Exit Slip #3- What did i take away from class today?

Today I learned more about Racheal, Marissa, Tassie and Kelsey in their digital autobiographies. Then Tiffany and I presented chapter 2 which went really well. I need to work on slowing down when I am presenting information but other than that I think I did great. We came up with our inquiry questions and it became obvious to me that getting the input of 17 other people really helped to reassure me that I choose a good one. Scratch seems like it will be something I look back on and say "why did I think this was going to be so hard?". Right now it seems a little over whelming though. My character got stuck upside down at one point and then i accidentally deleted it. I plan on watching the resources in order to become better acquainted with the program.

Inquiry Question

How can teachers use social networking communities (SNCs) to promote cooperative learning?

Chapter 2 Prezi Presentation

Prezi Presentation

Visit these web sites and then answer the following questions:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

Link 5

1)Who is providing the information? Why?

2)Does the site author have an authority in that field?

3)Is it clear when the site was developed and last updated?

4)Are there references used? Are they used with correct citations? Are they credible?

5)Is someone trying to sell a product or point of view?

6)What kind of site did it come from?

7)Is the language used inflammatory or extreme?

8)Is this a credible website?

Reflection- Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the chapter that Tiffany and I will be presenting on so I feel that I learned quite a bit more from it than I would from a typical chapter I read in a text book. This is most likely because I’m only comfortable presenting something if I feel prepared, therefore I prepare myself for presentations fairly well. Basically this chapter was about how teachers should utilize the resources now available in their classrooms in order to promote effective, reflective, comprehensive learning with technology.

One of the biggest points in the chapter was about how to get students to successfully complete intentional information searching. According to the book students must first plan, use strategies to search, evaluate and triangulate sources in order to become competent in using the internet for information searches. I never really thought about having a lesson to teach students how to do research on line but it makes sense to me that this is a very important thing that must happen. There are so many crazy websites on the internet that I could see a naïve student being fooled into believing an outrageous accusation or simply an incorrect fact. Teaching students how to differentiate between credible and non credible sites will help them not only when doing research but in real life as well. Just as you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet, you shouldn’t believe everything people tell you. I feel that a strong background in checking and double checking facts and information will provide for a smarter, less gullible, future generation of students.

I’m not really sure how I feel about the idea of firewalls. Although I know there are many offensive, inappropriate websites out there I also agree that we are not “protecting” students form them by blocking them. We are, however, helping them realize that they shouldn’t be trying to get to them in places like school or the library. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a type of firewall that is given on a punishment basis. Provide full access to the internet for all students. When a student is caught breaking a rule then turn on the firewall for that particular student’s account. I can see how this would be an issue though since it would require each student having their own account and password although I foresee this happing in most schools in the future anyways.

Reflection- Digital Book Talk

I put quite a bit of effort into this digital book talk project. My first decision I had to make was which book to choose. I considered using an older children’s book because I hope to teach an older grade but I had a lot of difficulty coming up with ways to present a book digitally that didn’t have any pictures. This caused me to switch over to a children’s picture book for lack of a better reason than feeling like it would be easier to work with. I laid out all my books on my bed and slowly ruled them out one at a time until I was left with 2, The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash and Hey Al . Most of my books are from when I was a child and I treasure each one. I went with The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash because I felt that Hey Al was a little too strange of a book for me to be able to describe in 45 seconds.

This task gave me some more experience working with video makers, Windows Movie Maker to be more specific. I feel this is a valuable skill to have because it could help me in the future to create valuable lessons that I will be able to use in my classroom. These types of lessons could be helpful for my students because they will provide them with differentiated instruction. Using various mediums to teach helps to keep instruction more interesting and I feel that movies are a great way to mix it up. Also, the more I use these types of media creators the better I will become at making videos and the more I will learn about how to make the videos interesting and effective In a classroom.

Overall I enjoyed doing this project. It was surprisingly easy to use the Windows movie maker and I would be more than willing to try and use a different type of movie maker some time as well. I can already tell that I’m going to like doing most of the projects for this class and I look forward to learning about what it is we will be doing this week. One thing I didn’t like about my book talk was that I couldn’t figure out a way to use a music file as well as my audio file. I think I may have recorded my voice in the wrong file type and that’s why the program wouldn’t let me use more than one audio file at a time. If I had figured out a way to add music to the background of my digital book talk I would have been a little more satisfied with it. Other than that little bit, however, I felt that the book talk project went very well and I am happy with my work.

Reflection- Credibitily of Websites

I probably do not think about the authenticity of the websites I view often enough. To be honest though, I typically do not have a lot riding on the information I collect from the ones that I should be doubting more than I am. However, I do usually take websites with endings like .gov or .edu as more reliable than ones that end in .com and any information that I collect for things like school work or research I usually take from peer reviewed articles or authentic websites. I could not really think of a list of things I do to make sure a website is authentic so I did a little research by simply typing in “checking website authenticity” into a google search bar and thousands of pages came up. One such page was a yahoo answers page in which a person asked “How can I found out if a website is credible and accurate?” (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071212122051AAD1B7x). As unimpressive as the grammar and wording in the question was, yahoo user “liz t” received half a dozen responses to the question. One response that I particularly liked that I think I would use to help teach young learners about evaluating websites for credibility is for them to ask themselves the following questions:

1) Are there none or only a few advertisements?
2) Has the author of the article/webpage famous/heard of/reliable? Does the author have experience?
3) Is grammar and spelling correct?
4) Do they list sources or links to support this? Do they provide any follow-up websites for more info?

Even though these questions will help students determine whether or not a website is credible I feel that the most important thing that students can do to determine if a website is credible is to use their common sense when reading the information given to them. Taking the websites given to us, for example, a Northwest Tree Octopus is ridiculous. Also, checking facts against other reliable resources is a very important step for all students to take. I imagine we’ll be covering more on this in class because I feel like I should know more about it. I don’t really consider myself a fool for fake information and I even question information given to me from sources other than the internet such as magazines or conversation. One thing that is extremely convenient about the internet is that you can check the information you find against other websites with just a few clicks where as before the internet this process was much longer and more difficult to do.

Exit Slip #2- What did I take away from class today?

So today I decided to start taking down notes of things I thought were interesting. I easily forget information that I feel I should remember but oddly enough I always remember that there was something I didn't want to forget. It's a terribly frustrating feeling knowing you once knew something but not knowing what it was you knew...anyway, here are the notes I took and things I'm thinking about them now:

NOTES
Kindle in every backpack- replacing textbooks
Texas and California leading the way
-It would be so cool if i could have access to every textbook i've ever used. I do think there would be some sort of time limit on accessing certain books although book companies could just come up with newer editions and sell those.

Kidsonline video-
Kids are engaged in different ways
Instruction about how to use the Internet appropriately
Line computers up along outside walls
Kids find ways around firewalls- know your students and teach them to have online edict rather than being responsive-cyber ethics, cyber safety
Club penguin- online dangers start earlier than most think

Clicker-audience response systems
Spelling test via clicker
-I hope to be lucky enough to have this sort of class interaction tool. I'd want to ask all sorts of questions from my students. I would either keep the fact that i know who answers what to each question a secret or I would find a way to make submissions anonymous so that I could ask more sensitive questions. This way students would not answer how they think I would want them to but rather how they really feel.