Final

I have done steps 1-5 for the final week!

Thanks for everything Andrea!

Internet Safety

1. I really enjoyed the article Things As They Really Are by David A. Bednar. I also enjoyed the article "Mixed Signals" from the New Era in 2001 under the category of Internet. "Sanctify Yourselves" by Jeffery R. Holland from the 2000 Ensign under the category of Media.
   

2. I started by looking at the standards online at Utah Core Curriculum in order to see what was in the curriculum that students were being exposed to. From there I found the following site that was listed as an extra resource for most of the standards: Don't Buy It: Get Media Smart which included the following headings:
Advertising Tricks
Buying Smart
Your entertainment
What you can do

This is a website for kids that has so many links to finding out how to “Get Media Smart” ------

I found a lesson plan discussing how Iraq’s people live daily and how our media portrays it. It explains how the media can choose how to portray certain things in certain lights and teaches why media portrays things as it does.

1. Iraq Daily Lesson Plan
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   This video shows things that children are doing online and is a good resource for parents and teachers to connect with the students. It was a good reminder that some things are good from the internet, it is not all bad.
   Common Sense Video
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   IRCA This website has tips for families. It also has 10 tips for how to keep kids safe on the internet. It explains how to use parental control toolbar that can block adult-content while in child-mode and how to install the toolbar.
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   Just For Kids
   This site for kids called “Just for Kids” and includes info on how to be a smart surfer. The video I watch on this sight is in words for kids to understand and on tips what to do while on the internet.
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   Wired Kids
   This website is from “A Program of WiredSafety: The World's Largest Internet Safety, Help and Education Organization.” I found the link through Disney.com, which is very child-friendly, who is in partnership with this organization. This has resources for kids of all ages.
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3. The most important thing I took away from this research is the view that the internet can be beneficial if used correctly. I found that there are many objectives in Media Curriculum that use technology for educational purposes. While I was looking for internet for things on internet safety I learned that there are a lot of good resources for teachers and parents to help children become safe as they look on the internet. I was happy to see that there are so many resources that are child friendly as well because children will be more likely to trust them than having to listen to an authority figure lecture. The article I read by David A. Bednar was very eye opening and made me realize what I can teach about for the children in my class. It was nice to be able to take away something spiritual from this research that I can adapt and think about as I plan my units. These children are also part of the rising generation even if they may not be members of the church and should have the opportunity to realize how the media works.

4. I spoke to my dad about what he knows about internet safety. He is familiar with social networking sights and has heard of things like "Second Life" but is not super familiar with them. He did know however that there are parental controls that can be installed to monitor or restrict what children can look at on the internet. He also had the opinion initially that children should be kept of the internet just for browsing. He mentioned that one thing he would note for children to learn is to not ever share personal information online.

His reaction to what I shared was that if there are ways to teach internet safety they should be taught a lot because the internet can be very dangerous. He was interested to know there were so many sights and that there are a lot of children who use the internet for good reasons. I think he reacted this way because when his children were in elementary school education did not use the internet barely at all.
reaction to what i shared

I was surprised by his reaction because I did not know how much he would know about internet safety. I was pleased to hear that he knew a lot about parental controls and levels of parental control. I was also surprised that when we got the internet installed he immediately put controls on it to help us stay clear of adult-content sights.

I think he will have a good reaction to what I told him. I also figure that he will be more open to using the internet with his grandchildren and helping them find positive ways to use the internet because it is an important skill in today's world.

Final TPACK Project

This is my final presentation of my TPACK report.

Here is the link to the presentation online:

http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=df3t8fgd_105fs5pxkt

Lesson Plans

Here are the links to the web pages containing my lesson plans!

