Blog 5 - Comic Life

Comic Life is an excellent computer program that students and teachers can use to get their information across to an audience in a more fun and creative way. I have been brainstorming ideas of how to incoporate Comic Life into the mathematics classroom. I was thinking about a step by step instruction of how to solve equations. If you have an idea, please respond! I have enjoyed these project the past few weeks. Very cool!

Blog 4 - Supporting Student Communication

To understand student communication, Egbert felt that we should define the related terms. She defines communication as "a general term that implies the conveyance of information either one-way or through an exchange with two or more partners" (p. 67). Communication is important for student success. Not only do you have to effectively communicate ideas and concepts to students, but they have to learn how to communicate between each other, not just converse. There is a big difference.
Collaboration is "social interaction in which participants must plan and accomplish something specific together (p. 68). Collaboration is when each member of a group contributes equally and effectively. As teachers, it is a lot of times hard for us to collaborate ourselves, much less teach students how to do it. A big part of effective collaboration is effective communication.
Collaboration and communication go hand in hand in every classroom situation. To effectively integrate technology into student learning, these things must take place. I feel that as a teacher, I am expected to utilize group work in much of my instruction. However, before I can expect positive results from that type of instruction practice, I must first teach and demonstrate good communication skills and good collaboration skills.
On a different note, it is important that a teacher chooses the right technology to utilize with group collaboration and communication. The use of technology for group projects is a great way to further a student's understanding of effective collaboration and communication.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

VoiceThread Article

I found an article on www.edutopia.org about a teacher who has encorportated the web tool VoiceThread into his classroom. Bill Ferriter is a 6th grade social studies and language arts teacher. He wanted to engage the students on a different level and decided to "steal" some of their online minutes. I think that this is an excellent example of how the internet is a powerful tool. He started using VoiceThread so that his students could interact on a whole new level. He describes the feed back he got, "you don't have the loud one or the popular one. they can think about their comments beforehand. In the classroom conversation, there's generally one strand of conversation going at any one time, and if you're board by that particular strand, you're completely disengaged." I think his observations and assessment of the online versus classroom discussion is right on. I think that students can really feel comfortable saying things when they don't have a group of their peers staring at them. I also beleive that it benefits the student when he or she has time to formulate a response instead of having to be "on the spot".

This program has an educators section that is safe for students and private for the specific class. No one not in the class can respond or contact the members. This is a great saftey net and I feel that this would encourage many teacher and schools to utilize the program. It would also make parents feel much better about it.

Weir, L. (2008). VoiceThread extends the classroom with interactive multimedia albums. Edutopia: What Works in Public Schools. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/voicethread-interactive-multimedia-albums

Classifying Shapes

This is a VoiceThread example about classifying shapes. I created it using PowerPoint and then uploaded to voicethread.com. I commented on each slide and students are supposed to respond and classify the shapes using two different Venn diagrams. Please view this and comment as you wish.

Blog 3 - VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a digital storytelling medium that we are learning about. I created my VoiceThread on classifying shapes using Venn Diagrams. The students visit the VoiceThread and classify the shapes.

I found this to be a very cool program. I feel that I have a lot of options with incorporating this into my classroom. Check it out here: Classifying Shapes

When I began to read about the project, I was very concerned. I wasn't sure what VoiceThread was all about and how to go about beginning. Another group member shared his and I was floored. I was excited at the possibilites with this free program. I began to think about all the different types of activities we could use this for at my school.

VoiceThread is easy and students of all ages can use it. My niece, who is 6, responded to my VoiceThread like she was an old pro.

TPACK - Where do we go now?

TPACK is an acronym for technological pedagogical and content knowledge framework. This framework is an ideology for effective technology integration.This framework first came about in 1987 as pedagogical content knowledge. The article discusses how teacher need to have knowledge in both pedegogy and content in order to successfully provide students with opportunities to learn and be successful.

The article states that "though teacher knowledge does impact student learning, educators have moved past the belief that teacher content knowledge is transmitted directly to the students in the same form" (Polly & Brantley-Dias, 2009). This is so true and so important for teachers to recognize. Just becasue you know something, does not mean that the students know it. Teacher knowledge is very important, but it is the whole package that is essential to the success of the student.

TPACK prepares teachers for the technology integration that the WILL do in their classrooms. In the "21st Century Classroom," teachers are expected to be able to utilize the technology provided. TPACK helps the content specific teacher understand the benefits and uses of the given technology specifically for that classroom and content area.

Brantley-Dias, L., Polly, D. (2009). TPACK: Where do we go now? TechTrends 53(5).Retrieved September 5, 2009 from Ebscohost.

About Me

Hi! For some reason I cannot get the blog to show my "about me" section. So, here it goes!

My name is Ashley and I am a math and science teacher in a middle school in Georgia. I have been teaching for4 years and have loved every minute of it. I am from a family of teacher and lifelong learners. I believe in keeping up with the technology that is around us.

My goal for this blog is for it to be a sounding board for educators and other regarding technology in the classroom. What works, what doesn't? I hope you add me to your blog list and come back and visit soon!

Blog 2 - Supporting Student Content Learning

The chapter Supporting Student Content Learning is a great opener for this class. I thought the explanation of the different types of knowledge were excellent. I think that learning about the three types creates a more thorough understanding of student learning. Declarative, structural and procedural knowledge are the types of knowledge that we see students reach each year. I thought that the way the author described each of these as sort of scaffolding and working independent of each other as well as working together. I feel that procedural knowledge is the type of knowledge the GPS is geared toward with performance tasks.

There are also many ways to use technology to enhance these types of knowledge. Having a compute in every classroom that is solely for student use is very important. My school has yet to achieve this goal, but I feel that it is just around the corner. A lot of the other types of technology described is used at my school. I have seen great success with items like the AlphaSmart and Promethean board.

On another note, I really feel that this book is a great workbook in grading your classroom on how well you are incorporating content learning in the current technology age.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Welcome: Goal and Purpose

Welcome to the Mathematics blog for the IT Factor group. This blog will be devoted to the discussion of ideal technology practices in the classroom. We will discuss how the different technologies available can influence the mathematics classroom. Please feel free to critique and/or respond to any posts. Thank you!