As time passes by and as technology advances, the way things are taught in the classroom changes. Before we used to have a lot of teacher based learning. This means that a teacher would get up in front of the classroom and lecture, information would just be given to students. Now, we are seeing a lot more student based learning. This means that students are working together to solve problems. A trend in education that supports the concept of student based learning is the incorporation of social media sites in the classroom. For my presentation I decided I wanted to use some of the things I learned in this class. So instead of sticking with a safe and easy Powerpoint presentation I decided to create a Prezi and do a voice over. The thing that I found the most neat about my Prezi was the layout, it looked exactly like some sort of social media site page. This was by far my favorite thing to create, and if I said that before about any other project in my previous blogs, well, THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. My Prezi was simple and straight to the point, yet in my opinion, it was also super creative. I talked about why social media was a growing trend in the education field and included examples of how it can be used. As I was doing research on this trend I figured that there was also cons to using social media, not that I included them in my presentation, but I personally feel that if used correctly this can ultimately be really beneficial to students. To view my pretty cool Prezi, click HERE
The Flipped Classroom: A Lesson on the Rock Cycle
For those who did not watch my flipped classroom presentation, you might have guessed what the lesson was about by now. If you guessed the rock cycle, then you are correct! I chose the rock cycle because it was one of my most memorable lessons in elementary school and seeing as how I want to be an elementary school teacher, I thought it would be ideal to do it on this. My lesson targets students in 4th grade. Because I had already created my YouTube channel and knew how to do voice overs, my biggest problem was creating the lesson. I knew what topic and standard I wanted to center it around and I had plenty of information to include in the lesson. However, my biggest conflict was narrowing down what information to use, what information was the most relevant. Since I found this assignment the most difficult to complete, it was the one I least enjoyed doing.
The Flipped Classroom
In this assignment there was SO many steps but it was definitely one I enjoyed doing from beginning to end. First off, I am a big YouTube watcher. I love watching YouTube videos everyday, from makeup tutorials and DIYs to the X Factor auditions and animal videos. I am subscribed to many YouTubers and had considered making a channel before, but I had no idea how to do so. Therefore, when in this assignment we were required to create a channel, instructions included (thankfully), I was extremely excited. Making a channel was actually easier than I expected and I felt super cool when I was done. As for the flipped presentation, I chose to create a Powerpoint because I have been using it for years and felt more comfortable using it than a Prezi. Creating the Powerpoint was a piece of cake. However, when it came down to having to do a voice over I was lost. I did not know which of the many programs to use, so I looked at some of my classmates’ presentation and saw someone had said using Screencast-O-Matic was fairly easy to use; I decided to give it a try. I was completely lost with this program for a good 30 minutes. The problem I was having was that when I hit “Start Recording” it asked me to choose an application and I had no idea what to chose. Turns out that I did not have to chose anything, I just had to hit the “OK” button. I took a shot at recording a couple of types before deciding to write a small script, that made things a whole lot easier. Unfortunately the first time I finished recording and tried uploading, I accidentally deleted my recording. What a bummer. On a brighter note, the second time I recorded and uploaded everything went by smoothly. Though I did upload the same video twice on my channel because I was paranoid it had not uploaded properly the second time around. When everything was complete, I showed my parents the video and they were extremely impressed. I think the best part of this project was seeing my parents proud of what I had created. I think what made that moment even more cuter, was the fact that my dad has just discovered YouTube a week prior.
Google Earth: My Virtual Road Trip Adventure
For those of you unfamiliar with what a GoogleLit Trip is, it is basically a series of locations mapped through Google Earth that pertain to a topic of your choice. Once your locations are chosen, it is wise to create some sort of story board first on a word document, you can open a small tab and add text, pictures, videos, etc. I didn’t really experience much difficulty with this technology project; it was pretty straight forward as long as you followed the tutorial video, which I will admit, is something I constantly kept referring to. My only complain on this project is that Google Earth kept lagging so especially when I tried to add pictures. On a similar note, I do not like how the textbox tab does not open fully with bigger pictures so I had to find smaller pictures. Anyways, when I first saw the tutorials for a GoogleLit Trip I found it to be boring and very unappealing, meaning this is not a tool I would use in my classroom. However, once I began mapping my destinations everything became much more exciting. The topic I chose to revolve my Lit Trip on were road trip destinations in California. I chose this topic because I have never traveled and there are various places in California I would love to visit, this assignment also exposed me to new places in California that I did not know existed such as Point Reyes National Seashore. Although I want to travel the world, I chose destinations in California because I have lived here all my life and have never been to any of the places I chose. There are other places I did not include in my trip such as San Diego but I wanted to make those road trip as realistic as I could; I cannot wait to make this road trip a reality. My absolute favorite thing about this assignment was hands down learning how to do a bit of HTML coding. It was a bit intimidating at first but after I got the hang of it it made me feel like the coolest person ever.
I have no inspiration for a title at this moment…
It is the end of the second week of my Learning Technology for Educators class and so far it has been pretty chill. By this I mean that although the course work has not been to heavy, it has been enjoyable and very mind stimulating. I must admit that the very first assignment is definitely something I would consider using in my own classroom in the future. The assignment took the game of “Two Truths and A Lie” and incorporated technology by having us come up with a 5 slide PowerPoint (title page, 3 for the lies and truth, and a last one prompting our classmates to take a guess). I like this activity because it was fun and one of my philosophies for becoming a teacher is creating an environment where my students feel comparable with each other and this is definitely a way for them to get to know each other. Another thing I thoroughly enjoyed is a video titled “RSA Animate- Changing Education Paradigms”. I will leave the link for that HERE.
Hello world!
I always have my smart phone with me; no matter where I go, it can always be found either in my pocket or hands. I will not deny that technology is useful but I am unsure if we should try to incorporate it in classrooms. I grew up with LOTS of technology use in my classrooms and am not too fond of it. Hopefully by the end of this classroom I will have a more positive view of technology in the classroom; with that I conclude my first blog post.
fosterthesunflower 