Thursday, July 30, 2009
CEDO 525 Week 6
I have to admit that I was relatively surprised to see that I actually did a lot of the strategies we've discussed in this class in the lesson I reviewed. I am not someone who has spent a lot of time focusing on applying given strategies to my curriculum but rather focused on just trying to do what I thought was right and would work. The two areas I felt I was really lacking though were reinforcing effort and utilizing advanced organizers. I think that by providing my students with advanced organizers and implementing them into my lesson will keep the students excited to begin the lesson and create a smoother transition into the project. I'm a firm believer that how a student starts an assignment sets the tone for how the project will go and what better way to start the assignment than by modeling organization and efficiency. In addition, I currently put only a little emphasis on effort but I can see after reviewing this lesson that I need to do a lot more of this. I will create a rubric specifically for rewarding effort and will emplement a blog where I will ask the students to post twice/week on what they have done on the project as well as what their partners have done. I think that not only will I get an idea of any extra-curricular work, but this will also allow the parents to see what the students are doing in class and out. In the long run, these two additions will make my students maintain a strong interest in this assignment and will hopefully generate higher quality projects.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
CEDO 525 Week three
In this week we were asked to review several sites containing note taking and data documentation tools or organizers. We had a list of Bubbl.us, CMAP, Inspiration or Kidspiration, Education Oasis, and Explora Tree. I chose to review Bubbl.us, Inspiration, and Education Oasis.
The first I reviewed was Bubbl.us as this was the first on the list. I thought that Bubbl.us was a neat tool to use and it was visually pleasing. I thought the commands and tools were very easy to use and the procedure certainly lended itself to focusing on learning and organizing the information provided versus learning the software itself. I think the less time a student needs to spend learning the software, the more time they can spend learning the curriculum. I can see how using this mapping feature would help students organize the information in a manner that is meaningful to them and that is what we are all striving for. I did not necessarily like the fact that it was pretty much solely a mapping program were as some of the other programs I reviewed had some additional possibilities as well but we will get to that in those reviews.
The second tool I reviewed was Inspiration. I had been hearing of people using Inspiration but had never actually used it myself. I signed up for a free trial and after finally getting it loaded, I was off and running through the beginning tutorials. This was an extremely easy program to use and very visually appealing. I thought the pictures included were awesome and I could see where students would really enjoy making maps using this program. I also liked the ease of use in creating these maps and the quick learning curve that went along with this software. In addition to the maps, I really liked the fact that you could also use the software to create outlines. I think that this additional feature seperates this program from Bubbl.us and therefore I would use this program before using that.
The final tool I reviewed was Education Oasis. This program wasn't nearly as visually appealing as either of the previous two programs I reviewed, however, what it lacks in aesthetics, I felt it more than made up for in functionality. I really liked the idea that you could select from a wide array of map templates, documentation templates, and data collection templates. I think this provides the instructor with some great tools to administer to the students for procurring information and assisting in the retention of that information. I didn't necessarily like the fact that these templates were done in a non-writable pdf format which requires printing them off to utilize them, however, I think I could copy the image and create a writeable format from these documents and then paste them into my shared folder where the students could digitally complete these documents and then store them in their own folders. I think that this would greatly enhance the students ability to stay organized as well as be able to rapidly recall the information when needed.
In all, I think a combination of Inspiration and Education Oasis would be very beneficial to bring into the classroom. I have always been a big proponent of taking the extra time to provide students with a means of organizing their information as I think in the long run, the organization makes what I do more effective and it saves time over the long haul.
The first I reviewed was Bubbl.us as this was the first on the list. I thought that Bubbl.us was a neat tool to use and it was visually pleasing. I thought the commands and tools were very easy to use and the procedure certainly lended itself to focusing on learning and organizing the information provided versus learning the software itself. I think the less time a student needs to spend learning the software, the more time they can spend learning the curriculum. I can see how using this mapping feature would help students organize the information in a manner that is meaningful to them and that is what we are all striving for. I did not necessarily like the fact that it was pretty much solely a mapping program were as some of the other programs I reviewed had some additional possibilities as well but we will get to that in those reviews.
