February 21, 2010

Comments 4Kids Week 6
I commented on a student named Frank at http://pesburne.blogspot.com/ . He had a cute drawing of bubbles going up into a tree with a short description of the picture. I was impressed by the students' drawings and wondered what program they used to draw them. I commented on his colorful picture, description of his drawing and the wonderful job he did.
Educational Technology on Dr. Christie's Site
After exploring Dr. Christie's site, I found the section under Educational Technology to be the most useful for me as a classroom teacher, though there is so much information on her site it was difficult to decide. I plan on bookmarking her page for future reference. She has so many useful resources, it makes for an excellent site to refer back to often.
As I hope to teach Kindergarten again, I decided the section on Digital Media and Photography would be a great starting point. Dr. Christie gave some excellent ideas that would be appropriate for a K class, for example, pictures of real world geometry shapes, signs in the community to make an "I can read" book and pictures of students dressed as their future career. There was also a wealth of information and lesson plans on video projects. The iMovie tips and tutorials will be extremely helpful for me as I explore video making projects. I found some excellent links with lesson plans and examples that I plan on using such as the Springfield Public Schools. This site has a list of lessons with grade level, subject and type of media used. Dr. Christie's site is a fantastic starting point for any teacher using digital media in the classroom or for almost any technology in education.

iTunes U

I found that university professors and students can access itunes u for lectures, lessons, and other videos. It is a way for teachers, students and alumni to stay connected with their university. Students can access lessons or lectures anywhere as long as they have the internet and a computer. This is an excellent resource for students to review lectures and reinforce what they have learned.
Teachers, as alumni, could use it to stay up to date on emerging technologies and what's changing in the field of education and share this information with other teachers. Professors can share and collaborate on videos and lectures they find or create. The ease of having the ability to access learning on the go makes it convenient at any time for students and teachers. It would have been great to have had something like this in my earlier years of college when I would carry my voice recorder to class to listen to the lecture again as a review.

iPods in Instruction

In researching instructional uses for iPods I found one sight that uses Interactive writing prompts with the use of music for older students. These look like very good writing lessons to keep students interested through popular music. Another site I found named, 100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better has links to study guides, podcasts, tutorials, applications, classroom help and iPod learning support, just to name a few. This site has some wonderful resources for any grade level. I didn't realize there were so many sites available for iPods in education, for that matter, I didn't realize iPods were becoming so popular in education. I look forward to learning more and, hopefully, I will have access to iPods in my own teaching career.