Voki

Instructors can use a Voki avatar to introduce the course or topics. It can also be used to aid in instructing those who are more audio/visual learners. Voki is also a great way to get shy students involved or to share comments with students in other countries.

You can customize your Voki to look like you or take on the identity of lots of other types of characters--animals, monsters, anime etc. You can also add your own voice by phone, microphone, but can also type what you want your Voki to say. A teacher once used Voki to recite a poem to her kindergarten class.

Adiboo Discover Nature, Animals & Planets

In Adiboo: Discover Nature, Animals and Planets, children learn how plants grow, create culinary masterpieces in the kitchen, watch cartoons, and create masks among similar tasks. The game contains interactive hot spots that lead to mini-games or amusing animations, with Adiboo, an elf-like child, providing assistance along the way. "Knowledge Land" is the main focus of the title subject matter and is divided into five areas, each with its own activities and games. Kids will enjoy the quick, amusing animations accompanying each correct and incorrect answer, as well as Adiboo's songs and input on how they did, with treats including a second song.
The manual is excellent, but the game is missing a number of advertised features.The link used to return to Playland from Knowledge Land doesn't seem to work, the car intended for navigation in the Land of Knowledge is no where to be found, with an overhead view used instead.
Cost of game is $20.00

Operating System: Windows 95/98

Memory: 32MB RAM

Subject areas: science

Grade Levels: AGES 4-7

Mobile Computing Devices in the Classroom

Today's classrooms are starting to incorporate mobile computing devices in the classroom. Ipads, and ipods have more use than the average user would think. It has many advantages and disadvantages for its use.
The advantages have an amazing effect on their motivation to learn, engagement in learning activities, and support for learning processes. Being able to access the internet right from the classroom rather than having to move the whole class to the media room for internet use, can make for an easier task for the teacher. These mobile devices can help children use their imagination and help aid in the projects along the way.
However with advantages, there are also disadvantages too. These devices can get pretty pricey. I know that the parents are not going to all be able to afford it and raising money for them can be quite hard as well. Being able to maintain, update and make sure nothing is broken can turn out to be quite a headache on someone. It's a great tool for the classroom but coming up with the funding for one can be tricky.

Creativity and Innovation

This week in class has been tremendously interesting. I have learned many new things and one of them was creativity and innovation. This is one of the NETS standards. This week in my EDU 271 class, we watched a video on a unit lesson for dinosaurs. It was great to see how different technology can be used in the classroom to combine the lesson but at the same time different studies like math, science, etc. Smart-boards were used and children had hands on experience working with them. They also did an egg dying experiment that shows what a dinosaur egg would look like back then. They wanted to replicate what an egg would look like compared to the actual one.

My Credible Source

Website Evaluation Checklist

Student Name: Angela Torres Date of Evaluation: February 9, 2011

Name of the Website: WeatherWizKids

URL of the Website: http://www.weatherwizkids.com/

Accuracy of the Web Page	Yes	No	Notes
1. Can you find the author of the page? Hint: Scroll to the bottom of the page. It may be an institution.	X		Author Name: Crystal Wicker
2. Can the author be contacted: Hint: Look for an “About Us” or “Contact Link”	X		Author email: askcrystal@weatherwizkids.com
3. Do you think this person or institution is qualified to publish this webpage?	X		Why or why not? She has a degree. Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology
Authority of the Web Page
1. Check the domain of the URL, particularly the extension. Is this a commercial site? The URL can give clues to the authority.		X	What does the extension tell you? That Crystal is the main authority on this website.
2. Are there credentials listed for the author(s)? If not, try Googling the name of the author or the institution.		X	What did you find? I tried googling it but it nothing came up.
Purpose of the Web Page
1. Read over the information on this website carefully. Can you determine the purpose of this web page?	X		Why is this web page on-line? Think critically about possible opinions or bias? To allow kids to learn the world of weather and have parents get the right tools to teach them.
Currency of the Web Page
1. Can you find a publishing date?	X		When was it published? 2003
2. Can you find the date it was last updated?	X		When was it updated? 2009
3. Are the links working and current? Click on some of the links to check.	X		What do you think about the links? I think the links are great. They have great insight and work every time you click on them.
Looking at your answers, do you think this website would be a reliable, credible source of information?	X		Why or Why not? Crystal has a degree. She knows what she is talking about and has many links to discuss about weather. I could use much information off her website to create my lessons.

