http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/
http://www.edte620o.setsviu.com/uploads/9/9/2/0/9920268/differentiation_pwrpt_pre_rev1.pdf
Learning and Teaching with Technology
Differentiation - some reasons, some ideas, and some good details. http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/ http://www.edte620o.setsviu.com/uploads/9/9/2/0/9920268/differentiation_pwrpt_pre_rev1.pdf
0 Comments
Holy cool batman! This program (which works on Windows, OS X, and Linux) is free, and allows kids of almost all ages to visually create graphical programs, including motion, logic, loops, sensors, etc. I've just 'scratched' the surface (pun intended... lol) - but it seems to have many cool features, and the upcoming 2.0 release is even better from the looks of it. Check it out! http://scratch.mit.edu/ The Alberta Teaching Quality Standard KSAs can be found in full detail here. The list below is my own interpretation/summary of the 17 items for interim teacher certification. a/1 - Contextual Variables This is a great video (and it's Canadian!) Consumerism and corporate sponsorship happens in almost every school from k-University. I had never really thought about it's impact. Today we had a great class presentation and discussion about the pros and cons of such scenarios. There are definitely some strong benefits and evident weaknesses of such sponsorship and funding - but it seems to boil down to the root causes of most sponsorship and donations, and the individual needs and stipulations. Definitely an eye opener...
I decided to play a "Jeopardy" style game for review of some grade 3 math principles (polygons/2D shapes, patterns, mental math). It's a simple Powerpoint file, with hyperlinks from the question value placeholders to the slides with questions. Download the file for your own class (use it as a template for your own subjects/questions). Powerpoint file. Lesson du jour - always have a backup plan for when technology fails... including power outages.
It would also be nice if quicktime/iMovie would work with more file formats. We made one of our movies using a Canon DSLR camera instead of photobooth, since it was an 'aerial' photo, and we didn't want to hang the Retina MBP over the edge to capture the footage. We used a camera with a neck strap - but it recorded h.264, which Quicktime is incapable of editing - this resulted in us having to create a still image of the clip instead of video clip (which needed some slight trimming). Oh... I wish I had a 3D printer! To be honest, as a physics major who is about half done my physics degree, I've never used Mathematica (at the time of this writing)! But I've use the online Wolfram Alpha calculator/thinking system, and now looking some more, find that there are some classroom licensing editions of Mathematica which seem feasible for most schools.
Link to Mathematica education store. I've used spreadsheets frequently in my physics experimental data collection and analysis, but never considered needing to use them in a classroom - this is based on my own high school physics experience from the mid-90's (computers were rare in the school, Windows 95 was buggy, the Mac computers didn't have any spreadsheet software I think... how have things changed!).
Spreadsheets could be used in simple terms in some elementary classes, and used more and more as the grade level increases. I can see them very useful in most science courses, math, accounting/business CTS classes, and similar things. WebQuests, as I understand them, are guides created by teachers for their students to take which enable them to follow a sequence of tasks and links to learn about a particular topic, and give them the opportunity for deeper thought, reflection, analysis and synthesis of knowledge beyond what's clearly visible online. A webquest encourages the student to think outside the box, to solve some problems, and to engage their brain.
I think that WebQuests are a good idea, but can easily get in the way of teaching and learning if not done right. They also allow for a lot of easy distraction for both teacher and student if they're not strictly focused on the learning task at hand. Pros and cons, I suppose, which I will need to explore the feasibility of in the near future. |
Author:
|