ECOMP 5106 Assignment 3.7 Databases

If you are looking for a tool to use in the classroom that will promote critical thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills, then the InspireData Database software program is the one! This activity was a fun way to plot and anlayze data. I was impressed with the program design and how much reasoning and problem solving is necessary to establish relationships and compare data.
My group chose to find out if the track type (wood or steel) of a roller coaster would affect the speed of the roller coaster. When we plotted the data of track type, drop, and speed, we found that steel roller coasters had the fastest speed and the highest drop. Our explanation was that steel roller coasters are stronger and can be built taller and that advantage of a higher drop assures speed.
I found it interesting that I was better at analyzing the data when it was converted from a venn diagram to a graph. I like the visual organization that a graph offers using a "X" and a "Y" axis, and it was easier for me to make comparisons on the graph than it was on the venn diagram. Because everyone has a different style of learning and processing, this program is excellent in allowing for this differentiation. I am making it a goal this year to implement this software into my advanced content classes.

ECOMP 5106 Assignment 3.6 Technology Brochure

The premise of assignment 3.6 Technology Brochure was to encourage us to share any technology resource that we have used ourselves or with our students in class. We had the option of creating a brochure or a word document to showcase the features of our resource and then present and share it with our fellow Lesley classmates. This activity was very rewarding. I walked away from class with a an understanding of a sundry of technology resources.
I chose to present information about a new video editing software program, Adobe Premiere Elements and Adobe Premiere Photoshop Elements. One reason I chose this program was that my school currently has Movie Maker and we are having network issues with the program. Another reason is that I am planning a lesson in my class where the students will need to use a video editing program. The lesson revolves around the students learning how propaganda techniques are used in political advertising. They will design their own political TV commercial using a propaganda technique, video their commercial, import their commercial to the computer using Adobe Premiere Elements, arrange and edit the commercial, add a variety of effects, transitions, music, and add titles and credits. The Instructional Technology teacher at my school applied for a grant using my lesson as a basis for the use of Adobe Premiere Elements. I was able to share the good news with the other teachers in my class, who are also teaching in my county, that we have purchased 5000 rights and teachers will soon be able to apply for the program to be installed in their school.
I felt the technology brochure assignment was very worthwhile since I was able to utilize this list of several good technology resources throughout my teaching career. Two of the technology resources which will benefit me and my students this year are Discovery Education Streaming and Citation Machine.

ECOMP 5106 Assignment 2.7 Word Chains

Assignment 2.7 Word Chains was not only a fun assignment, but also it was a very advantageous one. This activity was designed to show how the thesaurus on word processors can be used to make connections between words and their synonyms.
First, you type in a word and then you use the thesaurus to find a synonym. Then you highlight a synonym and find another synonym for it. You do this to create a list of several words. The word you begin with and the synonym you end up with sometimes have a peculiar connection. The example given in the acitivity began with the word curious and ended with the word intelligent. I started with the word diligent and ended up with the synonym brilliant.
I plan to use this activity with my students when they finish a techhnology assignment on their laptops. I feel they would benefit from this short assignment and they would be able to complete it in a short period of time. The thesaurus is a useful tool for them to learn and it will be fun for them to choose words and make comparisons between the word they started with and the one they ended with. I am also going to share this activity with my fellow teachers as well.

ECOMP 5106 Assignment 2.4 Unit Goals and 2.5 Learning Targets

Assignment 2.4 Unit Goals and 2.5 Learning Targets are part of my curriculum unit. If you would like to view these assignments in my curriculum unit, click on them.

Word Helpful Hints

Throughout ECOMP 5106 I have learned several new pointers when using Word. In addition to my instructor, David Hartranft, showing me some shorcuts while he helped me with problems in class, he gave each of us a handout with helpful hints to use as a reference later.
One valuable hint, for example, is that I learned how to create a table of contents for a Word docucment. Anytime I add a new page to the document, I simply insert a page break, highlight the table of contents, right click on update field and update entire field, and the new page has been added to my table of contents. However, there is an even easier way to create an automatic table of contents (TOC). On the tool bar click insert and click index and tables. I am sure I will use this hint as I continue with my Lesley cources and I am grateful to have learned it early on.
Perhaps the most helpful hint I acquired that will assist me in writing research papers or creating master documents is the use of the paragraph symbol on the tool bar. When I click on the symbol, it highlights all the headers, page sections, spaces between words in the document and much, much more to alert me to any errors in my documents. Page and section breaks are essential for polishing a document. It is very easy to go to the tool bar and insert a new page section and seperate documents.
There are other hints which will help me with writing papers in the future. When creating a heading, it is easy to click on format heading on the tool bar, then click on select format, click styles, and choose a style. Now I know that all heading documents should be in Arial, font 14, and not are bold. Another valuable tip I learned was that all written paper should be in Arial, font 12. Also, I found that if I want to find a word or section or replace a word all I need to do is select edit and select find/replace. When using bullets, I am now able to customize them to relate to the list of items I want to emphasize. I can't wait to use this shortcut the next time I create a new document for my students.
I truly found a plethura of unknown shortcuts when using Word and I am delighted. I plan to show my colleagues and my students these shortcuts as I work with them so that they may benefit from them as much as I have.

