Week 14

The two applications I reviewed are google documents and picnik.

Google Docs is an innovative app that I see being extremely useful in the classroom. As a teacher, I could see it being used as a class-wide resource that can be edited by students throughout the year. This can be all sorts of different file types, too! I think that Google Docs is a wonderful and green alternative to communication within a group. A specific example of this would be to set up a spreadsheet of data and for homework have each child enter his or her data on the spreadsheet.

Picnik is the second app I chose to review. Picnik is a photo editing app that allows users to add text, change colors, and crop photos, among other things. I think that there may be some use for this in the classroom, however I am finding a hard time pinpointing a specific scenario. I think that a class may be able to use this for an art project or maybe a teacher could use this to make a photo collage of their class. Outside of those, I feel that this wouldn't serve too much of a purpose in the classroom.

week 11

A little bit on Kalamazoo.


This would be an example of a students work from a fourth grade class learning about the geography and history of Michigan. While the wording may be a little lengthy for a fourth grader, this is the general idea I have in mind!

Week 10

This concept mapping would be used with students in lower elementary to describe some of their favorite places and things to do. This would be done as a whole class with the teacher controlling the web-app. This would help show students how to organize their ideas.

This screencast is made for a research paper. This will show students how to set up a email alert system for a topic that they are researching. This tool essentially does to the researching for them. Quite a handy tool. This would also help with all future research done in the class!

Week 8 option 2

View Student Sample in a larger map


For this activity I would have students create their own map drawing out the routes taken during the transatlantic slave trade. We would spend time on the subject and on how to create out own google maps. This all would take place over the course of a week. Each student would be responsible to for color coding and labeling each route and what they were used for.

As you can see in the sample, I have labeled all of the routes and what they were used for. I would expect something similar from each student.

Week 7

http://www.screencast.com/users/nerfherder/folders/Mental%20Math%20Secrets%20-%20Your%20Secret%20Weapon%20for%20Success


This blog provides tips on how to solve more complicated math problems mentally.

View Larger Map

Week 5

Sorry for the hiatus.

http://picasaweb.google.com/slocum.ken


Ken

Week 2

RSS and blogging are both things I have taken advantage of before. I find both to be really useful in communicating with others and staying current on what others have to say. RSS is a neat idea because with a feed, like Google Reader, you can always have up to date information in front of you without having to fish for it.

Blogs are nice because it provides an easy outlet for people to express their opinions and possibly have those opinions reach the masses!

I think that the part of Dale's cone that RSS and blogs lend themselves to best is the exhibit. I say this because RSS is something of an exhibit. The reader can not manipulate what the feed has to offer them. All they can do is sit down and see what other people have to offer.

I think that blogs fall into the category of first hand experiences. I say this because the blog is something somebody is creating, first hand. This provides learning at the most basic of levels.

An imaginative use for a blog could be that of science museum. With proper tagging, a blog could take advantage of the web and take users to only the posts they would like to see. If this were a science blog, I would tag all of the posts about plants with the tag "plants" and same with insects, etc. This would provide the user the ability to avoid sifting through the myriad of information in the blog.

An imaginative use for RSS would be the same of organizing information and bypassing the hassle of browsing. With Google Reader there is a "recommended" link. Click on that and it can take you to all sorts of places you are or could be interested in. No more only reading the paper for the one or two interesting stories!

Assignment 1

After reading these two articles I must say that I tend to side with the opinion that is pro-advancement of technology in the classroom today.
While I think that not all advancement is positive, I think that Reigeluth has most of it right. The forward thinking that really drew me to his opinion was the old trend of the boss being "king" to the customer being "king". As a business owner, I think that trend of thinking is an important role to succeeding today.

However, using that thinking in the classroom may be ineffective. I think that while we should cater to students different types of learning, the teacher should ultimately be king and respected as such.

I think that Postman is out of touch with reality here. While I think that schools are nowhere near a point where they could be replaced, I think that "information glut" as he calls it, is nowhere near as bad as he thinks it is. While the advent of the internet has drastically opened up the ways in which we recieve information, if we carefully pick how we gather said information one can absorb it in a non-gluttonous way.