Oh to be DELICIOUS

This week in my EDU271 class, we had to create a Delicious account from www.delicious.com. At first I was saying to myself, "oh joy another account to remember the password, and probably would only use for this class", well I was wrong. It's a great way to set up your bookmarks with tags and an easy way to bookmark the page your on. Having your bookmarks organized can easily help you find your way back to it. You can even find people on there that bookmark sites that you have never been on, opening up new links and websites for you to enjoy. I still haven't quite found out how to find my classmate on it and their website that they have found. I am still a little lost but I think the more I use it, it will fall into place. It was easy to tag and add a web address to my bookmark. I also used the help content on delicious as well. This could be used for projects later in my classrooms at FTCC. My groups can click on my links and understand anything I have added to an assignment based on the web provided. It can help me keep up the pace of my group with adding links/web addresses to help with the project as well.

My Retrospective analysis of a goal-oriented activity

For the past two weeks in my EDU 271 class, we had a group collaboration assignment. My group was introducing "Twitter" and how it is used in the classroom with advantages and disadvantages. At first I was overwhelmed because the assignment called for a WIKI which I personally have never worked on before. I'm good at understanding once it has been introduced to me. After coming upon the WIKI page I started to play with it and see how everything works. I had four people in my group and only worked with one other person. No one else tried to get in contact with me, so I decided to start on it first. I was the first to post, but then later realized that MLA format was missing in my pieces. MLA format was difficult for me. I remember using it in one of my English classes before, but never kept it fresh in mind. If I could take a few things back, it would be to understand how to get the group discussion rolling a little better. I would sit back and take a breather and understand "it's a learning process" to understand new technology. I did keep in contact with one person and she was amazing. She took over the whole MLA format and fixing what we needed. I added information to the WIKI as well as a youtube video. I thought the video was a great addition. Learning how to put a video in was tough but if you actually look it up in google, or even youtube, you put two and two together and understand. Now that I think of it I probably could of used that for the discussion on the WIKI. =) Overall we got the project done. I seen one other person add a few things in there at a certain point. I went back into the WIKI almost daily to see what others have posted and also looked on other classmates WIKI to see what they have done. After reading some blogs, we all had the same issues, MLA, non communication in some groups, and taking on the project solo until others joined. I think for next time I will collaborate with my group more as well as learning MLA format so I don't have to rely on classmates too. I would feel more confident knowing I did my part in every which way possible.

Planning and Identifying Topics

In order for a teacher to meet all the needs of each and every student, each teacher should know they have a wide variety of diverse learners. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 ensures all rights of students with or with disabilities, receive the same education as those without.
Big Ideas- can help understand strength and weaknesses in the beginning of the school year i.e lessons of what a student should learn throughout.
Conspicuous Strategies- explained information of a tasks or assignment should be taught to students can use them independently.
Mediated Scaffolding- kids have to memorize certain math steps/ spelling words and some more than others need extra help. It's support to help the individual learn the word seeing it, hearing it and eventually knowing on their own without support.
Strategic Integration- Student will learn how things change and must understand the concept of change. Here is where teachers can take them on field trips in order to understand a much more in depth concept of something.
Primed Background Knowledge-this is where a teacher would ask the student what they know of a certain subject, asking of past experiences, connecting old information to new information working towards a class discussion or a report.
Judicious Review- A student will learn to make use of long term memory throughout the course of the year. For example something taught in the beginning of the school year, using is spontaneously throughout the year, ending it with some type of project showing what the child has learned in skills on that matter. Becoming more strategic in teaching, instructors can improve a child's' understanding and content being spoken of.

