Week 6 course reflections

When I think back and reflect on the past six weeks, I have many thoughts that come to mind. First of all, my comfort level navigating with the computer has vastly improved. There are many tools and websites out there that I had no idea even existed. I have learned about Wiki's, Nings, browsers, spreadsheets, googledocs, sites for lesson plans, sites for managing professional development, and video fieldtrips. At times it was rather frustrating trying to keep with the cohort meetings, my clubs at school, (chess and carpentry club) and spending time with my own two children, but I made it through. If I could add anything or make a suggestion, I would ask for more time to explore important sites from the text during class time. In our busy schedules, there is little or no time to play around and learn about what is out there. When we had some time during class to explore the sites like Face in A Hole, we had the time to explore and do some project based learning. I would have liked time to do that for each chapter with the links to each website provided in the Ning. It would also be helpful to demonstrate how to use some of those sites on the projection system.
The more I learn, the more frustrated I become with our antiquated equipment I have in my room. I would like a projection system as soon as possible and now I am getting more and more frustrated working without one. So far it has been an interesting journey and I hope it stays that way. I have to be realistic about the time I can dedicate the course work while trying to maintain being a good teacher, and a good father. That has been the biggest challenge. One big help this last course was having such a positive cohort to work with for the past six weeks.
That is all for now!
RC

Week 5

By January I need to have a PDP done to get my educators license. Right now I have the initial educator’s license for teaching. With the tools gained from this chapter, I hope to use many of the sites for my own PD and use that for my PDP which has to be submitted to the DPI. Like the character in the example from the chapter, I do use a lot of word processing and research using the web. I hope to increase the use of technology in my classroom which is why I enrolled in this program. There will be challenges to accomplishing PD in technology because if the constraints we have as teachers, such as access and time to learn new technology. Each time I find a website which I feel is useful for my class, or for my PD, I add the link to my delicious account. There are a plethora of useful websites from this chapter.. such as teach-nology.com, scholastic.com, ncrt.org, and internet4classrooms.com. I hope to use those in the future.
Chapter ten was also interesting to read because it really made me think about what a school might look like in the future. If many colleges are offering large portions of their classes online, maybe we should be offering more AP courses online through the H.S.

Week Four Blog:
I watched a video on the Universe, which was taught by a sixth grade teacher. She had the students use a webquest to gather, organize, and interpret data related to the livability of various planets and moons in the solar syster. I really liked the concept and could see doing something very similar in my science class. For example, her webquest used the concept of overpopulation on Earth. I could have the students do a similar project on overpopulation and what is happening to our planet. At the end the students would need to create a multimedia presentation about overpopulation and demonstrate it to the group. Along the way, students would learn to skim resources, save favorite sites, perhaps create a delicious account, and use other valuable websites. I really enjoyed getting some ideas from edutopia and hope to use other lessons from that site in the future.

Spreadsheets

There are a number of ways that we can use spreadsheets in the classroom. For example, I could have the students create a spreadsheet showing the amount of precipitation in a certain biome during each season. That way, they could show it on a graph which is a great visual way to present information. For me, I use it in the classroom to determine such things as groups for classroom projects and even for random seating arrangements. Another example would be to use it for science labs as far as figuring out materials needed for different sized groups.

Ch 3

After reading chapter three, I was inspired to try some new things. I have sent in the info to gaggle to set up my students with an email account that I can monitor. I also went ahead and contacted a teacher from a school where I used to work in Milwaukee (Atlas Prep). My hope is that we can do some collaboration between the two schools much like what was done in Ch 3 by Mr. Finley's class. Even though I have not thought about what project we would do together, I thought I should get the ball rolling. I also found that the geomar.de/omc site was a great map creation site for students. It just so happens that I had my students create maps of Egypt this week so I have included a link to that site on my classroom website. http://teacherweb.com/WI/TJMS/MrCowen/t.stm
Here is a question, should teachers maintain their own websites? What are some good ones to use? I tried this teacherweb.com and it is $40 per year. That seemed reasonable since their site has many lessons and webquests.

Very interesting video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

During the first week of class we looked at some graphics programs. For example, we looked at Face in Hole, Go Animate, Inage Chec and Toon Doo just to name a few. It was fun to put our faces in the characters in the Face in Hole but I do not think I would be able to use that for my class due to the fact that they had some pictures that were not appropriate for 6th graders. (Hugh Heffner with some scantily dressed girls) I also uploaded a powerpoint to Empresser and had some fun with that. I can see how that would be very useful for presentations in the classroom. I also used the 280 slide program and created a short presentation for about my class.
I must say that the option to save to the net is what really interested me. I have a computer at home, one at work, one for class, and visit computers all over the place. It amazes me that we can now save large amounts of infomation to the net and be able to access it from anywhere we want.

Hello there!

I am still trying to figure this blog thing out. For some reason my posts did not show up the first time.

Intro To The Internet

Hello there!

This is my first attempt at creating a blog. I have learned about things that I never knew existed before!

So far it has been a real eye opener about the many things I need to learn about computers and the internet. This is a bit of a transition for me since I came to teaching after working in the trades for years.

Have a great day!

Mr. Cowen