Final Stuff!

I have done both of the surveys and checked my grades.

Internet Safety

1:An Ensign to the Nations: A light to the world by President Gordon B. Hinckley

2: I watched a video by David A. Bednar. He spoke about the dangers of involving our lives too much in the virtual world. I really enjoyed his talk because it is so relevant to life today and the dangers that are so evident in all types of media. He also spoke about downloading music and involving ourselves in illegal activities on the internet.

3:Take-aways: My most important take-aways from the readings were the overall impact that media, music, and addiction to just the internet has on the family. I know that my grandmother spends all day on the computer, part of the time doing family history, but I’ll say she has very nice, large farm that she cares for on her Facebook. I know she spends a lot of time doing that. Many in my family have become addicted to some of the games Facebook has to offer and they are always telling me about it. Once my mom made me get off my Facebook so she could take care of my farm, I didn’t even know that I had! Those are just a few examples, but the family is so important and I didn’t realize how significant the effect of the internet has. I know that the many sources of media in our life can distract us from what is most important, simply because of how time consuming it is. When you are away from your family like many college students are, they don’t realize these effects until they visit home, or get married. It is important now to monitor our involvement on the internet and with video games.

4:My source already was aware of many online challenges that students, parents, and educators struggle with today. He spoke about prevention techniques to keep kids safe including keeping the family computer in a public place readily visible to all who are around. He is also an advocate for having filtering on the home and school computers to keep kids off internet sites that could be potentially dangerous to them. He also told me how he feels that media of all kinds today including i-pods, cellphones, facebook, and other networking sites really are creating a community where people are always connected and communicating, without really communicating personally. Our resources today make staying connected easier, but the price we pay is losing out on those important person to person interactions.
I told him about some of the stories that I listened to and read about, his reaction was about like mine. We both know of the realities, but try to block them out. When hearing these stories it brings the reality back and we feel sorry for those individuals and their lack of knowledge to keep themselves safe. He expressed a great interest in making sure all who use the internet are taught how to protect themselves from dangers that exsist. He will definitely use it to educate his future family and also the students that he will influence in his secondary education classes.

TPACK Project

Lesson Plans

Literacy Lesson: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddzwjpj3_6gp9j9s7x
I implemented the Literacy Lesson, pictures above!
Science Lesson: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddzwjpj3_2dpjdnzdr
I implemented the Science Lesson as well but didn't take pictures. It went well though and was fun.
Math Lesson: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddzwjpj3_3fd834kfs

Use of Techonology in the classroom

There were many things I found interesting in the videos. In the third video I found it particularly interesting how much the children used the internet to find information for their research. I really liked this because when I was younger the internet was not something we incorporated into our learning in elementary. Given this opportunity the children gain a better knowledge of how computers impact daily lives and the community. I really liked how after they had spent all that time researching their effort was validated when their parents came to watch their presentations. Their presentations are a great representation of their work in a creative way and encourages future learning. This connects what is going on in the classroom to the community. Also with this in the second video it was mentioned that through having the children illustrate their ideas on the computer and making books they are able to involve the parents when it otherwise couldn't be done. Everything we do is on the computer and incorporates the internet nowadays and it is so great that the children have to opportunity to learn this concept so early on. The internet connects the world and they get to learn that.

Technology Inventory

I have spent my last week at Old Mill Elementary School in Heber, Ut. It has been a wonderful experience. I have noticed that in the classroom there are not many technology enhancing tools. In my classroom there is only one lap top for the teachers use. There is a projector that connects to the computer I believe, we haven't used it yet. There is also a image projector that the teacher uses for fix-it sentences in the morning. There is a lab available to all teachers to sign up for. We have used the lab for further reinforced learning in math and literacy. The children can log onto this school website from home if they wish too. The teacher used her CD player everyday to sing songs about the days of the week. There is not too much available in the classroom, but I feel that the use of technology has a good balance.
I have completed the midcourse evaluation and the informed consent!

Week 8 Science Video Thread

week 7 science lesson

1. Standard 2: Students will understand that organisms depend on living and nonliving things within their environment.
• Objective 2
Describe the interactions between living and nonliving things in a small environment.
• Identify living and nonliving things in a small environment (e.g., terrarium, aquarium, flowerbed) composed of living and nonliving things.
For this activity, the students will look at pond water through the electron scanning microscope to identify living and nonliving organisms. They will be working in groups. To help them identity the living organisms, they can use the virtual pond dip website to gain more knowledge about the organisms. They will fill out a chart of their observations, which will include at least 5 living and 2 nonliving organisms.

2. We will be using a guided lesson plan to allow the students to discover living and nonliving things in pond water on their own. We will also be using inquiry-based learning so that students can discover the difference through observation instead of direct instruction. This fits well because it is easier to understand the difference between living and nonliving things through actual observation than an explanation from a teacher.

