Tuesday, September 30, 2014

#8 Common Sence Media

The Common Sense Kids Media app is extremely useful for any teacher or even an education major. I know that since you mentioned the app and we got to download it and play with it, I have used it twice in order to complete a project with my other classes. There are games and programs that can be found for any activity or need on this one app. It helps feed out the "bad" kind of apps when you are simply searching for something on the internet. It helps cut down time and make sure you're not buying or downloading an app that has no application towards you. I would use it in my classroom for anything that I could find useful on it!

Thursday, September 25, 2014

#7 Concept Map

Units
I. Area
The area is the length times width of an object that has 2 or more equivalent sides (rectangle, square, hexagon, rhombus,..). For other objects with different kinds of sides, their are other formulas for their specific object.
I would give examples of different shapes or objects. I would then explain how the area equals a one by one square inside the objects to get the area. 
A. English
1. Inches sq, feet sq, yards sq, miles sq, acres sq.
B. Metric
II. Mass
Mass is measured by how much something weighs. Mass has formulas to determine its weight. But mass is commonly used by scales to determine itself. I would let students use scales to determine mass on their own.
A. English
1. Ounces, Pounds, Tons
B. Metric
How hot or cold a thing is.
Temperature is measured using a thermometer, usually in the Celsius or Fahrenheit scale.
A. English
1. Fahrenheit
B. Metric
1. Celsius
IV. Distance/Length
The distance or length of an objects explains how long or wide an object is. You will use the distances of an object to get an area formula. But, the distance and length also determine the perimeter. I would use object examples to teach the students how to find the distances. 
A. English
1. Inches, feet, yards, miles, acres
B. Metric
V. Volume
The volume of an object measures how much it takes to fill a certain unit. It is the amount of 3-dimensional space an object occupies. This is known as capacity. I would teach these with blocks showing how many block it would take to fill up a shoe box, etc. 
A. Metric
B. English
1. Teaspoons, tablespoons, fluid oz, cups, pints, quarts, gallons, pecks, bushels
Content Standards
4.MD.A.1- Measurement and Data- 1. Know relative sizes of measurements units within one system of units including km, m, cm: kg, g; lb, oz.; l, ml; hr, min, sec. Within a single express measurements in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Record measurement equivalents in a two-column table. 



Wednesday, September 24, 2014

#6 Podcast Reviews and Articles VS Podcast

https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/npr-topics-education-podcast/id270655782?mt=2

NPR Education Series September 4th- New Orleans Charter Schools

After Katrina, charter schools run by private, nonprofit organization are the new schools in the city of New Orleans.
Students are able to choose their schools no matter where they live.
Charter schools are the "future of education."
A reporter says that a massive 1.8 billion dollars of constructions of new charter schools- which are currently operated in trailors.
Children must wear the uniform or school colors, and not excessive "bling" is allowed.
They cannot walk in certain areas of the schools.
They are accepted in charter schools by test scores and grades.

Students after Katrina were frowned upon at when they traveled to new cities to live in after their homes and schools were destroyed.
The reporter state that New Orleans is the new "guinea pig" for the charter schools.
The city is called the gumbo city, meaning that they are "thrown" together and mixed up.
65% percent of students were attending 'failing' schools before Katrina, but now the number is to 13% percent.
Charter schools are bad at keeping up with student's attendance and for special education programs.
Higher levels of segregation and inequality is rising.
Charter schools have selective choices in who gets to attend. It keeps the schools rated high and keeps their schools running well.
Learning disabilities are not always accepted and parents get to choose where they go to help benefit schools.


NPR Podcast Librairians can not be afforded by Chicago schools.

