Having a history of making websites, Google Sites offers you everything that a novice could want without learning how to manipulate code. It is easy to begin new pages and have them become interlinked with each other, move widgets around to easily change page layouts, and add templates or styles to give a unique feel to each site. The biggest thing to note is that since this is part of Google's application suite there is interactivity between everything stored on your Google Drive and the websites you create. This means that all your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations are available to insert directly into your websites.
I'm not sure which was suppose to be correct but the top of the assignment said to make the site on something you know well while the bottom of the assignment said to make a site for a classroom setting. I added pages for both just to be sure. I can easily see Google Sites being used in any classroom that I teach in. It would be a wonderful tool for both students and parents so that everyone can gain access to all the necessary information pertaining to the classroom. Not only can it house homework, or additional help, it can become a portal to promote learning. Linking to sites that students will enjoy but learn from will keep them returning to the class website for more. Parents can keep up with what is due and when as well as know a reliable place to contact their teacher.
While there is always going to be a constant maintenance of the website I feel like it can easily cut some time in other places by giving students and parents access to information that they are contacting you about in the first place. Even so, keeping records online allow you to change due dates on the fly without having to hand out a new syllabus or make them write it down in class. A simple announcement in class is enough to notify and change what needs to be changed. I can only find good things to come from having a classroom website and I'm sure as I continue to think about possibilities more will present themselves.
CPED 5005 - Demo Site
https://sites.google.com/site/tlacped5005/
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
DISCIPLINES IN EDUCATION
ALGEBRA
The application called Algebra takes what appears to be a course book and puts it into an interactive form within the app. It not only has video lessons to go along with all of the material it also has a vast amount of practice problems and solutions to go with it. Each lesson has a tutorial, practice, challenge, and a test that can be given. While there is no open area in the app for scrap space for solving problems it does allow the students to go through each problem step by step to see if they are heading in the right direction. I feel like this would be a great way to go through a course at least once with each video in the classroom so that students are able to relate to what they saw in class with what they will be doing at home. There doesn't seem to be any kind of feature to connect student to teacher so it is an app that stands on its own. Homework and tests must be given through another medium since this app will not help you record grades.
MULTIPLE GRAPHING PROGRAMS
The different graphing programs on the iPads that I had a chance to play with were interesting but extremely hard to understand. The simple graphing program Quick Graph seemed to be the free version and had a few features locked but it was also hard to input equations as well as understand what exactly was going on when a proper equation was input to the graph. I could not even figure out a way to clear my own graph. It seemed very simplistic in its style and functionality. I doubt I would ever use something like this in the classroom. While I do feel like the iPad has the capability to replace a graphing calculator I do not feel that with what I have seen it is possible just yet. I also looked an app called Graphbook but it was not the full version and would only let me play with a pre-rendered sea shell in a 3D form. Pocket CAS was just as difficult to use and I could not even figure out how to get the keyboard to show! There was a button to pull it up but nothing I could do would let me input my own equations. I had no luck with any of the graphing solutions on the iPad.
THE OTHERS
The only other applications on my iPad under the Math category are Beat the Computer: Multiplication, Find Sums, and Jumbo Calculator. While all of these are fully functional and extremely simple in design and application they serve their purpose. Unfortunately, they are focused on younger ages and more simple mathematical problems such as multiplication and addition. The Jumbo Calculator was nice and had an upgrade feature. I'm sure that if this was a scientific or graphing calculator I could easily put it into use with a middle school classroom but since it is a basic four function calculator it has limited use.
MATHBOARD
I found one more app that was not under the Math section of my iPad. This application is one that I watched a tutorial video for before finding it and found it to be one of the best designed apps for elementary education. It does simple arithmetic but does it in a way that gives you scrap area to write out your process, multiple choice answers, and times your test so you know how fast you can solve certain problems. Once again, it does not hold much application in the middle grades unless there is a student that is truly struggling with these basic functions. It is cleanly designed, easy to use, and accomplishes its purpose of repetitive drilling for practice.
The application called Algebra takes what appears to be a course book and puts it into an interactive form within the app. It not only has video lessons to go along with all of the material it also has a vast amount of practice problems and solutions to go with it. Each lesson has a tutorial, practice, challenge, and a test that can be given. While there is no open area in the app for scrap space for solving problems it does allow the students to go through each problem step by step to see if they are heading in the right direction. I feel like this would be a great way to go through a course at least once with each video in the classroom so that students are able to relate to what they saw in class with what they will be doing at home. There doesn't seem to be any kind of feature to connect student to teacher so it is an app that stands on its own. Homework and tests must be given through another medium since this app will not help you record grades.
