Summary Week 7

Tech Exploration 6-19-13

Sarah Roe

We are coming down to the last few weeks of class, and I am amazed to look back and see how much I have learned. I continue to be introduced to new ideas, and ways to look at technology within the classroom. Not only am I benefitting from all of this research, but my students will be as well. Some interesting facts that I learned about the brain, have definitely kept me thinking over this past week. I think that we can take for granted all of the amazing capabilities we have through the use of our brain. Though thinking, reading, and writing have come naturally to many, there are others out there who have not been introduced to such luxeries, and their brains have suffered from it. Some research that I found hypothosized that those who were illiterate, could be detected by watching the movements of their brain. There were ways to identified fast readers, slow readers, those who suffered from dyslexia, and even those who suffered from serious medical problems. I once visited an exhibit of all types of human body parts that had been saved for medical purposes and put on display. The most fascinating of all of them, were the brains. There were exhibits of brains that had suffered from alsheimers, a stroke, mental disabilities, and regular brains. You could see the physical differences that these things had caused. Just as if you do not take care of your body, it physically shows. The same can be said about your brain.

We also finished up our Tech Explorations this week. Though there were a couple that did not seem as useful in the educational world, such as http://www.delicious.com/ and http://www.diigo.com/ , all of the others were quite fascinating. The only reason Digo is in this category, is because I could not get it to open up for me. But the other sites were great! I specifically enjoyed HIstorypin. I am a major "Pinterrorist" as my boyfriend calls me. I am always looking at pinterest for ideas for school, and my home as well. So the idea of Historypin immediately struck me as interesting. But the more that I navigated through the site, the more I wanted to look for myself at all of the great pictures. Photography is something that I thn we take for granted. So I love to look at old pictures, and try to piece them with my knowledge of history. This site is something that I can use in my classroom, and that I will use for myself on my own time as well. Another site was from PBS, which I am already familiar with, as it is a favorite of many students. Two other sites were for math based educators, but the information was nice to find, if I ever need it for the future.

While looking up the new Web 2.0 tools, I came accross this site http://web2012.discoveryeducation.com/web20tools.cfm that really laid all of the tools out for me to use at my disposal. One tool that I want to use in my classroom, is the presentation tool. As a first year teacher, I had laid no ground work for materials to use in my classroom. I started a fresh with everything, many times working by the seat of my tail, wiriting thing on paper and making copies, or just writin gon the board so that students could copy down in their notebooks what I needed from them. PowerPoint presentation is definitely something that I want to use more in my classroom. I think that the students will appreciate a better visual affect, than my writing skills. Ha! And I would also like to use the older students to make their own powerpoint presentations, using the best presentor as my model for other classrooms. I think that this will give the students a sense of direction with their learning, and a bit of healthy competition. Though I cannot use this in the classroom immediately, I know that it will be well recieved. I have found many different sites throughout our tech explorations that will allow me to make fun and interesting power points taht are visually entertaining to the students. Another Web 2.0 tool that I enjoyed researching was the WIki's. Although I am not always 100% sure of the information logged, the ideas are interesting, and can be helpful for me to use as I come up with my own spinoffs. The webquest seemed to me like another WEb 2.0 tool, but was not listed on this site. Though I have not seen many other teachers use this tool as off yet, I am sure that the popularity of WebQuests will soon explode in the educational world. The podcasts and blogginf were also something new that I had not yet seen by other educators. They seem to be very popular, especially with the students. I am not quite yet comfortable with making my own Podcasts, though I am sure that over time and with more experience, this could be possible in my Spanish class as well. Until next week, my bloggers! :)

19. Keeping Track of your "stuff" - http://www.delicious.com/

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	This site was a place to put everything that you “liked” “re-tweeted”, “pinned” or saved in one place so that others could see it for themselves. When you sign up, the site allows you to choose all of the topics that interest you, so that you can have access to other things that people have a passion about on the web.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	I really could not see this being used in a school setting. I think that there are too many options for inappropriate things to be seen, whether it be comments or pictures. This would be a nice site for regular people who want to have everything on one site, but I feel like we have seen plenty of these already. The only way it could be used in an educational setting would be if it only pertained to educational information that could be used in the school system.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	I would not recommend this to other educators. I do not think that it could function in an educational environment. If someone was very active with all types of social medias, this site would be ideal for them. Otherwise, there is not much use for it in terms of educators.

