Glogster

Glogster.com has definitely became one of my favorite website from all the ones we have browsed... It is just so much fun to be creative and make posters on your computers. Teachers can definitely save more time to compose a beautiful poster on Glogster, it is better than spending a long while to glue and paste things onto a big paper (Oh yeah, and it saves paper again). They can always save posters they created and reuse it again later on. For an actual paper poster... Well, let's just say a digital image won't get dusty anytime soon. It is a fun tool, so why not?

Quizlets and SpellingCity

Last week, we learn about different websites that students can use as study tools. Quizlet comes in different formats like the ones you can see on a test, with matching, multiple choice, fill in the blanks etc. The first thing I think of is how this tool can save a lot papers! Putting a sample test or just practice quiz online can save a lot of papers that were meant for printing these. It can also immediately shows the students their results for the tests, definitely a useful tool!

Spellingcity could be used for elementary school students, mostly. Teachers can create a spelling list for students, post the link then they can practice online...Which can definitely save students a lot of time from trying to memorize by writing the words down over and over again. And these tools are all free! Sweet.

Websquests are FUN!

These webquests are the ones I found interesting, either visually or the content of it. The first one, Human Body Cooperation has a very creative way to bring out the project idea, which is to assign students a human body organ and they have to explain why it is important so it won't get "fired" from the Human Body Cooperation. Very funny, and it definitely motivates a student's interest in going in-depth research. The second one is the President's Day webquest, asking students to act as time travelers to go back in time and know more about the presidents. Along the way, they would have scavenger hunting sheets to fill out and they have to do comparisons with peers from different times. Then they will go back to the 20th century Ultimate Student Writing Center to work on their presentation. Despite its simple design, I really like the detailed and enthusiastic instructions on the webpage. The topic can be very common but the tasks they have to complete makes it more interesting. Last but not least, The Plant Webquest. It has my favorite layout out of all three. It is very colorful with a lot of pictures to go with them. It asked the students to imagine themselves as astronauts and collect information of the planet they are assigned to. The instructions are simple, it has the questions listed out for them too. It is the layout part that attracts me the most :)

Video to share..:)

This is a video I found from Schooltube. I really like what each student has to say about learning technology. It definitely amazed me the fact these young students know how much technology is going to advance their education, and they all have a goal to "change the world". I was definitely touched by the fact they all wanted the teachers to teach them more, so they can achieve this goal of theirs. 

Web Based Bookmarking

In last class we are introduced to different websites that can help us to bookmark the websites we want to save. Some may ask, if our computers have the function of bookmarking, what's the point of going through the trouble to set up accounts in more websites to bookmark the pages? One thing about the Internet bookmarking is that we don't need to use our computers to access to the websites we need. Just imagine how much trouble is it going to be when you are in desperate need of the websites, but your computer is at home! Websites such as Livebinder can even showed the image of the webpage, it is very easy to access to the websites we need, so why not? 

So there are other search engines?

Google, one of the most popular search engines that every one of us is familiar with. So popular that when we said we are conducting research, we will actually say we are going to google it. This wordle displayed all the other alternative search engines we can use besides Google. These engines conduct specific searches, like only pictures, music, movies, social profiles etc. One of the most appealing one for me is Dogpile. I really like the layout of the search engine (in this case, I do judge a book by its cover), and it combined all the search engines together to make researching more advancing and easy. I also really like Tunefind. Isn't it frustrated when you hear a song from a movie or a drama episode that you really like, but you can never find the song title of it? Tunefind saves us the trouble! Just look for the drama/movie you were watching then you can look up the songs. It can be a very convenient website. The last one is Picsearch, the name is very self explanatory. If you look for a certain subject, it gives you variety of pictures that's related (compare to Google's... which provided too many unrelated pictures!). Appropriate and pretty, Picsearch is definitely a win for searching images off Internet.

The Importance of Copyright

Copyright is defined as a protection given to the authors and creators for their original works. Any papers, poems, artwork that we create automatically have the copyrights attached with them. It is important for students in classrooms to know that copying everything from Internet is to take away someone's credit for their way, that is also known as stealing. To make students understand better, teachers can make examples such as asking students to imagine some other people steal their poem and put it as theirs. What would they feel about that? 

Aside from that, taking everything out of Internet does not assure the credibility and how reliable they are. It is the educator's responsibility to make sure students learn how to cite the sources correctly from the reliable sources or databases, so they wouldn't violate the laws of copyright.

Internet Safety in Classroom

Internet is the first thing that pops into our minds when it comes to conducting research. Just type in what you want and zillions of resources would appear in front of your eyes. The whole process would only take seconds. Why looking up boring old inches-thick books when we have Google?

