Glogster

Here's another fun web2.0 teaching tool. Glogster is an interactive poster that the user can create for basically anything. I think this can be a very useful resource for teaching as you (the teacher) can creat a Glogster Poster that is related to the topics you are covering and have the students interact with it to learn more about your lesson outside of class time. I also plan on using it as a way to have students display their research on various topics or subjects. As a group project, it will allow the students to work together and be creative, while also fulfilling the task of learning about whatever it is they are set to research. My problem with creating a Glogster poster is that I'm not the most artistic when it comes to creating appealing visual elements, so my first glogster poster seems to be a bit of an eye sore. Well to me it does anyways. Feel free to check it out here. The theme is Halloween, which of course would be used in October to help teach about the traditions of the holiday as well as a bit of science thrown in with information on bats.

PBL Project

For the past week, Kaitlin, Melissa and I worked on our PBL Video Project. It was a lot of fun and I really hope to find a way to incorporate that into a classroom. I did however come up with some good ideas for field trip sand projects based on the Civil War. We are basically in the heart of Civil War battlefields and realized that not enough schools utilize this resource enough. These are basically free field trips that are highly educational. I think the students would love going out and exploring/ discovering a place such as Stones River Battlefield and learning about what happened there 140+ years ago. One project I thought about doing would be to have the students pick out some names from the grave and see if they can find any information about those names and where they came from and what group they fought for. I think this would be a fun project as well, just to see what the students could come up with.

If you feel like checking out our video just click here. 

Teaching & Technology Issue pt. 3

So with the advent and popularity of popular sites such as Wikipedia, how can you tell if the information you are reading is accurate or not? That is what I have been researching over the past couple of weeks. And to tell you honestly, there is no real way other than looking at multiple resources and checking to see the credibility of the website or article itself to see if it is sponsored or in affiliation with a credible organization. Use your gut instinct if something seems to be 'off', there's a chance that it might warrant looking somewhere else, or at least referring to a different site to confirm the validity of the information. The website www.internetfamilyfun.com has another 'laundry list' of ways to check a sites reliability. They mention that the appearance of the site alone can help determine the validity. They use the example of 18th Century History and going to a site that has lots of cartoony pictures on it, might not be the best source of information. Does the site content match the site aesthetics? If not, you might be better off checking a different site. In conclusion, in order to find out the reliability of internet information, there are a few things to be aware of:
Who (if sponsored) is the site affiliated with?
What does the web domain end in? If it's .gov, .edu, or .(state initials), then it's more than likely legit.
Does the site or article author explain his/her credentials?
Does the site appearance reflect that of the content?
Was the info published and if so by whom?

These are just a few things to check for, but the best advice I could find and offer is to check multiple sources for reliability and accuracy. And don't forget to reference text books and other print media for confirming the accuracy of information.

Teaching & Technology Issue pt. 2

So far, my research about how to tell if the information found on the internet is accurate and reliable has led me to believe that there is no one true way to tell. There are many signs to look for to see if the information comes from a reliable source. The main thing to look for is to see if the site references or is sponsred in any part by an organization that you know is reliable, say, The FDA, for example. If you are looking up information about food safety and nutrition and come across a website that says it is sponsored by the FDA, then there is a good chance it is legit. But, at the same time you can not let that be the only way to tell, especially with the availability of website creators and editors, it would not take much to slap an FDA logo on the page and say it's legit. Be vigilant and do some research. You might also want to check out the FDA's site, as well as a few others to clarify that the info you seek is accurate. John Hopkins University has a great write-up on their library page that helps explain numerous ways to tell if the information you are looking at is reliable or fraudulent. Check out their site here.

Teaching & Technology Issue

I was thinking, what kind of issue would I want to research for a Teaching & Technology Issues blog. Then I though, there's all kinds of information out there on the internet, so how can you tell what is legit information and what is phony garbage or incomplete biased information? And, how can you teach students how to wade through the bad to get down to the good stuff? I'll be looking into that over the next few weeks and post my findings here, so keep a look out to see if anything might be worth using or teaching in your classroom.

Google Junkie

So, I guess this is my first official blog, so welcome. I just submitted my classroom website to D2L and I think it turned out pretty awesome. It was a fun learning experience. I've used google sites before, albeit a couple of years ago and I didn't go that in depth with it, but they have added a ton of really cool features and the best part is that it's extremely user friendly. I learned how to work my way around Picassa Photo Editor, which was fun and easy. I'm not much of a picture kind of guy, but it was very simple and made editing pretty easy. I'll definitely use it again in the future. All through this experience, I have been turned on to google and everything they have to offer. I am especially excited about their Documents suite which parallels that of Microsoft Office, but now I don't need to worry about saving files to a jump drive or emailing them to myself. I can just get on any computer, sign in to google and Bam! there it is ready for me to edit, print or share. I am officially a google junkie.

Creating a website.

We've begun to create classroom websites using google's site maker. It's a pretty easy and user friendly way to make a website. There's a ton of neat features that you can add and they allow you to easily incorporate google calendar's, pictures and other stuff that you could use in teh class room. I think this will be very useful once I start teaching, as I will be able to use it to help engage students in the classroom, as well as posting homework and other info on the site such as field trip permission forms, school happenings, etc. Not only will this be beneficial to students, it will also be helpful for the parents to keep informed and active in their child's education. Check it out at www.google.com and just click on the sites link at the top. You will get addicted, I promise you that much.