blog 10

Overall I think I could have done better on the midterm if I had memorized some of the things that we were tested on before the midterm took place. I do not think I did very well on the first half of the midterm. I think I could have done better on the first half of the midterm if I had memorized the extensions of certain file types. I also think it would have helped if I had read the scanned picture portion of the midterm more carefully, as I ended up putting something in my response that was different than what was needed to answer that section correctly. I also think it would have helped if I had reviewed how to put Word Art into the header of a document and practiced doing that. I think it would have been helpful if I could have found the correct journal article on ethics. I had a hard time trying to find the article when I searched for it because a lot of what I saw in the search results looked like presentations. I spent a lot of time trying to find an article on ethics among all the presentations. I think I did better on the second part of the midterm since I did not make as many mistakes in it. When I made the outline for Inspiration I was unsure of whether or not the subtopics I made were detailed enough. I was also unsure of how the pie chart should be labeled. I did not remember how to make a screen shot on a Mac which made one part of the midterm difficult for me. Probably the easiest part of the second half of the midterm for me was describing important things to consider in a PowerPoint presentation.

blog 8

I learned about Filamentality this week and how it can be used to create a “treasure hunt” for students on the Internet. I learned that it is important to check the websites that students will be looking at to make sure they do not have inappropriate content such as foul language. I learned that good websites include pictures, animation, and video. All of the things I learned about Filamentality will be helpful when I create a “treasure hunt” for students. I think that Filamentality might be helpful for visual learners because of the pictures and video. I think Filamentality can be a useful tool for teachers that are searching for a way to use technology for lessons. I think Filamentality can be helpful for students by having a list of websites related to the lesson. Having a list of websites related to the lesson may help keep students from getting distracted by looking at websites that are not related to the lesson.

I think that the articles about WebQuests are informative and offer information that is useful for teachers who want to create WebQuests and look at resources that can help them with WebQuests. The “FOCUS: Five Rules for Writing a Great WebQuest” by Bernie Dodge article describes what makes a good WebQuest, including organizing resources well, making students think about the information they learn, and the way in which the Internet is used for a WebQuest. I like that the article “The Student WebQuest: A Productive and Thought-Provoking Use of the Internet” by Maureen Brown Yoder has an introduction to WebQuests as well as examples to help show how the Internet can be used to help students learn about history or contemporary issues, for example.

blog 7

I learned some things about Wikis this week. I learned that it’s possible for a group of people to work on a Wiki website and discuss things on it.I learned that it is possible to revert to a previous version of a Wiki. I learned that Wikis are used for science because science is ever changing and it is faster to spread information by posting it on a website than it is to publish it in a book, for example. I learned that Wikipedia can block someone that vandalizes the articles contained within it. I also learned to not always post a new subject and respond under reply if I’m writing about a subject that has already been posted. I learned that when working in groups on a Wiki one person can be the author for a Wiki.

The article “Bridging the Digital Divide: A Building Block for Teachers” by Colleen Swain and Tamara Pearson describes how access to technology in schools can be limited and how teachers can overcome those limitations in order to use technology more in the classroom. The article includes websites for lesson plans that make use of technology. It also describes how a teacher’s knowledge and ability to use technology affects students’ work. Also mentioned in the article is how teachers can reflect on their use of technology to decide whether or not it is used more for teachers or for the students’ learning experience. The article describes how low funding for schools is not an excuse for not using more technology in the classroom and cites that High Technology and Low-Income Communities: Prospects for the Positive Use of Advanced Information Technology can help schools with low funding. The article lists websites that can help with getting funding for technology such as computers.

blog 6

I thought the reading “Teaching Students to Use the Internet as a Research Tool” was interesting. I did not know about the subject-specific search engines described in the article and I was unaware of many of the websites listed for teachers. I had not thought about using a search engine’s help area to learn how to best do a search on something. I was unaware that search engines are organized without much intervention from people. I was also unaware that directories are organized more by people. I like that the article gave a step by step example of how to evaluate the credibility of a source by backtracking a website’s address.



