Friday, May 20, 2011

Google Earth/Finding My Home

I tried to fly to my address but there was no house there.  My house just got done getting built last May so it's not on google earth yet.  My coordinates are 41 degrees North and 103 degrees West and the elevation 3884 feet.  Students would love to see their own house on google earth, especially for elementary students.  You could incorporate math into the elevtion and ask how many more feet do they have to add to reach a mile high in education and how different it is to live at a higher elevation.  You could use science to determine why it's harder to breath in higher elevations and why the humidity is lower at higher elevations. 

Google Earth/Historical Imagery

I have used Google Earth before and have been able to see some very interesting things.  I have never used the 3D option though, that was very cool to use around stadiums and in big cities.  The historical imagery was also new to me, it was a little blurry and hard to see some of the buildings and roads.  This would be very useful for students from 3rd grade on up to see how each city has changed over time, what New York looked like before 9/11.  It would be useful in small towns such as Scottsbluff for the students to go see how this town has grown over time and what areas have been developed over the years.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Photography

Grade and Subject: 5th grade/physical education

Project: Capture pictures of all of the physical activities done at home for one week.  At the end of the week the students will compare each others photos and decide what 5 activities they would like to do on a regular basis and then make a list of what activities would burn the most calories or energy. 

Critical Thinking: When they look at which activity burns the most calories it will force them to look at every activity and think about how hard it is to perform and which one uses the entire body and the duration of each exercise. 

I edited two pictures in this list, I edited the boy and father playing catch by enhancing the sharpness and I edited the children dancing using duotone and used befunky.com. 






Netiquette

Digital citizenship is teaching our new, up and coming, and existing Internet users proper uses of technology and to not abuse your online rights.  Internet netiquette in general is the proper online behavior in certain social sites such as facebook, twitter, or a simple blog.  Technology is a great resource and necessity in today’s society but it leaves me wondering how it is affecting social skills.  Back when I was growing up, when we wanted to talk to somebody we found them and talked to them face to face or over the phone. 
The Internet is a very useful tool to gain knowledge and learn things that aren’t taught in the classroom.  Most parents think of netiquette as choosing appropriate sites to look at and to make good choices on the Internet.  Most of that is true, but we tend to tell students or show them examples of proper netiquette in the classroom and at home.  Students also need to know about the privacy and proper etiquette in emails.  One website mentions that, don't type in capital letters--it's considered shouting and when posting to a discussion group, don't ramble off the topic (Kendall Hamilton, 1997, para. 6) So basically Internet etiquette is very similar to face to face etiquette, I don’t want to be screamed at and I don’t want to be in a meeting and listen to somebody ramble on about off the topic issues.  My child should learn these in real life so they can become a good digital citizen and make the right choices in online social forums. 
We also need to realize email is another form of communication and some people may take the email a different way than what was intended.  As a parent I want my child to know how he/she is coming off in his/her email or discussion boards.  You can't look across the room in a discussion board and judge their body language or expressions to what you said.  Joe Grimm who wrote an article on email and etiquette says, "Remember that, with email, the sender has little control over what it looks like to the receive" (Joe Grimm, 2000, para. 4).  This is what our children need to realize at a young age so when they get older they understand what kind of weight our words carry and how it might sound to somebody on the other end of the email.
Our children must learn that since they can't be seen that the person on the other end is forming an opinion based on the words they write.  Martha Duffy in 1997 made an excellent point when she says, "No one can guess how old or rich or good looking anyone is; people can be judged only by the way they represent themselves." (para. 2)  This is an excellent way to look at how we should view ourselves when it comes to email or blogs or a group discussion.  Whether we like it or not, people are always forming opinions about us and if we give them a reason to form a misconception then it is our fault.

Bibliography

Duffy, M. (200). Miss Manners on Basic Training. Notes on Etiquette , 40.
Grimm, J. (2000). Ebsco Host. Email and Etiquette , 40.
Hamilton, K. (1997). Internet Etiquette. Communication and Etiquette , 14.

 

Wunderground

I did my wunderground activity on Nantucket Massachusetts, I accidentally got bumped back to April 8th instead of May 8th so the temps are a little cooler than now.  I thought it would have rained more there than it did in April.  I found that the humidity fluctuates throughout the years and it tends to be very high.  The wind stays pretty steady at about 10-15 mph and the temperature in early April is pretty cool and with the humidity it may make it cold.  I would love to visit this place in July when it’s hot and swim in the cool ocean and experience what it would be like to live in Nantucket when it’s warm.  I get enough of the cold out here so I would like it to be warm when I go out there.

Prezi Chris Urwiller

The Prezi website is a great way to keep it interactive as you present and not keep it so redundant and boring.  It will keep the students attention and also be informative, it keeps moving and showing different parts of the presentation which will help keep students attention.  This is very easy to use, the tutorial helped but if you just play with Prezi long enough you start to figure out little short cuts to making an excellent presentation about any topic you can come up with.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Wikipedia Comparison

I searched bull shark in wikipedia and in brittanica and found wikipedia was much more user friendly and had many key words to segway into other topics being discussed on the page.  Wikipedia just kept giving you information as you scrolled down, whereas britannica made you click on certain tabs to display other topics.  When I searched the same topic in simple English on Wiki it took the information and shrunk it down so younger readers could read and understand this topic.  I think with all of those big words younger students would become overwhelmed and disinterested in the topic right away. 

Story Chris Urwiller

This would be a great way to put the students in charge of teaching a specific skill in the classroom.  It would put them in charge and allow them to think outside the box and teach it like they would learn it.  I think we as educators could find out how our students learn by letting them show us how they would teach a lesson or develop a story like this.  This could be a great assessment to see how a student develops his/her own ideas on a certain topic of their choice or one that has been assigned to them.

Wiki Chris Urwiller

Wiki is an excellent way to keep many people organized and keeping everybody on the same page (literally).  In a physical education setting my students could list the best games for hand eye coordination, fitness, foot eye coordination and so on.  This would allow students to see the changes made by other students in different classes.

Google Doc

I did my research on John F. Parker, he was the man who left his post to go have a drink when President Lincoln was shot.  It was very interesting reading up on this man and to learn how security has changed from then to now.  It's amazing to me that they would have a police officer that was known for sleeping and drinking on the job to guard the most powerful man in the United States. 

Youtube Video

This was very helpful to save the video to a flash and be able to take it to school since our district has youtube blocked.  This also gives me the ability to play videos on a computer with a flash drive when I don't have internet access.  The steps to saving it and converting it were confusing but in the end it turned out to be a simple resolution to the problem.

Technology issues

Each of my classes are 22 minutes long, this gives me very little time to use technology in PE.  If I were to have the students spend time researching on the computer about certain health topics that could be beneficial.  My belief is that they already spend 6 hours a day at their desk or on a computer and that’s not counting the time they spend on their computers at home, so it should be a time for each student to move and learn in a kinesthetic setting.  We have used pedometers in class and the kids really enjoyed competing against each other to see who could get the most steps in one class period.  I try to use the pedometers as much as possible to turn it into a math lesson at the end of the week with how many steps each class took throughout the entire week.