Week 8 Blog

I tend to use as many online communication tools as I can. My current principal is not one that requires online usage by students and staff. He is very "paper friendly" and thus, doesn't focus on technology as much as past administrators. My students don't have as much access to computers as other students in the country. With this in mind, I try to assign lessons to my students to be completed at home. In a previous poll of my students all but two of my 190 students had a computer and internet access at home. Many of them have their own computer. The webquest I created for this class is one I will assign over the winter holiday. My students will learn and will bring back a knowledge of Newton's Laws of Motion without the required in-person lessons. Because the end of semester tests will be given the week after we come back for winter break, my students will need the additional time to learn and study. 

I have begun using Edmodo in my previous classroom. I liked the ease of use but I didn't find my students capable, at their level, to upload word documents. I did find they liked talking with their peers about school related topics. I find, in my technology explorations, that I learned that their are many more elementary technology type websites. Although given these, I find there is much information that can be shared within the classroom.

In this classroom, I learned the most by writing technology explorations. There were many more than what I learned. I would have chosen to complete more of these instead of blogs like this one. Reflection works but only if its something learned at the moment. For myself, I like technology and use it frequently.

There are many things I plan to incorporate into my classroom. First, I plan on using several of the technology explorations in my room. Like I have mentioned, I have used programs like Edmodo and the Microsoft suite in my classroom. I haven't assigned a webquest to be completed at home but will be doing this prior to the winter break. The powerpoint I created has already been used in my classroom.

Week 7 blog

The webquest I created was on Motion and Newton's Three Laws. My student's in the 8th grade are currently working on Newton's Three Laws of Motion. Standards require the students to use technology in their learning and is also a teacher standard in the state of Kentucky. Because of this, I try to use technology in my classroom on a routine basis. For my webquest, I chose to use Zunal because it seemed to have the most details and the abilities to change the photos was a bonus for me. The webquest can be found here http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=223667.  For this task, I changed many of the tabs on the left hand side to make the webquest a little easier for my students to use. As discussed in my past blog, I didn't like the way the author had each task in one tab. The way mine is set up requires the student to complete individual tasks and then move on to the next task. 

I didn't have many problems with creating my webquest. The time consumed to create it was much more than I originally thought. Although I originally intended for this webquest to cover two and a half class periods, I'm thinking it may take 5 full class periods to complete.  The webquest allows the students to have fun while learning and are given several forms of assessment - for their own knowledge and for my required goals.

I had a few issues with this webquest. First, I didn't like that the tasks, when clicked, required the student to go away from the original webquest. I would like it if the students clicked and it automatically opened a new window or tab. Second, the tabs on the left could be changed but no tabs could be added without paying for a different version. Third, the tabs were very easy to change but they contained material that was unnecessary and required me to empty each one prior to creating the webquest.

If I were to create this webquest again or if I were to use it, I would have the students complete each step for each day of the week with the final task taking two complete days. I would provide to the students papers they could just grab instead of printing to save time in the classroom.  I may also have a little more detail in my webquest so I am not answering as many questions and focusing more on the learning going on.

Week 6 blog.

When searching for webquests on the internet, I found there were many that were strictly used in an individual classroom and less for a blanket science classroom. I found some where documents needed passwords to enter, some that were incomplete, some that just required the students to perform a single task with no higher-level thinking and still others that required the student to perform no summative or formative assessment - more about fun. Although I am a proponent on "fun learning", I am also an educator that requires the students to show me what they have learned by performing a particular activity. Without this type of assessment, it is almost impossible to determine the level at which the students learn. With this in mind, I have created a Web-quest that allows the students to have fun while still learning and requires the students to complete formative and summative assessments along the way.

There was a webquest I found contained most of the requirements I would find necessary in my classroom. This website can be found at http://www.questgarden.com/86/07/1/100228175329/index.htm. When looking for different webquests in relation to the topics I am currently teaching, I wanted a webquest that looked at a single topic without being too broad or too narrow in learning. This webquest has tabs at the left that lesson any type of confusion the students may have. In this task area, I like that the author has broke everything down into tasks and contain assessments for learning. In each task, the students are required to perform a particular assignment - some of the assignments outside the classroom. Only Task One and Task two requires the students to use the internet for learning. In the other tasks, the students only need the internet for reference. 

There are problems with the webquest that I find need help. The first is that when clicking on the particular link for each law, the author doesn't have it set up to open a new tab or window. Instead, the students lose the window in which they are working and must go back to the webquest to continue their assignment. Although this is an overall study of Newton's three laws, it may have been better if each task represented a particular task and then a final task that covered all three. This may have prevented any confusion in learning.