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.