FINDING LESSON TOPICS:
When finding a lesson topic, a teacher should have knowledge of what the standard based curriculum of the school or district is. The students interest and questions can help shape the topic of the lesson. For example weather is a pretty broad topic. Narrowing it down to seasons and then distributing information of all types of the seasons. Another one would be with planting. Having the experience of learning to plant, how farming changed lives, and base it around the standard of the school and district. Having more information implied through textbooks, videos, guest speakers, websites, and hands on projects can help enhance learning experience and make it more vivid to understand.

Instruction and Assesments to Learning

ADAPTING INSTRUCTION:

Understand the learning process can lead to meeting the needs of their students through instructional adaptation. Through accommodations and modifications, will allow each student equal access to the curriculum and allow them to process information that has been taught. Accommodations: student support related to their disability, could consists of a way that helps the student learn to their greatest ability.
Modifications: student support related to their disability, shortening tasks given, making changes for them as well.

ASSESSMENT AND THE MEASURES:
Assessments usually compare a student's performance with one of three different types of standards.
Individual-referenced: a previous test on a student can be compared to a current test based on performance, monitor progress, and helps teacher understand child's strength and weaknesses.
Norm-referenced : standardized test comparing students performance to a group: compare school performance to national norms.
Criterion-referenced: compare students performance to an objective, assessing if the student has mastered skills within a curriculum, a true false test or even a book report shows direct and indirect ways for a reference.
A good assessment must measure the skills, knowledge, or abilities the teacher holds important, se several ways to determine progress, and be "teacher-friendly".

THE INSTRUCTIONAL CYCLE: There are 3 stages
Stage 1: Intended Instructional Outcomes: Teacher should have a clear idea of what they benchmark and content standard will address at the end of unit less or plan. Instructors should have an idea of what students need to know and understand to meet the standard based curriculum. Keeping in mind how they will asses what has been learned as well.
Stage 2: Planning
Teachers should start planning instructional activities and teaching strategies with making test and assessments. When they learn the outcome, instruction, and assessments the teachers should then carry out planning.
Stage 3: Assessment
This final stage which includes implementing the assessment into the lesson, doesn't mean it should be done at the end of the unit or topic. It should be throughout the entire lesson, so that the teacher could see what has or hasn't been learned by that particular student. Assessments are used to see if the student has mastered the intended learning.

Benchmark & Content Standard

Content Standards
Content standards refer to what gets taught in specific content areas (e.g., reading, language arts, mathematics, science, history) Content and performance are two types of standards. Performance is mastering what has been taught and the content which is an outline of what needs to be learned. These goals should be written based on grade level and what should be learned by the end of the year. Some assessments would be used to determine the knowledge and skills students have grasped and be able to guide teachers in a way to understand if their teaching skills have made an impact.
BENCHMARKS
Benchmarks are test usually given throughout the school year or the end of a semester/unit. They are used to determine progression in students based towards goals and standards. The teacher will acknowledge students about benchmarks and help them understand what is to be met of them giving them a greater sense of responsibility to their own learning.
Benchmark and standard remain the same throughout the k-12 grades but as the student goes to another grade, the performance standards change.
LEARNING
Knowing what makes a student struggle to learn and how they remember to learn can make lessons and planning easier for the instructor in her classroom. Learning a students interest, strengths, weaknesses, behavior, what language is spoken at home, interest, talents, religious factors, how they learn, and the knowledge they already have are good information to have before hand. All students don't learn the same or have the same environment around them. Getting to know your students can help the instructor understand each and every student and create ways to help them learn. All the information goes into a student goes to "short term memory" which leads to "long term memory". This isn't easy and cannot be done overnight. This is important for the teacher to incorporate that all student don't learn alike. One student might need visual aids to remember and another might remember by using "alike" words. Teachers can use creative ways to connect to their lessons i.e topics of interest outside the classrooms to help the students remember.