Hi, everyone!
The world of technology is very evident in today's classrooms. Please share with us a way you are using technology in the classroom that is new and innovative. Maybe it's a cool website...maybe you're using clickers...maybe you have a great app that helps with classroom management. Tell us about it, and provide a link, if possible, so we can check it out!
See you Monday!
Professor Bellew
One way I have integrated technology within my lessons in the classroom was by creating a jeopardy powerpoint for a social studies chapter review. After five weeks of teaching various chapters in social studies, I culminated all of material that the students had learned into one overall review. I used the powerpoint program to create this jeopardy review using the skills that I obtained from ED 161. I used hyperlinks within the document to navigate around and move from category to category. The students worked in teams to solve for the answers and received points as a team. Once having earned the most points, the winning team earned an extra bingo word for their bingo boards. Using the social studies jeopardy reviewed information with the students from the beginning of September. It made the students recall information from the Social Studies content in categories pertaining to continents, regions, climate, landforms, and ecosystems. I felt that the students very much enjoyed this jeopardy review, and even made nice comments about my use of technology to create the powerpoint. My teacher and supervisor were also very impressed with the powerpoint jeopardy on the social studies material, and the other third grade teachers in our team used the jeopardy presentation for their own classes as well.
ReplyDeleteTechnology is extremely prevelent within my classroom. At least between 2 & 3 times a week, my Co-Op and I incorporate the use of a portable Smartboard within our lessons. It has been used for teaching Reading Strateies, math, Social Studies. Virtually every subject area has included the use of the Smart Board at least once so far this year.
ReplyDeleteWith the lessons I have taught thus far, I have used the website brainpopjr.com to introduce the topic of Bones and the Skeletal System for my Science Unit. Earlier this week, I also used a Smart Board activity I discovered on SmartExchange.com to help reinforce the vocabulary of the bones. The students dragged and dropped the names of the bones within the boxes beside the arrow that pointed to the bone (It can be found here http://exchange.smarttech.com/details.html?id=9c74b44d-88ea-4242-a31a-94d2e69c8c8a)
My classroom also uses Macbooks every day during their Daily 5 Guided Reading Centers. The students go on KidBlog during their work on writing. The student post their stories on their own personal blog and they may also comment on their friends' blogs as well. The students also use the laptops for their Listen to Reading center. The students plug in headphones and listen to popular stories such as Rainbow Fish, A Bad Case of Stripes, etc. The stories are read by various actors and are accompanied with illustrations from the story (http://www.storylineonline.net/)
My Co-Op has also incorporated iPod Touch devices into our Math centers routine. There are various apps such as Math Fact Bingo and Math Bubble Pop that the students play under adult supervision within their centers.
There are so many resources out there that can be used within the classroom, it is just a matter of finding what resources work with your group of kids and in your classroom environment.
I think it is interesting that we are in the same school, but my class has not used technology and you class uses it every week!
DeleteI loved how much my class used technology when I was at Rheems. There were so many options avaiable for use! Students were able to use the laptops to publish various pieces of writing. It allowed for them to learn the use of titles, bold/italized/underlined fonts, and other options not applicable when handwriting stories. My students were so skilled in the use of the laptops, and now I can see it's most likely because all of the younger grades are using them as well!
DeleteTechnology has not been very prevalent in my classroom at all. We do have the resources, but just have not used them. We have talked about using Ipod Touches during math time to review, but they were not available when we went to use them. We also have two macbooks in our classroom to use during specific centers, but the internet connection does not work, therefore the students are not able to use them. Although this is considered old school technology, we have used the overhead projector a few times to help show how to find answers within the text. Even though this is older technology the students were still so amazed by it. In our classroom we do have one IPAD, but it is only for the use of two students with autism. In addition to this, when I went to observe the autistic support classroom, they had about 5 IPADS for the students to use. The particular student that I was observing, who happened to be from my class, was on a program that worked on his letters and how to form them. In my classroom we do have the option of using a smart board, but we have just not gotten around to doing so.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to you with the projector! We use a smart board for 95% of our learning, but my students are most amazed by "old school" projectors. I told them that back in the day we didn't even have white boards, just chalk and projectors. Quite the culture shock for them!
DeleteI'm surprised that you have a SmartBoard to use, but have not gotten around to it yet. My co-op and I used the SmartBoard for everything during my Methods Block placement last fall. The school I am in this year does not have SmartBoards and it's such a big change. I wish we had the SmartBoard that you guys have!
ReplyDeleteThe technology available in my placement this year is drastically different from the technology available in my Methods Block placement. Last year, we were using the SmartBoard for almost every lesson and the students were always coming up to the board to move things around on the SmartBoard and be physically engaged on the lesson. They would use clickers to answer test questions that were displayed on the SmartBoard instead of using pencil and paper for everything.
