Thanksgiving Week

Teachers are designers even before they become a teacher. Teachers become designers by develping a lesson plan each week. They also have to think of how to design new ideas to helping kids learn in an effect way.

iStop Motion is a software that enables designers as young  as elementary students to use. It lets them create a little video and can compose animations frame by fream with its easy-to-learn application. Even though I will be teacher Theater to high schoolers I still think I could use this my classroom. The reason is because they can shot a video of a play show it to the other students and it might help them understand the play a little better. Though I think you could use this software in any class.

"Digital Storytelling" by Kate Kemker is an article offering insturctions on using technology to create a story. It tells about the proccess of creating a story on paper, the filming the video, and editing a piece. I would love to try this idea with Theater the reason is cause if we are reading about  William Skakespeare the kids can put it in thier own words so they can understand it. I would put them in groups to help the process of it though.

Making math seem more real will be excellent help for kids. I know that when I was learing math I had a hard time with it. So visualing help a little for me, though we didnt have some software that could help me understand it better. Like Visual Geometry With Geometric Supposer is one of the best-known visualizational tools. It allows students to choose a primitive shape and construct it by defining points, segments, parallels or perpenduculars, bisectors, or angles. This would have helped me a great deal. I think this will make math more real to students.

I think it is possible to learn from tv alone now in days. The reason is because kids now have tv programs that will help them learn and dvds and all that to help them. Though I think you can learn a little if they didnt have all the help that they do know. My mom used to watch a show called School House Rock and it was just a cartoon show that taught in a fun way. Though I think kids now can learn from tv alone but I would suggest it. Cause the tv can't give them all the information that they need.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., & Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful Learning with Technology (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Week 11 Blog

Gee's principle of probing states that learning is a cycle of probing the world (doing something) and reflecting in and on this action and forming a hypothesis. Select 3 principles you think it would be important for education.
The 3 principles I would choose is Active, Critical Learning, Semioic Domains, and Committed Learning. The reason I chose Active, Critical Learing is because I would want my kids to be active while learing but very critcal about it. It says in the book "All aspects of the learing enviroment are set up to encourage active and critical, no passive learing." I think its a good idea to have that so the kids wont get discourage. Semioic Domains because the kids can have fun while learning and see what level that can get at also they can work in  groups which will help them even more. Committed Learing is that they will be committed to learn what they are learing in class. The book says"Learners participate in an extended engagement as extensions of their real-world identities in relation to a virtual identity to which they feel some commitment and a virtual world that they find compelling.
Good simulations are hard to create. If you were creating a simulation for your class, what activity would you support? What variables could students manipulate? How would they affect each other?
The activity I would support would be them learning all about theater. Since that is what I will be teaching I think they could know about all the important rules that we have on stage so that way they will be safe. Also they will need to learn the background of theater and so on and so forth.
In conclusion simulations would  be a good idea to have in school that way kids will learn something while they are having fun. And the principles are really good to use.
Jonassen D.,Howland J., Marra R. M., Crismond D.,(2008) Meaningful Learing with Technology Third edition.

Spreadsheets

Have you ever wondered about Spreadsheets and why we need them? Are they really that useful to us. Well in the next paragraph I will have answered this questions and some more questions.
Who do you think about Spreadsheets? Is is useful? I thinks spreadsheets are good, and yes they are useful. They are useful to use in class when doing a class project. In the book students created a spreadsheet to illustrate the different chemicals people inhale when smoking cigarettes. I'm sure some people would stop smoking cigarettes or at least have a better understanding of what going into their bodies. So yes spreadsheets are very useful. Would I use this in my classroom? Yes I would. I could use a spreadsheet for so many things when I'm teaching. I would also have my kids use a spreadsheet on a project so they can learn how to do one and they will be learning more too. As a teacher why do we use spreadsheets? We use spreadsheets because they are easy to use. They also engage kids into learning cause it is on a computer and not in a book. It also helps students understand stuff better. In the book its says "Spreadsheets may be sued to construct simulations of problem involving Ohm's Law." What is the advantage of a Spreadsheet over a calculator? You cant show good graphs on a calculator or show how stuff works on a calculator. According to the textbook, it mentions the three primary functions of Spreadsheets. What do you think about them? Can you think of something else? I think they are what we need. They store all the information we need to use in spreadsheet. They can calculate everything in the same row and gives us an average if we need it. They also can present information for us. I dont think I can think of anything else that would help with that.
I have just gave you some more information about spreadsheets. I hope you know why we use spreadsheets and how they are useful to us.
 Meaningful Learning with Technology Johassen, D, Howland, J, Marra,R,M, Crismond, D.

Inspiration Quick Tour

According to the website I found out that Inspiration Quick Tour has everything that you need to work on a project. I think it is a wonderful tool to have for school or work. The whole is very interesting to me. I would use Inspiration in my class room for lecture's and tell the students to use it as it has everything that they will need except they will have to look up the information.
The best type of writing activities would be best use of technology is to use the map system. I use to use it when I was little and writing a paper. It help me so much to use it cause I could have all kinds of information that I could take out or not. I also think this will help the students in my classroom when i give them a writing assignment.  When my time is limited to help kids with their writing I would split them in teams to help each other out. So they can get new ideas and see if they want to use them. How could I use technology tools to support peer feedback? Well I would have the kids do a blog and have the other kids post comments. So that way they can see what thier peers think. When I first taught a new topic I knew very little of it. So I went online and found out everything I could. I did know more about it after I taught it seeing as how i needed to look up.
In conculsion I have learned what Inspiration is and how technology helps a lot in school for kids to learn.

Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., Crismond, D. Meaningful Learning with Technology
Inspiration Quick Tour website.

What I think about Blogs

What do I think about Blogs? Well first off I never really understood what a blog was and why anyone would want to use it. Though now since I have seen the video and have read up on it some I think blogs can be very helpful. It also let people know how the person they are following doing or what will be coming up for them.
I think blogs can be useful in education. Cause in the book they had a teacher who uses blogging for students to share and build understanding on a topic and then talk about it class. Their are all sorts of ways blogs can be used in education. Teachers can post blogs that they didnt have time for in class. They can even use it for extra credit.
Well I can understand if they are writing about something else instead of what the teacher wants them to that would be a waste of time. But if they are writing what the teachers want them to I think that it isnt a waste of time. Cause they can do homework while the teacher is still there so if they have any problems they can ask. Or they can ask other students for help or see what they wrote about in there blog to get an idea.
To help my students when I become a teacher I will use whatever means I can to help them learn. I think using the Wiki will be a good idea for projects and to help kids to develop their own versions of Wikipedia. I will even tell them to use blogs to talk to each other about a topic.

Intro of Kaitlan Armstrong

Hi my name is Kaitlan Armstrong. I am from Powderly, Texas which is right by Paris. I am 20 years old and my major is going to be Theater. I love acting. I love cats. Anything else you would like to know about me just ask. Though I am a little shy at first that wont last long though.;)