Website Evaluation and Google Docs

We learned how to judge websites today to make sure that they are reliable. There are some websites out there that look very legitimate, but are a complete farce. It was nice to learn some techniques and questions to ask to verify if the information you are getting off the internet is reliable and accurate. We also learned about Google Docs today. This is a resource that Google provides that allows you to share documents you are working on with other co-workers or other students. It allows them to make changes and edit the work. This tool would be of great use for group projects. I think it would work well in a school setting. For instance, if you are working on a test that the whole grade will be using not just your class, you can come up with a basic outline, share it with the other teachers in the grade, they can edit and make comments and changes, send it back to you and you can fix it up so it will suit everyone's needs before you even print your first page. There are many other ways that this can be useful and it is something I am sure I will be using in my future classroom.

Visit to Edith Bowen

In our class this week, we went to visit a third grade classroom at Edith Bowen. This classroom uses technology extensively. There are nearly enough computers for every student in the room and each student has their own Ipod. The teacher also uses an overhead projector to show lessons from the computer and to use learning websites like Celestia to teach the children. I got to visit with one of the students in the classroom and she told me about how she does her spelling and some of her math on the computer. She also showed me how she did this. The teacher informed us that the technology in his classroom came mostly from donations and grants, and the rest from the school. He actively pursues getting money for technology in his classroom as he feels it is of great benefit to the students.

I think that in order for me to have technology in my future classroom, I will have to purse the funding just as this teacher did. I do think that students respond well to the use of "gadgets" and that their interest does pick up when they are using technology, so it will be of great importance for me to find funding in order to have technology in my classroom.

Instructional Architect

This week we learned about the instructional architect website. It is a fabulous website for finding on-line resources to help teach lessons. It also has the cabability to create or find complete lesson plans for different subjects. I think this is a great way to use technology as well as other teachers in planning and preparing effective lessons. I really like that there are so many resources listed on the site and I think this will be of great help in my future teaching.