Activities thru October 29th

Over the last two weeks, we have been putting the finishing touches on our project. The lesson is due to be taught on Thursday of this week. We are finalizing the handout tomorrow morning before the school day begins. The last piece is to develop the assessment using the CPS devices. Once this has been complete, we are ready to go. My post next week will document how the lesson went.

Looking Back...

Before this class began, I thought I had a good understanding of the technology that is used in an educational setting. I've worked in educational IT for the last 8 years and have interfaced with countless IT members of other districts. So far, I have been surprised to find so many things that I wasn't aware of. As Dr. Hammond noted, Lifang's presentation on Del.icio.us was one of them. Since her presentation, the Del.icio.us toolbar has become a fixture in my browser. Throughout the course of a day, I may work on up five or six different computers with various operating systems and web browsers. I have always struggled with keeping my links with me in an easy to use format. This program was the jackpot. I also enjoyed the presentation on Audacity since my school district doesn't use Mac. My test teachers have found that it is a very effective tool on the PC.

This class has definitely introduced new things to me and has given an increased awareness of some of the technology issues that need to be overcome. Alex's presentation will stick with me for a long time. It is a terrific way to describe the digital disconnect. As a member of an IT staff, we so often focus on the tools that we often don't get a chance to see how they are being used. This has been one of the best parts of this class. Not only are we be introduced to many tools and ideas, but we are provided with examples of how they are used. I look forward to the rest of the class presentations.

Activities October 2nd - October 15th

Since our last meeting, I've made some more progress towards determining exactly what the project will be. My last post was not 100 percent correct. The class I will be working with is a special needs fifth grade class. The project will be based on exploration and still uses the same technology, Google Earth. One of the lessons my teacher does every year is to teach the difference between a town, county, state, and country. We came up with the idea of using Google Earth to help this lesson along. The lesson will take place in a computer lab and the students will start by looking up their home address on Google Earth. We will then zoom out as we move to each new designation. As they zoom out, they will see borders for the county, state and country. We will also discuss longitude and latitude and allow the students to look up different locations on the globe using longitude and latitude. The last portion of the lesson will be a short assessment using the CPS devices we learned about on October 1st.

My Podcast

http://hub.colonialsd.org/districtsite/technology/cavsite

Activities September 25 - October 1st

This week, we started determining exactly what the lesson would be. So far, the best combined idea we have revolves around locating various places around the state using Google Earth. The 4th grade curriculum focuses on Geography, Exploring our Home State Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania History and People, and Exploring Natural Resources of Pennsylvania.

More details to come.

Activities September 18 - 24

This week was a short week for me. We passed a few different ideas around via email and scheduled a meeting for September 26th.