Recent Changes

Journal - 8 for March 1 to March 5, 2010
This week we learned about building concept maps. Concept maps are designed to show relationships and connections between information. They can be used to link concepts and facts. They visually display all of these points in order to aid students with learning and understanding the information. Concept maps can show the hierarchy of information and multiple relationships of terms. Concepts maps can be built using a variety of software. For my assignment this week, I am going to use http://mywebspiration.com/ to create a concept map. In the future, I would use concept maps in my own class. I would design a concept map show the relationships between different individuals and their positions in the particular society. This would help my students to visually see these relationships instead of just hearing or reading them. For the rest of the week, we worked on uploading all of the assignments we have completed this quarter to livetext. We are going to create a portfolio to explain how each of the assignments relate to the technology standards for the course. In the future, I would use such a reflection of class assignments with standards in order to allow my students to see all of the large concepts they have learned throughout the class. It will be a nice way to end a school year and show students that they have improved. There was also a presentation of chapter 10 of the textbook this week. This chapter discussed various ways of creating things on the internet and how it can be accessed now. It also discussed how information will be shared through technology in the future.
Standards met this week:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

This week we learned how to make podcasts. We were told of the free program called Audacity. It allows people to place music and record voices together in order to be saved as a MP3 file. That is basically how podcast is defined. It is like a radio show, only it can be saved and replayed later. We used www.freeplaymusic.com to find music to include within the podcasts. In the classroom, we just put together a quick practice podcast to test out the system and receive an attendance grade. The actual podcast will be a quick social studies lesson done by me. Podcasts can be very useful in a social studies classroom with presenting information to students whenever they needed it. This is especially true for students who are absent. I would use them to inform students of important historical individuals on my teacher webpage. Podcasts would help build background knowledge for students and be easily accessible regularly. We also covered chapter eight of the textbook and took a quiz over it.
Standards met this week:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity

This week we learned how to build our own rubrics. We learned how to use the website Rubistar to quickly fill in information and criteria for a rubric. We also learned how to use OpenOffice to create a more specific and teacher designed rubric. Both rubric building methods work well, although a rubric made from Rubistar needs to be personalized to really fit a particular assessment. Webpages for different worksheets were also explored this week. We looked at different word searches, crossword puzzles, and other worksheets to help with students' acquisition of knowledge. Part of the week was also spent working on the livetext assignment, especially the teacher philosophy on technology. The rubric and worksheet tools will be very useful in building and finding materials for students to use and be graded with in the classroom. As a social studies teacher, I will use the worksheet webpages to find history appropriate and fun worksheets for students to use when learning a lesson. I will use the rubric building tools to help with designing clear and professional rubrics to use when grading essays and other work by students. We also learned about chapter seven of the textbook on schools and Web 2.0 tools. The chapter included information concerning student demographics and their use or availability of technology. We also learned about making a newsletter this week.
Standards met this week:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Commitment to Professional Competence and Ongoing Professional Development

This week we learned about building voicethreads and using moviemaker to make videos. The voicethread activity consisted of using a webpage to stream together some images. Once the images were together, a person could either record his or her own voice or write comments in order to discuss the images. For the assignment, I used images from the Ohio University libraries website to discuss a few of the useful features that can be accessed from the website. The voicethread can be found on my Google site. The moviemaker works similarly where images are streamed together. However, cool image effects like fading in or out can be used. Moviemaker also allows the recording of voices to discuss the images. An added bonus of moviemaker is the ability to include music within the video. Both of these would be very useful for me as a future teacher. I could use them to review information from lessons in a colorful and visual way. These lesson reviews could then be posted to my teacher webpage to easy access. As a social studies teacher, I could use historical images of individuals, battles, and other events along with narrations to provide background information for lessons and do the previously described information reviews. There was also a presentation over chapter six of the chapter for this week. The chapter discussed technology use for school principals and administrators. I found it interesting how the same Web 2.0 tools could be used by both school leaders and business leaders.
Standards met this week:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
Commitment to Ethics
Commitment to Social Justice
Commitment to Professional Competence and Ongoing Professional Development

This week for learned how to use Picasa and worked on WebQuests. Picasa is a program by Google that allows images to be placed together with voice recordings and music. The records can be used to describe the images. This assignment displayed the importance of citing work. All of the images and music used for the Picasa video needed to be cited. Plagiarism is a terrible mistake to make, especially when it is easy to do with content shared over the internet. As a future educator, I would use Picasa to create brief introductions to lessons. I could play the videos at the beginning of class in order to start getting students familiar with the content of the lesson. In a social studies classroom, Picasa could be used to cover the events leading up to the specific lesson to be taught and shown as described before a lesson. WebQuests on lessons based around a webpage that provides students with a problem and instructs the students on where to look on the internet in order to solve the problem. I created a WebQuest concerning the societal philosophies of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. The end result would be an essay including a summary of both of their philosophies along with a comparison of them. I would use a WebQuest in my classroom to help students develop research skills. As a social studies teacher, I would use WebQuest to lead my students through activities to find information concerning important historical figures and their contributions to history. We also learned about chapter five of the textbook this week. The chapter discussed more Web 2.0 tools that teachers can use to educator themselves and students.
Standards met this week:
Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
Commitment to Ethics
Commitment to Social Justice
Commitment to Professional Competence and Ongoing Professional Development

