Thursday, April 19, 2012

WebQuest!!

WebQuest
Strengths
Weaknesses
Grow School Greens
This WebQuest deals with teamwork.  The students must collaborate with each other when making final decisions about what to plant, where to plant it, and so forth.
There really aren’t any weaknesses
Where is My Hero?
It allows the students to work together on things such as the interviews and making of the posters.
It deals with some individualized work because students research topics separately, then later talk about it.
Underground Railroad
It allows students to discuss and condense all of their information into main points.
It deals with a lot of individualized work by researching people of the Underground Railroad separately.
Ice Cream
It allows students to discuss and collaborate on what ice cream flavor to choose and how to present the poster.
Students do the ice cream worksheet individually.
Ancient Egypt
It allows students to work with a partner.
There really isn’t any weaknesses besides the facts that some of the work is done individually when making the brochure.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Thinking Creatively Video

There are many things that can be taken from this video. Putany talks about how teaching/pedagogy can be “messy” and he is very right.  I don’t necessarily believe that messy was the right word to use, complicated would have been a better choice.  There are so many different ways that a teacher can teach a class, and in a way this can be very hard trying to figure out the best way for the students.  Another thing that I learned from the video is that when teachers teach content to the class, a real effective way to allow the students to learn is by making it fun. Someone can be a very intelligent, yet they are horrible at teaching. Teachers have to know how to successfully transfer the content to the students.

Web 2.0 Tools

Describe the tool.
The tool that I chose is called
Stencyl. It is an app that allows people to create games, it is similar to the Scratch program.

What content area would you use the tool.
Depending on what you had your students do with Stencyl, you could use the tool in multiple content areas.  You would just have to change the rules of what type of game to build.

Briefly describe a lesson in which you would implement the tool.
Say the class was learning about fractions in class, the students could then all create different games that dealt with fractions or whatever math skills they were learning.


What do you need to consider before using this tool.
The main thing that needs to be considered before using this tool is the fact that computers are needed.  Also you must make sure that all of your students understand what they are supposed to be doing on the computers.



    Sunday, April 8, 2012

    DJ #10 Sewing the Seeds for a More Creative Society

    Quote: "Children can use Crickets to create all types of interactive inventions: musical sculptures, interactive jewelry, dancing creatures. In the process, children learn important science and engineering concepts, and they develop a better understanding of the interactive objects in the world around them" (Resnick).

    Response:  I think that this is a great thing!  Kids are learning how things function, they are having fun, and they are actually getting involved.  It is good that the kids using Crickets actually get to build things that they think are cool because they are learning about many skills at one time.  Things like this should be incorporated into the classroom more so students can learn and understand how and why certain things work.

    Resource: Resnick, Mitchel. "Sewing the Seeds For A New Creative Society." . ISTE, 2007. Web. 8 Apr. 2012. <http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/Learning-Leading-final.pdf>.

    Reference: This video gives the students point of view of creativity in the classroom.
    About Creative Learning In The Classroom