Seeing Student thinking

     In my TE 401 classes, we have been looking at how to evaluate and see student thinking. Though the Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, there is a expectation that the student learns the material that they have been taught. But how does one see thinking and or learning?
    It has been really interesting to conduct interviews with my students before lessons as well as after lessons to try to capture how their thinking changes after a lesson. 

Required Blog Topic 1

     For my digital story project, I chose to make a video of some Michigan State pictures. This week, I will be doing a small lesson with my first grade students, showing them a little bit about where I live, and my community. Since I am very passionate about MSU, as well as live near campus, I chose to search the Creative Commons web base and use some pictures of MSU.
     My plan is to show the students the photos without the captions first, since using Picasa, there is an option to hide the captions. Then I plan to go back to the first picture and read the caption to the students. I hope to tell the students a little bit about the photo, and relate a personal story to the picture. I hope the students will find this a bit more interesting than just listening to me talk, or than reading it in a book.
     Using Picasa was very easy to upload photos, write captions, and organize the photos, however trying to add music, edit the photos, or re-size each photo wasn't an option on this web album. 


Enjoy:

In the classroom

    After working with Google Earth on last weeks assignment, and having to write a social studies lesson plan in another class, I began doing a little more research. I found there is a resource page guided for educators and Google Earth. 
     The link above will take you to the site I am discussing mainly in this blog. Once there, the "classroom resources" link will explain some ways in which Google Earth can be beneficial in a classroom. Not only is the explaination of how Google Earth works and how it can be beneficial, but also ideas and suggestions of projects and lesson plans based around this technology are on that page. The "Talk Teacher-to-Teacher" link is really awesome, because just as its labeled, teachers can communicate with each other and share different ideas, lesson plans, experiences, or questions in either a large group, or smaller chat. "Student Work Showcase" illustrates various works students have done using Google Earth. It also has a link to the Google Earth Gallery as well as captions under the work visible explaining a bit more about the work, and it's creators. The last three links are very self explanatory, "Tutorials and Tips", "Google Earth Pro Grants Wizard", and "What Educators Are Saying".
     From a future educators standpoint, I really appreciate the resources and accessibility to this technology Google has given with classrooms in mind.

TPACK/ Google Earth!

     In my freshman year in college, one of my roommates introduced me to Google Earth. I thought it was a really cool tool, so I downloaded it onto my computer, but haven't touched in three and a half years later. So today was the day to explore it from a teachers perspective, and I am really inspired!
     In the case that you, the reader, hasn't used Google Earth before, you can click in the linked phrase "Google Earth" and are taken to the download page for PC, MAC, or Linux. Once you have it installed, you can type in anywhere in the world, and you manage how zoomed out or zoomed in you get to the desired location. 
     I could totally see a second grade classroom using this, since part of their Michigan grade level content expectations revolve around their community. This is a strength of Google Earth is that it can show detailed views of a broad area, or zoom in to a crack in the sidewalk! However, this could be a weakness as well, in that students can see anything from Google's pictures, that would be out in public. As the teacher, one would have to do a check of what the students might see, because I have seen in the news some of the inappropriate sights that have been captured on tape.
     The internet can be such a great learning tool in any classroom, but really should be  monitored closely, since anyone can find anything online. Using Google Earth for a lesson plan, I would personally have a detailed and specific area fro students to view and explore around, with a list of certain things to look for to keep them on task.
     For example, in teaching students about their community, I would have them type in "East Lansing, MI" (assuming they live in East Lansing) and then try to find the school they are in. They would use the school's address the pinpoint exactly where they are, then I would ask them to find the nearest gas station, or toy store, or barber shop. Then one could take this into a lot of different directions, such as having the students write out directions of how to get from their school to the nearest grocery store in a car, then by walking. Math can be linked by asking students to look up how far in miles the trip would take, or how many minutes it would take to drive. Social studies can be included by asking student to research how recent Google Earth is, and look up the history of the area. All of these ideas in using Google Earth along with TPACK learning in that content and technology are being fused together, with the teacher in the main leading role, but the students also in charge of their learning.  I would certainly classify this technology as a teacher tool/parent communication tool since as explained above, a teacher has countless ways to use this technology, but a parent and student could explore using this at home as well.

