July 2013 Blog Posts (103)

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/strengths-and-weaknesses-of-online.html

My thoughts on VR changed as soon as I defined what is and what VR is not. I believe there is an inheriting need for VR and hand-on experiences to become global competitors within education. The biggest disadvantage I see is the constant need for training and PD for teachers and the planning time needed to learn the systems. Once we have a platform of VR systems within the school system, we can learn to manipulate them to our class’s specific needs. I don’t believe it is the students’…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/a-great-website-every-teacher-should.html

This week we focused on created a digital citizenship policy for our classroom. This assignment was difficult for me because I saw the task at hand as how to teach it to my students. While teaching it, I would have had the student come up with their own policies and added where I saw fit. However, because I were in a partner situation, we agreed it would be best to form a policy and a classroom graphic with it. I think by allowing the students to generate the policy the buy in is better and…

I haven’t completed much research in the past on social networks because I’ve spent my time working at an Elementary School where social networking is not allowed. I’ve also been pretty much blocked from every social media site by my district’s proxy. After reviewing the various sites I understand that many of them collect student information and is probably one reason why they’re blocked. I was really surprised to see that the one social network tool that’s approved in my district is…

            Social networking is very popular and sites about any subject or interest can be found. There have been sites created that incorporate social networking and education. These sites allow teachers to integrate social networking into their teaching and lessons. Something teachers need to consider before using social networking is the nine components of digital citizenship. These components were created to help protect students and create a learning environment for technology…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/common-barriers-to-crticak-thinking.html

I have learned a lot about social networking through this week of projects. First and foremost, I never thought that social networking was something that I could do with kids as young as third grade. But now I have seen that there are social networking projects that could be done with students as young as kindergartners. Obviously the way social networks are used and which social networks are used depends entirely on the age of…

Gifted Educators

Do you know of any positions that are open for gifted educators in…

I am planning for the upcoming school year. I am implementing interactive notebooks for the first time. I teach 7th grade Lang. Arts. Any ideas of how to set it up?? Thanks in advance.

I have designed a vocabulary fun learning game and I want to share an activity with all. I experienced it in my class. My students enjoyed this game a lot and learn vocabulary easily. They like this vocabulary competition so much.

PAPER PLANE FUN LEARNING

In this game I just asked my students to write ten most difficult words on the paper. Every student wrote words on the paper from that vocabulary which they learnt in the lesson. After writing I asked them to make…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/crtical-thinkers-vs-uncritical-thinkers.html

Dear Otto is an occasional column I write where I answer questions I get from readers about teaching tech. Here’s a great question I got from Lani :

I am trying to set up my curriculum map for 2013-14, for preK-8.  This is the first year I will be actually using the lab f/t…I hope, along with library skills.  I purchased several of the structured learning books & your…

If you liked the last Humor that Inspires (Part 1 and Part 2), here are more to kick-start your day:

1. "A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
   
   - Oscar…

After reading the articles and watching the videos for this week’s assignment I have truly been inspired to be one of the teachers that Dr. Tony Wagner talks about.  This is the teacher that isn’t afraid to try and venture off into this path of keeping students engaged in content through the use of technology (Random acts of excellence”).  These core competencies that Dr. Wagner talks about are essential to young students’ achievement later in life.  I believe the biggest are problem solving…

http://www.teacherstechworkshop.com/2013/07/enigma-aweome-brain-teazer.html

Dr. Tony Wagner has a good pulse on the students and this generation. Specifically, his concerns of how students are failing to learn even when they excel on the test. I teach Business courses and interactive media courses and I have found that many of my students struggle in my class because it requires them to think and problem solve and not simply memorize.

I am a digital immigrant. I would like to think that I was native because I have learned so much while teaching in a computer…

I am a digital native when it comes to using technology in every day life. I love using technology and learning new ways to use it. However, after watching the videos and reading the information I have found that I am a immigrant when it comes to using technology in the classroom to prepare my students for the world after graduation.

The first article "The New Literacy" really points out how much literacy is changing. We see kids on the computer all of the time and forget how…

I really enjoyed watching the video A Vision of Students Today. It opened my eyes for what it’s truly like for my students even though they may only be in 2^nd grade. Their worlds revolve around technology and they crave to have a piece of that in the classroom. I feel like I’m a digital native so I feel comfortable using technology in my classroom and I’m excited about possibly getting the opportunity to receive technology my students will be able to use every day in the…

Being a Business and Computers teacher I feel that I can call myself a native to technology. My classroom is a computer lab and my students are on the computers daily utilizing them for research and assignments. I also use moodle, google docs, drop box and many other technology resources to help enhance the learning process. I believe that todays kids rely heavily on technology and it is how they communicate with each other as well as how they deal with life, school, etc... As teachers we…