Week #5

I think that the internet is a great resource for education. There is so much information on the world wide web. I think it is important to use the internet in your classroom because students these days are very technology oriented. My sister, who is ten years old, knows how to look up information on the internet. The only danger is that there is false information online and there are websites that are not friendly to people under eighteen. This is why you should always post links to secure websites that are not going to take your student to a bad site.
We should evaluate the sites we use because you do not want your students to get false information from a site that you provide, or get the idea that just because the information is on the internet it means it is correct.
The questions I would ask myself while evaluating a site are:

• who is the author? is he/she a credible source?
• are there citations/a bibliography
• when was the website last updated?
• when was the website published?
• is there a "~" in the web address?
• do the photos add to the information?

You can keep your students safe by providing the websites you want them to use to look up information. Obviously, wikipedia is not the best idea since anyone can write whatever they want on that website. There are many tools on pioneer that the student can use to get information. Ebsco is a good resource along with the newspaper databases. These links will give the student correct information and it is safe for them to use.

I absolutely love this video. As a history education major this will be perfect in one of my lessons. The reason why I love this video is because it gives a picture with the name that is in the song. All of the names brought up in the song are very important events in history. I have mentioned it before how I would incorporate this video into my lesson by seeing how much they knew about each of these people/events or have the students pick one of the people/events from the song and do some research on it and present it to the class. Another reason I love this video is because it is a fun song and it is a great way to present these people/events to the class instead of just lecturing.

Week #4

To be completely honest.. I don't really like the UEN website. I think it's very confusing to use and the google site looks a lot better. Maybe in time it will become easier, but for now--not so much. I wish that UEN had the option of importing my google calendar instead of having to make a whole new one. It has some really great resources, but I am just not as excited about that website as I am about google sites.

I have really thought a lot about what you said about needing to relax when you are learning about new technologies. While trying to work on my UEN website I began to get really frustrated because it seemed like I had to do all these extra steps just to have one thing on my page. I think what was most frustrating about UEN is the whole public and private pages. This is a great feature, but I just don't think it is necessary for me. But I did find that when I relaxed and just had fun with it that things came a lot easier and it was much more enjoyable.

Pioneer is also a great tool. It amazes me how many resources there are out there for teachers and students. The invention of the internet has definitely changed the way that people do things. I haven't worked all the way through the scavenger hunt yet, but from what I've seen I am very impressed with what Pioneer has to offer me.

I LOVE the video "Did You Know 2.0". It was so interesting to me and I loved all the facts about technology. I still can't believe that that many children are born within 8 seconds, and I can't even begin to imagine what kind of technology the children born today are going to be using at my age. I was also impressed that 100% of college graduates in India speak English. I had NO idea. I also loved the quote by Albert Einstein that said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." It's complete common sense, but it is so true and it just really impressed me.

I honestly can not wait to see all of the new technology that will be coming out in the next couple of years. I wish that I could think of some of it so that I could be filthy rich, but I don't think that will ever happen. I am so excited for it because some of it could potentially make learning so much more interesting for students. I think that almost anything is better than sitting there and listening to a person talk for 50 minutes. This class has really made me think outside of the box for teaching strategies and what I can do when I have my own classroom. Now I wish that I could just hurry up and graduate so that I could apply all of the things that I am learning.

Video Reflection Week #3

Technology really is a great way to teach the youth of this generation. It offers so many interesting way to give your students information then just lecturing. I"m sure that students get sick of hearing the same voice for an hour a day--so why not let them hear more voices? Play a youtube video, show a movie, let other students teach the class, let them listen to a podcast. There are SO many options.

I loved all the facts that this video gave.

"Todays average college graduates have spent: over 10,000 hours playing video games, over 10,000 hours talking on cell phones, and roughly 20,000 hours watching TV."

"70% of our nation's 4-6 year-olds have used a computer."

"Did you know that there are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month?"

