Social Booking-HW for Week #5

While watching the Eagles game (unfortuantly, because PA doesn't show NY Giants games!) I just created my Diigo page. With 20 bookmarks, 40 tags, and 0 friends, I think that diggo will be a very helpful resource as a student and eventually as a teacher. Whether I am looking for ideas for lesson plans, fun activities for the students, busy work or creative projects, I can view other peoples bookmarks and explore some practical ideas.

Excel in the Classroom:
1. Candy Games/Statistics: Give each student a bag of M&Ms and have them make a spreadsheet in excel marking down the percentages of the different colors in each bag. Make a graph of the most popular color, least popular color etc. Make it into a fun, creative way to learn about percentages, graphing, and statistics.

2. Sports: Students track their favorite sports teams by making an excel spreadsheet of wins/losses/players stats/total points per game/averages etc. This would be a fun project for the students to do. It is a long term project that will help them improve their mathmatical skills, graphing skills, averages, percentages etc. (ex. March Madness)

3. Create a boardgame: I did this activity in 4th grade and I remember it was a blast. Have the student work in groups and create their own board game involving a lesson/subject that you have taught to them. Have the students play their games in their groups and also play other groups games as well.

4. Heads or Tails: Have the students break into groups. Have them flip a coin and record how many times heads comes up and tails comes up. Transfer their findings into percentages and share their findings with the class.

5. Who cost more: Break the class into boys vs. girls. Have each student record how much money they spend each week (on clothes, food, snacks, etc). At the completion of each week, each student enters their recordings into excel and the boys add their costs up as do the girls. At the end of the semester see which gender spent more and on what kinds of things. Could be fun?

Just got an update that the Giants are winning!

Google Apps-Class # 4 HW

Besides being one of the most dull, boring, monotoned videos I have ever seen, the google apps videos and content gave me an insight into how google apps works. As a "soon to be/not soon enough" teacher, I can absolutly see how google apps can be helpful and practicle in the classroom. This resource allows teachers to chat, IM, and email each other from all across the world. You can create a calander to organize your lesson plans, events and assignments in the classroom. You can explore sites that other teachers have found useful and also share your sites and documents with other teachers. You can find website creation tools that allow you to create websites about your expereinces in the classroom. The interaction between the teaching community across the world and you allow for you to connect with other educators and discuss their findings. Not only does this create a helpful tool for you (the teacher) but gives your students resources that they may have never heard of before.

Lesson Plan #1: Erosion
Disucuss Erosion; What is it? Where do you find it? Why does it happen? How does it occur? Ect. Have the students create a project dealing with their findings with erosion. Create an online presentation consisting of pictures that they found online of evidence of erosion, places, monuments, buildings where erosion is present, facts that they have learned about erosion, investigative findings that they have done regarding erosion.

Historical Novel: "My Brother Sam is Dead". A novel about the American Revolution. This lesson can be applied to both Reading and History. This google app allows the students to discuss what they have read in a blog form, use the helpful activities online about the book in better understanding the American Revolution, sharing their discussions with other students in google apps, write journal entries that can be shared with their peers and students across the world, post reflections and disucussions, work with "writing partners" which are collaborators in DOCS, and allows the teacher to evaluate their writings, thoughts, discussions on google apps.

Student Perspectives/R/W

As I write my blog, I am listening to music on i-tunes, I have MTV Cribs playing in the background, I am messaging friends on facebook, and I am doing laundry. My parents would be so ashamed! Every day after school I would come home, sit at the kitchen table, do my homework without ANY distractions, have my parents review the work I had completed and then I could go play. Now..I couldn't imagine focusing on only one thing. Multi-tasking has become a way of life. Trying to keep my grades up in high school all while volunteering in the afternoons and interning on weekends, I learned early on that accomplishing multiple tasks at once beats out focus and concentration any day. Sad..but..true.

I enjoyed reading a "Student's Perspective". The writer reminded me of myself. Piling on internships mixed with volunteering, choosing to read articles online rather than in newspapers, reading quickly just to get through the miserable book. Being a student is the only thing I have ever known. And although I look forward to becoming a teacher, I will continue to be a student as well. I learn new things everyday. Websites that help me with my homework, Podcasts that keep me updated with current events, online discussion boards that give me insight into other peoples perspectives. With a debit card in hand, an i-phone in pocket, and a laptop in tow, I continue to learn precisely how to be a successful student.

Read/Write Tools: Blogging is definitely new to me. I have read other peoples blogs before on ESPN.com and CNN.com but now that I am the one doing the writing, I like the freedom and the creativity blogging presents.

RSS: Something I will definitely set up on my computer in the coming days. Rather than having to visit numerous amounts of websites, only going to one place to read the blogs makes it a lot more convenient.

Podcasts: I have used podcasts before. My father listens to the NPR Podcast on a daily basis, and though his Digital Immigrant knowledge prevents him from doing certain things on the Internet, he has turned me on to podcasts.

Streaming Video: This seems like a neat tool to present to any classroom or as an assignment from homework. Interactive, creative, and fun.

www.google.com/educators/p_docs.com/html
Google docs is a great resource. I will definitely apply this to my classroom as well as using it myself.

Digital Natives vs. Net Gen

I am a 24 year old graduate student. My iPhone accompanies me wherever I go, I am addicted to facebook, I organize my schedule for the day by whats on TV, and my day is ruined when the server is down. I would say I am a product of the Net. Gen. My parents however still own flip phones, watch PBS, and read the New York Times at the kitchen table every morning. They would be considered Digital Immigrants. My father has helped edit my papers since my freshman year. I sit in my college dorm room, write a term paper in Microsoft Office, send him the finished draft in an email (not as a link, instead I copy and paste the entire Word document in the email because he does not understand how to download the pdf format) and he prints the paper out and edits it while sitting at his desk; typical Digital Immigrant. He then makes his corrections on the paper, goes back to his computer and makes the corrections on the computer screen, then sends it back to me to read, print and turn in. Its a great father/son, writer/editor, Net. Gen/Digital Immigrant relationship.


The concepts stated in the article make complete sense. I like to work in groups, learning is defenitly more fun when it is interactive, and I am a better student when my professor shares the same passion for technology as I do. It's cool to see my professor engaged in a conversation on their blackberry! Its even cooler when I can friend them on facebook! Digital natives at times cannot relate to their professors. Where we use LOL, JK, and FML, they use facetious, pull a leg, and I Am Distressed. The language may have changed through technology, but the messages remain the same. The attack on Pearl Harbor caused America to enter WWII, A+B=C, and water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. The objective is never-ending. Continue to find new methods to teach by while incorporating the same concepts that we have been taught for years. Create an App that allows us to disect a frog, have the entire class blog their journal entries, and text the teacher with the answers to the quiz. By creating new technological ways to interact with students, the Net. Gen, Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants can all finally get on the same homepage.

First Graduate Class

Almost done with my first graduate class. It was a fun time. Should be a good semester...