The second tool I reviewed was Inspiration. I had been hearing of people using Inspiration but had never actually used it myself. I signed up for a free trial and after finally getting it loaded, I was off and running through the beginning tutorials. This was an extremely easy program to use and very visually appealing. I thought the pictures included were awesome and I could see where students would really enjoy making maps using this program. I also liked the ease of use in creating these maps and the quick learning curve that went along with this software. In addition to the maps, I really liked the fact that you could also use the software to create outlines. I think that this additional feature seperates this program from Bubbl.us and therefore I would use this program before using that.
The final tool I reviewed was Education Oasis. This program wasn't nearly as visually appealing as either of the previous two programs I reviewed, however, what it lacks in aesthetics, I felt it more than made up for in functionality. I really liked the idea that you could select from a wide array of map templates, documentation templates, and data collection templates. I think this provides the instructor with some great tools to administer to the students for procurring information and assisting in the retention of that information. I didn't necessarily like the fact that these templates were done in a non-writable pdf format which requires printing them off to utilize them, however, I think I could copy the image and create a writeable format from these documents and then paste them into my shared folder where the students could digitally complete these documents and then store them in their own folders. I think that this would greatly enhance the students ability to stay organized as well as be able to rapidly recall the information when needed.
In all, I think a combination of Inspiration and Education Oasis would be very beneficial to bring into the classroom. I have always been a big proponent of taking the extra time to provide students with a means of organizing their information as I think in the long run, the organization makes what I do more effective and it saves time over the long haul.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
CEDO 525 Week Two
I thought the article on feedback contained a lot of truths and a lot of very good information. I think our ability to provide feedback to our students is absolutely essential to their learning and the better we can do this, the better they will learn. I like the articles idea that positive feedback is critical, yet artificial responses aren't valuable either. I agree with this assertion full-heartedly. I am a firm believer that students know immediately when a teacher is being genuine or fake and they will lose respect for that teacher much quicker when they are giving false positve feedback than they would if that teacher was giving negative genuine feedback. It is my belief that a combination of positive feedback mixed with some cold hard facts feedback keeps the students on task and in tune to what you are trying to achieve while giving them the carrot in front of their nose that will keep them going and striving for better.
Though nice, I do not find the electronic forms of feedback to be sufficient for my curriculum. As an Architecture and Engineering teacher, so much of my work is done through drawings that I grade, critique and return to the students. How I control my feedback is by asking that all the students hand in their work through a digital dropbox. Once I have this in my dropbox, I then grade this online as this allows me to do so in a non-printable text so as not to destroy the students time and effort on the work. The students can then make the changes and print off their work for an improved grade. I've found that by offering the students a "second chance", they take the critique more seriously and trully attempt to internalize it which is what we all strive for. I guess to me, with these electronic programs, the feedback is too concrete and to final. I would like to use these some more and play around more to see how I could manipulate these to fit my style but for not I don't really see utilizing them much. In addition, I was not real pleased with Rubistar as it does not contain anything regarding technology curriculum.
Though nice, I do not find the electronic forms of feedback to be sufficient for my curriculum. As an Architecture and Engineering teacher, so much of my work is done through drawings that I grade, critique and return to the students. How I control my feedback is by asking that all the students hand in their work through a digital dropbox. Once I have this in my dropbox, I then grade this online as this allows me to do so in a non-printable text so as not to destroy the students time and effort on the work. The students can then make the changes and print off their work for an improved grade. I've found that by offering the students a "second chance", they take the critique more seriously and trully attempt to internalize it which is what we all strive for. I guess to me, with these electronic programs, the feedback is too concrete and to final. I would like to use these some more and play around more to see how I could manipulate these to fit my style but for not I don't really see utilizing them much. In addition, I was not real pleased with Rubistar as it does not contain anything regarding technology curriculum.
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