Better Than a Windbag

My sophomore year at BYU I took an Astronomy class. It was a morning class held in a planetorium. It was taught by a professor that was the 16th physics professor ever hired at BYU. The man knew about fossils, because he had watched them form. He would stand at the front of the class, spout off facts, and lecture. Most of the class learned very little, got poor grades, and complained.

I hope to never become that teacher.

On my group's last post, we wrote about an activity about a technology lesson that would give us an opportunity to apply the things that we have learned thus far in this class in a fictional classroom. We were then asked the following questions:

• What is the content you’ll be using in your lesson?

• What is the pedagogy you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content?

• What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy?

The content we used for the lesson came from the core curriculum. We decided to teach from 6th grade science core Standard 4, Objective 2. That objective stated, "Describe the appearance and apparent motion of groups of stars in the night sky relative to Earth and how various cultures have understood and used them."

Much of the discovery aspects of this assignment was up to the children. When I present a lesson like this in a real class I will provide the students with directions for finding the information if they need the directions. Those who do not understand the assignment or don't know where to start might receive help individually, while those who already know exactly what they want to do can work on their own at their own pace. The amount of information and sources are up to them, but I would encourage the use of Wikipedia.

We would use the Internet where we would encourage the use of Wikipedia, and the program Stellarium. Some of the project would require the students to find something in Stellarium, requiring their ability to navigate that program. That would be combined with their ability to research things on the internet. Then they would be given the Australian and New Zealand flag, and required to research things on the internet they would find on Stellarium. That task would require some problem solving and basic understanding of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The North Star task would require a similar knowledge of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and could encourage discussion.

These assignments are creative ways to combine technology with content knowledge through using a unique pedagogy that can help the students discover these concepts on their own. Having them learn on their own is lot better than an old windbag spouting off facts at the front of the room.

Tech Savy Teacher: Move over Bill Nye!!!!1

We have been using technology in our classroom at Pretend Elementary School in the Fictional School District. Our students have really enjoyed the Computer program Stellarium, which is a fantastic program that helps students understand the movement of stars, planets and the relationship of celestial bodies to the earth.

Part one of our three part unit was to help the students familiarize themselves with the program Stellarium, and fine tune their web based research skills. They were to find three constellations of my choice, and identify them in Stellarium. They were then to find background information about what people and culture named this constellation and how it may or may not have been used for navigation at sea.


Ursa Major, "The Big Dipper"


Gemini, "The Twins"

Orion


Part two on another day, i gave the kids following clue. "On the Australian and New Zealand Flag there is a constellation. Find the name of that constellation, and change your location on Stellarium to one where you could see this at night." This required the kids to understand that this particular constellation is not visible in the Northern Hemisphere, and you must be South of the Equator to view.


The Southern Cross

Part three required the kids to find Ursa Minor in the Utah night sky. They were to center the constellation on the screen.

The North Star is in the center of the screen.

I then had the kids "speed up time" on Stellarium so that the circumpolar stars around the North Star were moving, while the North Star remained fixed. I had them hypothesis why this was. The kids had a hard time fully understanding what exactly what was going on, and led to a very beneficial class discussion about Polaris.

The Students here at Pretend Elementary are really enjoying these technologies!!

Astrology is NOT Astronomy.

I like to look at the stars, and I like to find constellations. I might be guilty of being that boring guy pointing stars out to the girls at bon-fire parties away from the city lights in my "younger" days. I haven't, that is until last Tuesday, found a good software that could (or could have) helped me identify information about constellations. I was on my own. Then when we talked about TPAC, and combining technology knowledge, pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge and use the star sighting software in the classroom, my world opened up. That is the technology we are going to use for our assignment.

I've always seen my "classroom of the future" uses of technology limited to a projector, powerpoints, music, and maybe a Nintendo Wii. With the implication of the technologies that we talked about in class my vision of my "classroom of the future" looks more like "classroom of yester...day." My point is that there aren't just these technologies this class has opened my eyes to. There are more. And when I talk about my experiences at BYU in 25-30 years, I'll be sitting in a futuristic rocking chair, wearing a silvery shirt, wearing super-tinted sunglasses (from the radiation) and I'll chuckle that I thought it was awesome I could hook my computer up to a microscope.

I know everything

So when I came into class on Tuesday I came in with a chip on my shoulder. I've been on blogger with my siblings on my blog since something like 2005. I am rarely out of arm's reach of the internet. I have a hard time watching football, a movie, or TV without a laptop on my lap. I've poked fun at my friends and myself as we all sit in the same living room watching a large screen TV, with 6 laptops open... no words are shared, and if we find something we want to share with everyone we gchat, or facebook each other the comments we would like to share. It is to a point of stupidity, really.
So as I walked into our classroom on Tuesday, I figured I didn't need anyone showing me anything new on the internet because, I already knew everything.

Humble pie is nice.

I learned some pretty cool stuff on Tuesday. I had seen RSS icons everywhere on the web, but I didn't exactly understand how they worked. I knew that with Safari if I clicked the RSS button it took away most of the pizazz of normal websites, but I knew there had to be more.

Since Tuesday I have become a google reader addict, and I couldn't be happier about it. I plan to use the the goodreads website as a reference to communicate with parents and give them my recommendations for books to read. This would be a great resource to help parents become more involved in their child's education. Many parents want to be involved, but don't know what the best course of action is. This and other resources can help those parents find that way to help.

... oh I love techno-logy...

This blog, interline 2.0!!!!1, is a blog created for my IP&T class for winter semester 2009. It will be used to post various assignments for the class, and after the end of the class, I plan to revise the blog and use it as a medium of some sort in my teaching.

My interaction began when my father bought a Macintosh 128, in around 1986. I learned how to use a mouse, and other basic functions that a computer in the mid-late 80s could perform. I remember playing various games like solitaire, stunt copter, brickles, and other basic games. Other basic games like one of the greatest game ever, Oregon Trail. I remember naming the members of the family in my wagon after members of my class. I would of course name my wife after the girl I had a huge crush on, but I would be real cleaver about it by strategically using initials to avoid anyone knowing who I was talking about. When they would die, the headstone would say something like, T.C. died from a snakebite. Technology gave me an opportunity to be very cunning.
In Elementary school we used computers more and more as time went on and they became more of a focal point in our society. We had a Window's based computer in the 90s in our home, and I went back to using a Mac a little before my mission and after. In other technologies I am somewhat capable. I can set up audio/video systems, and I have a basic understanding of how these things work. I try to keep up with the current changes, and in my family when somebody needs something set up or troubleshot I am commonly the person that is called.

I don't know everything there is to know, but my experience usually provides me with enough background to figure most programs and problems out.