Week 6 Reflection: PowerPoint Games Rdg.

This week I've decided to talk about one of our readings for this week that I feel could be integrated into an elementary classroom fairly easily. Homemade PowerPoint games were the topic of one of our readings, and I had a couple of opinions on their use in the classroom, particularly the elementary classroom. I have progressively become fond of using PowerPoint games as interactive tools for students. I like that they can be informal, yet they can provide a great deal of content and study material in the process. In this particular reading, the focus was on the students becoming more involved in the process by actually designing and creating their own PowerPoint games (or WebQuests, etc) to use. I agree that this would definately enhance the students' comprehension as they make these games and as they play other games that their classmates have made as well.

However, I think that this task of creating a PowerPoint game might be a skill that is better suited for fifth graders and up, given the amount of time and information it would take to make one along with the knowledge of how to create the game actions using the software. Using homemade PowerPoints in an earlier grade (such as first) would be possible, though. If the text that is used is appropriate for their reading levels, I believe that the number of games I could make as a teacher are endless. As a teacher making my own PowerPoint games, I could differentiate the games for my different reading groups/levels, and I could create games for any subject throughout the year. They could also be emailed to my students' parents if the parents wanted some extra material for the students to practice with at home. Of course as these students move into higher grades, the PowerPoint games can become more complex and can include more instruction. This could progress until they are ready to learn how to create their own at an older grade, and by this time they will have been playing the different games for so many years that they could have a number of examples to guide them while designing their own PowerPoint game.

I kind of feel like I just rambled about this one, but I did start thinking a lot more about this subject this week after our discussions and readings. I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts on my thoughts! (Plus you kind of have to! haha)

Week 5 Reflection: Project Based Learning

This week we have learned a great deal about Project Based Learning, which is something that is a little intimidating to me as I work with elementary students from first grade to fifth grade. It is intimidating because of the amount of independence that is expected from the students. Since most of the questions come from the natural curiousity of the students, I am interested to research and see how this type of learning has been successfully integrated into the early childhood classroom. My take on PBL is that it is a great way for students to really get involved in their own learning and takes the "lecture" aspect out of the classroom. As a teacher, I want to provide an environment that in indusive to learning, whether that means that I am personally teaching my students or whether I am supporting their learning as best I can.

PBL is slightly similar to research based learning, which I am pretty familiar with from 6400. RBL was the only learning style that I really got to learn about in depth, and the focus is more on the actual obtaining of the information through researching than through the project at the end. However, I am hoping that in this class, with the large amount of teacher in it, I can learn ways of implementing (successfully) project based learning with younger students.

This week I don't really have anything "new" to report on my project for this class. So as the week progresses I might have more to post so that my group has something on which to comment!

Reflection on LoTI

This week in class we discussed Levels of Technology Implementation, and we also discussed the differences and characteristics of each level. So far I think LoTI is a useful framework to refer to and to learn about. When looking for different lesson plans for our last assignment, I noticed that it can be difficult to find lessons for elementary students that go beyond a level 3, which is Infusion. At first I thought one reason for this would be the skill levels that accompany technological tools within the lesson. After learning more about LoTI, however, I have seen that the skill level of the teacher is really what can make a difference in how high the level of implementation and integration is. That made me feel a little better, since I will soon be an elementary school teacher and I have hopes of integrating various forms of technology.

Another thing this week that I found very interesting was my result on the LoTI survey of Personal Computer Use. According to that survey, my PCU was higher than average, which surprised me. The results portrayed me as a confident user of most technological tools. I hadn't thought about my level of PCU before, but now I am happy to see that it is higher than average because hopefully that will spill over into my future classroom with integration.

My project is still to use the video camera and record students showing and teaching what they know and have learned. I am still talking with the teacher whose classroom I will be using (since I don't have my very own) about what the topic will be. Hopefully I will have that posted in the next few days so that I can get some feedback from my group!

On a sidenote, I am eager to see this week's Cool Tools Demo to get some more ideas on how to incorporate technology in the classroom!

Initial Project Ideas

My project idea is to create a website that goes along with a curriculum with resources included to help students learn more effectively. I don't have a classroom of my own, however, my mom is a teacher at a local middle school and she is very interested in having this type of project implemented in her class. I have recently found a lot of interesting ways to introduce and implement technology into a classroom. Some that I liked involved using videos and digital cameras to record the students teaching their own lesson or making their own projects to show what they have learned. Something that I am interested is having the students "show what they know" so that I can gauge how well they really learned and how deep the learning actually took place. I think that with the group that I will be working with, middle schoolers, it will also be interesting to see how motivated they are to actually do well. I've learned that a great way to see if students have learned is to have them teach the subject matter themselves. I'd like to find a way to make this a major focus in my project.

As far as the subject matter goes, I think that I will use a section or lesson that comes from their extensive unit on grammar and have them create an interactive game or webquest on their own and then walk the class through the game, teaching them how to play it as the assessment.

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