Extra Credit Idea

Every day, a student brings in a "Stump Mr. Borski Question."  If I know it, game over.  If I don't know it, everyone else in the class can research the question that night and bring in the answer for one extra credit point the next day.  Then the next person brings in a question, related to the unit.

This will not only encourage attendance, but also encourage class participation.  Peer pressure will drive the assigned student to bring in the question for the next day.  If the assigned student does not bring in the question, no one in the class gets the opportunity for the extra credit point.

The Ledge?

Hi Erin,
I hope you get better today... I have to get going to class. Can you PLEASE do me a quick favor? I have to design a lesson to teach next week about "the Ledge". I dont know very much about it, can you help me answer a couple questions? It will be a giant help if you can help me get started with this.
When you want to post the answers, click on "comments" below this post and you can make your own comment.
Thank you soo much,

Nick


Why the heck is "the Ledge" behind your house?

What is the other name for "the Ledge"?

What are the names of the major rock layers? (*Hint: on top of the Ledge, and below the Ledge)

Vector Steering

IWB reflection

IWB Reflection

Completing the Interactive White Board activity was another first for me. Although using the SMART software is similar to creating a PowerPoint, it has its differences too. PowerPoint does not really have anything that sparks active user involvement. Having PowerPoint experience defiantly helped me to complete the IWB and now this new experience with creating an IWB will help me when I create an IWB for my actual classroom.

I can save this presentation for when I do teach about erosion and deposition to an 7-8^th grade class. Depending on the background knowledge and abilities of the students in my class I may need to tweek it a little bit but not too much.

I can have my students do an activity similar to what I was required to do for this class. My students can create their own activities and then peer review each other’s smart board presentations. From what I have observed, I think that many teachers who are new to using SMART board find it very foreign and are using them as expensive non-interactive traditional projectors. They are not grabbing on to the true usefulness that the IWBs are built for. As we have evaluated many other tools in Edu331, it is important to continue to evaluate the tech tools we choose to use for instruction. If the IWB lesson can be done just as well in PowerPoint, then it is being wasted. The key is to make it meaningful.

In order to make an IWB meaningful, I think that it should require the student to use it. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime. By requiring the student to actually use the IWB I will be helping the student become more actively involved in their learning.

Normally here is where I reflect on the experience and tell what its future applications will be once I am a teacher. True I will need to know how to use it in my own classroom, but I have found out that both of my co-operating teachers nest semester have SMART Boards, and they are expecting me to utilize them! So this new tool will be affecting my teaching even before I have my own classroom. I cannot imagine trying to wing it and begin learning about SMART during student teaching. I am glad that I got some exposure during this class.

Technology Inquiry Wiki Reflection.

The Tech Wiki requirement was not easy for me. My research question was "Which innovative technologies can best capture the attention of secondary science students with ADHD?"
The project is designed well to assess teacher education students for what they are able to do with wikis. I had a difficult time because, as I stated in my wiki, I have trouble composing papers. I especially have a difficult time when I have to read multiple papers, draw conclusions, and then create a new whole from what I learned.
The learning experience as a whole was really useful. This class was the first time I had ever used a wiki and before then i thought that wikipedia was a curse word for drawing information from to do schoolwork and papers. I understand now just how useful it can be and that it is more credible than I had once viewed it.
I want to help students who have the same problems in school that i did and sometimes still do. Technology can be a great way to go about helping them. my recomendations were to use blogs and wikis, online timers and planners, and to use concept maps. Learning about how to help these students has helped me to prepare for teaching, expand my resource library, and use more tools that will benefit me in my own personal learning. 
I might use wikis in my classroom, but i know that i will make screencasts. I enjoyed using screencasts as a way to create tutorials. They are very useful and fun to do. Although i like them, i dont agree with doing one as long as 4-5 minutes in one screencast. I think that i would have done better by doing 3 of them 1.5 minutes long. and having three different links to them.

All the links to the Spring Ed331 class wikis

Syllabus https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfhnjdwv_120csjpkndb
What we did in class wiki https://sites.google.com/site/fall2010wwdicwiki/home
Class organization wiki https://sites.google.com/site/educ331fa10cowiki/
               This includes PSA's, Cool tool's, Tech inquiry etc...

WOW

WOW I took everything that I have typed on this blog for class this semester up until now and put it into M-word 12pt font. It comes out to 35 pages, single spaced! and im not even done, i still need to add a couple reflections!