Thursday, April 29, 2010

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

NETS Credibility

In class today, the teacher discussed credibility of webpages. We watched two student-made videos and viewed a PowerPoint. She showed us how we can verify a source. The PowerPoint linked to several examples of sites which were not credible. Learning this information will meet NETS standard 3. Understanding web page credibility demonstrates understanding of global social issues and responsibility in an evolving digital culture.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

SMART Board Demonstration



This week we experimented with SMART Boards. The class split up into groups. Each group was assigned a subject and had to find an activity to demonstrate. Out group decided to teach a chemistry lesson about the basic structure of an atom. We found a program online from the creaters of the SMART Board that worked like a PowerPoint. We also showed the class how they could use the SMART Board notepad draw a model of an atom, like the one below.
The other groups presented several interesting activities. One of the groups demonstrated a virtual frog dissection. Even if the teacher wanted the class to preform a real dissection, virtual demonstrations like these could familiarize the students with the tools and processes and make direction easier to follow.
On the other hand, out group spent two class periods getting our SMART Board to work correctly. At the end of our second period, I looked up a YouTube video that showed six year olds demonstrating how to callibrate a SMART Board. We got it working in the last two minutes of that period. Then, on the day we presented we found out that the computer set up for the class to use did not have the SMART Board notebook software. So we had to wait while the program loaded. In hindsight, we probably could have just used Windows Paint to model the atom like I did to create the Argon atom below.
I have seen a SMART Board used effectively in a chemistry class, but any teacher who want to use the technology needs to be aware that there might be problems.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Magazine Cover

We used PowerPoint to create magazine covers with pictures of ourselves and information about the classes we will be teaching.