Standards Reflection 3

Standard 3-Learning Environments Technology allows students to work individually as well as cooperatively. Wikispaces gives students the opportunity to respond to questions online when they may not raise their hand to contribute to a class discussion or give an answer. It also allows students to write collaboratively each entering their interpretation of a piece of literature,book chapter summaries, a "novel in an hour" lesson, too many options to write down. Students have assigned print colors so that the teacher can determine who has written what and how each student contributes to the whole. When students can find their niche whether it is as a leader who influences others, or a quiet contributor who would rather not draw attention to him/herself, technology seems to find an outlet for creativity, confidence, disabilities,????? Many I'm sure I have never heard or thought of!

QUIZLET-FAST-FUN-EASY-FREE

I chose to use Quizlet for my chapt 20-22 tool. I use it all the time and it has served my purpose well. There are some new features that are pretty interesting and look like fun for students, will have to give them try! Quizlet is a great way to study and learn subject vocabulary. I mostly use the hard copy version of the flashcards but want to incorporate the interactive features. I like that once you create an account quizlet keeps track of the vocab sets you have created. You can also look for already created sets for any subject. I have had great luck finding sets that go with my school's reading adoption "Storytown" Seems like a lot of unfortunate districts use that as their reading curriculum lol. Anyway, students can go online and study words using interactive games, learn correct pronunciation, and work on spelling of the terms. It is a great tool to create quizzes and gives you t/f, multiple choice, matching, and fill in answers options.

AVATAR FUN!

Creating an avatar was fun! Everything is fun if it isn't hard, right?? Well, creating my rottweiler Enforcer will enable me to play rules, for example, to students who haven't quite got school rules down pat. My voice restating rules over and over becomes much like Charlie Brown hearing adults talking as blah blah blah. So in order to get student's attention we must sadly entertain them, so emerges the avatar. I guess teachers must do what they must do in order to get content or ideas across. Next I will try virtual worlds!

Standards Reflection 2

Standard 8-Instructional Strategies Using a variety of instructional strategies is just good teaching. All students learn differently and since we now live in a technology based environment it only makes sense that students would like to learn from methods derived from technology. Using programs such as Yodio, You Tube, Avatars, and audio programs draw student's attention. Hands on, text driven, daily 5,and technology need to be used to hold interest and keep students engaged.

Standards Reflection 1

Standard 6-Assessment Using technology to access students gives teachers the ability to personalize tests to what their students have been studying. Giving students diverse opportunities for testing also enables all students to show their degree of comprehension of a subject. Summative assessment is crucial for teachers to measure students learning or lack there of. This also makes teacher workload lighter if you use a program that will score student's work and enter it in a grade book. Also, being able to create rubrics for assignments and projects makes students aware of what is exactly being assigned and graded. This helps take the subjectivity out of grading!

RULES REVISITED

School Rules Avatar