"Did you know that our Digital Learners have sent and received over 200,000 emails or instant messages... by the time they graduate from college?"

"Think of the ways you could use cell phones to teach..."

"Only 28% of 12th grade high school students believe that schoolwork is... meaningful"

"21% believe that their courses are interesting... and a mere 39% believe that school work will have any bearing on their success in later life."

All of the points that the video made were completely relevant. The only one that I have a slight problem with was using cell phones to teach--pretty much everyone has a cell phone these days, but what about those who don't have one? What about those whose parents can't afford for them to have a cell phone? You don't want to leave anyone out or make anyone embarrassed so you have to make sure that everyone actually has a phone before you do that. But I love how this video thought out of the box and really came up with ideas that use modern day technology.

As a teacher you need to recognize that every student has a different learning style and cater to all of them. You should also give your class homework and in-class assignments that are meaningful--and not just busy work. Explain to them why they would want to know this and how it will help them in their later life.

Weekly Reflection Week 3

I am really excited to use the google sites feature. It is so easy to use and I think that students and parents will love it. Like I have mentioned before, when I was in elementary/junior/high school it would seem like every time I was supposed to give a paper to my parents my backpack would eat it and it would never get to them. With google site you can basically put everything you want on your site and don't have to worry about parents being misinformed or uninformed.

This website has a lot of features--like announcements, classroom calendar, and homework that will keep students on track and will reduce forgetfulness. I know from personal experience how busy high school students can be with extra-curricular activities and everything else that they have to do. I also understand that many people are not going to remember something that they heard at 8am when they get home from school. With the homework tab you can put what assignment they have to do for every day and it is great because you can go in and change it in case your plans change. One of my teachers used to give us a piece of paper with the homework assignments for the week, but the problem was that it would change all the time. If you missed class the day that the homework changed, you would have no idea and you would do the wrong homework.

The calendar feature is also great because you can put the calendar events that are important to your classroom and the calendar events that are going on in the school. Hopefully students will get involved in what is going on outside of class. When I played sports in high school and junior high it was always great when other students would come to the games and cheer the team on. It was also really cool when teachers would come too.

The educational technologies tab is really cool because of all of the gadgets. There are so many applications you can put on your site! There are lots to do with history--including a "Today In History" gadget. Even though it might not relate to class it is cool to see what happened that day in the past.

And the best part about google sites?! IT'S FREE!! Seriously, I am super excited to be able to use this when I am a teacher.

Video Reflection Week #2

I absolutely love the Mr. Duey video. I will never forget when my 6th grade english teacher said: "How come you all can memorize all these rap songs, but can't memorize your prepositions?!" It is so much easier, for me at least, to memorize things when they have a tune with them. When I was a senior in high school I had to memorize the preamble. I tried so many ways of memorizing it, but only one was successful. I went to youtube and found this gem:

I still know the preamble today--because of this song.

I feel like the Mr. Duey video would be a fun way to present fractions to a math class. It is something different and it is hilarious. Even if the student did not memorize the tune they would still at least be entertained. In my future classroom I think that I will use a lot of videos. I think it will be nice for my students to learn from someone else sometimes instead of just hearing from me everyday. I will most definitely be using this video in one of my lessons:

It's a great song.. of course and it gives a picture to everything that is presented in the song. Maybe I will have my students pick one thing from the song and tell me what the significance of that person/event is concerning history. (Maybe they'll even be able to use google tools and do a powerpoint presentation and show it to the classroom).

First of all, the music on the Introducing Web 2.0 is awesome--really keeps you on the edge of your seat. A lot of the information that the video presented I already know about. However, I did not know about all of the sites that were in the video. I think it is an important video because it shows what kind of world we live in now--a technological world. Of course with technology comes pros and cons, but I truly believe that the good things outweigh the bad things. Future students have so much information available to them with the click of a button. Research papers have become so much easier to write, projects have become so much easier to do, all because the information is available on the internet.

