Harris 2000 Article

In the age where everything is based on the standardized testing, teachers are finding it difficult to teach away from the test, and teach the more creative or technological ways. Harris (2000) talks about how teachers should just be integrating technology into the curriculum and using it as a way to cover the standards in the core. He gives different examples of the teachers who used multidisciplinary internet research projects that cover many different areas for different subjects. The students and teachers are getting to effectively use technology and still are working on preparing for the standardized tests.

I think that if teachers are going to attempt to teach by integrating technology, then they need to learn to do it effectively. I don't think that teaching to the test is ultimately going to get the students anywhere, but I think that if the teachers aren't effectively using the tools at their disposal, then they aren't really sending their students anywhere either. The reality of our situation is that we're stuck in the high-stakes environments, and our students really do need to be prepared to take these tests, even though we hate it and it's a sucky thing. But if a teacher can efficiently teach their students to pass the tests while using other forms than "teaching the test" then more power to them. The scary thing is that too many teachers can't make both work, and they have to rely on teaching the test to get them through.

Dodge Article

One of the concepts in the Dodge article is finding great sites. The article talks about mastering search engines and how beneficial it is to be able to quickly and properly navigate the different search engines. It talks about probing the "deep web" and looking through less obvious sites to find information about the topic you're researching. Lastly, Dodge talks about not losing the links and information you've found. He uses Backflip as a web-based bookmark service that teachers can use to keep their sites.

Andy and I found some really great sites about pirates. Some of the sites had a lot of information about the various aspects of piracy that we were using in our webquest, and the information was laid out in a very user friendly way. We used Google docs as a way to keep the information and links all together so that we'd both have easy access to them. The web-based bookmark sites are fantastic for one person to use, but when you're doing a collaborative project like this one, it's difficult to keep track of the same links and pages. Google docs, for us, solved this problem. Depending on how the links and sites actually end up working in the webquest will determine if we keep them for future uses. If they end up not actually working, then we will need to go in and find different sites that work better for the webquest.

Pirates Webquest

Here's the link to the webquest about Pirates that Andy and I made.


http://sites.google.com/site/aepirates/Home

Reiser--Teams Curriculum

The examples of the Integrated Final Projects are designed based on the concepts from the Reiser article using the TEAMS curriculum. Each of the different lesson plans has the break down of activities for each discipline unit/rotation, then there are the four types of activities within each rotation.

Team teaching is a concept that I really like. I think that it helps make the students see the interconnectedness of their learning, and makes some of the more “abstract” classes seem more real world applicable. I think that while it could take more work on the teachers side of things because they do have to get together more often to collaborate with the other teachers. But I do think that it can help direct a teacher in terms of what they teach. Teachers do have to be more willing to collaborate with the other teachers to make this function, and if one teacher isn’t doing their share then the system breaks because they are all reliant on one and another. With the particular TEAMS curriculum, I would like to see it implemented to see how the four activities actually end up playing out, and how they work. It depends on the teachers if this ends up being worthwhile. I think that it has a lot of potential to be a huge success, but I think it’s also got a lot that can go wrong. The teachers need to be excited about using this and need to put in the extra energy to make this work the way that it should, or else it can completely fall flat. They also need to help keep their kids motivated about working with this, or it would end up being a huge waste of time for both the students and the teacher.

Othello Photo Story

Here's my MS photo story on Shakespeare's Othello. I can't figure out why it won't show up with an image to start. It's being weird, stupid computers...

Arend Response

Assessment is when teachers gather and synthesize information for the purpose of making decisions about their students and their classrooms. There are informal forms of assessment, like observation or verbal exchanges; there are also formal forms of assessment, like exams or homework. Teachers can also use feedback from students as a form of assessment. Evaluation, on the other hand, is when teachers take their assessments and use them to make judgments, assign value, or decide worth. There are two types of evaluation: formative and summative. Formative evaluation takes place before instruction to find out students’ past knowledge, and it can help in planning lesson plans. Summative evaluations take place after instruction to see how well the students performed. Generally, grades are a product of summative evaluation. One example of assessment and evaluation working together would be if a teacher gives an exam to her students (assessment) and then uses the results of the test to assign grades (evaluation). The teacher is assigning a value to the information assessed from the test.

Teachers should perform formative evaluations with their students to be able to gauge the level that their students are at in terms of using the technology. Teachers may need to provide lessons on using the technology they’re requiring for the projects, so all of the students are able to complete their task. Once the projects are finished, using rubrics is a quick way for teachers to evaluate them. Still using technology, there are many web sites (ie. http://www.rubrics4teachers.com/) that can help teachers quickly build a rubric.

Benefits of Technology

Technologies for Education--Ann Barron

With all the technological advancements we’ve made, it’s no wonder that so many teachers are turning more towards using technology in the classroom. Technology can make the life of a teacher easier, and it provides another way for students to be able to connect to school. Using technology can make the students take a more active role in their learning; they may use a computer to work through class material at their own speed and level. It can make the lessons more customizable for each student, and it provides greater flexibility for students with special needs. With multimedia presentations, teachers can easily incorporate the different learning styles of their students, and they can make the subject more alive than simply reading or lecturing about them. Technology provides students opportunities to become the teacher as often they will know more about using the various types of technology than their teachers will.

Currently I’m working with 10th grade honors English students, and the teacher I’m working with uses a lot of technology in her class. You can really see the difference that it makes for her students; there is a lot less time spent on the teacher handwriting notes and more time discussing content. She posts notes onto her website for the students after class, so they are able to go back and reference what they talked about in class if they need. We’re using various programs to edit and revise their long form presentations (literary analysis essays). The students use the Flesch-Kincaid readability test found on the newer version of Microsoft Word in order to figure out the grade level and readability level of their essays. Without this program, it makes it a lot more difficult to examine where their papers are at. We’re also using turn-it-in for these papers. With turn-it-in, we’re able to go in and easily peer review essays and for the teacher, we can check for plagiarism. Technology is implemented into her classroom and the students love it. It brings something that they love into a subject that most are only taking because it’s required.