WebQuests

The process of creating a WebQuest has been very rewarding for me.  I feel like that's the kind of thing I can easily put into my classroom (especially with a tool like Weebly, which is super easy to implement).  With my student population, anything that moves class away from me standing in front and giving instruction is a good thing.  The idea that they can log on and have instructions and resources to work at their own pace would be very effective for my classes, and fits right in with my school culture.

Copyright Dangers

Today's presentation on copyright protections was interesting, and something that every teacher should probably see at some point.  I know that I, at times, am teaching in "emergency mode", where I'm scrambling to have something prepared for the next day, even the next period.  It seems that these would be the times where I would be most in danger of mistakenly violating a copyright; knowing more about what is and isn't fair use will help to avoid this danger.  I was happy to hear that copyright suits against schools and teachers are rare, but finding ways to avoid trouble is better still.

Teaching STEM with technology

In class today, we were asked to evaluate, based on some readings, how technology can address some issues that are specific to our content area.  It was interesting to hear from the science teachers I was paired with regarding what issues were important to them and their teaching.  The real challenge seems to be incorporating technology in a way that adds something that wouldn't otherwise be part of your teaching.  For me, so far, that has been two things:  (i) remediation/skills practice with instant, individualized feedback for students, something that is difficult for me to personalize for each student without the help of technological elements like Khan Academy, and (ii) help in removing the burden of calculation, to allow students to access the algebraic and geometric thinking required by the standards, without getting bogged down in their troubles with basic arithmetic, fractions, decimals, etc.  Technology like GeoGebra, spreadsheets, etc. helps with this.  The challenge is finding the right balance of helping/easing this burden, and still requiring them to make the decisions in how a problem is solved.  I think, also, that tools like this need to be paired with basic skills practice, so that they are not entirely "off the hook" for learning how to do the calculations.  I look forward to finding other avenues to incorporate technology into my teaching.

Games in education

Games in education.  Aside from this class, integrating games into education is something I've been exploring at work as well.  Early last year, I discovered some math based games, and began introducing them to my students as a change of pace to break up long class periods.  None of the games linked there are particularly great, but it was a beginning.  My students responded well to something that seemed less like work and more like play, and really enjoyed having some ability to choose between different games.  Since then, I've been searching for more, better games for my students.

What I'm particularly excited about right now is the prospect of introducing one of my favorite games, Minecraft, into my classroom.  Minecraft is a sandbox game, with no objectives other than survival.  Players can explore, can dig for rare resources, or can construct elaborate structures.  This freedom will allow students to pursue objectives with very few restrictions in a multiplayer, collaborative world.  Also, because the entire world is made of 1m x 1m x 1m cubes, Minecraft seems very well suited for exploring 3-dimensional geometry.  Most exciting to me is that I wouldn't have to completely invent the mechanics of introducing Minecraft into my classroom.  A teacher in New York named Joel Levin has been exploring this idea for years, and blogs under the name The Minecraft Teacher.  He also creates YouTube videos about his adventures teaching with Minecraft, such as this one:

What I'm most excited about is the product he created called MinecraftEDU, a custom version of Minecraft that is specifically designed to give teachers the ability to easily create custom Minecraft worlds that are set up for specific lesson plans.  I'm in the process of getting this software package for my school so that I can begin exploring it and creating lessons for my students.

Technological Frustrations

UPDATE:  It was my firewall program.  The same one I've been running all year (COMODO) suddenly decided to block Blackboard Collaborate.  Stupid firewall....

Missed class last week.  My computer is being ridiculous, and I can't get the Blackboard Collaborate software to work.  I haven't even been able to go back and watch the recording yet.  I'm in class this week on a borrowed computer.  I'll try to post a reaction to last week whenever I'm able to watch it.

WebQuests, and some confusion about the advantages of different platforms

Webquest assignments, as a concept, were nothing new to me coming into class today, although I had never heard that term before.  The idea of giving students a task, and then providing them with a list of tools and resources with which to pursue a solution is definitely in line with the philosophy of my school, and with the way I try to present my class.  I like the idea of presenting that as an entirely web-based assignment, and I look forward to exploring how I can integrate the idea into my class.

The question that remains in my head, after class this afternoon, is about platforms*.   Dr. Merchant stressed that a website was preferable to something like a Google Doc, but I'm still unsure of her specific reasons.  She listed several capabilities associated with websites, but I didn't hear any that aren't possible in Google Docs as well.  She initially mentioned an advantage in being able to have things on separate pages, but then said best practice was to have the task and resources on the same page.  I'm sure there are some real advantages to a website format over a Google Doc for webquest assignments, but so far, I'm not sure what they are.





*I know Dr. Merchant argued early in the semester that the term platform should be reserved for the hardware being used (PC v. Mac, etc.), but I think on this front she's wrong.  That may have been true at one point, but popular usage now refers to Blogger, Wordpress, Google Docs, etc. as web-platforms, and so I don't see a problem in referring to them as such.

Frustrated

A whole lesson on Microsoft Word?  This hardly seems worth graduate school tuition....