Power Point and Learning Wednesday September 29th, 2010

This has been the most interesting two weeks of my teaching career. The students in my class are working on a science project. The project required written notes and then taking the notes and making them into a power point. It has been truly amazing how students have no idea how to make the written part become the power point.
They have made this project that started out to be fairly reasonable and easy become hard and impossible. The first thing that was easy for me to see is they have trouble taking the written notes and when we started this project in Science we were learning about QAR  (Questioning) in reading. We thought that it should go together very well. WRONG! The good part of the project is that most of the students get right to work on the power point portion of the project. They are doing nice work and I can't wait until Friday when we are able to look at finished projects. I will say though that this has by far been the most confusing and time consuming project so far this year.
You have probably guessed by now that I will be looking into the written part of it and changing some to better fit the needs of the technology students that we have and will be having in our classes.
Have a good week. I'm sure next week I will fill you in on some of the finished projects.
Jo

Monday September 20th, 2010 Fun with Homophones

My fifth grade class had the assignment to use whatever they wanted to teach the rest of the class about homophones. I gave them examples of songs, posters, dance, poems and etc. In the presentation they were supposed to redine homophones and give us an example. We had some outstanding performances! By the end of the 12 performances everyone was clear on what a homophone is and they also could give many examples. I have a student teacher right now who will be with my class and I until December and he loves technology. (Thank Goodness) Each student in my classroom has a flash drive so we did a video of the presentations using a flip camera and then eventually downloaded that to each flash drive. For me this is very exciting to really start using technology a little more at a time in the classroom.
I really hated that I had to miss class last Wednesday night, because it is always fun to learn something new every week. I really am glad that I teach and can right back into my classroom the next day and try something new out. I was really glad that this was more technocentric than I had been in the past and it came together quite well. I really am thinking about doing a Blog for my classroom so that I could include things we do like the homophone presentations. Every week it is more of I Think I CAN!

TPACK and Technocentric September 14th, 2010

It did not take me long to figure out which way I was trying to educate children with Technology. I was probably one of the most polished technocentric educators you would ever meet. If I was going to use technology my whole lesson was planned around that first. Last Wednesday night's class was another eye opening experience for me as a teacher. Another thing I noticed though is my technocentric thinking comes from the top down in my school district. We purchase tech items and then plan what we can do with them and how they can be beneficial. Instead of planning and then deciding what tech products we'll use and where.
My class can hardly stand waiting until Friday of this week because we are writing our hero qualification stories and then putting them in the WORDLE program. Excitement is the understatement of the week.
It was rewarding and so much fun being able to respond to a class and their blogs.
I use postcards in my classroom regularly to send my newsletter via the student. The student will write what we have done and we talk about all kinds of possibilities. Some children spend a lot of time and others just get theirs done. It is kind of up to them.
I hope you have a great week!!!

Blogging and the Art of Writing (cursive)

I appreciated class on Sept. 1st when we discussed blogging and keeping a journal. Imagine how much easier it would have been for my grandma to log in and type away. Somehow maybe not as personal.
 I was going to comment on the art of handwriting. (Cursive) Our school district has looked at that particular argument off and on. We called companies to see how much they used it in their place of employment. It was found very few places use it except for people to sign their names. I personally believe it is an art. I also believe students should not have to do it all of the time, but when ours are taught in third grade to do it I feel it does need to be reinforced a little further down the road. Otherwise maybe it is time to teach keyboarding instead of cursive writing. To me this is when there can be such a tug-of-war over what to do, how often, when and if at all. I can imagine the handwriting issue will be around for quite a while.
Blogging allows freedom and creativity if the person so chooses. It was interesting the comparisons and what different people thought.