http://www.historypin.com/ (starting up slowly)

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	Oh how fun! I am absolutely fascinated by this site. Kind of similar to Pinterest, people can pin pictures, blogs, and comments from their history. There are hundreds of old pictures of how things used to be. It would be so cool to see some old family members on this site, and find pictures that you never knew existed. There were pictures of “how we used to” do things, such as Keep Warm, Play, Cook and Clean, Celebrate, Watch and Listen, and Work… the list goes on!
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	Students could use this site to look up old historical pictures of how things used to be in the past. There are also pictures of major events that have happened. Including the Holocaust. Students could use this as a source when presenting projects, and there are some great pictures that they could use as visuals.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	I would definitely recommend this to other educators. Not only would it be a great resource to use in the classroom, but it is just a really interesting website. I could sit and explore all of the great pictures for hours.

diigo http://www.diigo.com/

this site could not be opened. I was sent to a link that said the site’s server was down.

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.

2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.

3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?

calculator http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/calculator/

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	This site, in general, was very entertaining. There were many links to games and educational activities that students could participate in. There were also videos, and different login’s for teachers and parents, to utilize the full sites potential.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	You could use this in a school setting during several different subjects. Not only would it be a major help while teaching math, (the talking calculator was so neat!) but there were other sites that students could access during their free time, or computer lab. I love seeing games that are educational, but do their magic secretively, so that students do not even know that they are learning!
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	I would recommend this site to educators. At our school, we have a site that has a list full of different links that are fun and educational. The students use this site to access all of the sites that we have approved for them to use. I think this is definitely a site that could be added to our list.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Science-CAD/Big-Simple-Talking-Calcula...

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	This site was literally, a big, talking calculator. There was no other use for it, besides being a calculator, and using it for all of your calculator needs. The actions available were the following: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	You could use this on your smart board, to allow students to work out mathematical problems in front of the class. This way you could see if a student was doing a step incorrectly, instead of looking over their shoulder as they perform the equations.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	This would be a great site for math teachers to use, so that they could utilize class time. Students could watch their peers work out equations on the board, using a very large, and simple calculator. I would recommend this site to other educators. I think it could also be used in the Special Education department as well, with those with extra physical or visual needs.

20. Math wiki example: http://2write4math.pbwiki.com/

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	Wiki’s are co-collaborated by many different people, and can be established by anyone. At times, I am skeptical to use such things, but this one was very direct in its objectives and uses. It was designed to provide information and files that would help promote student interaction of math concepts. It helped teachers to gain an understand of Writing Across the Curriculum as it applies to math, know the 5 different types of writing that should be used in math, help produce evaluations for writing in math, and many other things.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	This would definitely be a helpful site for the new and upcoming math teacher. It had a lot of important and factual information that would be helpful to a math teacher. However, I do not think it would be something useful towards the use of our students. It was mainly geared toward the educators.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	I would recommend this site to other educators who wanted help better understand writing in the mathematics division. There were many different files and pages that helped with assessments and reflections on math work, also some elementary school lesson plans etc.

PicLits http://www.piclits.com

1.	Describe what you learned from exploring this resource. Be thorough in your response.
	This is a creative writing site that works with words and images to find pictures that inspire you, using the words of your choice. There were hundreds of different words that were already listed for you to click on, and see what pictures came up. There was also another option to use your own words, and see what the machine found for you.
2.	How could you use this resource in a school setting? It does not matter if it is in your field or level, you need to understand how the resource might be used in educational settings.
	This site was very interesting, and I think it could definitely be used in the school setting. Sometimes it is hard to get children inspired in their writing. We have them write so many papers by the time they graduate, that they feel like they are repeating the same thing over and over again. Especially when writing fictional papers, creativity can be lacking. I think this would be a great site for children to use to become inspired by simple words and pictures.
3.	Would you recommend this resource to other educators? Like/Dislike; Ease of use, fee or not, and so forth. Why or Why not?
	I would recommend this site to other educators. I think it sparks a new light to something that can be overworked in the classroom. It can also be helpful to portray a new light on different cultures, which would be great for the classroom as well.