MULTIPLE GRAPHING PROGRAMS
The different graphing programs on the iPads that I had a chance to play with were interesting but extremely hard to understand. The simple graphing program Quick Graph seemed to be the free version and had a few features locked but it was also hard to input equations as well as understand what exactly was going on when a proper equation was input to the graph. I could not even figure out a way to clear my own graph. It seemed very simplistic in its style and functionality. I doubt I would ever use something like this in the classroom. While I do feel like the iPad has the capability to replace a graphing calculator I do not feel that with what I have seen it is possible just yet. I also looked an app called Graphbook but it was not the full version and would only let me play with a pre-rendered sea shell in a 3D form. Pocket CAS was just as difficult to use and I could not even figure out how to get the keyboard to show! There was a button to pull it up but nothing I could do would let me input my own equations. I had no luck with any of the graphing solutions on the iPad.
THE OTHERS
The only other applications on my iPad under the Math category are Beat the Computer: Multiplication, Find Sums, and Jumbo Calculator. While all of these are fully functional and extremely simple in design and application they serve their purpose. Unfortunately, they are focused on younger ages and more simple mathematical problems such as multiplication and addition. The Jumbo Calculator was nice and had an upgrade feature. I'm sure that if this was a scientific or graphing calculator I could easily put it into use with a middle school classroom but since it is a basic four function calculator it has limited use.
MATHBOARD
I found one more app that was not under the Math section of my iPad. This application is one that I watched a tutorial video for before finding it and found it to be one of the best designed apps for elementary education. It does simple arithmetic but does it in a way that gives you scrap area to write out your process, multiple choice answers, and times your test so you know how fast you can solve certain problems. Once again, it does not hold much application in the middle grades unless there is a student that is truly struggling with these basic functions. It is cleanly designed, easy to use, and accomplishes its purpose of repetitive drilling for practice.
LITERACY FOR EDUCATION
PREPARATIONS
MY SPELLING TEST
I found that this program was rather useful for students in a repetition learning way. One of the biggest problems with paper is that you can run out of space on it or just run out of it entirely. With this digital version of simple spelling tests it can be administered over and over without any worry for needing to carry pencil and paper. Review can be done in the car, in bed, or at the park. There is no need for a hard writing surface or anything other than your digital device. The instructor is able to also record their own voice and sentences so a student can be prepared for that word and sentence when it appears on a real test in the classroom. While I was not able to interact with the electronic whiteboard, the tutorial video showed that it had the ability to be used in conjunction with it. I'm not sure if the child was just listening to the recording and using the whiteboard to spell it or if the program actually connected to the whiteboard. Either way, it is a good example of using multiple sources of technology.
DICTIONARY.COM
The application Dictionary by Dictionary.com is a great and easy tool for simple dictionary use. I found this program to be laid out better than Merriam-Webster's app. It allowed for the definition to be displayed and a number of different words that can be used in its place which allowed for greater discovery and a broader vocabulary. Also, it has Thesaurus.com built into it as well. The two are easy to toggle between and give a student everything they need for choosing the proper words, or even more creative words, for their writing.
PRESENTATIONS
SHOW ME INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
This free application allows both students and teachers to collaborate in a way that is pretty unique. The application lets a teacher create a lesson or brief tutorial by adding images, annotations, and recordings to give the feeling of a YouTube tutorial but in an educational setting and directly from their own teacher. Students can log in with their username and search for relevant content and also for their teacher. Teachers can keep their lessons private or allow them to be public for other users to stumble upon freely. I feel like this could be an amazing tool for quick tutorials for math or science and allow for creativity in English and history. I am really impressed and am excited to be able to let my future students be able to experience my personal black/whiteboard from their homes.
COMIC LIFE
The ease of use for this application is outstanding. It not only gives the teacher the ability to create fun and exciting images for students to use but it also is easy enough for students to illustrate their own comic strips. This could be easily used in many situations with English classes and even history. Allowing students to recreate scenes from books they are reading or allowing them to recite lines from history while using the camera to depict what they think it may have looked like is incredibly useful to helping this generation of students have a visual representation to remember concepts or facts.
MY SPELLING TEST
I found that this program was rather useful for students in a repetition learning way. One of the biggest problems with paper is that you can run out of space on it or just run out of it entirely. With this digital version of simple spelling tests it can be administered over and over without any worry for needing to carry pencil and paper. Review can be done in the car, in bed, or at the park. There is no need for a hard writing surface or anything other than your digital device. The instructor is able to also record their own voice and sentences so a student can be prepared for that word and sentence when it appears on a real test in the classroom. While I was not able to interact with the electronic whiteboard, the tutorial video showed that it had the ability to be used in conjunction with it. I'm not sure if the child was just listening to the recording and using the whiteboard to spell it or if the program actually connected to the whiteboard. Either way, it is a good example of using multiple sources of technology.
