In most of my blogs I have referred to the class I am taking as Science Methods. That is just the shortened name of the class. The entire name of the class is Science and Technology Methods for Childhood Education. The focus of our class was on learning how to teach science through inquiry, but we also explored different types of technology platforms.
Technology is becoming a necessity in learning especially for younger students. Children as young as two are now being exposed to different video game systems and tablets. Their parents give them the tablets and phones to play games to keep them quiet in cars, in restaurants, on rainy days inside and all other instances. In a sense it takes the stress off of the parent to entertain the child. These children learn everything from there ABC's and 123's to how to read, science practices and of course how to use technology and the different platforms that come along with the tablets and video game systems.
In my class this semester my teacher encouraged us to explore different types of technology. To my surprise a lot of them were surprisingly easy to use and create great content. Below are some of the different technologies we used in class and brief descriptions of them.
Adobe Connect was an app that we had to use during the beginning of the semester because of inclement weather. The app allowed our teacher to speak to us in real time, show us course material and allow us to respond to her questions. We were able to respond via microphone on our computers or by typing our responses into an area where out entire class could respond. This app was great because it allowed my entire class to participate in class from the comfort of our own homes. I would certainly use this app in my future classrooms to help students with work if they have questions or concerns and they are home. I would be able to bring up work on the screen for the student and I can see. I can show the student where they went wrong in their work as well as things that they did well on. I could also use this to contact other professionals in my school when I have questions and need their assistance.
About a quarter of the way through the semester I attended a Smart Board Training. During this training the attendees learned basic smart board functions as well as how to incorporate them into our lessons. Smart board lessons are great for children to interact because after all, a smart board is an interactive white board. We learned how to group things together, create charts with tools to hide the answers, and we also learned how to use tools such as magic ink and disappearing ink. I think smart boards are a fantastic invention in the classroom. With new technology more than one student can now work at a smart board at once. There is also technology called Smart Exchange. It allows a user to make smart board lessons and then access them from any type of interactive white board they come into contact with. At the end of the training we all received certificates of completion. With the knowledge I gained I am very excited to use a smart board in my future classroom.
During the semester my teacher encouraged us to try new platforms of technology. One of my classmates introduced me to Lino. Lino is an online way to make a collage. You log on to the site and you choose a background. Next you choose photos to add to the background and then you can add virtual sticky notes as well. These sticky notes can contain any sort of information regarding the photo that was added. You can even attach links to the sticky notes. In my class we had to make a space collage full of articles. I chose to use Lino because it is user friendly and is very creative and engaging. I like this platform because it allows more than one student to work on a project at a time but students need to refresh the page to see the work of the other students. I plan to use this in my future classroom for group assignments for article collages such the one I had to do.
N is for Newsela. Newsela is an educational website that allows teacher and students access to awesome articles about any topic that one would be interested in learning about and the content is updated quite frequently. Newsela can be used from a teachers point of view to assign articles for students to read online and answer questions about them. Newsela also measures the Lexile level that the article is read at. Newsela will also track the progress of Lexile levels of students in a graph form on each of their pages. For students, Newsela is great because it allows them to keep up on current events in all parts of the world about topics that interest everyone. Students could use Newsela to do current events presentations in any subject. They could also use Newsela to do independent reading and to educate themselves on a topic that might interest them.
Animoto was a fun application to use. It allows the user to make short or long videos that combine text, images as well as video segments and music to make a video. In my Science and Technology Methods class we were assigned to use a trade book an make a book trailer on the book. I chose the book The Little Raindrop by Joanna Gray. I used photos from the book and text to tease the audience to intrigue them to read the book. Animoto can be used to all different types of purposes though. It can be used to make videos of students working, it could be used as a message to send to students if you are absent one day. Students can also use Animoto for various projects in the classroom. It can be used as a creative form of Summative assessment instead of a test. I definitely plan to use Animoto in my future classroom for summative assessment purposes.
A huge part of our class is using Google and the various services that it provides. During this class we were encouraged to use the various services that google provides to benefit our learning as well as the learning of those around us. Any time we had a writing assignment or writing lesson plans, we chose to do so on google docs because it is very versatile. More than one person is able to work on the document at a time. It also saves the current work automatically and backs it up without having to manually do so. That is one huge benefit of google docs. When it came to creating lesson plans this semester with my co-teacher candidates, this tool was very handy. All of my co-teacher candidates and I were able to work on our designated parts of the lesson plan at once. We were also able to see all of the changes that everyone made. This allowed us to see the progress that the document was making.
Another great tool that google supplies is google slides. This is the google equivalent to Microsoft PowerPoint. I personally believe that google slides is a lot more user friendly and essentially more efficient. Like google docs, google slides allows more than one user to work on the slide show at once. It is easy to attach links and add photos and videos to the slide show. My co-teacher candidates and I used google slides to create slide shows that corresponded with our lesson plans that we implemented the the 5th grade class. We were all able to work on the document at once and we were able to see the changes that each member made. We also found it very simple to add slide effects and transitions to the different slides and photos. This helped to keep the students engaged as well as make the overall presentation look more presentable.
One of my favorite google platforms is called Blogger. In my Science and Technology class my teacher asked us to reflect on our practices and share our ideas. Blogging is a great way to reflect on what we learn and to elaborate our ideas. Instead of countless reflective essays and tests, reflective blogging is just another way to summarize the information and analyze how well students retained it. It is also a way for students to put heir own creative spin on the information they have learned. Blogging makes the content more personal because it has less strict perimeters. It allows students to connect to the information and share it with the rest of their class and the rest of the blogging world. I think blogs are a great thing for students to have access to. They can be personalized, engaging and creative. Students seem to be drawn to assignments that they can personalize. Overall it makes the experience more memorable and worthwhile for the student.
In our class we used other types of technology such as screencast-o-matic, glogster, voice thread and WebQuest. We also learned how to incorporate them into teaching science as well as other subjects. Having experience and knowledge of these various technology platforms makes me much more comfortable teaching students of the future.
