Google Earth Project Reflection

Prompt:

• Talk about the instructional goals of your virtual field trip and comment on how your project provides students the opportunity to develop their respectful and ethical minds.

Click here to get to the Virtual Field Trip:
http://mrschutt.wikispaces.com/Virtua+Field+Trips

This virtual field trip is entitled, “Caring for OUR Fresh Water”. It is designed to demonstrate to third graders the various uses of fresh water, the importance of fresh water, and why we should nurture and care for fresh water. Along these lines, the trip exposes students to a variety of topics impacting the Five Themes of Geography.

First, students are constantly reminded of their location, the absolute and relative position of a place on Earth’s surface. They navigate the various Google Earth Placemarks as they venture from location to location.

Second, the students learn about place as they navigate around the United States. They further explore our country and build knowledge of the physical and human characteristics that define and distinguish a place.

Along this process the students also begin to recognize how an area displays unity in terms of physical and human characteristics; a third theme of geography called regions. One example of this is the continuation of learning about landforms; a previously taught concept.

Students also learn about movement, how people, ideas and materials move between and among locations, as they view the ways water is used in transportation.

Finally, students are exposed to the ways in which humans modify and adapt to natural settings; known at human-environment interaction.

It is the goal of this project to specifically sharpen students’ abilities to recognize the impact that humans have on their environment. Through this theme of geography, this virtual field trip aims to further develop students’ Respectful and Ethical Minds as proposed by Howard Gardner.

There are three specific targets that educators refer to when teaching respect. They are respect to ourselves, respect to others, and respect to the environment. Obviously, this trip explicitly focuses on respecting fresh water within our environment. In addition, the trip helps students realize the diverse uses of fresh water within the United States. By capitalizing the word “our” in the title, students feel a sense of ownership.

The trip also allows for educators to develop students Ethical Minds by expressing more specific ways that humans adapt to survive within each environment. This allows students to better understand others’ point of view through their needs for survival. Demonstrating others’ point of view accomplishes the same ethical mission that Howard Gardner proposes,

“As disciplined learners it is our job to understand the world. But if we are to be ethical human beings, it is equally our job to use that understanding to improve the quality of life and living…” (142).

Overall, this virtual field trip enables students to learn at their own pace through the use of educational technologies in order to better develop their Respectful and Ethical Minds.

Educational Blog

Identify at least one educational blog or podcast that connects to your current or future pedagogical efforts and explain why you selected it in the context of your own work and ongoing professional growth.

When I'm searching for Podcasts that are educationally based, I like to go to The Education Podcast Network (http://www.epnweb.org/index.php). This site hosts podcasts created by teachers and students alike. The main reason I chose this site is because it allows me to find information about almost anything I need, when I need it. For example, in searching for a podcast for this blog, I searched for Education and Technology. One of the first feeds that I found was Teach42, a blog with podcasts from Discovery Education's Steve Dembo. Ever since seeing Steve at PETE&C, I've been interested in what he has to share. I can really connect to his energy and thirst for new technologies and their application to education. I often get lost watching videos, reading blogs, and playing with new technologies (which is why this posting has taken well over an hour to write!). Within my own career, I hope to find a position where I have more of a direct impact of helping educators use technology within their classrooms. By following Steve's blog I can easily observe ways to apply technology within the classroom.

As I was writing this, I learned about Shout'em. In Steve's words, Shout 'em is a " create-your-own-Twitter platform that works just as easily as Ning does". These are awesome applications. If you'd like to learn more, check out http://www.teach42.com/category/social-networking/

2/28/09 BASD Technology Conference

Dr. Morgan opens:
-today allows us for the opportunity to network.
My thoughts:....the original way...human interaction as opposed to digital social networking

Sue Kinney welcome:
-Steve & IT Dept. are so patient...referring to virus infection on network...thank you!



Hall Davidson - keynote speaker
"Thinking Bigger While the World Gets Smaller"
-multitasking at your desktop: gmail, twitter, chat, etc
-bringing the internet into you classroom

-phone a friend in exams: see if you can find this type of thing...sharing what you know and who you know

-getting information is more than just google: where did you find it AND HOW did you find it?

-microsoft...linked social networking through gaming (XBox)...connected people, then made avatars and even more people linked in

-gizmoz site (free to use your voice w/ preset avatars)

-Slide on "Global or National Social Networks in Schools"
My thoughts: i hope the IT dept. is hearing this

-use cell phones, etc. to dl programs that you need w/i education and use them in the classroom
MT: again how to integrate what kids have with their education

-start locally: check in on your class as you are absent or on a break somewhere
MT: use video streaming...can we hook up our dig. camera?....prob. need webcams.

-using Jing to capture video of yourself and transplant it into Google Earth, etc.
have your students record video and tag it to a specific place
MT: very cool use of Jing, excited I've used it before many times
Qik.com and Kyte.com (check them out)

-again Hall references Green Screening for writing
MT: good old Jason Ohler

-uses videos and has students elaborate to teach others: "Reading Angels", etc.

MT: macs and their uses in schools are now apparent....Photo Booth (with a mac), choose your backdrop, etc.
-with a webcam and you can do this using Adobe Premiere for the PC

horizionprojectNMC.org (check out)

-checkout USTream so that we can make our own tv channel

Using Digital Media to Develop Students' Respectful & Ethical Minds

Reflect on Julene Reed’s article and post a blog entry that presents an idea for using digital media as part of a project, activity or lesson in which you aim to develop students’ respectful and ethical minds.