DICTIONARY.COM
The application Dictionary by Dictionary.com is a great and easy tool for simple dictionary use. I found this program to be laid out better than Merriam-Webster's app. It allowed for the definition to be displayed and a number of different words that can be used in its place which allowed for greater discovery and a broader vocabulary. Also, it has Thesaurus.com built into it as well. The two are easy to toggle between and give a student everything they need for choosing the proper words, or even more creative words, for their writing.
PRESENTATIONS
SHOW ME INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD
This free application allows both students and teachers to collaborate in a way that is pretty unique. The application lets a teacher create a lesson or brief tutorial by adding images, annotations, and recordings to give the feeling of a YouTube tutorial but in an educational setting and directly from their own teacher. Students can log in with their username and search for relevant content and also for their teacher. Teachers can keep their lessons private or allow them to be public for other users to stumble upon freely. I feel like this could be an amazing tool for quick tutorials for math or science and allow for creativity in English and history. I am really impressed and am excited to be able to let my future students be able to experience my personal black/whiteboard from their homes.
COMIC LIFE
The ease of use for this application is outstanding. It not only gives the teacher the ability to create fun and exciting images for students to use but it also is easy enough for students to illustrate their own comic strips. This could be easily used in many situations with English classes and even history. Allowing students to recreate scenes from books they are reading or allowing them to recite lines from history while using the camera to depict what they think it may have looked like is incredibly useful to helping this generation of students have a visual representation to remember concepts or facts.
GOOGLE DRAWING
Google's Drawing application was a simple learn for me. I have worked with Adobe Illustrator for years now and this application gives the basic functions of software like Adobe Illustrator. The biggest thing about this kind of software is its ability to work in vector graphics. To make a long explanation short, vector graphics allow pieces of an image or the whole image itself to be increased or decreased in size without losing its visual quality. While this is a wonderful concept it is often times a difficult one to learn. You must switch your artistic creativity from brush or pencil strokes to lines, angles, and curves. Not only must that change but you also have to begin to think in layers of a drawing. These few but tricky concepts makes the learning curve for a program such as Google Drawing a little higher than others. I had not used the program before this assignment and the name of it was a little misleading. I was hoping that it was a little more like Adobe Photoshop rather than Illustrator. Both are amazing in their own rights but Photoshop acts and draws like you would on a piece of paper.
Because of this learning curve, I feel as if it is not a good tool for students to use artistically but in a manner of teachers using it to explain it is a wonderful tool. The tutorial I had for the middle ages was based on the Tangram Square. I feel as if this is a perfect example of what Google Drawing should be used for. Because of the easy ability to move the shapes around and create their own images students can work together and create their own stories like the YouTube video provided. It allows the students to be creative with images in the same concept as they would with blocks. While it is a digital representation of something that can be done also with paper it does allow students to interact with technology and a program that they may not even know existed. This program I can see being used mainly for math classes because of its ability to deal so easily with shapes. There are a number of different lesson plans and tutorials on things to do with Google Drawing but this was a good introduction to the program.
The Common Core State Standards are easily woven into this program by the need for students to create and present with images as well as understand properties of different geometry shapes. These Google Drawings can be used along with Google's Presentation or Document software to help with the presentations and writing elements of the CCSS and, just like all of the other Google software, it can be shared and worked on collaboratively with others. While it is an image program, that is definitely needed in the Google Suite, it is the bare bones edition of what can be used and has a strong learning curve for almost anybody since it is not like pencil on paper. A decent program to learn on.
Because of this learning curve, I feel as if it is not a good tool for students to use artistically but in a manner of teachers using it to explain it is a wonderful tool. The tutorial I had for the middle ages was based on the Tangram Square. I feel as if this is a perfect example of what Google Drawing should be used for. Because of the easy ability to move the shapes around and create their own images students can work together and create their own stories like the YouTube video provided. It allows the students to be creative with images in the same concept as they would with blocks. While it is a digital representation of something that can be done also with paper it does allow students to interact with technology and a program that they may not even know existed. This program I can see being used mainly for math classes because of its ability to deal so easily with shapes. There are a number of different lesson plans and tutorials on things to do with Google Drawing but this was a good introduction to the program.
The Common Core State Standards are easily woven into this program by the need for students to create and present with images as well as understand properties of different geometry shapes. These Google Drawings can be used along with Google's Presentation or Document software to help with the presentations and writing elements of the CCSS and, just like all of the other Google software, it can be shared and worked on collaboratively with others. While it is an image program, that is definitely needed in the Google Suite, it is the bare bones edition of what can be used and has a strong learning curve for almost anybody since it is not like pencil on paper. A decent program to learn on.
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