Week 8 PLE

I watched the following science challenge voicethreads:

http://rkalilimoku.blogspot.com/

http://rkfergipt287.blogspot.com/

http://sarahannepeterson.blogspot.com/

From these, I learned a great deal about incorporating different technologies into the science curriculum. Since I didn't have a chance to try every program or tool, it was great to see some other tools and ways of incorporating both the same science objective I used or different ones. It was interesting to see the different activities that people came up with to teach science. I definitely think that all of these are very valuable tools because they can really make science more hands on and fun for the students. I also liked that some of the tools are very easy for the teacher to use and don't require a ton of prep time. I hope that I will be able to use some of these different technologies in my teaching!

Science Challenge Voicethread

My technology enhanced science activity will be about the phases of the moon. My students will do a whole unit on the moon and will observe and draw the moon each night from a new moon to a full moon. We will have a class discussion about the different shapes of the moon and why the moon is different shapes. The class will learn about the relative position of the earth, moon, and sun for a new moon, full moon, half moon, and three quarter moon.

i. The content I will be focusing on with my science activity is 6th grade standard 1, objective 2, part c which is modeling the different positions of the earth, sun, and moon.

ii. The pedagogy that this will focus on is constructing. This is a hands on learning activity where the students will construct the different positions and relationships of the sun, the moon, and the earth for each of the shapes of the moon.

iii. The content I will be using is Kidsperation. This is a great fit with the content because it has built in templates for concept mapping of a variety of different science concepts including the phases of the moon. It also fits well with the pedagogy because it allows the students to model, on the computer, the different positions of the sun, moon, and earth.

Oh also... As my optional article, I read the "Just Leave it Alone" under the media section.

Week 14 PLE

I was one who thought we only had to read one article for the Internet Safety so I went back and corrected that.

I completed 2-4, the course evaluation, survey, and checked my grades.

Here are the links to my three lesson plans.

Literacy lesson

Science lesson

Math lesson

Week 13 PLE: TPACK Report

IPT 301 Week 9

I thought that the module on moral development was very interesting. I was eager to learn about the different stages of moral development because being a member of the church, I have always wondered about moral issues when considering people's moral and immoral actions. I was especially interested in the section about advancing moral development because I have always attributed my moral beliefs and behaviors to my religious beliefs but recently I have been thinking a lot about my friend who seems to follow the same basic moral code but does not have the guidelines set forth by the church. I learned that a lot of moral development is advanced in the family context. This was both reassuring to me because there are multiple ways that people can learn moral conduct but also scary as there are many families that don't seem to instill moral behaviors in their children in the home. I also deeply hope that I will be able to instill appropriate moral reasoning and behavior in my students as a teacher and make a difference in the student's lives who may not be getting practice on these moral issues in the home.

Week 14: Internet Safety Assignment

I chose to read the article Provident Living Guidelines for Internet Safety.

I watched the real life stories videos on Netsmartz, the FauxPaw video, and some PBS documentaries on cyberbullying.

One of my most important take-aways from the videos was how easy it is to find out a person’s personal information even when they are very careful not to give this information out on the internet. We need to be very careful about posting any information on any internet website. I was also glad to see that my family follows most of the guidelines listed in the Provident living article. I was very surprised at how big of a problem cyber bullying is and feel that it is important to teach students the huge impact that internet communication can have on people.

Reflection: I interviewed a thirteen year old boy who spends a lot of time on the internet mostly playing video games. He already knew most of the things that I researched regarding internet safety. He could tell me that you should have your computer in a place where other people could always see it and that you should always have permission to get on the internet when no one is home to supervise you. He was also able to describe to me the family blocker that was installed on his home computer to avoid any pop ups or other websites deemed inappropriate for a variety of reasons. He also knew that you should not share any information including your age or your school over the web. I also asked him about cyber bullying and he agreed that you should not say anything to anyone over the internet that you would not say to their face. However, he did mention that he thought it was dumb that anyone would kill themselves over something that was said over the internet. I talked to him a little about having proper internet etiquette and being very careful about what you say to anyone including your friends because some people can be very sensitive. He then agreed that he wouldn’t be mean to anyone over the internet. It seems that this boy already knows a lot about internet safety but I do believe that he will take a few things away from what I said and hopefully be even more careful in the future.