Our school district participates in the No Place For Hate initiative by the Anti-Defamation League. Each year we present three major projects in order to meet the requirements and be given our NPFH status. I, along with other voluntary educators in our building, have taken on some difficult endeavors this year. For one of our projects, we host an assembly at the beginning of each month based around character development themes; kindness, compassion and empathy, tolerance and acceptance, etc. These assemblies have three purposes. First, they award students that exemplified the previous month's theme by giving them a leaf to add to our school's community tree. Second, they present the new topic for the month. To present this topic, one of my colleagues has spent hours creating moving and motivating videos. Below is an example of one from our theme on "Empathy and Compassion". As illustrated, these videos present images, sounds, and words in order to spark a conversation. After watching the video, our principal has a quick Q&A session with the student body. Then the assembly ends.

Teachers have found that the video is a perfect segway into a conversation of the month's theme. The older grade levels have rewatched the videos numerous times in order to dive into the history behind the images and events. And, the younger students seem to understand the underlying themes quite well.

In addition to the video, our NPFH team organizes classroom lessons revolving around these themes and passes them on to the teachers in the building. The team writes a monthly newsletter focusing on a specific diversity awareness topic. These newsletters are passed out to parents and discussed within the classrooms. The newsletters also spark conversations about bullying awareness and prevention.

These projects, lesson plans, and conversations positively impact our students' ethical and respectful minds. They present background knowldedge of other cultures, provide viewpoints different from the norm, and induce students to put themselves in others' shoes.

Glogster in the Classroom

http://mrschutt.glogster.com/Map-Skills/
(click this link for the full view of the glog)




How can you use Glogster in your classroom this school year to foster the development of the creating mind? Elaborate on the instructional purpose and the standards you will address.

In Howard Gardner’s book Five Minds for the Future, he suggests several guidelines in order to foster the development of the creating mind within the preadolescent child. By combining these guidelines with the use of Glogster, a free Web 2.0 tool, I can develop instructional tools and strategies to help my students understand several of the geography standards for third grade.

The three core geography standards that I will focus on are identifying geographic tools and their uses (Std. 7.1.3.A), identifying and locating places and regions (Std. 7.1.3.B), and identifying the physical characteristics of places and regions (Std. 7.2.3.A).

In order to develop the creative mind, Gardner poses that children need to “master literacies” while keeping open “…alternative possibilities and to foreground the option of unfettered exploration” (86). The instructional purpose of using Glogster is that can be tailored to my needs. In order to master the basic literacies of geography, I can use a glog just like the one I created. This glog provides a starting place for students. Rather than a linear path to learning, they can learn in the order that they choose. All the while, I can require students to think for themselves and apply their learning through writing prompts and assignment links to the Discovery Education website.

Gardner also suggests that educators enable students to focus on quality rather than quantity. More specifically, he proposes that significant time should be spent analyzing one problem in order to “develop multiple, diverse representations of the same entity” (87). The geographic standards I’ve chosen lend themselves directly to this statement. For example, I can create another glog that has links to various types of maps. After learning about topographic, political, landform and other maps, students can create an example of each of these maps for our school. Again, this is how Glogster can jumpstart the students’ creative mind.

However, Glogster does not simply have to be a starting point. It can also be process. By giving students their own Glogster account, I can have my students create their own glogs. The students might be required to find examples of these maps to post to their glogs. Or, the students might focus on just one of these types of maps and find several different examples to link to their glog. Then, the students could navigate their classmates’ glogs, learning information from each other.

These ideas lend themselves to one of Howard Gardner’s last guidelines for developing the creative mind. He advocates the need for students to make mistakes. Through the creation of their glogs, students will examine how to add videos, images, website links, and other content that will increase their basic and technological literacies. This will be a process in making mistakes and learning that there is not one specific way to solve a problem.

As I’ve used technology within the classroom, I’ve increasingly noticed a trend where students ask for help rather than attempting to solve their own problems. Web 2.0 technologies such as Glogster are prime examples of media platforms that have no straight forward answer. These tools encourage problem solving. So, through the use of Glogster I hope to continue to encourage my students to read, analyze, and think in order to expand their creativity and problem solving ability.

Developing the creating mind through VoiceThread

http://voicethread.com/#q

The website states, "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too."

VoiceThread is able to be manipulated for all users. The VoiceThread website has a huge amount of examples. However, a great example of how VoiceThread can be used to advance the Creating Mind within First Graders can be found here: http://digitalstories21.wikispaces.com/PETE+and+C+2009. Once you press play, make sure that you click on the arrow to the right so that you can observe all of the slides.

The third VoiceThread down highlights how teachers can easily use a digital video camera to take pictures of student work and quickly upload the content to the web. This allows for a fantastic conversation to evolve. It can also be viewed here: http://voicethread.com/share/332534/

Overall, the main reason I appreciate this software is that is allows static presentations to become dynamic. In addition to pictures, teachers can upload PowerPoint presentations to the software, and then all of a sudden the presentation is able to be commented on.

Nurturing Creativity

It takes creativity to be able to provide time to focus on creativity within the classroom. Let me explain. All educators feel the demands, pressures, stresses, and pulls from local, state, and national mandates. Amidst the AYP, PSSA, IEP, and wide range of other acronyms, lies classroom teachers struggling to "fit it all in". "How is it possible?", I often hear colleagues complain. Like always, where there is a will, there is a way. And technology is that way. Now, technology for technologies sake does not solve any problems. However, once you've identified the problem and have a need, technologies can easily answer the "how can I fit it all in" question. The reality is that so long as educators devise systems that enable, not discourage, students to read, think, write, and create, our students have the potential and ambition to soar on their own. It's our job to get out of the way and stop being the kink in the hose.

One website that opens doors up for creativity is www.wikispaces.com For writing, check out the tools here: http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/ and http://www.kolabora.com/news/2007/03/01/collaborative_writing_tools_and_technology.htm Finally, for some great student applications try this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_backpack_web_apps_for_students.php