completed week 14

I completed the following:

• Complete the University Course Evaluation in RouteY
• Complete the Course Feedback Survey
• Check grades in Moodle and let the instructor know if there is anything that seems incorrect.

week 13 - Internet Safety

Relfection:

1. I read the article by Mario Hipol called, Fighting Internet Filth.

2. I watched the video series from PBS called, Growing Up Online. I watched the following segments: Living Their Lives Essentially Online, A Revolution in Classrooms and Social Life, The Childe Predator Fear, Private Worlds Outside Parents' Reach, Cyber Bullying, and Updates.

3. One of the most important 'take-aways' from the readings and the videos for me is that parents play a huge role in how their children react to things on the internet. I think that parenting makes a huge difference in children's lives. I think that there needs to be a balance of how much time the children are aloud on the internet, and how much time they spend doing things that teach them about the bigger things in life, and how to be responsible (like working during the summers.) If you have too much control over your kids in what they do, they will become more rebellious. If you have too little control, then they will do what they want to do, and may get into serious trouble that way. Finding a balance that works for you and your children is really the key.

4. My husband already knows about cyber bullying. He had watched a show about it. Also, he already knows about the potential predators online. He has seen shows and read the news about all of the problems that happen as a result of being online. We talked about the amounts of control that parents have with their children being a huge factor in the things that happen to kids regarding the internet. We talked about finding a balance in the amount of control you have over your kids, and what kinds of effects that has. We also discussed how we want to deal with things, involving our own children and what kinds of parents we want to be. I felt good and calm about the way that my husband responded. Nothing really surprised me about his reaction. I know what kind of person he is, and that he is really smart. We have a lot in common, especially regarding social things. We have talked about things like this before, so I knew that his reaction would be similar to mine. I know that my husband will communicate with me any concerns that he has with our children regarding their use of the internet. Also, I know that we will try to be the best parents for our children, being responsible for them in every way.

fixed TPAK report

week 12 - TPAK REPORT

week 10 and 11 posting

One major thing that I learned from watching the videos is about having the students use technology in the classroom is that it keeps students actively involved. For example, in the first video, the teacher had been teaching her class about spiders. She had the children go outside and use cameras to take pictures of spiders. I thought that this was a very appropriate piece of technology to use, because the students were able to get up and moving and see spiders in real life. This way, the students had the opportunity to stay excited and interested in learning about spiders. It also took the children into the real world, where spiders naturally live.

In the second video, the teacher read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to the children to demonstrate patterns. Then she had them all help make their own similar book, only the subject being travel, to demonstrate their understanding of patterns in books. I thought that this was also a great tool to help the children stay active and involved in the lesson.

Overall, I learned from these videos that technology can be used in a variety of age-appropriate ways to keep the students actively involved and excited to learn about the subject being taught. Technology can help the students learn more when it is used in an age-appropriate way, by getting the children up and moving, keeping their minds focused on the lesson and keeping them excited about what is being taught.

These are my three lesson plans:

Sarah Peterson - Language Arts Lesson Plan

Sarah Peterson - Science Lesson Plan

Sarah Peterson - Math Lesson Plan

Week 9

I noticed that each classroom has a projector, overhead, one computer and a tape/CD player with headphones. I think that that amount of technology is perfect for a first grade classroom. First grade is mostly filled with learning how to read, write and the beginnings of math. All of this needs a lot of teacher to student interaction. Any more technology could get in the way of the learning process.

I completed both the mid-course evaluation and the informed consent form.

PLE week 8

I watched the following people's projects:
Becky Ferguson
Katherine Kerr
Brooke Stevenson

I learned a lot from my peers voicethreads. I think that using technology with teaching science makes the subject so much more interesting to the students. All of the hands-on activities (with the technology) will be able to help the children learn more from the lesson taught than if it were taught with just a lecture. Technology helps the children be able to connect what is being taught with their every day real world. Therefore, they will be able to automatically keep their newly gained knowledge in their long-term memory. All of the different ideas for the different types of technology make it fu nfor the students, and helps them to learn more about the subject than without using the technology.

week 8

This is my voicethread. I did it on the 2nd grade, standard 3, objective 2, indicator d for science. The students are supposed to be able to describe different weather patterns through drawing pictures of the different types of weather.

week 7

My voicethread will demonstrate to other elementary teachers and the administrators in a school district how the program Kidspiration can be used for a science project for kindergarteners. It will demonstrate how it can be fun and educational for the kindergarteners to learn about the seasons. I will specifically use the weather and the seasons activity in Kidspiration. This activity helps children organize what kind of weather each season has according to the state that they live in. This helps the children identify what seasons are and what each season is like. It has pictures on the left-hand side, which the children can drag the pictures of different types of weather to a square on the right-hand side, labled with the corresponding season.