Journal - 7 for February 22 to February 26, 2010
This week we learned how to make podcasts. We were told of the free program called Audacity. It allows people to place music and record voices together in order to be saved as a MP3 file. That is basically how podcast is defined. It is like a radio show, only it can be saved and replayed later. We used www.freeplaymusic.com to find music to include within the podcasts. In the classroom, we just put together a quick practice podcast to test out the system and receive an attendance grade. The actual podcast will be a quick social studies lesson done by me. Podcasts can be very useful in a social studies classroom with presenting information to students whenever they needed it. This is especially true for students who are absent. I would use them to inform students of important historical individuals on my teacher webpage. Podcasts would help build background knowledge for students and be easily accessible regularly. We also covered chapter eight of the textbook and took a quiz over it.
Standards met this week:

Journal - 6 for February 15 to February 19, 2010
This week we learned how to build our own rubrics. We learned how to use the website Rubistar to quickly fill in information and criteria for a rubric. We also learned how to use OpenOffice to create a more specific and teacher designed rubric. Both rubric building methods work well, although a rubric made from Rubistar needs to be personalized to really fit a particular assessment. Webpages for different worksheets were also explored this week. We looked at different word searches, crossword puzzles, and other worksheets to help with students' acquisition of knowledge. Part of the week was also spent working on the livetext assignment, especially the teacher philosophy on technology. The rubric and worksheet tools will be very useful in building and finding materials for students to use and be graded with in the classroom. As a social studies teacher, I will use the worksheet webpages to find history appropriate and fun worksheets for students to use when learning a lesson. I will use the rubric building tools to help with designing clear and professional rubrics to use when grading essays and other work by students. We also learned about chapter seven of the textbook on schools and Web 2.0 tools. The chapter included information concerning student demographics and their use or availability of technology. We also learned about making a newsletter this week.
Standards met this week:

Journal - 5 for February 8 to February 12, 2010
This week we learned about building voicethreads and using moviemaker to make videos. The voicethread activity consisted of using a webpage to stream together some images. Once the images were together, a person could either record his or her own voice or write comments in order to discuss the images. For the assignment, I used images from the Ohio University libraries website to discuss a few of the useful features that can be accessed from the website. The voicethread can be found on my Google site. The moviemaker works similarly where images are streamed together. However, cool image effects like fading in or out can be used. Moviemaker also allows the recording of voices to discuss the images. An added bonus of moviemaker is the ability to include music within the video. Both of these would be very useful for me as a future teacher. I could use them to review information from lessons in a colorful and visual way. These lesson reviews could then be posted to my teacher webpage to easy access. As a social studies teacher, I could use historical images of individuals, battles, and other events along with narrations to provide background information for lessons and do the previously described information reviews. There was also a presentation over chapter six of the chapter for this week. The chapter discussed technology use for school principals and administrators. I found it interesting how the same Web 2.0 tools could be used by both school leaders and business leaders.
Standards met this week:

Journal - 4 for February 1 to February 5, 2010
This week for learned how to use Picasa and worked on WebQuests. Picasa is a program by Google that allows images to be placed together with voice recordings and music. The records can be used to describe the images. This assignment displayed the importance of citing work. All of the images and music used for the Picasa video needed to be cited. Plagiarism is a terrible mistake to make, especially when it is easy to do with content shared over the internet. As a future educator, I would use Picasa to create brief introductions to lessons. I could play the videos at the beginning of class in order to start getting students familiar with the content of the lesson. In a social studies classroom, Picasa could be used to cover the events leading up to the specific lesson to be taught and shown as described before a lesson. WebQuests on lessons based around a webpage that provides students with a problem and instructs the students on where to look on the internet in order to solve the problem. I created a WebQuest concerning the societal philosophies of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. The end result would be an essay including a summary of both of their philosophies along with a comparison of them. I would use a WebQuest in my classroom to help students develop research skills. As a social studies teacher, I would use WebQuest to lead my students through activities to find information concerning important historical figures and their contributions to history. We also learned about chapter five of the textbook this week. The chapter discussed more Web 2.0 tools that teachers can use to educator themselves and students.
Standards met this week: