Thursday, November 9, 2017

TPACK

Technology/TPack Lesson
First, provide some details regarding:
  • ·         Learners: 3rd grade students
  • ·         Learning outcomes: The students will gain a better understanding of multiplication by 6.
  • ·         Assessment: I will track the students’ progress by walking around and seeing the success of the game. I will ask students individually to answer the questions, which will give me a better understand of the students’ knowledge of the concepts.

Second, break down your activity into a timeline of planned events and procedures. Here you should describe what students and the teacher will be doing chronologically during the activity. Below is one of the good examples from previous reflections:
  • ·         The lesson will begin with introducing the students to the YouTube video Six Times Table Song! By Mr. DeMaio. I will pass out a sheet with the lyrics on it for the students to look at. We will go over the multiplication facts and then make the multiplication flower on a separate sheet of paper.
  • ·         The students will then spend the next 10 minutes coming to the board to use the smartboard to answer multiplication problems the teacher has put up there.
  • ·         Following the whole group assessment the students will then complete their own math facts of 6 worksheet.

·         Then the students get into groups of 3 and begin playing Catch The Stars Multiples of 6
Reflection:

  • I feel that my lesson did good. I do however wish that I had focused more on the actual teaching of the lesson and not just the song and the flower. I also wish that I had a bit more student interaction with the smartboard. 

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

3D printing

I loved looking at all the different ways that 3D printing can be used in the classroom. As a future teacher, I cannot imagine the possibilities my classroom could see if we could use 3D printing.

Thingiverse is a great website with so many ideas and possibilities to integrate 3D printing into the classroom. I had fun exploring some of the different subjects and lesson plans available on the site. I think 3D helps you reach all learners in a better way. You can reach the auditory learners by explaining when you write things on the board you reach you visual learners and now when you use 3D printing you reach your kinesthetic learners. You can hopefully reach all students with this advancement in technology.


This is an amazing technology and hopefully, I can have it in my classroom one day.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Blogs, TPACK, and Khan Academy

For my article reviews I was assigned to review “Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments” and “Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Learning Activity: Curriculum-Based Technology Integration Reframed”.
            In “Preservice Teachers’ Reflection on clinical Experiences: A Comparison of Blog and Final Paper Assignments” they discuss the common themes and differences between blogs and final papers. The common themes being reflection as a deliberate cognitive process that is used for the purpose of analyzing connections and relationships. The study compared blogging students to students who wrote end of the course reflective papers.
            This study is favorable because of the similarities between blogging and reflection papers. Such as the opportunity to habitually reflect on the experiences and what they have learned. Also peers will have the opportunity to read and respond to one-another’s reflections (like we do in this class.).
            During this study are they looked at 9 sections of 3 different courses. They were invited to be a part of the study. All of the courses in this study included a clinical, classroom experience and were taken by middle or secondary teachers. Two types of writing were collected: reflections written in end of the course formal papers and reflections written in blog posts. They wrote the reflections based on 4 different levels. The first level was nonreflection (descriptive), then Understanding, reflection, and then critical reflection.
            The result of the study was that blogging allows students to reflect systematically and publically among their peers increase their depth of reflection.
            The second article being “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge:  A Framework for Teacher Knowledge” This article discusses TPACK. TPACK is a based learning activity that successfully integrate technology into their lessons. TPACK emphasizes the connections among technologies, and curriculum content. In this article we are introduced to the idea of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK).  The idea of TPCK is brought to us by building on Shulman’s formulation of “pedagogical content knowledge” and extends to the idea of teachers integrating technology into their pedagogy. With TPCK teachers are guaranteed to cover three main components of learning environments:  content, pedagogy, and technology.  Teachers today face many problems including only looking at technology and now how it is used.  The research done in this article shows that, given opportunities to thoughtfully engage in the design of educational technology, teachers showed tremendous growth in their sensitivity to the complex interactions among content, pedagogy, and technology.  
Overall, TPCK is a great framework for teacher knowledge.  It will especially help struggling teachers that are afraid to bring to much technology into the classroom.  TPCK may also educate teachers to know as much information about technology to effectively teach students.  Like the article states, TPCK may not be the best theory out there but it is better than no theory at all.
Khan Academy
I watched a Khan academy video on nouns. The video was very informative, however I feel it would be good for junior high or high-school students. I feel that the information provided is just a bit too advanced for elementary students.
Incorporations for classroom

I feel that blogs are good for junior high students and up. I do not feel that it would be a good idea to have elementary students use blogs. Maybe a mock blog? However TPACK would be useful in all classrooms of all ages. 

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Reflection 1


Technology is ever changing. It affects our everyday lives in so many ways. Looking at the two "25 best inventions of 2015/2016" and I see that it genuinely affects every aspect of our life they have created "shoes that tied themselves (in 2016), silent hair dryers (in 2016), smart stethoscopes (in 2015), and books that filter water (in 2015).
            Each of these inventions has impacted the world in one way or another. The shoes that tie themselves impact the buyer’s daily life by not having to bother with the inconvenience of tying their shoes every day. The silent hair dryers impact the world by silencing the obnoxious noise that the hairdryer makes. The smart stethoscope will impact so many peoples’ lives as it will help the doctors to analyze the data from the stethoscope and figure out the problems with the heart. The book that filters water can help many people, the book can double in its sizes depending on the amount of water that it is filtering.
            In the “Summon the comfy chairs” article discusses an invention called the “Rubbish Robot”. The Rubbish Robot will approach a table, wiggle, and the people will then feed the Robot its rubbish. Another robot discussed in this article is the “Toy- Tidier” this is a toy-box with big eyes and flashing lights. It will go around and look for a toy when it finds one it will wiggle and flash lights until someone picks it up.
                “Teaching Robots Right from Wrong” they discuss how robots can now be taught how to feel. There is an “Ethical Adapter” this seeks to simulate human emotions, rather than just copy them, this allows the robots to learn from their mistakes (just as humans do).
The idea that robots can someday live among humans and be treated the same as we are, taking their emotions into consideration as we take each other’s is insane. It is wonderful that someday our technology can be so advanced, however, the idea that someday humans and robots can live in a society with us is terrifying.
                The technological advancements that we have made with robots and inventions are amazing. The way that technology impacts our lives is the greatest part of our society. It allows us to communicate with people that in another age we never could have met. It allows us as future educators to enhance our classrooms and get ideas from others teachers on websites such as “teachers pay teachers” and “Pinterest”.

                “Embrace the changes that come with the technology and awaken the powerful, positive force that the technology can be in the lives of our students today.” –S. Griffith