PowerPoint as an Instructional Tool

I have always enjoyed PowerPoint presentations when my professor has used them and assumed that I would also use them in my classroom.  It really wasn't that difficult finding my way around in PowerPoint although I am sure that I have only scratched the surface of what it can do.  It also wasn't too difficult using the graphic tablet.  But again, I am positive that I have not yet found all that it is capable of.  The time consuming part of this assignment was discovering all of the bells and whistles and trying to design my slides.  

I am sure that PowerPoint will be very useful in the classroom.  Part of the allure is that each lesson plan doesn't have to be re-created.  You can save them n the computer for re-use.  In this way it would be best to keep them very simple as your instruction will inevitably vary based on the classroom you are in.  It may not be as useful for Math as it would be History because of the level of interaction needed.  By this I mean that in Math you must show the process as you do it while in History you could put up outlines with basic facts that do not change and lecture around them.  

Another benefit is that it would be easier to share information with students who have been absent and missed valuable instruction time.  This could be accomplished through sharing the slides with the student after they return to school(during recess, lunch, etc) or they could be e-mailed to the student at home or in the hospital. (God forbid!)  It could also be used to include diagrams within the slides themselves.  This is much easier than trying to deal with an overhead projector.  The fact that information from other programs including pictures, sounds, video, etc. can be included within the slides and that it can be used on the computer, PowerPoint instruction has a mobility and variability that has not been possible previously.  The human or personal touch in teaching cannot be ignored or replaced but PowerPoint can certainly enhance teaching.

My life is a giant steaming pile of BLOG!

Yesterday I got a phone call telling me that one of my sons good friends had killed himself.  This has thrown all of us out of sorts, especially my son.   I feel like my heart is being ripped out of my chest because this is the one thing that I can't protect him from or make better.  Eventually all of us suffer loss and a broken heart and we all have to learn to muddle through it in our own unique way.  But as a mom this type of thing leaves you feeling utterly helpless.  You can't explain why it happened and you can't make it go away.  There are no magic words to say to scare the monsters out of the closet, no baby aspirin to get rid of the fever, and no goodnight story that will make all well with the world.  I am doing the only thing that any mom can do, I guess...let him know he is loved and that I am there in whatever capacity that he needs, whenever he needs.  These are the times that I am thankful I went to such great lengths to ensure open lines of communication. Being a parent is such great training for being a teacher but gosh, I hope being a teacher hurts less.  Thanks for listening or reading or whatever you call it.  If I am the blogger, does that make you guys the blogee's?

Literature and Learning

I am going broke purchasing children's literature!  Honestly, I could simply check out the books from the library.  I get around this fact with the thinking that I will use them in my classroom as a teacher so why not buy them?  (I suppose I should at least wait to find out what grade I end up teaching, I doubt that a fifth grader will want to read Goodnight Moon!)  I had forgotten how much I enjoy these books.  I am an avid reader as an adult but I was not usually found in the children's section.  Now I am always there.

More on-line sites

As promised following my class presentation I am adding another blog with a couple of more sites that I came across.

NASA Quest

Dr. Seuss

These are both awesome sites. NASA has an entire k-12 outreach program. The website is initially a bit overwhelming just because there is so much information. It could prove to be invaluable to a teacher trying to come up with inventive new ways to teach Science. The Dr. Seuss site is too much. There is even a game in it (there are several games) where you create your own three scene book using Dr. Seuss characters complete with changing backgrounds and music that you choose.

There are lots more that I have come across and I will on occasion drop one into my blogs for all to see and share. Honestly, this is my third year and I have a binder crammed full of stuff for teaching!

Software resources

I love hunting around the internet for fun stuff to do. The only thing that I don't like about it is how much of it is old. Who does the house cleaning in the World Wide Web? I came up with several more than three that I enjoyed so I am only going to highlight the top few of them.

First, my favorite because I hate "running" into the "convenience" store only to have a clerk that can't count.