Donors Choose!

    Last night, I learned about an online charity set up for the sole purpose of helping teachers, students and classrooms, that it brought tears to my eyes! The organization is called Donors Choose and has been made into national news by Stephen Colbert just this last week. By going to Donors Choose, teachers can post projects they need help funding, but also, people can go online to donate money and help fund those projects. If the donor completes the project funding, they get hand written letters from the teacher and students the project is benefiting.
     The projects teachers post online are under surveillance and are thoroughly checked for their validity to prevent this amazing idea and charity from getting out of hand. The idea that makes this organization relate-able to anyone and everyone is that the mass majority of Americans have gone to school. They have memories of activities they did, or inspirations they acquired in school, or teachers that made a difference in their lives. Education is something everyone can relate to and has been a part of. People can use their passion, memories, or plain old kindness to help out other schools and students through this charity.
     I encourage anyone who reads this to at least pass this website on to one friend. Let's make a change in a students life!

Digital Stories

     I am currently learning about digital stories in my TE 401 science and social studies classes. I have completed a digital story assignment for the social studies portion, and it is an awesome way to incorporate technology in the classroom. We attended a museum, right here in Lansing, and took pictures of a certain category with our group members. My group was assigned toys, so we snapped shots of toys from various time periods. Then we proceeded with the project by doing a little research on Michigan toys, the economic stand point of these toys at the time, and compared toys then, to today's toys. We put our pictures together in a slide show, recorded our voices talking about the research we found, and put a little Motown music with it. This is an awesome way to introduce a new unit to a class of students using technology.
     I am still figuring out the science digital assignment, since we have to incorporate a lesson plan, and interview students for the story. Luckily we get to work in pairs, so I'm hoping we'll have this figured out soon. As we progress, I'll try to post again about how we went about this task!

This Week's Assignment

     I think it is a great idea to actually teach students the vocabulary, outline, and actual rules when it comes to Copyright laws. As a student, I remember being harped on about how bad plagiarism and using copyright material was, but I think a lot of students benefit more when they have specific reasons and explanations as to why it's wrong. Media and technology are both so prevalent in classrooms, that this lesson is necessary to teach to avoid fraudulent work from students. I really like how this web page has so many resources for teachers and students, as well as a lesson plan already laid out for the convenience for teachers.
     Creative Commons is also a fantastic resource for students that may be in middle school or high school. Although they may have read copyright rules before and know what they are supposed to do, using this web site would be a great way to make sure they really do understand what's allowed and what's not. Especially before college, I think it's very important teachers expose their students to these sites.
     Here are a few pictures I worked with today, learning about copyrights, and editing pictures to post them online: click here!

My second first day of First Grade!

     Today I began working in Mt. Hope Elementary School, in Mrs, Arocha's First grade classroom. Although this is an urban school, they had quite a bit of technology right there in their own classroom. They have three fairly new Mac computers, that the students are allowed to use (with the teacher's permission of course). The teacher has an older desktop computer for record keeping. Mrs. Arocha brings her laptop to and from class with her lesson plans on it, and also has her own printer. Her business card has not only her personal e-mail address on it, but also her school address, the school's website, and her link on the school's website as well. She also told me the parents of the students have her personal cell phone number and she frequently text messages with them, and they call her cell phone before trying her room phone or the office phone. All of this technology in the classroom is great! As the school year progresses, I hope I will see the students taking advantage of it more and more!

MSU Children's Garden!

     This week, I went on a field trip with my TE 401 science class to our very own MSU Children's Garden. What an awesome experience it was, not only because it is right here on campus, but because they have really put a lot of effort in making this field trip accessible to teachers online. Here is the website that is intended for classrooms, http://4hgarden.msu.edu/kidstour/flashnone.html.
     Once you are on the site, the garden calendar will show the upcoming events that are happening at the garden. The virtual tour link is a great way to introduce students to the garden as well as a educational unit about plants, gardens, etc. There is even a link on the page for those who want to learn more about gardening which is a helpful resource to give parents, students, and families since that is something they could do together at home, either on the computer, or even in their back yard.
     I really am enjoying finding out all the resources MSU has to offer educators. I hope to find more and share them with you all on here too!