ECOMP 5106 Inspiration Web of my Curriculum Unit

I created an Inspiration Web of my Curriculum Unit.
If you would like to view the Inspiration Web, click on it.

ECOMP 5106 Final Reflection Paper

My learning experiences during the course, Designing Curriculum to Integrate Technology, were many. I was challenged and learned the Teaching for Understanding process of designing a lesson plan to incorporate technology. When I look back to the beginning of the course, I am reminded of how anxious I was to transform my lesson plan topic (Is Seeing Believing?) into a Teaching For Understanding lesson. Since I have always been a fan of Backward Design but never had the opportunity to use it to design a complete lesson, I was eager to learn the ins and outs of the Teaching For Understanding model. I can proudly say that this class lead me down the road to becoming profecient in designing lessons through backward design and incorporating technology to enhance student learning. The book, The Teaching For Understanding Guide, was an invaluable resource, but the actual application of the steps and help with each of them from the instructor in class was most beneficial.

To begin the backward design process, it was helpful to brainstorm several essential questions that I wanted the students to be able to answer at the end of the lesson. At first I was not sure how to narrow the list of essential questions down to one or two. With the instructor's help and looking at examples of essential questions, I realized that one (How do we know what to believe in science?) encompassed all the other questions. Perhaps the most valuable exercise that prepared me for choosing unit goals for my students was assignment 2.1, What is understanding? I was asked to examine a skill in which I felt profecient, explain how I got good at the skill, illustrate how I developed an understanding of the skill, explain how I knew I was good at it, and show evidence that proves I was good at it. This activity really made me think and relate my understanding of a skill to my students' understanding of a topic. I realized that there are many steps toward developing an understanding of a topic and that application of the understanding is imperative. Most importantly, the asssignments in class in which I created a master Word document to record my thoughts on understanding, generative topics and essential questions, unit goals, learning targets, and integrating technology into lessons, helped me learn the Teaching for Understanding framework more than I realized. Having to reason through each step and then write about each step was what made me truly understand the framework. In addition, an underlying benefit to keeping my thoughts and curriculum unit in a master document was that I learned about organizing a master document with a title page and a table of contents.

Once I selected the unit goals, I examined the various learning targets and levels of skills my students would be asked to perform. This step in the design process proved to be an eye-opening experience. I was familiar with the levels of Bloom's, yet I did not realize how important it was to make sure the student use a variety of levels, especially the upper levels that promote critical thinking skills and deep understanding of a topic. I learned to eliminate goals that only targeted the knowledge and comprehension level. Instead, I chose goals which encorporated knowledge and comprehension as well as reasoning, disposition, and product or performance.

The technology software tool that helped me the most in the design process was creating an Inspiration mind map of the topic, essential questions, goals, learning targets, and activities. Inspiration was the perfect software tool to use to layout the lesson. I am a visual person so being able to see the entire map with the goals was a tremendous help. With Inspiration I could see where to place activities and incorporate technology into the activities so that they reinforced the goals.

The Inspiration mind map also made it easier to plan to incorporate technology that enhanced student learning. Planning the acitivities and adding technology to the activities was my favorite part of the Teaching for Understanding model. Since I was so enthusiastic about incorporating technology into my lesson to enhance student learning, I knew I could transfer that enthusiasm to my students and they would enjoy using the technology as well as develop a deeper understanding of the topic because of it. I made sure the students became critical thinkers when analyzing Internet and various multimedia sources by teaching them how to evaluate a written document. After researching and analying resources it was essential that the students were able to question and argue the science topics they researched, so I incorporated an informal debate before the students were asked to use Word and write a point/counterpoint paper and a persuasive paper. Finally, the students would use Word to design a Cryptid Hunter Kit and then plan a Power Point slide show to explain the validity of the kit in a presentation to fellow Cryptozoologists at a convention.

Because I was asked to use the state standards to find goals for my students, I am now very familiar with the standards and can see their value. I have printed the state standards in science, language arts, and reading and I plan to use these standards as a guide for each of my lessons. In the future I plan to evaluate each lesson I teach and make sure that the lesson goals are planned around the state standards. Choosing goals from the state standards is the largely the utmost way to ensure the students are prepared for the state tests in the spring and will assure that valuable class time is used wisely.