2201 Scratch

2201 No Class Activity #2 Gardens of Time

The Garden of Time game is so addictive! It definitely reflects five things schools could learn from video games.

1.       Production.- The student gets to design their own garden. They can purchase items of their own choice making it more personal than a textbook.

2.       Ordered Problems.-The game starts by having you find hidden objects then progresses to making you find the differences between two pictures. This is building difficulty.

3.       The Cycle of Expertise.- I feel this is a big bonus to the video game. The next scene doesn’t unlock until you earn all four stars of the scene you are on. This is great because the students get the right amount of individual practice before continuing. They can simply enjoy playing and not feel rushed on to a level they are not ready for.

4.       Context.- This game has characters that pop up and tell you the directions when they change (kind of like a story).  There are also characters that prompt you to do things that help you succeed and progress.

5.       Taking Relationships into consideration.- You are encouraged to invite friends from your circle to be your neighbor. There are also times when you can help out a friend or give them hidden gifts. These gifts enable your friends to solve problems (like helping them with energy).

3351 Double Entry Journal #10

Reading and writing are ongoing processes. The more practice students get the better they become. Therefore, all teachers should include reading and writing in their instruction because each subject is different which increases the students’ exposure to different types of material.

Some research-based strategies that support writing instruction for students are:

·         Low-stakes writing assignments-explaining key concepts, summarizing, or outlining.

·         Provide multiple forms of feedback-peer editing, whole class discussion, student reflections, and brief one-on-one conferences.

·         Employ variety in texts and their presentation-use a variety of text (not just a textbook).

·         Employ a variety of levels of reading difficulty-scaffold learning and offer text with various degrees of difficulty.

2201 No Class Assignment

How a Ragtag band created Wikipedia

Three things I learned:

·         Two million total articles only 600,000+ are in English. Only around 1/3 of the traffic are English visitors.

·         Only one employee, lead software developer, the rest are volunteers.

·         Only about 18% of the edits are done anonymously.

Two things I agreed with:

·         Wikipedia should be neutral in controversial issues.

·         Freely licensed textbooks are the next big thing in education.

One thing I disagreed with:

·         I don’t know of anything I disagreed with.

Wikipedia Pretty Accurate But Hard to Read

I found this article surprising because I often find the information on Wikipedia to be much easier to understand. It is for this reason I go there when I need a good starting point when writing a paper.

How often do I use Wikipedia to write papers, in the ways described in 4 Ways to Use Wikipedia Never Cite IT

I fall in a category somewhere between always and sometimes when using Wikipedia in the ways described. However, I have never cited Wikipedia as a source of reference.

Wikipedia Reliability Worksheet

1.       There aren’t any cleanup banners to indicate problems.

2.      I read through the article and it seems to meet the requirements.

3.      There are many references and for the most part they seem reliable.

4.      The only rating I found is the article could be improved to at least a B rating by following eleven easy steps. The issues being discussed are terminology and citations.

5.      I rate this article partially reliable because there were no cleanup banners and there were many references, but there was still room for improvements after looking at the discussion topics.

2201 Double Journal Entry #8

a.What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project.

b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”? With many people watching any errors or vandalism should be caught quickly.

c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation? They put their trust in the “wisdom of crowds.”

d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia? He believed it should give more authority to experts. He created a new site and it does that.

e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page? Vandalism would look like false information.

f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal? They reveal the encyclopedia is among the top 10 most-visited sites on the internet around the world and it is found in many types of language.

g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful? I think it is successful because of the many people who help edit the articles.

h. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising? I believe they may not want to accept advertisers because it may take away from the credibility of the site.

i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries? Wikiscanner allows them to check the IP addresses of anonymous editors.

2201 Think Aloud

Think 1

View more PowerPoint from phornick

3351 WebQuest

Cait and I decided to use a WebQuest that she made in her Instructional Tech class. Students will be using Google Earth to complete assigned jobs. We will be working on the assessments and rewording some of the site. We have also decided to change it up by using a different location.

We are considering the following CSO’s:
SS.O.4.4.2 Analyze and assess the effects of and explain how people adapted to geographic factors (e.g., climate, mountains, bodies of water) on the following:

• Transportation routes
• Settlement patterns and population density
• Culture (e.g., jobs, food, clothing, shelter, religion, government)
• Interactions with others (local, national, global)

SS.S.4.4 interpret, and choose maps, globes and other geographic tools to categorize and organize information about personal directions, people, places and environments (The World in Spatial Terms).

3351 Focused Struggling Student Observation

I have been observing a struggling student from day one. This young boy has trouble focusing during math class. I have offered my assistance to help keep him on task many times. When he is monitored closely he knows the content of the lesson better than most of the students in the class. He has poor grades but knows what he’s doing. I discussed this with my host teacher and she agreed but told me he has to show her what he knows on paper so he can be assessed. I think if she would use other ways to keep him engaged during the lesson he would do better because he often plays with things inside his desk.  He has come to like me being there and often asks me to stand by his desk. Just the other day he was having trouble because he was tired. He repeatedly told me how tired he was. That was a hard day for him but he made it through. Another issue in the class is classroom management. I feel this also has a big influence on his situation.

2201 Media Awareness

Who

• Has someone taken responsibility for the content of this Web site? Advocates for Youth  Written by Brigid McKeon
• Can you contact the company or author through a real world postal address or phone number? Yes, both of these are available in the about us section.
• Can you verify the authority of any of the site's content that is attributed to other sources? Yes, there is a long list of references

What

• Does the site offer more than one viewpoint? No, this seems to be a one-sided article.
• Does the site clearly state the topics that it intends to address? Yes, the article is clear on their viewpoints.
• Does the information seem complete and consistent? Yes, the information supports its view and is consistent.

When

• 
  Is it important that the information you're looking for be absolutely current? The information is fairly current (2006). I don’t think it’s necessary to be absolutely current.
• Is a reference date provided to show when the material was put online, or when it was last updated? Yes, the copyright is 2008.
• Do the links work? Yes, the links work with no problems.

Why

• Can I get the information faster offline? Yes, this information is much faster to find on the internet.
• Does the online material I'm finding suit my needs? I would have preferred the article to have represented both views on this topic. However, the information it did give was interesting.
• Am I able to verify this information? Yes, there are additional websites offered to compare the information.

How

• How can you tell what’s what? This website is .org which anyone can apply for, and use, these letters in their domain names.
• I picked this topic after listening to the radio on my way to class. Parents in a certain county in West Virginia are going to be given a preview of the sex education class their children will be presented. Teen pregnancy is extensive in this county. I am a parent of a teenage daughter and would approve of her attending a class on sex education. We have a great relationship and talk often but it would be nice to be backed up by educators.

Click here for my website.

2201 Double Journal Entry #7

Technology can support students with learning differences. I found several ways to incorporate technology into instruction like handheld organizers, audio books, and computer programs that converts spoken language into written text. Another device I found was noise reducing headsets. I think these would be great for students who are distracted by noise. A tool that many of us use that could help students with learning differences is spell check. By using this students could do more independent work and it would help them reach their potential.

I found this great website to help struggling students. There's a whole range of ideas from graphic organizers to online manipulatives. This looks to be a great resource for teachers.

Reference

NA. (2012). Primary education oasis. Retrieved from http://www.primary-education-oasis.com/tools-for-struggling-students.html