Internet Safety

Article: I chose to read "Rated A" by Elder Marvin J. Ashton

Take-aways:

One thing that stood out to me on the documentary was how much our words can affect others. We need to make sure that what we read, see, type, etc. does not negatively affect others. As future teachers, we need to make sure that we instruct students how they should treat others in person and when they are not around. This would include things we might say or type about others. It is important to be careful about what we post online. It can be viewed by millions. We need to make sure that the information we post online is not misleading or contain too much personal information.

I also enjoyed reading President Bednar's talk. I thought that it made some very good points. As children of God, we need to respect out bodies and those of others. We need to understand the importance of our bodies in the Plan of Salvation. There are so many ways we can abuse out bodies. As an essential part of the Plan of Salvation, we need to make sure we view ourselves as children of God.

In the article "Rated A," Elder Marvin J. Ashton pointed out that we are responsible for the material that enters into our lives. We have control over what we choose to view or not view. Ashton states, "Because I recognize that there will always be opposition in all things, I suspect that we will not soon see the day when obscenity in its various forms will be entirely eliminated. But I have faith that it can be fully eliminated in the lives of quality individuals. I firmly believe that most thinking people can be inspired to strive for the A rating by choosing wholesome, worthwhile literature, art, and habits."

Reflection:

For "doing" section of this assignment, I talked to my mom about internet safety. She has always been very wary of the information she receives and posts online. She understands that her information can go through millions of peoples computers everyday and as such, she tries to take the necessary precautions to make sure that her personal information is protected. When using public computers, she makes sure to log out of her email and other accounts online. At home, she has set up a firewall to block out unwanted websites that contain degrading material.

I shared with her the talk I read by David A. Bednar and how he talked about children of God. We discussed how so many people have gone against the Plan of Happiness by abusing their rights to their body. We talked about pornography and how it can destroy lives. My mom thought it was such a terrible thing that it can be so easily accessed online, even when you are not looking for it, sometimes it just pops up. Knowing my mom, she will probably have this conversation with me and my siblings several times as well as sharing the information with other members of the church she associates with.

Watched the videos and read all 5 articles!

I completed the online course evaluation on route y and the course feedback survey. I also checked my grades on moodle and they are correct!

TPACK assignment

and here is the link to view it online as well: http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dd2g9mtg_544fr2jfk

3 lessons

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd2g9mtg_1htjq4kd9
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd2g9mtg_2hp8q23cp
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd2g9mtg_3cv7jk9g3

and i taught the literacy lesson in class.

week 10 videos response

After watching the videos, I was amazed at how easily the students were able to grasp all the concepts. It was always difficult for me to comprehend how easily children pick up on all the new technology coming out these days. One important thing I learned from these videos was how varied the lessons were. Technology is an important aspect in teaching lessons. Not only is it engaging and interesting, it changes the “normal” style of teaching so students are more actively involved; especially if they have the opportunity to participate in using the technology. It can be used for more than just researching or writing papers. The technology available to us, as educators, has increased so much that we can use it for teaching any subject; whether it be math, science, language arts, social studies, or even P.E. Technology adapts to our lessons and makes the lesson more captivating and engaging for students and teacher. Being in the practicum this month has allowed me to experience this first hand in the classroom. Each day students use technology for a reading program online and for math. It has been an interesting and new experience for me to see it utilized so easily in the classroom.

technology available

This week I have learned how essential and useful technology really is in the classroom. They have so many things in the schools now that I never had when in elementary school. Instead of lunch tickets, each student has a lunch card which they scan in to a machine located in the lunchroom. My elementary school growing up never had document cameras and my first exposure to them was this semester in my management class. I've had experience with overheads but not document cameras. Document cameras save so much time.

In the classroom I am working in, they have access to computers, t.v., cd player, projector, document camera, and many more. I have noticed my teacher utilizing all of these for various activities and to help teach a specific lesson. It's really interesting to see how much technology has really become a part of our lives and how it continues to grow.

I completed the midcourse evaluation, informed consent, and the classroom technology inventory list.

