The Tech Savvy Teacher

For my science challenge, I used principles we learned about TPACK to better present a lesson I could teach to a third grade class.  The content I focused on in my lesson was from the Utah State Core Objective 2.  In this objective, students learn how to classify living and non-living things in an environment.  The criteria that the UEN Website gives to classify an organism as living is that it has to be able to grow, move, and reproduce.  

The pedagogy aspect of this TPACK lesson comes in that to be able to teach effectively, a teacher must use their environment to their advantage.  Taking pictures of the environment around or in the school takes only a little time before you can again gather your class to discuss their findings.  The technology used in the lesson was to use digital cameras to obtain data and information.  The great thing about using pictures as data for an experiment is that the data does not change.  It is a constant variable that the class is able to refer to during discussion and it helps the visual learners in the classroom make a connection with data that they can see.  Putting it all together was not as difficult as it seemed to me at first.  I think that that is an important lesson for me to learn as a future teacher.  Even though I do not have an extensive background in using technology, I can still apply technology techniques to make the learning atmosphere of my classroom up to date.  The students feel ownership for the data if they are able to take the pictures of the data themselves.  I really enjoyed seeing and applying what I have learned about TPACK into creating a lesson that is realistic to use in my future classroom. 

Science/Math Challenge

I am experimenting using technology to increase the effectiveness in my science lessons in the classroom. There are many technological resources that have been created for enhanced instruction in the classroom. For my experiment, I am using basic computer knowledge to fulfill a third grade science curriculum objective.

3rd Grade Science Project: Is it dead or alive?

Objective: Classify living and non-living things in an environment.

For this experiment, I collected pictures of things we see in our environment everyday. All the things we see are either living or non-living organisms. So, how do we know which things are living and which things are not? To find the answer to this question, I examined the pictures below that would be found in the environment we are surrounded in each day to determine what classified an organism as living or non-living.

This leaf is a living organism because it can grow, it can move, and it can reproduce.

Water is an element that can move and it can change form, but it can not grow or reproduce so it is classified as a non-living organism.

Flies and all other animals and insects, including humans are living organisms, they have the ability to grow, move, and reproduce.

Trees and all plant life are living organisms. They can grow, move, and reproduce.

Brick is not classified as a living organism because it can not grow, move, or reproduce on its own.

The different characteristics that make an organism living are that they have to be able to grow, move, and reproduce. The characteristics for a non-living organism is that they are not able to grow, move, and reproduce.

By taking digital pictures and using that data to observe the different characteristics of things the students would learn how technology can make the study of science easier. By taking pictures of organisms in their environment, the students are able to refer back to those pictures in many different areas. This makes teaching easier because you do not have to leave the classroom for long to do an entire lesson. By taking pictures and bringing them back to be observed, the data is also in hard copy form. The students are able to organize the data they have collected easier because they can refer back to a specific picture easily to identify its characteristics.

Photos were taken from:
Fly: thekebun.files.wordpress.com
Leaf: www.greengeek.ca
Brick: www.freefoto.com
Tree: www.evergreenspecies.com
Water Bottle: southernfriedfatty.wordpress.com

Stellarium

We had the chance to explore the Stellarium program during class. I thought that this was such a cool program. I remember doing a science project where I was supposed to observe the phases of the moon every night and record what we saw. Sometimes the nights were cloudy or I forgot so I just made up what I thought it was supposed to look like. This was not the most effective or correct way to do the project. Stellarium is a program that doesn't give you an actual view of the sky, but a simulated view of the sky. I thought it was so handy to be able to change the view and where you were on the earth. It was useful to be able to speed up time and see all the phases of the moon in a minute. I think that this program would be very helpful to present the phases of the moon, or the rotation of the stars, or many different things about the heavens.

TPACK

Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge. First of all that is a mouthful, but it is really useful information to know as I am about to enter the teaching field. As I was learning about the different relationships between my technological knowledge, my pedagogical knowledge and my content knowledge, I realized that I have a lot of different things to balance. To me, a really good teacher has to have all three aspects of knowledge to teach effectively. Personally, I need to continue to work on how I can improve my knowledge of technology to be able to teach in an effective way. Technology is such a big part of childrens lives right now and as a teacher, I need to be able to teach them how to use tools that will help them in their future. I think that it shows good pedagogical knowledge when a teacher can teach the content using technology. When all three of these are combined to make TPACK, the ability for the teacher to get the content across to their students multiplies. I want to be able to become more technologically sound so that I can apply this knowledge into my own teaching in the future.

Web 2.0 Wow. . . who knew!

So today we explored how to do RSS feeds and we made a Goodreads account and a Delicious account. I never knew that computers could do so many crazy things. I've decided that RSS is going to extremely useful as a future teacher. I can see why so many school districts are moving toward getting information out to their teachers using this tool because you skip all of the Spam and stuff that doesn't apply to you. It's definitely more user friendly when you are trying to search through all the information available on the internet.

So, this class could be interesting for me. I have almost no technology experience except a typing class in 7th grade. However, for my work I do use a computer often. This will be a great course to help me out!