Week 8

Multicultural education is incredibly important as we continue to become a global community.  Already students are reaching across continents through the internet, engaging in social situations, whether they are playing a multi-player game or commenting on a project created by another student.  However, not all students have these opportunities.  Even though many homes and schools are technology rich there are still places that are not plugged in.  The teacher needs to be aware of these needs and address them.

 The school where I teach is a homogeneous setting so I need to make sure that I include information about other cultural traditions in my lessons.  The curriculum used at our school includes several lessons about different cultures whether it is learning about holidays in different countries or a lesson on the Native American’s way of life.  Younger elementary students are especially interested in learning how students their age study, sports they play and what they do in their free time.

I liked the idea of using the calendar as a lesson to understand different cultures and finding out why different people use different calendars.  I actually did not realize that there were four different ones, so I would have to build my background knowledge first.

Virtual Field trip

Decoding History: a virtual field trip to Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History Hosted by David Baldacci author of the latest 39 Clues book.

http://decodinghistory.scholastic.com/?cid=STG/e/20130304///39Webcast-Reminder/Header///RET/1467043/&ym_MID=1467043&ym_rid=19096395

 

This virtual field trip took students on a behind -the- scenes look at important artifacts from U.S. history.  The tour focused on four artifacts; Lewis and Clark’s compass, the Star Spangled Banner, pottery from David Drake, and President Lincoln’s pocket watch.

Full scoop on this virtual tour on my wiki, social studies page.

Week 7

I remember learning about wikis in our technology class first semester. I really did not understand why you would need to create one, however revisiting them now I can see the value in having your own wiki.  I have already been adding resources to my wiki pages and I find it to be a great way to organize these sites.  You can add the main idea of the website to your page so it is easier to find when you are in need of them.  Our school is just beginning to embrace technology so I think that creating a wiki for my classroom would be a great opportunity for me to share information with my students and their families.  Maybe a few other teachers will join too.
As for the web 2.0 resources it is again overwhelming there are so many tools out there to choose from.  I enjoyed searching for practical ones for my classroom, I did find some but the time it takes to check them out limits the amount I can look at.  I understand the benefits of technology but I am still concerned about the amount time and energy it consumes.

Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?

I feel this class is like a roller coaster of ups and downs.  I become slightly optomistic towards using technology and  then I become discouraged when I have trouble working with it.  This past lesson Pete and I decided to create a Prezi. It was a lot of fun playing with the website and it was easy to use.  You can really be very creative.  Then came the part of creating the flip video.  Sophia was not as easy to work with, even after watching the video on how to use Sophia, I felt completely lost.  But I did not give up, I rewatched the video again and this time it made a little more sense.  Then after I downloaded Java I could start.  Many restarts later I had a finished product, unfortunately I think I didn't work the microphone quite right so you have to turn your speakers up and I messed up the frame so the edit path part of Prezi is off the screen. So I'm back to square one again. 
UP and DOWN I go on this rollercoaster ride called TECHNOLOGY.