Physical and Chemical Changes

I watched the following voicethreads:

http://techbrooke.blogspot.com/
http://nataleeb.blogspot.com/
http://alyssah287.blogspot.com/

After learning about the different technologies I could use in my classroom, I have become a lot more comfortable with the idea of actually using them in my class for the benefit of my students and myself. I really liked the idea of using voicethread to document the activities because it is a great way of keeping track and record of what we did. I'm also glad that I learned about the electronic microscope a lot more and had the opportunity to use it because I learned how easy and resourceful it can be versus an regular microscope. I enjoyed watching other peers' voicethreads because it gave me great ideas for future lessons using all the different technologies that we have available as teachers!

science challenge week 7

5th grade: physical and chemical changes and plants

For this assignment, I wanted to have the students do a unit of plants by planting seeds and caring for them. They would document the growth by observing the plants. At some point in the unit, we would talk about the different types of plants around the world and use google earth to view at different places and the types of climates that allow for certain plants to grow in those specific areas. We would talk about the physical and chemical changes that occur in plants and use digital microscopes to observe those chemical changes.

For content, we will be focusing on chemical changes in plants for the 5th grade. Pedagogy: we will be observing the chemical changes that take place in plants (ie. leavee changing colors). It will be a good fit with the content because it will allow us to see the differences between chemical and physical change and what is classified as chemical changes. Technology: we will be using digital microscopes to compare the differences between the different colored leaves. It is a good fit for the content and pedagogy because it will help solidify the term (chemical change) and allow students to explore chemical changes.

Virtual Tour Completed

Here is the final virtual tour that I have uploaded to my website: Pacific Islands.

And here is the embedded version:


This tour explores the different cultures throughout the Pacific Ocean.

I watched and commented on these three blogs:
http://techbrooke.blogspot.com/
http://betsy-elizabeth-rodriguez.blogspot.com/
http://julsosa.blogspot.com/

Virtual tours are such a great idea for using in the classroom because they help you as a teacher give students the opportunity to "travel." It allows students to learn about cultures, history, and many, many other things. I think the downsides of it might include the students getting off task just playing around with the different tools or trying to look up familiar places to them that don't have to do with the lesson. But other than that, I think it's a great tool to use!!

Virtual Tour Planning

For this assignment, I wanted to explore the Pacific Islands. I found one island from each division (melanesia, micronesia, and polynesia) and then I also decided to add another island that isn't part of Oceania but rather associated with the nearest continent. I thought this would be an interesting way to learn about the different cultures within the Pacific Islands. This could be taught using standard 2, objective 1 for the 3rd grade curriculum. A tour on this would be useful because these islands are "hard to get to" places and being able to view them and learn about them through google earth will allow students the opportunity to learn about each island and the culture. It is more entertaining for students to actually see the place and for them to be able to navigate around it will help increase their own interest in learning about each island.

Location	Activity Description	Google Earth Content
1. Ni`ihau (Hawai`i: Polynesia)	Students will determine the island's position in relation to Kaua`i and how far away it is (southwest, 18 miles )	Ruler
2. Saipan (Marianas Islands: Micronesia)	Students will determine how far north Saipan is from Guam (about 120 miles)	Ruler
3. Taveuni (Fiji: Melanesia)	Students will determine the latitude and longitude of the volcano on the island and the type (lat: 16.82 S, long: 179.97 W, shield volcano)	Gallery: volcanoes
4. Taiwan	Students will determine how far north Taiwan is from the Philippines (about 225 miles)	Ruler

Movie Project

here are the movies i watched:

time out video- http://techbrooke.blogspot.com/

The three little pigs- http://eduffieldipt.blogspot.com/2009/09/week-4-assignment.html#comments

Sylvester meets little red riding hood- http://mariahteaches.blogspot.com/

body language- http://laurynblog56.blogspot.com/

goin fishin- http://carolhoffer.blogspot.com/

summer of the trifecta movie- http://bethpeach.blogspot.com/

I think the most difficult part of implementing this into my teaching would be time and management. I would need to decide if this will be a class, group, or individual project and then make sure students stay on track in order to finish it within a reasonable time.

TPACK and storyboard images

Ok. So. I did my storyboard wrong. But I got permission to not have to go back and re-do the whole thing. So moral of the story is follow directions EXACTLY!

... and don't do what I did.........



