Week 8 - Mapping

View Important Landmarks Around Michigan in a larger map

While teaching in Detroit, Michigan I found that my students are not familiar with their state.  They do not know any other cities around Detroit or some of the major landmarks that most of us are familiar with in Michigan.  One of our social studies objectives in our curriculum is to be able to identify and describe some Michigan landmarks.  I put together this map to highlight some interesting things around Michigan.  I thought my second graders need to be familiar with the great lakes, capital building, their school, and the Mackinaw Bridge.  I also wanted to add some personal touches so I add the college I went to along with my co-teachers college she attended.  My goal at the end of this lesson is to make sure the kids have learned that Michigan is a large state with a lot of interesting places to see and visit.  

I think google maps would make this lesson interesting because the students would be able to "travel" from place to place.  While traveling around the map we can also work on our directions traveling north, south, east, and west.  There are a ton of things we can bring into the classroom to teach about Michigan and this map would just be the beginning!

Week 7 - Podcasts

With the definition of HPI described at the beginning of the chapter, where the goal is “to achieve, through people increasingly successful accomplishments, directly tied to organizational goals that are valued by all stakeholders…” (p. 135), there are several ways to apply these ideas to a classroom. The idea that a student’s education is valued by the stakeholders is an important idea to keep in mind. In the case of a student, there are many who have a stake in their educational future. The student, the teacher, the school, the parents, their family, and even society as a whole will benefit if the student performs well in class. This leads to the ideas of human capital and organizational complexity that the chapter discusses. 

The first way to integrate the idea of human performance improvement theory into a classroom setting is to make sure many of these stakeholders are directly involved with the student’s growth and performance. Making sure that not only the teachers and students are in control of the student’s educational future ensures success. Additional human capital could yield higher performance increases than simply throwing more money at a student could. The idea that more human capital leads to better success for the students also means that the student has a higher potential of being well behaved and acting better at home, as well as possibly participating in more after school activities, means everyone benefits from the student’s growth. 

The next idea that integrates human performance improvement into a classroom is organizational complexity. This ties directly to the previous idea of human capital. In this case, the teacher, or even the student themselves, acts as the mediator to all of the different parties who hold a stake in their future. They coordinate the efforts of the various parties to make sure everyone is acting in tandem to ensure success. However, the problem with this idea is that teachers have a complex level of involvement because not only are they managing these connections, they are doing so for dozens of students. Some are also more willing than others. If a teacher is able to coordinate the efforts of the various groups, such as all of the parents, they will have a better chance of successfully organizing the behaviors that could benefit a student’s educational future.  

While looking for an educational podcast I was searching for one that I would actually use in my classroom with my second grade students.  I came across a podcast called Storynory.  This podcast highlights all types of stories for kids.  It ranges from fairytales, new children’s stories, myths, poems, and adventures.  I’m always looking for new stories to bring into the classroom so my students are familiar with all genres. The link to this podcast is here http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=94571049

I think podcasts are a great tool inside and outside a classroom.  There are several that I came across that would be useful to teach kids in the classroom.  I found that there are a lot of science and social studies podcasts that could be used.  These can be used in a listening center during workshop or small group instruction.  It would also be neat to create a podcast with a group of students.  Schools could do announcements every morning or teach other classes about a given topic.  The opportunities are endless.  I also found that there are podcasts geared toward teacher resources.  This is a great tool to use to communicate with teachers around the world.  Podcasts could also be set up for professional development opportunities.  Again, the ideas are endless.  I’m glad that this tool was introduced to us because it will for sure be something I will use in my classroom.    

Week 6 - Embedding Media

My students LOVE learning educational songs.  It gives them a fun way to learn the material and remember it.  This is one of the videos I showed them when we were learning about pronouns.





Sometimes when my students do not have prior knowledge about a topic we are reading about in our opencourt stories I like to show them pictures so they can become more familiar with the topic.  For example, a few weeks ago we were reading the story How the Guinea Fowl got her Spots.  My students had no clue what a guinea fowl was so we looked for some pictures and information before we started our story. 

We then did some research online to figure out where the guinea fowl lived.  They originated in Africa. 





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Week 5 - Photo Sharing

My flickr page

1a:          One factor in which this program would be effected negatively would be if students and teachers do not know how to use the tools of technology to its full potential the students will not learn. When thinking about the new tools I get each year in my classroom I sometimes feel frustrated.  I might not always get the full training or not fully understand how to incorporate these tools in my classroom.  Therefore, I do not use them in the classroom the way that I should.  If these students and teachers are not familiar with using the programs on the laptops they too will get frustrated and maybe not use the programs in the correct way.  
                Another factor in which this program would be effected negatively would be if there was a lack of funds for the upkeep of the materials.  It takes a lot of money to keep updating the programs and tools on the laptops.  Plus, you also have to keep in consideration of missing, stolen, or broken laptops.  How are students and teachers going to partake in the program if they do not have a working laptop?
                The third factor in which this program would be effected negatively would be the different teaching styles of teachers and the different learning styles of students.  Not everyone learns in the same way.  It is our job as teachers to figure out how our students learn and apply that to our classroom.  We can do that with technology but we have to put in some extra thought.  Are the teachers going to be able to do that if they are jump starting a brand new program with the laptops?
 1b:          The first thing that may help mitigate the factors that contributed to the minimal effect of this project would be to implement bottom-up changes instead of top-down practices. Instead of providing teachers and students with technology and telling them how to use it, the changes in the curriculum’s technology could be suggested by the teachers. That way, the administration could obtain software that the teachers are already familiar with, and don’t have to re-learn how to perform all of the functions of the software. Granted, there would be differing opinions of what people want, but at least there will always be a group of people who understand how to use it, instead of an entire school full of people that is clueless as to how the new software works.
Another way to increase the effectiveness is to give students incentives to learn how to use the computers for educational reasons. It is not enough to simply just say “here is a computer, go use it to learn,” because students know what other kind of other content exists on computers, and will try to use it for entertainment. Locking out the non-educational features isn’t an option, because the students will find a way around content filters and restrictions, so you have to incentivize use of the computers as a learning tool. It’s not enough to just grade them well, but the teachers need to find fun and interesting ways for students to engage with the information.