Software Title: Cash Out
Grade/Age level: k-12 depending on settings
Subject Area: Math
Platform: both
Purpose: This game is a cash register where the player is the clerk and has to make change. The easiest level has a penguin buying something for 82 cents and telling you that they get 18 cents change. But, it can be made very difficult. I set it on hard with no hints and no help from the customers and was presented with a purchase of $12,326.32 that I had to make change for from $15,000.00. My husband and son both played this game and liked it. My husband and I had a bet on how well our seventeen year old would do and he surprised us both. This game is addictive with fun animal characters as customers. Even the adults that have played it enjoyed it.

Software Title: sharknumbers
Grade/Age Level: k-3
Subject Area: math/place value
Platform: both
Subject: This game is on a surfboard with numbers appearing in water bubbles beside it. An amount of cubes appears on the surf board and you click on the bubble with the number that you think coincides with the blocks on the surfboard and hit enter. If you are right, you get to go again. If you are wrong....CRUNCH! Off comes a huge bite from the front of your surf board! Ouch. You get to get bitten several times before you are thrown out of the game. This would be especially good for boys since they love sharks. There are only bite marks so it isn't as if it is Jaws for math. It is especially good because the blocks look just like the blocks that we use in the classroom.

Software Title: Room 108
Grade/Age level: k-8
Subject Areas: all major, science, math, reading, geography, etc...
Platform: both
Subject: This site has lots of games and stuff for teachers in every subject. There are tons of ideas for teachers (including how to integrate the stuff on the site to the classroom) on top of the games for the students. I enjoyed the Skeleton Game very much under science. You click and drag the different bones to where they belong and when you are done the skeleton dances a little jig. The games for state capitals are fun too. The whole site is a treasure trove of cute and informative games and worksheets, etc. There is even a section of ideas for science fair projects.

On a side note, I wanted to let you all know about the brief and informative clips that I found on itunes. By going to itunes and entering in the search field "KQED" you find almost a hundred clips on everything from the physics of baseball to predicting the weather! All of them are anywhere from a few minutes to no more than half an hour and are free. The age levels are different for each but appear to be good for the upper elementary/middle/high school level.

I hope that you all get something useful out of this blog. I know that I did doing the assignment. Now if you will excuse me, I have a shark trying to eat me off of my surfboard.

One to One Reflection

One of the reasons the public school system was established in the USA was to produce educated voters. Our fore fathers believed that if our democratic nation, which was still in its infancy at the time, was to survive then those who participate in the democratic process must be educated. They had to be able to read and write and think critically in order to vote knowledgeably. Today I believe that the aim of all teachers is to prepare our students for adulthood so that they may be 'productive members of society'. It is for this reason that I am in support of the one to one program. Regardless of my own personal trepidation at change, our students need to embrace the technology in order to be competitive in todays and tomorrows global market.
Some of the fears that Ihave were addressed by the teachers in the film. The access to tech support is huge! This program would not survive without it. Nor would I! Many spoke of how the laptops don't change how they teach as much as it enhances how they teach. This is good. The kids loved it and while I initially wondered at the "wall" that was being placed between the students and teachers in the form of computer screens, most students pointedly mentioned that they had a better, more personal relationship with their teacher because of e-mail, etc. I wonder at the ability of students to share more intimate information with their teachers because of the the freedom they might feel due to e-mail having no judging eyes....sort of like people spilling their life stories out onto the blank page...This could be a good thing too. Admittedly students would have to be taught the etiquette of this new medium but so will we all. Anything that allows a teacher to understand his/her student better will make them more effective as instructors.
Ultimately, I am all for any tool that has any chance of making me more effective and successful as a teacher. Even in the face of change, my students and their future success is more important than my own feelings of inadequacy or fear of change. If I don't understand the medium my students feel most comfortable communicating, playing, learning, etc. in then I owe it to them to "get with it".