TPACK (technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge) is a way of looking at how to integrate technology into your teaching. By being able to teach using all three aspects incorporated together, a teacher can be successful in administering the appropriate information they want their students to understand and know. This is very useful because being able to teach using all aspects will help to broaden the students understanding and knowledge of the topic the teacher is trying to teach. In addition, being able to use technology to help teach saves valuable time if you know exactly how to use what is available to you in your school. It is important for all teachers to know the content and to understand it and to be able to teach it effectively.


This is the first page of my storyboard layout.

...later on the next week....

so I tried the outline for the storyboard above but it confused me and I felt very disorganized using it. I couldn't see the whole picture and I'm one of those visual people. I did find a storyboard on Windows Movie Maker that I used instead. It helped me be able to see the visuals with the transitions and the information I needed for on each page. I took a few screen shots to show my work. It took me ALL Friday and Sunday to get everything together (pictures and audio).

The first image is of my first few pages.

The next two pages are random screen shots of different parts of my storyboard.

This shot is of the credits page with the audio all saved in a folder and all my visuals I made for the storyboard! It was a lot of work!!

And that is my storyboard!!!

Here is my text for my storyboard:

Hi! I’m Baxter the Bee and today I’m going to show you what it’s like to live like me!

Bees are ACTIVE. We stay BUSY everyday!

Bees are attracted to COLORFUL flowers.

We communicate by DANCING to tell others where the flowers are. It gets everyone EXCITED.

We find FLOWERS to collect pollen.

The flowers GROW close to our hive.

We use the pollen to make our delicious HONEY.

The IRIS in the flower is what attracts us bees to each diverse flower.

We all have different JOBS that help us work together.

KIDS enjoy our honey because it is so sweet.

Bees LOVE their honey. Unfortunately, so do bears!

We MOVE from flower to flower, not to collect NECTAR, but ONLY the best POLLEN.

Besides making honey, we spend a lot of time caring for and protecting our QUEEN bee.

Bees cannot fly in the RAIN. When the weather is bad, we stay inside the hive.

When we get mad, we STING our enemies. It’s a TERRIBLE habit.

But when the sun comes out, the ULTRA VIOLET rays warm us up quickly and we get back to work!

Did you know that scientists have not figured out how it is physically possible for our WINGS to support our body WEIGHT when we fly? That’s some
(e)X-TREME flying!

So the next time you see some tiny YELLOW bugs buzzing, just listen for us and we’ll sing: Zzzzzzzzzzzz!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you learned something new today.


Active
Busy
Colorful
Dance
Excited
Flowers
Grow
Honey
Iris
Job
Kids
Love
Move
Nectar
Only
Pollen
Queen
Rain
Sting
Terrible
Ultra
Violet Rays
Weight and wings
(e)Xtreme
Yellow
Zzzzzzz

RSS and Web 2.0 tools

After watching the clips from week 1 about Web 2.0 tools, I feel as though they will be useful to my future teaching methods. These tools will help me to keep myself organized and teaching in an effective and efficient manner.

Web 2.0 tools are ways of social-networking. One example are these blogs that we created for the class. Not only do they allow us to document what we learn each week, but we are able to follow along with other members in our groups and class to see what they learn each week as well.

RSS is one easy way to keep up with different websites. One example is google reader. It creates a place where you can keep track of several different websites all in one place. I really liked the analogy the first video on the course website used when comparing RSS to netflix. Instead of traveling to the video store to spend lots of time pouring through all the different movie selections, you can now just have netflix send you the all the videos you want. It saves money but most importantly time. It's efficient in its method. Like netflix, RSS allows you to view all the current posts from several places at once to save you the time of looking up each one.

I think that these tools will be useful in my teaching and even now. Instead of pulling up 5 different windows or tabs to check my email, blog, facebook, blackboard, bank account, etc., I can just view it all in one place.

The most useful thing I learned this week was how to put together a website. After a lot of time (seriously....) and many meals later, I finally figured out the "source" button and what it actually did. I think this was the most useful thing I learned because I didn't know how to do it previously and it was really challenging!

Here's the final result!!!: http://rienasinternetcommproject.pbworks.com/

my synchronous video chat:

my asynchronous video:

Computer Savvy

My technology background and experience is mostly based on Microsoft Office. I can find my way around Microsoft Office pretty well (really just the basics) thanks to working at BYU Independent Study. I had a lot of free time to figure out little shortcuts around the computer, especially with Word. Annnd..... I've used computers for school..... That about sums it up!