The content that I will focus on for my science activity is the kindergarten Standard 3, objective 1 part a. This is learning to identify the seasons and to represent them by drawing pictures of the seasons.

I will be using 2 pedagogies, one is observing and the other is classifying. Both are a good fit with the content, because the children will have to observe and then classify types of weather conditions that coordinate with each season.

The technology I'll be using is Kidspiration. I think that this is a good fit with the content and the pedagogy, because of a few reasons. First, the students can go into the Science activities section and choose the "seasons" activity. This activity has different types of weather pictures and the students put the pictures into each group (each group is a different season.) This way, the students are able to observe the types of weather, and also classify them by putting them into the different seasons.

PLE week six

I commented on the following blogs:

http://techbrooke.blogspot.com/
http://betsy-elizabeth-rodriguez.blogspot.com/
http://julsosa.blogspot.com/

I think that there are a few upsides and a few downsides to virtual tours. I think that if we use them too often, the students will get bored and not learn what they are intended to learn. Also, I think that virtual tours can be too distracting. There are a lot of pictures and others things that the students can click on and get distracted with. And lastly, I think that if they are used, sometimes the kids learn more about the technology than about what the objective is. On the otherhand, if virtual tours are used correctly, I think that they can be beneficial. For instance, they could help students visualize the locations of events in history better than on a regular map. Also, they can "visit" places that most will never be able to visit, and thus get more out of the intended lesson. And lastly, the students could be more engaged through a virtual tour than in a lesson with just a regular map.

Week 6 assignments

My tour teaches one of the social studies standards. It teachers students how humans have effected the environment of Utah to meet their needs.

here's the virtual tour

and here's the link to the tour on my google site.
http://sites.google.com/site/mrssapsite/home/virtual-tour

Week 5 assignment (PLE is located in the 2 comments below the chart)

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1.Kennecott Copper Mine	Measure the length of the mine, and have students tell you how the mine has changed the environment, and how it has benefited people's lives.	use the ruler tool
2.Deer Creek Reservoir	Read the wikipedia page on the reservoir and have the students give reasons why the reservoir was made and what it is used for.	make sure the geographic web, wikipedia layer is turned on
3.UTA TRAX	Follow the lime green line that follows the length of the TRAX with the ruler tool. Why would people need to use public transportation for that distance?	use the curser to follow the lime green line, and make sure the geographic web, roads layer is turned on
4.Civilization	Look around Provo and find at least 4 different ways that humans have changed the environment to meet their needs or wants (i.e. neighborhoods, parks etc.)	make sure all of the geographic web layers are turned on.

week 4 assignments

This is my video. It is a mini documentary on Rosa Parks.

Week 3 assignments

TPAK is integrating technology with concepts in your teaching. Technology helps the teachers to get concepts taught more easily and thoroughly through cutting out the concepts that only hinder the learning environment. For example, a student who is assigned to study out a certain study or research project, through analyzing the data, and interpreting it and then making a graph or chart. The student can learn much more about analyzing, understanding and interpreting the data if the student is able to create the graph or chart on a computer. Less time is spent on the actual making of the graph or chart, and thus more of the student's time is focused on the analyzing, understanding and interpreting. Another example is a Geometer's Sketchpad. This helps students to better understand geometric relationships. And lastly, word processors help students to quickly record their thoughts for an essay, or something similar to an essay. The students can spend less time through typing, and therefore be able to write a thorough essay.

It is necessary for teachers to have TPAK knowledge, so they can more efficiently teach what is supposed to be taught and understood by the students, with less time focused on the tediousness of some tasks without the use of technology. The students are able to progress more quickly.


Here is a screen shot of my story board. The pictures and music are saved to my hard drive.

Week 2 assignments

I think the most important thing from what we learned this week was the google calendar. I think that it will be an easy and productive use of technology as a teacher. I think it is helpful to have a place that will be easy and quick to add important things to the calendar. It can also be an easy access for students to keep track of when things are due. Also, I think that it is nice that it will send you emails to remind you of what you have planned for specific days.

my website url is: http://sites.google.com/site/mrssapsite

my technology background

I have had a computer class in college, not here at BYU, but at a college in Michigan. I learned about all of the microsoft programs. I can use the internet pretty well. I think I am an average college student.