Journal Entry 7: Problem Solving and Inquiry Learning with Software and Web Tools

How can teachers use computer Games and simulations as learning resources?

To captivate a student’s attention is one of the biggest challenges a teacher has, in a classroom you want students who are eager to learn. There are many students who are willing to learn but there are those few who will make it hard on you to grasp their attention.  In my perspective I thought that using computer games and simulations as learning resources is the perfect way to teach in a classroom. I’m not saying it should over power the overall lesson but you can use computer games for some parts of the class, for instance when you’re doing math students can use websites like abcya it helps students understand the math problems more, they are more involved and it’s a fun way to learn different subjects. I really enjoyed this website called the mighty book, I used it for a low level reading student, my thoughts on this website are how much attention it grabs from students, it not only helps the students read better but it provides them with a fun way of doing it. The students also get to follow along as the narrator sings or reads the book to them. When I was in middle school I remember my class used to do the read 180 program and it was really cool because we used to be able to use tapes and follow along on the computers we would fill in the words to a story and to see if our annunciation was correct we would be read a sentence and we would have to read it back to the computer into a microphone. So there are many different ways to use technology to help students learn more that lets them be more productive.
 

Tech Tool:

For my tech tool I chose Zoombinis Logical Journey, this a game that helps teach critical thinking, problem solving, and mathematical learning to elementary school students. This game has multiple levels of mathematical thinking, where the kids are asked to used their critical thinking skills to solve puzzles and make their way on their journey. The video below gives you more of an insight of what the game is like and how kids should play it.

 

Summary:

This chapter consisted of how we can introduce games into the classroom to help students learn and better themselves in certain subjects. The chapter also discusses the many different types of software's that we can use to teach in the classrooms, as well as prepare students for whats next to come in their journey in life. 

Journal Entry 6: Teaching with Educational Websites and other Online Resources

What are Web Quests and Virtual field trips?

Web Quests and Virtual field trips are resources used in the classroom to help students and teachers learn by using the three learning styles: Visual, kinesthetic, and Auditory. WebQuest helps students learn in a more efficient way that lets them work with a group of websites. Teaching a student the proper websites where they should be looking up information for a project, homework, and classwork. There are so many websites where students can look up information and use it as they please but our jobs as teachers is to show them the proper way. As a kid I found it very hard to find websites that would help me on projects or any kind of homework. In middle school we were given projects but were only allowed to use text books or books from the library which the teacher had to approve. We weren't open to a lot of options in the school I was attending that at times it was hard to do our projects. 

Tech Tool:

Diigo, short for digest of internet information groups and other stuff, allows you to bookmark sites, highlight portions of web pages, add sticky notes that you create, tag the sites, and easily share resources. Once you embedded highlights or bookmarks, your notations appear every time you open the page.

Summary:This chapter has a very interesting look at how teachers should show their students how to properly look up information and use it in the classroom there are specific websites that students can use. As I read this chapter I decided to look up some websites of my own and I came across Fact Monster which helps students do homework and provides information based on any subject they need.

Journal Entry 5: Researching and Evaluating Internet Information

How can students respond to problems of plagiarism when students use online sources?

As a student myself I would say that the best way to deal with this is to sight your sources, most students at the 3^rd grade level will not know what this means and it will have to be explained to them in a way that they will understand. Students need to know the proper ways of collecting information and giving the proper the credits to whomever it may belong to. Plagiarism is one of the biggest problems teachers may have when it comes to students writing essay, doing projects etc. But the question is how do we as teachers control it. In my history class two years ago, the professor gave us all of the students in class the options of using different school based search engines to help us with our essays. Now before we started searching our papers we had to look up our topic find at least eight different resources and type them up in APA format and hand it in if at least five of the eight were not approved then we had to find the ones that we were missing. As this point passed we had to write the essay and within the essay we had to use foot notes for all of the cites that were citing, that way we would not be accused of plagiarism. Teaching a student not to plagiarize is really hard to do from my perspective because some may think they are sneaky and think they will not be caught. In a lot of ways I think that showing students within every project how to use citations and put quotes around sentences that they did not write is one of the ways to go, I do still think this is a very difficult topic. 

Tech tool

For my tech tool I chose LibriVox the reason I chose this tool was because I found interesting how you can go on this website and read books or listen to them, they have been pre-recorded for others by volunteers. This website also made me think of the discussion that we did based on deficiencies and I thought that this would be a great tool to use in a classroom for students who can’t use their hands and or bodies they can listen as they follow along online.

Summary:

This chapter is about teaching students and helping teachers understand how to better search the internet in a safer way where students do not have to put themselves at risk with false information. It is easy to get trapped into a website that may seem safe, but teaching the students how to better surf the internet will be better for them in the future. It also teaches the teachers how there are certain steps they have to take before they themselves could be propper educators of the internet in a classroom.

Journal Entry 4: Integrating technology and creating change

How can teachers create change in the classrooms using technology?

In a classroom what the teacher wants the most is to inspire creativity and sprout knowledge into their students minds. When I was in elementary school the third grade, my teacher would let us do this cool activity where we would use shaving cream and we would put it all over our desk. As we would spread the shaving cream she would ask us questions and we would have to write the answer within the shaving cream. Although my story has nothing to do with technology, she used something so small such as shaving cream to inspire our imaginations and help us remember what we learned. The new student generation of this era has so much knowledge with technology that we must incorporate such valuable assets as computers, ipads, and itouches. Instead of writing presentations on paper show them a new way they can develop their skills using a computer and or portable laptops.

The tech tool that caught my attention was Edutopia it provides with a lot of information having to do with helping teachers how to integrate technology into their classrooms.

Edutopia: information and inspiration for innovative teaching in K-12 schools, a website from the George Lucas Educational Foundation, features a fine collection of technology integration resources. You can find information under the priority topics menu.

Summary

This chapter was based on how teachers need to learn certain skills in order to be able to use technology in their classrooms. Teachers need to go through five steps, Entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention. This chapter wants us to slowly incorporate technology to see what changes it can bring about within the students also it lets us know that we shouldn’t involve a lot of technology but only the necessary that way it does not over power the classroom.