As we watched in, The Machine That Goes Ping,
technology is a wonderful, beautiful thing; however, if it is not used
correctly, then it has not done its purpose. Technology is glamorous and a
positive alternative to get student involvement inside and outside of the
classroom, but we as educators must strive to use “the machine that goes pins”
to its fullest capabilities so that our students are learning to the fullest of
theirs.
This week our focus was on databases and
spreadsheets. This is what I call the beautiful, glamorous, and scary: Excel. Excel
is a program, I would argue, that scares a lot of educators, including myself.
However, Excel can be a powerful tool. This program has the ability to pose and
solve problems, examine data, investigate patterns, and that is just the
basics. If more educators would step out of their comfort zones and experience
with Excel their ability to teach math, science, and statistics, might become
easier and more enjoyable. Excel can also be used to create graphic
presentations. Excel has the ability to create graphs and charts such as pie
charts, line graphs, and bar graphs. This gives students and teachers the
ability to look past crunching numbers and to really interpret data. One
example used was Ms. McMahon. She used excel to create a soccer field that
showed the goals scored in a Men’s World Cup (1930-1998). She used Excel to
create shots taken and where the shots were located. Her students were more
interested and want to give it a try for themselves.
Again, it is important to say that
teachers must step out of there scared shells and experiment with Excel so that
they can make Math more interactive and fun for their classroom. If you are unsure
just go play around with it! Be creativity and just learn, also remember to use
the Internet to search for website or articles that can help you. Learning is
creativity on fire; therefore, this week’s technological explorations were ones
I enjoyed learning about. We will look at concept mapping programs, Animoto,
and Google Docs. Xmind is an open source project. It has several components
ranging from brainstorming mode, Evernote, Index view, Advanced theme editor
and the ability to export to Microsoft Project and Export to Open Office. This
resource, Bubble.us is about creating and collaborating. It is an interactive
tool that helps create and develop brainstorming. It’s a very basic site with
text formatting and the ability to say your files. Giffy makes diagrams looks
like a piece of cake. This interactive tool uses the ability to think, draw,
and collaborative ideas into simple or in-depth diagrams using different
shapes. This site is used by well know companies such as Verizon, Samsung, and
Twitter. I think this would be a good tool for teachers 3rd grade
and above. The sources mentioned above range from beginner to distinguished
levels. Some are very easy to work with and create while others I would
recommend for higher grade levels. These sources would be excellent tools if
you are comparing and contrasting topics, putting things into categories, or
creating a story plot. Also, I think these sources would be beneficial to
teachers. The ease of use is accommodating and the fees pretty well affordable.
Some of these sources can work with other basic technological tools such as
Microsoft Office.
Secondly, we explored Animoto. Animoto
appears to be a fun interactive tool for all ages. You pick a style and song,
customize using photos, video, and text, and then produce and share. It appears
it can be used for any occasion such as weddings, birthdays and education. It
has been featured in BBC, NBC, CNN, ABC, and The New York Times. They strive
for professional quality videos on your computer and mobile devices. It appears
to be cost-effective, fun, and effortless. Your photos can be linked through
Facebook, Instagram, and Photobucket. I believe that this would be a fun
interactive tool; especially for Kindergartners who are being introduced to
technology. I would use this tool for school projects or videos. This would
make an excellent learning tool for any subject and also a great tool for
videos complied of the tasks my classroom has done throughout the year. It does have some cost expenses. It is $30 a year
for Plus membership and $249 a year for Pro membership. I would definitely
recommend this for any teacher at the Elementary level whose students are
leaning the basic. However, it may be to childish for some middle schools
students and high school students.
Finally, Photo Peach is used as a student account
management feature. It has the ability for teachers to create student account
without emails. Teacher can also easily organize projects with tags and publish
them, they can upload mp3s, create unlimited photo albums and customize the
transition effects of the photos. In contrast, Doc_Google requires a Google
account; however, as educators you have access to spreadsheets, documents, and
slide presentations, all linked through your email account. I think if students had a Google account this
Google Doc would be beneficial to them because they would be able to link the
work they do on their computer to their Google account; however, this is
similar to the ICloud generation. Photo Peach is also a good interactive tool;
however, it too sounds very similar to ICloud. These could apply to any school
setting as long as students used their emails responsibly. Doc Google allows
the use of spreadsheets, documents, and slide presentations to be upload more
accessibly and easily. This could benefit students who have done reports,
created presentations, and also done their Math homework through spreadsheets.
Doc Google appears to have features that include lesson plans. This would be a
great tool for teachers to have along with the ability to use spreadsheets and
create presentations. Also, it appears to be free as longs you have a Google
email.
Next week will continue exploring Technological
Explorations and look at word processing and desktop publishing. We will also
investigate Bloom’s Technology Taxonomy pyramid and how it applies to
technology.
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