The number of librarians is shrinking every year in Chicago schools.
The number of qualified librarians is still high, but the schools can not afford to pay their salaries.
They are staffing new classrooms rather than librarians. English and World Languages are considered more important.
There shouldn't be classrooms without teachers and librarians.
The librarians are being used by becoming teachers.
The state of Illinois says that librarians must have a teaching background qualification and endorsements.
Schools are not "enforced" to have a librarian.
Students can still use the library because of clerks and parent volunteers.
They hope that Physical Edu teachers and art teachers are hoping to not be next in the cuts from the budgets.


Now, as for the comparison of the podcast v.s. articles, I enjoy reading better. I like having the information presented in front of me when I am doing school work. I think I can personally comprehend better from reading. If the articles were read aloud as a podcast, that would be even more useful. As opposed to just listening to podcasts, I do not think just a podcast benefits me as a student. I remember in my senior year of high school, my teacher gave us "notes." It was about 1-3 pages of essay format and he would record himself reading aloud the essay with extra tidbits of information or explaining something better. That was a great way to get me involved and informed on the topics we were learning. I took in a lot of what he said and it made me more comfortable with the class.

#4 and #5 Article Review on Tech Taking Over Schools and Hacking

As the generation of the 1990's, we have grown up with the ever developing technology growing and changing our lives more and more. Now that we are in college, the new technology that was invented is just extremely outrageous. A palm scanner for lunch money? A palm scanner to me is what the bad guys used to get into their secret layers. As for the benefits for it might be grand, it just seems to me personally that that development is a little excessive.
As for when the social media and other application used as communication come into play, it helps the team stay connected and on the right page. I remember as a cheerleader in high school everything was word of mouth or posted on a calendar for my team. The social media sites would help better the communication for the teams in my opinion.
As for both of these advancements in technology comes a price to pay. If your computer system gets hacked and released all of the student's buying lunches hand prints out, something could seriously go wrong if something got into the hands of someone bad. On top of that technology is ever growing, changing, and developing and that cost money. Alot of money.

Shutterfly, an application used for team services, is supposed to be a confidential and resourceful way for the teams to stay connected. It has been noted that the SSL protection is there, but has flaws and the company does not plan to fix these privacy issues. This is causing people to be hacked with their personal information. Its easy for hackers to get into a SSL. When you are in an insecure network over wifi, they can hack into the wifi networks as well.
As for the increasing development of technology it has major setbacks and indredible flaws, but which one better or worse?

Monday, September 15, 2014

#3 Horizon Report

Innovative pedagogical practices

The trends in school: you should have policy, leadership, practice of them.

Deeper learning approaches by teachers improves the quality of learning.

The more open edu. researches you have, the more you can develop.

Hybrid learning designs will give more opportunity for advancement to students, teachers, and other authorative figures.

Schools have been aroung that we need to constanly upgrade our thinking and processes that schools go by.

More authentic learning program opportunities are needed.

Intergrated personal learning to teach lessons within classrooms.

Safety of students and their research cloud completing advancements.

There are certain challenged stopping major educational technology adoptions.

In order for the students to adapt, there needs to be more ways for the students to get the opportunity to learn. One way to branch off this learning is personalized lessons that allow hands on. Another way is tying in complex thinking with students. Also, when students get the opportunity to communicate, their thoughts can be more understood.

I love the fact that BYOD is being used now. It is fully accepted in college, so why not adapt this to earlier education.


Tuesday, September 2, 2014

#2 Video Post

           In the video from the Khan Academy, I saw the true meaning of what the author wanted to explain. With the brain explained as a muscle, I believe that is extremely true. In my future classrooms, I would love to explain to my students how the boy explained his brain growing in the article. It quotes "... He then said, “Dad, aren't you glad how I struggled with that word? I think I could feel my brain growing.” I smiled: my son was now verbalizing the tell-tale signs of a “growth mindset.”" This is a perfect way to view everyday learning. I also love how the author said "Process praise acknowledges the effort; talent praise reinforces the notion that one only succeeds (or doesn't) based on a fixed trait." In my future classroom, I would do a "value" chart and include this. I would make a bulletin board and base their improvements off this board.