the few downsides I can think of would be the ability to get sidetracked easily. You can mess around with Prezi or PP for a long time making it fancy, or go from article to article on Real Clear, with the articles not pertaining to what you initially set out to accomplish. But I believe the pros far outweigh the cons. Merlot also has an abundance of information, with the only hard part being going through it and deciding what to use. I think my favorite, and the items I'd most likely use in the classroom, would be Prezi and blogs. They are easy and can contribute a lot to the learning environment.
ReplyDeleteOne of the articles I had been reading in class and outside of class was one I found on Real Clear History last week about the importance of military history. It brings up a lot of good points about how the study of military history is waning, but how important understanding military history still is. It's amazing how many useful articles one could find on Real Clear or another website that you hadn't planned on using in class, but are able to incorporate it to help supplement your lesson.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_military_history.html
I really found the site Real Clear Politics interesting because it seemed to be unbiased. There were articles that gave a lot of information and you were able to draw your own conclusion. The free technology for teachers was full of useful ideas for the classroom. Seems to have numerous resources for teachers to use. The site would link you to similar fields to search. I found the way it was set up allowed for easy searching.
ReplyDeleteWhen using technology in my classroom I feel it will be important to have a balance with computers and textbook. Doing projects that are hands on will enable students to figure out things on their own. Being able to see what works for my classroom will deal with trial and error. Technology is great but used in moderation.
Some good things and a few not so good things regarding the website Free Technology 4 Teachers. What I did find most beneficial was all of the how to sites. For example, here is a handy one I found regarding Google Earth:
ReplyDeletehttp://content.yudu.com/Library/A1l5al/GoogleEarthAcrossthe/resources/index.htm?referrerUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freetech4teachers.com%2Fp%2Fgoogle-tools-tutorials.html
In addition to this, other helpful links in this site included “how tos” for google documents and various other practical applications for the wide amount of free tech found online. I also enjoyed the Practical ed tech tip of the week:
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2014/01/new-newsletter-option-practical-ed-tech.html
Not all apps or links were super helpful: Like the random name generator. Which can be used to pick a student in your class at random. To me this seems silly, time consuming and pointless.
Other programs may not necessarily be constrained for a limited age group. Though https://www.mystorybook.com/ might look like something a younger student would use, you can import your own pictures to create content for a more mature student age group.
Snag films—an alternative to youtube. The selection is fairly limited regarding history (unless its world war II) What I like about this is that you can create a little clip from the movie or video. It lets you edit small snippets for creating specific video content. Again, a nice alternative to youtube or Netflix (as it’s free) but the selection is limited. http://www.snagfilms.com/
As a whole, I do think this is a great website and offers a ton of handy links for an educator.