Crossword puzzle fun

Plants Crossword Puzzle: Puzzlemaker

This project shows how teachers can incorporate the use of technology with curriculum. I think this project would help students to learn how to use Excel and reinforce content vocabulary in a unique way. I do think students could spend a great deal of time formatting and designing a puzzle on Excel, which takes away the focus of reviewing vocabulary, but it teaches them the software. It depends on a teachers focus. For a quick vocabulary review I think Puzzlemaker is more valuable because student's can easily make the crossword puzzle, but it does not allow for any creativity or learning a valuable software. Puzzlemaker was very quick and easy to use, but there were limitations to the crossword design because I am not a member and it was difficult to share. I would only suggest this application if you were solely printing out the crossword puzzle for a paper and pencil task. Excel can also be used to organize data, perform math formulas, create graphs and much more. One of my favorite activities I do with my students is have them record the number of different color M & Ms in a package and create a bar graph using Excel.

Podcast & videothread

Podcasts are valuable because you can subscribe to a podcast about almost anything and therefore do not have to worry about the schools' audio and video resources having the content you want. The audio or video files are easily delivered to your computer via the internet and are prerecorded so you can look at them at anytime. One problem is they can be done by anyone so the person and information may not all be fact.

Videothreads allow people to show images, documents, and video. A great feature of videothreads are people can leave comments on the images, documents and/or videos in a variety of formats including voice(with a microphone or phone), text, audio file, or video. I think students would appreciate feedback in a variety of forms and they also might be more insightful because they could express their feedback in a preferred medium. Also the doodling is a good aspect to add emphasis, but potentially students could abuse it and be inappropriate so it would have to be closely monitored.

Once upon a time stories came alive

Digital storytelling is a great multisensory activity that combines images, music and voice to stories. The author is forced to be quiet creative as they incorporate all these elements and give the characters and events depth and vivid color. This is a valuable experience for the author, but I think the reader does not use his/her imagination as much as reading text from a story to paint the picture of the characters and events. The drawback to digital storytelling is it is time consuming and there can be technology limitations such as a teacher's knowledge of the equipment and further technological difficulties such as enough space to save the digital stories. I do like that children can share their stories with the community and therefore give their writing more purpose. Also students can hear stories directly from people who have experienced events in history and can tell a more vivid emotional depiction.

Finding ways to teach the Net Generation

WebQuest, Web Bits, WIP = Web 2.0

These activities promote thinking and allow children to actively construct their own meaning. The value also is that students have the opportunity to become independent inquirers. In the traditional classroom students do not have as much of an opportunity to be thinkers because they are more passive. Certainly it would be valuable for me to incorporate WebQuests, Web Bits, and WIPs into the classroom. Since students are actively involved there attention span is probably longer and therefore have the opportunity to learn more.

Be an effective teacher: Incoproate all four models into your classroom

Types of technology that are relevant to each model:

Behavioral (BM): PowerPoint presentation

Information-Processing (IPM): WIP, WebQuest, Web Bits, Mind mapping: Inspiration software

Social-interactive (SIM): wiki, social networks, WebQuests (with group project)

Personal (PM): WebQuests, WIP, Web Bits

The Information-Processing/Inquiry and Social Interactive classroom is student centered. I think these models are not used as frequently as the Behavioral Model/Direct Instruction models because teachers are scared to give up control. Also we are most comfortable teaching the way we were taught and most of us were taught in a direct instruction model. In an indirect model teachers are not directing the classroom, which gives children more creative freedom, but it can be an uneasy feeling for teachers because their day is unpredictable.

Instructional Systems Design

I like that ISD is an orderly process for gathering and analyzing student's performance. This will give teachers a great deal of information regarding their students and then in turn enhance instruction because teachers can respond to specific needs. This systematic design will hopefully reduce gaps in students education and focus on the student's needs opposed to curriculum. Teachers can create resources to target the needs, then implement the instruction and evaluate the child. The instruction is then driven by the student's outcome and not textbooks. The development phase seems to be the most cumbersome.

Sharing Slideshows Easily

I like that there are several Web 2.0 tools to share slideshows easily. It is great to not have to use email attachments anymore to share slideshows or rely on that everyone has PowerPoint software because the slideshows can be viewed on internet browsers. You can also have access to the slideshows anywhere you can reach the internet. I particularly liked SlideRocket because it had a great deal of support and offered a collaborative function, but it costs money after the free trial. Unless I overlooked that function on the other tools, each of them seemed to just be means to share slideshows, find slideshows by interest, discuss slideshows, get feedback, and have access to them on the web.

More Mind Mapping

Here is a mind map from Gliffy. It was fun to try both Gliffy and Inspiration, each having specific strengths. Inspiration has a larger selection of symbols and icons and has a rapid fire button, but Gliffy is a collaborative tool and can easily be shared. You have to decide what your priorities are as to which application is better for you.

Mind Mapping

Using Inspiration is a great way to visually express your ideas and organize them. I like how the mind maps can come alive as you personalize them with graphics and color. I had not used Inspiration in about 5 years, so I had to shake out the cobwebs. Good thing there was a link to a video of how to use the software. Although I see the benefit of Inspiration, I can get frustrated with Inspiration. This is significantly when my type A personality comes out. It bothers me when the bubbles are different sizes, the links are crooked, or the lines are different lengths, etc. Therefore, I spend so much time formatting and not concentrating on the content. I like the rapid fire button so I can at least brainstorm all my ideas and then worry about formatting.