IP&T WEEK 4

This week in class we came up with our own science activities using some type of technology. For my group's project we did 3rd grade Standard 2 Objective 1A&B which is to understand and classify living and non-living things and the properties of each. The steps to our activity is all listed on my Tech Savvy Teacher article below. Next I was supposed to view 2 other people's activities on their blogs. One I looked at was especially fun. Their group used the program Celestia to view the Earth and the Moon and to notice similarities and differences between the two. The article and pictures were great. This would be a tool I would definitely use. The other article used a tool on the internet that a teacher could use with their students to view the moon. I really enjoyed our activity this week. I am excited to use technology for every subject. Exciting Stuff!!

Science Activity-Living vs. Non-Living Things

Welcome to Tech Savvy Teacher! Today we are going to learn about using a digital microscope to get up-close and personal to observe living and non-living characteristics in various things we found right outside! The standard we chose was third grade science, standard two, objective one, letters a and b, which is identifying the characteristics of living and non-living things.

The first thing to do with the students is to introduce them to the characteristics of living and non-living things, and help them become familiar with these characteristics. Characteristics of living things might include: breathing, ability to reproduce, movement, growth, etc. Non-living characteristics might include things such as: stationary, non-breathing, not able to reproduce, etc. To introduce this topic, you might first begin a discussion and have a worksheet with a column for living things next to a column for non-living things where they could write down some of the characteristics of living and non-living in these columns. Underneath these columns, you could have a column for examples of things that are living and some of their characteristics. The students could fill this column out while you project magnified living organisms, such as grass.

With the grass projected, you could talk about some of its characteristics, such as its roots and talk about how this is how it gets its nutrients. After this, you could send the children out on their own to find non-living things, which they could bring in the class. You could go around the class and discuss a few of the items, while projecting them and talking about their characteristics.

Using the digital microscope, the teacher is better able to project the small item she is talking about, and the students have an opportunity to develop their skills in observation.

IP&T Week 3 continued...

I also did the Copyright and Fair Use tutorial and quiz. I was suprised to find out that teachers have a lot of leverage with using other people's materials. Yet there are some limitations. These were good videos and charts to review. I learned a lot from them. In class we also learned about TPAK. This is a theory about using technology within your pedagogy. It is amazing how much technology can be used and incorporated into your curriculum.

IP&T Week 3

I really enjoyed this week in IP&T. We added another link to our PLEs called delicious. This is a bookmark site where you link other resources. I really like this tool. As a teacher you can have all your resources listed in one place. Having this site on a blog can be useful for parents and students to use at home. They can link to it and find games and resources to do at home. In class we also explored science technologies and games. I find these so much fun. I am excited to use the stellarium and kidsperation tools. I also really loved the Logger Pro. Science was always one of my favorite subjects in school. These are fun tools to use to get children excited about learning.

IP&T WEEK 2

--Sept. 11th was the second day of IP&T class. Since I thoroughly enjoyed the first class I was excited to come to class. In class we learned what an RSS feed is. This is where you can link certain sites to your blog that will send you posts on new information they have posted to their site. For example, you can choose to subscribe to a news website such as CNN. They can then send you posts to the latest news articles posted onto their site. I chose to subscribe to National Geographic and to UEN.org. I especially like UEN because they will send me updates on the latest educational news going on in Utah.
--After learning about RSS feeds and linking them to our own PLE's we learned about a site called "Good Reads". This is where members share books they have read or would like to read. After creating our own Good Reads accounts we selected 10 books to review. These books were ones we were either reading, have read, or wish to read. We then categorized these books into different shelves. Next we added at least five friends to our accounts. Lastly we posted a link to our Good Reads accounts onto our PLE's, in my case onto my blog. All-in-all it was a great class! I learned a lot and had a ton of fun!

IP&T WEEK 1

Sept. 4th was the first day in my IP&T class. In class we learned about was Web 2.0 is. We then learned about Moodle, our class "Blackboard", and created our own profiles. We also learned about Blogs and Wikis and how we can use them as teaching tools in our classrooms. Next we created our own blog or wiki to be used as our own Personal Learning Environment. Obviously I chose to make a blog. Although a few of my friends have blogs I have never used one. I am excited to explore this resource. We provided a link to our blogs onto our Moodle accounts. We were then given the assignment of completing a pre-assessment survey online.... I am excited about this class and learning about how I can effectively use technology in my future classrooms!