I think there are some benefits to using a spreadsheet. One benefit of using a spreadsheet is that it is easy to organize information on it. Also, it is convenient to be able to use a formula and apply it to an entire column. Another benefit of spreadsheets is that the data on the entire spreadsheet is automatically updated after a value is put in. For example, if a change needs to be made to a grade in a spreadsheet about grades Excel automatically re-does the math for all other columns or rows that apply to that grade. Also, it is possible to put information from a spreadsheet into a colorful chart, which may be helpful for visual learners. I think the Excel Quiz covered information from the Excel tutorial and was probably intended to see if the people that took it understood and/or remembered what was covered in the tutorial.

blog 5

The use of multimedia including Power Point in the classroom has implications. The implication of using a program like Inspiration is that it can help visual learners understand material. Inspiration makes it easy to add graphics to an outline which can help show what the outline is about. Scanners can be used so that students can scan their assignments to turn them in. Also, teachers can scan in assignments so they will not have to type them. Power Point can highlight the main points in a presentation and lends itself more to multiple intelligences. Some of the values of Power Point in the classroom are that it is more pleasing to the eye and one bullet is presented at a time. It is helpful because it is an outline to remember what one is talking about and what one needs to talk about. Power Point can be used for lectures and presentations.
Benjamin Bloom came up with a system to define the types of questions asked on a test. According to Bloom the types of questions (or competences) that appear on a test include knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Certain questions are related to each competence. For example, under the competence of knowledge one question might be “What happened after this point in the story?” Other things related to each competence include certain verbs and possible activities in which students can show their understanding of the material. For example, under the competence “comprehension” a verb used for it might be “explain.” An activity related to explanation might be to “Cut out or draw pictures to show a particular event,” as described in http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm. I like the thought of Bloom’s theory being used to “direct the students to the realization that reading has a greater and more diverse purpose than just the simple recall of facts” as described in http://www.ops.org/reading/blooms_taxonomy.html, however, I would have liked to see an example that showed how a specific question could do that. I liked that the website about the comprehension of Bloom’s taxonomy gave examples about a specific story to show how Bloom’s theory could relate to a story.

blog 4

The section “Defining relationships.” from the “Mapping Student Minds” article reminded me of what we did in class the other day with the visual outline as well as the rubric assignment. First we were given an example to work with and then we were given specific assignments to work on. I thought it was interesting to read about how in-depth an assignment related to the environment could be, what with the collection of data, the making and revision of outlines, and the presentations for the different cases that people were making. After reading the article I thought about how the article demonstrated how technology can be used in school, which is what our class is about. Ms. Owen used a lot of technology (the online database, the mapping tool, the Palm Pilot data form, and the WISE database) to help the students sort their data.

At first it was kind of difficult trying to understand the causal maps. I think that was because the arrows pointed up and down but the direction of the arrows did not indicate whether or not the relationship was positive or negative. I felt like if an arrow was pointing up it should indicate a good or positive relationship, whereas with the downward pointing arrows I felt like they should indicate a negative or bad relationship. I looked at the class grade causal map some more and saw how, despite how the arrow that came from “Absence” was pointing upward it was not positive (by that I mean that having a lot of absences would not cause a student to get a better grade). The thickness and red color of the arrow showed that absences greatly decreased the class grade. That helped me understand the causal map better, but I still feel like it would have helped even more if there had been a video clip that showed the teacher explaining the relationships in the causal maps to the students.

blog 3

I can relate to the portion of the article “Oh, the Changes We’ve Seen” on page four that describes how the use of a computer frees us from using up a lot of time by using a paper and pencil. I know that it would take me a lot longer to write a ten page paper by hand than it would be to type it. I also like how I can move around sentences or portions of sentences easily, whereas it would be time-consuming to erase and re-write the words by hand.

This week I learned about rubrics, Backflip, and creating a newsletter. I learned how to create a rubric using Rubistar’s templates as well as how to create and edit my own rubric without using a pre-done template. I learned to research which rubrics are available before making one from scratch. I learned about how rubrics can be beneficial for students and teachers by putting the responsibility back on the student and keeping teachers honest. I also learned that if a parent asks about why a student got a certain grade I can show him or her exactly what information was missing according to the rubric. I learned how students can use Backflip in their research, which will make them think twice about copying and pasting the information from those sites. I learned that using Backflip can be more efficient than book marking a page because of the descriptions that show up next to sites. I learned how to create a newsletter by using the header, creating columns, inserting word art, and drop capping the first letter of the first word on the page.