Math
http://docs.google.com/View?id=df3t8fgd_9fqtb2tdn
Science
http://docs.google.com/View?id=df3t8fgd_8f8vzdnft
Language Arts/ Social Studies
http://docs.google.com/View?id=df3t8fgd_7gc5thwck

I already implemented the Language Arts/ Social Studies lesson in my classroom so I have that all taken care of. :)

Lessons With Technology

From watching all three of these videos and looking over the lesson plans, the most important thing I learned about technology is to use it alongside other resources. In the “I Love Spiders” unit, not only did they use the Spider Cams but they used art, charts, labels, literature, opinions, and the internet to learn more. Because they first took pictures of spiders, it created background knowledge that they could relate to in many different areas. This content was able to teach many different skills in a fun way that was not repetitive or too difficult. In the “Habitats” lesson, the children got to use creativity, higher-level thinking skills like creation, and work in groups while using technology. Using KidPix Deluxe, Nature 2.0, and www. EnchantedLearning.com the students worked together to produce a slide show of the organism the group created. This used multiple types of technology and taught the students to interact with different technologies and use them together to be more creative. In both lessons technology was not the main point of the lesson, rather it was a resource that helped the class achieve their objectives.

Technology at Foothill

I am very surprised at the lack of technology resources actually available for in class use at this school. I feel like the school has a lot of learning resources for other subjects and really large classrooms but not a lot of technology. We learned that most of the teachers bring their own computers to work and have purchased personally projectors to connect to them to use in the classroom.

The computer labs at the school are very well set up though and the students in our class have been working there almost every day. I am able to see how the classroom teacher can use the computers (to type poems, typing, math games) and how the technology teacher can inform the students about media literacy, the internet, how to be safe on it, how to use the internet, and how to use many different programs and software things.

I completed the first 3 parts of today's lesson.

Voice Thread of Science Lesson

Here is the Voice Thread I made describing the science lesson I made and giving examples of what the student would be looking at.

Stellarium Lesson Planning

The science activity I will be doing is using Stellarium to have my 6th grade students view the phases of the moon. They will then chart them in the night sky. The lesson will be on the phases of the moon, the rotation of the Moon around the Earth, and the Earth's daily rotation. Students will be assessed on the completion of the Moon Phase Chart and on their journal entries predicting how the rotation of the moon and Earth effect this.

Content:
Standard 1
Students will understand that the appearance of the moon changes in a predictable cycle as it orbits Earth and as Earth rotates on its axis.

Objective 1
Explain patterns of changes in the appearance of the moon as it orbits Earth.
1. Describe changes in the appearance of the moon during a month.
2. Identify the pattern of change in the moon's appearance.
3. Use observable evidence to explain the movement of the moon around Earth in relationship to Earth turning on its axis and the position of the moon changing in the sky.
4. Design an investigation, construct a chart, and collect data depicting the phases of the moon.

Pedagogy:
-Observing: Students will work with Stellarium and to view the changing phases of the moon over a month. They should observe the moon at the same time each day.
-Acquiring and processing data: As they view the moon, they will observe it at the same time each day (can be done in one sitting with Stellarium), and record the shape of the moon and its position in the sky for a month.
-Analyzing data: Students will use the information they have gathered to write a journal entry explaining what they can infer and hypothesize about movement of the moon around Earth in relationship to Earth turning on its axis and the position of the moon changing in the sky.

This pedagogy is a good fit with the content because the children are involved in their learning and will learn more efficiently by discovering these things themselves than by the teacher showing them a chart on an overhead. The pedagogy requires active learning and discovery not passive listening.

Technology:
I will be using Stellarium as my technology tool to teach this 6th grade science lesson.

This is a good fit with the content because it is a tool that lets the children observe the night sky because school is not in session during the night so we can't look at it as a class any other way. It also works well with this content because it is tedious and hard to remember and dependent on weather to chart the moon outside each night for a month and this way it can be done accurately right in the class room.
This is a good fit with the pedagogy because they students will be able to work with the date and time clock to see how the sky changes and see the patterns. Not only will they be observing the moon and the phases, but they can see the rotation during the day to give clues for the final journal writing project and lesson on rotation.

Google Earth Tour

Here is my Virtual tour. It can also be found at my website http://sites.google.com/site/alliebecker/




I watched the tours of Marni Story, Stephanie Anderson, and Tami Varner and commented on them!

GoogleEarth Tour Planning

TPACK Questions:
1. Content: For my GoogleEarth tour I am going to teach about natural processes and how they create landforms. This is a 5th Grade Science Standard. I chose this because I think it is good to incorporate real science tools such as GoogleEarth into a science lesson.

Standard 2
Students will understand that volcanoes, earthquakes, uplift, weathering, and erosion reshape Earth's surface.

