Another 3...

1. Promethean Boards

Promethean Boards are "Smart" Whiteboards with interactive capabilities that "bring together formative assessment, resources, and dynamic lesson development and delivery tools." Promethean Boards use multimedia devices and have internet capabilities.  They engage children in lesson more than a standard white/blackboard lecture, and allow children to actively engage in the material.







2. BLiSS SiM

The BLiSS SiM is a free educational app developed by the Classroom of the Future, a NASA sponsored project.  the app helps students develop an "Earth-like" solution for oxygen, water, and food.  It presents the situation of extreme conditions on Earth, or housing humans in space. A very fun, unique app for kids interested in space!


3. EmergingEDTech

Gaming curriculum for Higher Education
Source: http://www.emergingedtech.com/
Gaming:
1. heightens student engagement
2. motivates students
3. allow students to experience real life situations without danger

Pepe sings!

After seeing Patty's website, I got the urge to share my singing dog!

3 More Technologies!

Voicethread

This is an awesome technology that records text and voice to create collaborative presentations.  Voicethread is cloud-based and can therefore be accessed anywhere in the world.  It allows users to collaboratively doodle, record voice, add text, video, or picture, and navigate the slides, all without installing software.

Wordle

Wordle is awesome! It's fun; no so much educational, but can be used to create posters rich with vocabulary. I made this wordle in 2 minutes with an excerpt from my blog. :)

Snagit

As someone who loves screenshotting (I screenshotted the wordle above and downloaded it from my desktop into my blog), this is a great technology.  It helps you screen capture, edit, and save on "the cloud!"

Unrelated to the course, but just trying out video embedding in my blog! Here's my first time on a trapeze :)

Unit Plan Idea-- Dream Room

3rd Grade Math/Econ

Students will create their own "Dream Room" after they are given a budget and measurement restriction. They will calculate areas and perimeters of each "purchased" item in their room, as well as manage their allotted budgets when making purchases. More to come....

Place Value and Fractions:

3.1          The student will

a)   read and write six-digit numerals and identify the place value and value of each digit;

b)   round whole numbers, 9,999 or less, to the nearest ten, hundred, and thousand; and

c)   compare two whole numbers between 0 and 9,999, using symbols (>, <, or = ) and words (greater than, less than, or equal to).

Computation and Estimation:

3.4          The student will estimate solutions to and solve single-step and multistep problems involving the sum or difference of two whole numbers, each 9,999 or less, with or without regrouping.

3.5          The student will recall multiplication facts through the twelves table, and the corresponding division facts.

Measurement

3.9          The student will estimate and use U.S. Customary and metric units to measure

a)   length to the nearest -inch, inch, foot, yard, centimeter, and meter;

d)   area and perimeter.

3.10        The student will

a)   measure the distance around a polygon in order to determine perimeter; and

b)   count the number of square units needed to cover a given surface in order to determine area.

Economics

3.9          The student will identify examples of making an economic choice and will explain the idea of opportunity cost (what is given up when making a choice).

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/common_core/index.shtml

Yet another 3 technologies for your classroom!

1. Dropbox

For my next technology, I'll review one that my professor has recently invited us to try.  Dropbox, like google docs, provides "cloud" storage, so that you can access your documents from any computer that has dropbox capabilities.  This is a great technology for both students and teachers.  As a student, I work on projects and papers on my home computer, my personal laptop, and my laptop at work, as well as on other work computers.  Dropbox provides me the opportunity to seamlessly work on the same document from different computers without having to constantly email myself the updated version of my work.  As a teacher, I foresee using dropbox to collaborate on projects with other teachers, as the work we put in the dropbox would be accessible by any other teachers working on the same project with the dropbox technology.

2. Delicious

Delicious is another nifty web-based way of collecting and sharing ideas and findings.  The website has personal and professional applications, and I could see it be particularly useful in the teaching profession.  For example, all of the teachers on one grade-level team could save and share interesting websites, activities, field trip location ideas, etc. as a collection online.  Each teacher's collections are viewable by the others, so sharing and collaboration is a huge benefit of this technology in the educational profession.

3. TED

TED is a website with a wealth of interesting lecture videos about a variety of topics, including technology, entertainment, design, business, and science. These videos could certainly prove excellent supplements to lessons, though, I caution teachers that some of the videos are of mature content and would not be appropriate in the classroom.

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Having class this late at night is altering my self-perception...

PLNs: Personal, Passionate, Professional Learning Networks

Personal (or Professional/Passionate) Learning Networks are proof that technology has immense and enriching effects on how teachers educate. A PLN is a web-based social media forum in which people of similar interests and/or locations can share, reflect, collaborate, and evaluate.  They prove an extremely useful tool in the education system, but are not yet universally used in school systems.

PLNs have the capacity to connect not only teachers in the same building serving the same school, but also teachers in the same county, state, country, and across the world.  Because of their web-based nature, anyone with internet access could benefit from these rich resources.  PLNs offer teachers virtually limitless data, ideas, strategies, projects, and very importantly, support and feedback from the other educators in their circles.  These rich networks strive to accomplish what every education system should-- to exhaust all resources to provide students with the most meaningful, effective education possible.

Once I am a classroom teacher, I will either seek out or create such a PLN.  I predict it begins with a cluster of teachers at my school, but soon will branch out to other schools in Arlington County, and finally (and hopefully) will spread to nearby counties.  A PLN could benefit my class by providing numerous perspectives on each topic of curriculum, as well as various methods of instruction.  This lends opportunity to meaningful differentiation of lesson delivery, a crucial aspect of a successful classroom.  Further, I would be interested to learn about what and how other teachers are teaching. What I would hope would result from my participation in a PLN with fellow educators would be a deeper understanding of the curriculum and an effective manner of instruction, consisting of an amalgamation of my colleagues' ideas and suggestions.