ReplyDeleteIn this placement, we have an ordinary blackboard and overhead projector as opposed to a SmartBoard. There is a projector so I try to sign it out as much as possible and hook it up to my own computer; in this way I can engage students with activities that tends to grab their attention a little more. When we were learning about government and the White House I was able to take them on a virtual tour of the White House to explore some of the rooms and pictures the official website had to offer.
We also use iPod touches during math instruction time when possible. I started to find out the hard way that our students didn't know their math facts as well as we had thought. Using the iPod touches for 10-15 minutes whenever we can really keeps them engaged and on task for learning their math facts. There are at least 4 different apps they can use for basic math fact practice and they are all thrilled to do so! We use the apps Basic Math, FlashMath, iDart Math, and KidsMathFun. I put the names of the apps they are allowed to use on the board and then I walk around and monitor while they are using the iPods. They are thrilled to be using the iPods so they are more than willing to stay on task. It has been one of the best strategies implemented so far!
Every classroom at my school is outfitted with a "Promethean board", which is basically a smart board with one pen and a projector that you link up to remotely. I've used it a lot, and the special, powerpoint-esque presentation software comes with some really great resources. It also has a set of clickers that I've used for math on and off, but would like to incorporate more.
ReplyDeleteWe also use a behavior tracking website called Class Dojo (http://www.classdojo.com/). It's a really interactive website that allows teachers, parents, and students to record and track positive behaviors or ones that need to be worked on, which are chosen and appointed by the teacher. It gives students an overall percentage at the end of every day/week. It works best if you have speakers available to your classroom, because with every thumbs up/thumbs down a student receives, it'll either ping or make a negative buzz. Students can't see who got what point, so either way everyone kind of straighten up their act. It is really neatand works well. Best part? It comes as a smart phone app, so you can be away from the computer and still assign points.
The Class Dojo website sounds so cool! I think that having information like that posted is another way for students to see what they need to work on, and how the can improve. It might even be better for some students to see it that way then to hear a teacher or parent tell it to them!
DeleteI really like the class Dojo website as well. It sounds like a fun and encouraging way to monitor behavior. I also think it is pretty incredible that you have a smartboard and clickers for each room. We have to rotate our clickers throughout the entire building, and only a few rooms have a smart board as well.
DeleteIn my school, there are carts for ipads and netbooks, but we have not used them in my classroom so far this year. I am hoping to use them, as well as the clickers we have in our classroom, in the coming weeks. So far, I have only used the projector and overhead in my lessons. I was able to use the projector for grammar powerpoints that I downloaded and for a baseball powerpoint review game I created for math.
ReplyDeleteEntering into my unit on multipilication and division facts, I am planning to find a review game that students can play on the netbooks.
While students don't get much technology use within the classroom, they do use the study island program in the computer lab once a cycle, as well as work on a review program for math daily.
During my observations throughout the school, I have seen other uses of technology. In third grade, as students enter the classroom for rotations, there is a projected clock (http://www.online-stopwatch.com/classroom-timers/) with a five minute countdown as well as a list of directions. This allows for students to ensure that they are ready to begin.
In a different 4th grade classroom, a website is used for noise control as students are working independently or in small groups (http://ictmagic.visibli.com/share/texdW3). The more noise in the room, the higher/faster the balls bounce!
There are only two classrooms in my school that have Smartboards, and my classroom is one of them! My teacher does pretty much everything but writing on the board and is pretty much a professional! The new reading curriculum is able to be taught on the board, and the students really love it! It keeps them entertained and gives them a break from having my teacher just talk to them. The program is really interactive, so students love that they can come up and touch the board and the board talks back to them. There are read alouds, songs, and different activities that provide great and different ways for students to learn!
ReplyDeleteThat's very cool that the board is interactive! We do not have that at our school, however, at inservice today we found out that we would be getting apple tv's. Pretty exciting! I find it very interesting that you have smart boards in your district knowing where you are located, not to sound negative in any way of course. It is so nice that you have those resources available to you.
DeleteIn my classroom we use technology daily. Students use our smart board in the morning to mark if they are a packer or lunch buyer, and what they are getting for lunch that day. We use a computer program called ILS, which is a math program students must get on 15 times a month. Students find this very exciting, and we learn a lot about what math level students are on and how they are progressing. We have used clickers in our classroom before as a pre assessment for a math chapter. I have also used a jeopardy powerpoint as a review game for one of our social studies chapters. We often show different youtube clips, or pictures on our smart board as well to show students other examples of whatever topic we are working on.
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