Inquiry Project

This was a very tedious assignment, yet very resourceful and beneficial for my future as an educator. I gather countless informed throughout all of my researching. Clickers are very beneficial to the students and the teacher. Incorporating clickers into the classroom will enhance your instruction and assessments as well as enhance the students engagement in the lesson. I even learned specific questions types to use when using clickers along with the best practice tips, like how to prepare ahead of time. I put a lot of time and effort into finding the resources that I found, and I put a lot of effort into writing out my inquiry wiki. Also, making my screencast was a bit of a challenge for me. It was a very simple and self explanatory assignment, but I found it difficult to record myself without having several glitches within my speech. But, I am proud of my final product and I hope you enjoy my inquiry as much as I did.

Scratch Project: The Four Seasons

For the scratch project, I did my project on the four seasons in the year. My simulation is very colorful and visually appealing as well as acccurately demonstrating the four seasons we experience in a year. The children are prompted by a script to click on the tree to move through the seasons. My approach to focus on the physical changes of a tree through the four seasons seemed to be the best approach because it is very visual. And, I considered that some children live in areas where they are not exposed to all of the seasons and may not understand the effects of the changing of the seasons. This simulation is engaging, and appropriate for the student's grade level, which is second grade. The standard that I addressed states: Compare and describe changing patterns in nature that repeat themselves, such as weather conditions including temperature and precipitation, day to day and season to season.
In the beginning I was very unsure about how to tackle this project because of how I was told its difficulty level. However, even though I did find it difficult, it was definetely manageable and something I was able to play with and, for the majority of the assignment, figure it out on my own. I put in a lot of time and effort into this project. I spent several days and hours trying to perfect this simulation and make it look as accurate as possible. The only problem I had was trying to add music that would continue throughout the entire simulation. This one my major struggles and it was something I could not figure out on my own. There is still music in my simulation; however, it ends earlier than I would have perfered. Overall, I put a lot of time and thought into this project and I am happy with the final results.

Exit Slip: Last Day

Today, the book chapter presentations were done very well. They were thorough and added to the knowledge that I gained from reading the chapters myself. The chapter 10 presentation, which discussed the different aspects that we need to make to alter into this new technology rich learning environment. Some of the topics that were discussed, like how to make it motivating and the role of government in education, were very insightful. I liked the ideas that were mentioned in regards to making education more motivating. I agree that we need to choose materials wisely. We should somewhat stay away from books and worksheets because it is very rare for children to find doing worksheets very motivating. Also, it is important to integrate our children's interests into all aspects of the curriculum. At times, this may be hard to accomplish because of the standards that need to be met and the yearly testing, like the FCAT, that is administered to children. Also, thinking about the role of the government in our school system is something that I never really thought of on my own. Now, schools are run by the local government, and it was interesting to think of the pros and cons of the federal government taking over. I am not sure which government should be in control because there is such an extreme between the two. However, I do think that it might be beneficial to have our country have the same standards for each grade, especially considering that children may move from state to state within one year.
The contemporary issues were very interesting. I found mine, of course, to be very interesting because it is an issue that I find very compelling and important. Also, the issues on math anxiety and text messaging lingo were great topics that I found very interesting. Prior to Angela's presentation, I did know that teachers can portray, indirectly or directly, their interest level on a specific subject; however, I had never thought about portraying anxiety of a certain subject and it effects on children.
Overall, this class provided me with phenomenal resources that I will use in the future, like all of the cool tools. The book provided me with the knowledge of what our education system is evolving too, and it made me a lot more open minded to this change. And, lastly, all of the contemporary issues that were presented were for the most part new to me, and I enjoyed them because I like being exposed to new knowledge and information.

Chapter 10: Rethinking Education in a Technological World

This chapter basically reinforced everything that I have read in this book, along with brief descriptions of what changes need to be made and by who for this change to occur. For instance, for this change to occur we need to rethink what is most important for children to learn, the roles of leaders, the government's role, and rethinking careers.
Under the career section, the author states that thinking of a single career as the standard pattern leads people to think that they are done with learning when they finish school. This sentence stood out to me because I had never thought of it that way before. I definitely agree that when people are done with college and begin their career, they tend to think that they are done with school and done with learning. This thought hinders people from continually growing, which is not being a life long learner. Like I have stated in most of my blogs, I am undecided whether this change in our school system to a more technology rich society is worthwhile and important. However, being a life long learner is the major point that sways me away from the opposing side. I think it is so important to be a life long learner, and whoever chooses not to be, in my opinion, is unmotivated and doing themselves injustice. I am adamant about being a life long learner and I will instill this belief into all of my future students. So, whenever I doubt this inevitable change that is occurring, I will remember the importance of being a life long learner and creating new opportunities to learn, which a technology rich school society will provide.

Chapter 9: What does it all mean?

As we all know, this evolving change in the popularity of technology is not something that our parents were exposed to. There are many differences in the way our parents think versus the way children are thinking now a days. This chapter offered some insights on how to bridge this generation gap. First, this chapter discusses what kids learn from technology, and how the views on what children are learning from technologies are very different from generation to generation. Parents view a lot of these new technologies that their children are exposed to in a negative light. And, in some cases, I have to agree that some technologies being used are not beneficial to young children. For instance, parents view video games as corruptive, promoting violence, and hurting their children's health. Even after sitting in this course for almost a whole semester, I am still undecided on how beneficial technology is. I have always felt and I still feel that video games are a waste of time and do not promote many useful skills. However, this chapter does state that video games promotes problem-solving skills, which I can see as accurate.
After reading this chapter, the most useful information I gained would be educational resources/websites to use that could be beneficial to children. For example, instead of children playing video games, which I do not view to be very productive and educational, I like programs such as MUVE or Zoo Tycoon, that I view as much more educational and purposeful.
The world is reshaping and technology is becoming more prevalent in and out of school, so I know that is our job as future educators to embrace this change and integrate it into our practices.