Objective 3
Relate the building up and breaking down of Earth’s surface over time to the various physical land features.

1. Explain how layers of exposed rock, such as those observed in the Grand Canyon, are the result of natural processes acting over long periods of time.
2. Describe the role of deposition in the processes that change Earth's surface.
3. Use a time line to identify the sequence and time required for building and breaking down of geologic features on Earth.
4. Describe and justify how the surface of Earth would appear if there were no mountain uplift, weathering, or erosion.

2. Pedagogy- I am teaching this lesson most likely first using direct instruction to go over different types of processes and how landforms are created. The children will be familiar with the topic before they are assigned this tour. This tour lets them work with the information and apply what they know so they can understand it better in a real-life situation.

3. Technology- I used GoogleEarth for this project because it is an easy way for students to see real physical landforms in their environment and learn the content in a more hands on way because they are exploring it.

Location	Activity	Google Content/ Layers
Glenwood Canyon, CO	Watch the marked video and look at the canyon walls. Write what processes you think were involved in making this canyon	Gallery- YouTube
Arches National Park, UT	Look at the photos given in the description. They are of Delicate Rock and Double arches. Wikipedia Arches National Park and list three processes that are explained on the page that contributed to these landforms.	Geographic Web-Panoramio, Places-Places
Red Rocks, CO	Look at the photos of different rock formations and use them to predict what processes happened in the area. Try to predict the order of occurrence.	Places-Places
Grand Canyon, AZ	Watch the video that is marked and write down what processes contributed to forming this landform. Try to go beyond the obvious.	Gallery-YouTube

Other Sorytelling Videos I Watched...

Here are some comments on some of the other videos I watched!

Nichole Mahas- This was a health video and it was really informational but short enough to wear kids could enjoy it and also not lose focus:)

Katie Matthews- Katie was such a great story and i think young kids could really relate to the point of view as well as the content.

Emilie Jones- I really liked this one. I wanted to do something with poetry but I couldn't find a suitable poem so this was a good example of something I could do.

Becky Edmonds- This is so well put together. Great pictures, great tone of voice, great rhymes, and music. I just liked it a lot.

Rachael Hamilton- I like this a lot because it would be a great way to talk about the importance of famliy in the classroom while teaching an objective.

Marni Story- This was definitely one of my favorites. It was so informational, but really cool pictures and music. I just felt like I wanted to keep watching.

Rico's Color Adventure

Here is my video!!!




This works with the Utah Grade 1 Language Arts Core Curriculum:

Standard 6- Objective 3a: Identify meanings of words using root word and known endings.
Standard 7- Objective 2c: Make predictions using picture clues, title, text, and prior knowledge.
Objective 3c: Identify information from pictures, captions and diagrams.

Storyboard shots

My story is about a boy named Rico who lives in a black and white world. He finds glasses to help him see color. In this story the children work on making predictions using prior knowledge, text, and picture clues. They also see root words and endings on those words.

Here are two pictures of my story board:

More Than I Knew Existed

What a week....

I learned that web 2.0 is a useful tool for children to display what they learned and get to put it on the web for others to see.  I am not sure if is a program or a group of programs or what but if I get to know it better it seems like a great resource.  

I  learned that creating a Wiki page is really really difficult.  It was extremely hard for me to load the things to the page that we were supposed to and I feel that as of now it would not be a tool I used in my classroom because I don't feel comfortable with it. 

Here is the link to my Wiki page that I created:  http://allieswiki.pbworks.com/

Goodreads seems like a wonderful website that I wish I would have stumbled upon some time earlier.  I love to read and this seems like a great tool to keep all my book-reading organized and talk to others about books.  

Diigo seems helpful for people who use the internet A LOT but maybe I just haven't figured it out a ton. 

Google Reader is awesome to me because I have not really been into blogging that much in the past and this is so easy to work with and navigate other people's blogs.  

Why I Love Education

I love education because it makes me feel wonderful.  I love to learn as much as I can and I want to instill that love in my students.  So many children dread going to school and I want to try to change that negative stigma and help them realize that learning is important and can be fun and edifying.  I also love education because it gives you a chance to love and serve others by sharing what you know and helping them to discover new things.