Great freedom comes with limited rules... And it does apply to the mighty Internet. Students can be searching for something perfectly simple but the search engine can give them something ultimately bizarre, and as educators, it is hard to avoid what pops out in the Internet window. The best way to protect students from dangerous resources on Internet is prevention. We have to teach students all sorts of safety rules in classroom. Typical rules like do not give out personal information, post personal pictures, don't share any information with strangers, nothing's private on Internet etc. . Children have to learn these basic rules on Internet at young age to prevent future problems. There are cases of cyber bullying that happened to a lot of children recently, mostly from the social websites like Myspace and Facebook. There is no way we can block every single bad influence from appearing in front of children's eyes. As educators, we can only teach them to identify what is right or wrong, so they can become smart Internet users.

Website Resources?

The links given on our class website provided a lot of interactive programs for different subjects. I think these programs can be applied as "differentiation in classrooms", due to its variety of activities that students can learn from. If students can't learn much from listening in class, they could try to approach the knowledge through learning from the activities. I especially like this website that include art and its history in the same activity, even as a college student, it was very fun to play around with this type of games. Other than that, the "fun" they got from the games can probably help to freshen up their memorization, which is a double plus! I remember how my parents used to tell me "work first, fun comes second". Thanks to technology, knowledge and fun is now a perfect combo to enhance student's learning.

Differentiation and Thinklinkr

In last class, we learnt about differentiation in classrooms. Each person in our PLN group has a general definition of differentiation in classes and we all put them onto the brainstorming tool called Thinklinkr. Personally, I think differentiation in classroom means that teacher should be able to provide a variety of tools in lessons for the different needs of each students. Some students may understand in one way some may understand in other ways. Teachers should be able to provide different resource for students to learn, not trying to fit them into the learning system. 

Thinklinkr was very confusing at the beginning... Our PLN group was having a hard time trying to get everyone on and same page and be online at the same time. If the network was slow, two people may end up typing on the same line and one may erase what others were typing. I honestly prefer Scriblink over this tool...At least it is more fun? This tool is more accessible for high school students than elementary students, especially in group projects.

Scriblink.com

Honestly, a bad idea to start a lesson, because this is such a fun and addicting website! For me, Scriblink is like an interactive Paint, literally! Physically speaking it is like a huge paper for students just to scribble on with millions of colors and shapes to choose from. Except this is a paper that can be cleared and undone, which of course, can save a lot of papers. This endless paper can let students do brainstorming, draw pictures, whether it's for collaborating ideas or just for fun, Scriblink has everything provided for them. Of course, having a group of students joining could be a hassle with all the invitations issues. But at the end the fun is endless! It is surely a better alternative than sitting in front of computer with empty screens for hours. 

My Experience with SmartBoard

My experience with SmartBoard is a mix of everything.. Fun, yet frustrating; The process is simple, but has loads of steps to follow...I guess if I could have enough time and space, creating lesson plans out of SmartBoard would be very fun. I couldn't make my lessons very complex like the ones I found from Smarttech.com, it also took me a very long time to think of what kind of topics can I use with interactive lesson plans. I then realize how much time it takes for teachers to come out with these lesson plans, and how much I really appreciate it. Sometimes I have to change what I wanted to do with the lesson plan because I can't figure which buttons to press in order to get the results that I wanted... I wish to have more time for creating better ones. I also reflect how the advancement of technology is really pushing educators to learn something they aren't used to. Imagine asking the teachers who have been using chalkboards or whiteboards for a long time to switch to using SmartBoard, it is like a very wild thought. Sitting in class for 3-4 hours is not enough for me to learn everything about SmartBoard, so the learning process is ongoing throughout the experience... It is while I was using SmartBoard then I can feel the struggles that some teachers could have when it comes to new technology, a very memorable experience after-all.

SmartBoard Lesson Plans

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Review on Smartboard Lessons

I found three lesson plans for different grade levels, which is K-3, elementary school and middle school. The first one I looked into is "Dressing for the Seasons", which goes under the category of K-3 science. It is very simple, providing interactive pages for students to match the seasons with the months. It is also very colorful and pleasant to look it. The other one that I looked at is "Christmas Math Fun" for elementary school students from 4th grade to 6th grade. I was very much in love with the cover page that has animated snow at the background, which of course, matches with the topic of the lesson. Then it has a set of math questions that is related to Christmas items. The last but not least is a Science lesson plan for middle school students. The title is the Origin of the Earth's Atmosphere. I really like the interactive pages from this lesson plans, where the answers were hidden and you can "drag" them out.  There was a pie chart where you can use eraser of smartboard to erase out the white part and reveal the answers.  These are all very fun and educational lesson plans. Smartboard is the one of the best demonstrations of how technology can advance the ways of learning for students, it is a way to have fun and gain knowledge at the same time.