Weekly Reflection Week 2

I have had a gmail account for almost 4 years and I had no idea about all of the other resources that google offered. I am totally amazed at everything in google documents. I wish I would have known about it sooner! I always have to email my documents to myself so that I can print them out in the library or show the class a powerpoint. It seems as if powerpoints are always too big to send. With google documents I can just put it on there and there will be no more attaching and emailing. The other thing that is so great about it is that it will ALWAYS be there. No matter what computer you are using, your documents will be there. I am seriously so excited to utilize this tool.

Someday in the near future I think that the world is going to go paperless. With google documents I will be able to send assignments to my students using google documents. It will also make group projects that I have to do and that my students will have to do so much easier. It allows you to not have to meet face to face, which is great because not everyone has the same available hours as you do.

I am also completely blown away by all of the things that the calendar can do. I had no idea that you could share it with others and I definitely had no idea that I could get USC football and UNLV's basketball schedule on my calendar. I consider myself a pretty forgetful person so it is so great that the calendar will text me and tell me what to do. I think that I will encourage my students to use a calendar so that they can be more organized. When I was in high school I played 2 sports and did student council. My schedule was always so busy and it would have been so much easier if I could have input it all into a calendar and then show my parents/fellow classmates what I would be doing that week and what time everything was.

Another great thing about both of the tools that I have mentioned is that you can send it to the student's parents. I remember so many times in my early schooling career where I was supposed to give a piece of paper to my parents and then my backpack would eat it and it would never be seen again. With these tools you can let the parents know exactly what is going on and then hopefully they will become more involved in their child's education.

Ideal Classroom Reflection

I want my classroom to not be too hot or too cold--all you know is a light sweater. My ideal classroom will not have white walls, but it will not be obnoxious and distracting. I want to be able to accommodate every student so distractions will be kept to a minimum. When I was helping out in a school in American Fork, I went into a classroom and I was completely overwhelmed by everything on the walls, how the bookshelf was organized and how the room was set up. It seemed like whenever a student didn't want to do their work they would just look around. I feel that I do my best work in a clean and organized environment so I would want to provide the same for my students.

I want my students to be abel to feel safe in the classroom. There will be no bullying, no one that is better than them and ideally I want everyone to be friends (but this doesn't mean that they are encouraged to talk during my lectures). When I was in high school a lot of my friends decided to take a college credit course. I decided that I didn't want to do that so I was really nervous about not having any friends in the class I was going to be in. This is when I met my favorite teacher of all time--Mr. Beam He is actually the reason why I decided to become a history teacher. He was an amazing teacher and I hope to follow in his footsteps. The class I was in that he taught had all different types of students, but we were all friends and the learning environment was so great because we were comfortable there. Another thing about Mr. Beam was that he was 100% approachable. I had so many teachers in high school and so many teachers in my college career that are so intimidating. I know that it is cliche but I want to make sure that every student in my classroom knows that no question is a stupid question.

Of course it would be perfect if every student actually wanted to be at school and wanted to learn, but not everyone is like that. I am hoping that I can encourage this behavior and the students will eventually love learning new things and love taking tests so that they can prove to themselves what they actually know. As for parents, it would be a dream come true if all of the parents were involved in their child's education, but I know that this is only a dream. I recognize that a lot of students might only have one parent, or living with their grandparents or anything else. I want to be there for that student and if their guardian cannot get involved with their education then I will. I will praise them for excelling and for participating. All I will really ask of parents is that they encourage their children to be at school and encourage learning. I won't really expect much help from parents, since I will be teaching high school history. I feel like classroom parents help is a little too elementary.

I hope to teach not only about history, but about life. I want all of my students to be successful and be able to reach the goals that they have set for themselves. At the beginning of the school year I will always ask for suggestions from the students about what projects, papers or assignments they would like to do. I want my students to get the most out of their education.