3. We will be using the virtual electron scanning microscope to observe pond water. The students will use the virtual pond dip (found at: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/index.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/ponddip/index.html) to help discover living and nonliving organisms. This is a good fit because it allows them to see the actual living and non-living organisms as well as learn about them through virtual interaction.


Link to chart: http://casnov1.cas.muohio.edu/scienceforohio/living_nonliving/images/classifylivingnon.pdf

Tours I viewed

I viewed Madison White's tour. You stayed in Utah! Great job getting to students into the here and now. It puts things into perspective.
I viewed Ashley Daley's tour or Ancient Ruins/Cities. It was a really neat idea.
I viewed Nicole Mahas's tour of volcanoes and earthquakes. I did something similar. Great idea huh?!

Virtural Tour

This is my virtual tour link
http://sites.google.com/site/panditid/google-earth/FieldTripstoVolcanoesandMountains.kmz?attredirects=0

Virtual Tour Plans

I chose 5th grade science. Standard 2: Students will understand that volcanoes, earthquakes, uplift, weathering, and erosion reshape Earth's surface. Objective 2: explain how volcanoes, earthquakes, and uplift affect Earth's surface. a)identify specific geological features b)give examples of different land forms (mountains, valleys, lakes, and canyons) c)describe how they change landforms. I'll be using various websites to learn about the different volcanoes or mountain ranges. I will be using Google images for additional pictures. Assuming that we would have been learning about volcanoes, earthquakes etc. . . before hand, I would be using Google Earth to reinforce places around the world where tectonic plates collide causing volcanoes and earthquakes which create mountains. I chose this topic because I think it is hard to understand the affects of these natural-disasters from a text book and volcanoes are just cool!

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1.California	Observe all the faults that run through California and write a brief description of how you think the mountains there were formed.	http://www.peaklist.org/USlists/CAintro.html http://education.usgs.gov/california/maps/faults_names2.html
2.Hawaii	Observe all the volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands Look at and read about the active volcano in Kilauea, Hawaii. on the website where you will read about the volcano, click on volcano movies. select the 6th movie down titled Pu u Oo Flank Vent Movies. Just enjoy the movie. What does Kilauea mean? Why was the volcano given this name?	http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/ other Google pictures of kilauea
3.Ring of Fire	Read about the ring of fire. Why is it called this? How many continents does the ring of fire touch? Measure with a ruler the distance in inches from the Philippine plate to the Cocos plate.	http://geography.about.com/cs/earthquakes/a/ringoffire.htm www.worldbook.com/.../volcanoes/where_ring
4.Himalayas	View the Wikipedia page. What makes the Himalayan mountains so important? How many countries do the Himalayan mountain touch?	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas Other pictures of Himalayan mountains.

Digital Storytelling part 2

I did my video on a number book fullfilling standard 1, objective 1 in kindergarten math.

Christa Chamberlain: I enjoyed the story and how you used the little spider. It was great to hear the story from the spiders point of view.

Nichole Mahas: I like your pictures and loved the message. Good health is good. It was hard to hear though. Great job.

Kami: I really enjoyed your take on the book. The pictures that you put to the words were phenomenal. Great Job.

Alyssa Ash: I like your story you made. It was very creative.

Camila Monteiro: I liked that you made a song out of BINGO it was wonderful. I enjoyed your creativity.

Sandee Clark: I liked this. I think I might go read the book now. Nice input from Stephanie Myers. lol. It was good.

Digital Storytelling

Number Book Story Board!

I didnt' end up doing eleven and twelve. oh well.

Week 2

My URL for my wiki site is: http://amandasfunweb.pbworks.com/

When creating my wiki site along with using other sites I learned that a) there are a lot of site out there that can assist me in my teaching as far as communicating with parents, other teachers, and allowing me to see what the children are doing on their own wiki sites (if i choose for them to make one). I thought the video was pretty neat about the children and parents and using these type of sites to keep updated on each others lives and interests. The most difficult task was to add multiple things to one page, it was hard if you edited the site then viewed it then tried to edit it again. Things tended to get jumbled and sometimes deleted themselves. It was quite annoying, but I got through it. I understand the concept of easily sharing books, resources and more through the use of these websites but, I'm not sure how useful they will be to me. I'll probably see later though. I did though use photo bucket and piknic to edit my pictures and to put them into slides which I found to be fun and useful, maybe not so much to teaching but in general. Overall, it took a lot of time, but I learned a lot.

Why I love Education!

Education is the gift that keeps on giving! I enjoy learning new things about almost anything. Education in the sense of teaching allows me to teach and to learn everyday, children can teach us more than we could teach ourselves. My favorite moment in teaching is that time when kids finally get the concept being taught, the moment when the light bulb flips on.