ABC Mouse Early Learning Academy

After submitting your evaluation, you should write up your review as a blog post  to share with your classmates. You may use the reviews below as guidelines. The focus should be on how to incorporate the title in the classroom and the specific need the software title would meet. Since your principal distinctly requested that the software be highly reviewed, you should make sure you reference the reviews you found on  your title.
ABC Mouse website is a great site for children to learn in all different areas. The cost is is low for the school at $70 for a years subscription. There are reviews from children and from teachers who all love the the program. There are 320 different lessons in six different areas of study. The creation of the curriculum of this program has been assisted by early childhood educational experts. ABC Mouse is geared toward children ages 2-6. It can be used for struggling students as well.

Areas of Study
Reading
Math
Science
Art
Music
Geography

In this program the children are challenged and when they master each challenge they are rewarded by winning tickets and mastering each level. The teacher can prepare the program at the level that the student needs to work at. There are different types of activities so that each kind of learner can be successful. Students learn in a classroom setting with a teacher that you create for them. Children love playing the different games and are learning at the same time.

Recycling software

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/games/

I found this website with free games for kids. There are three games that I played that are related to recycling the first one is called Kung Fu Trash Master, where you try to kick as much trash in the can within a short amount of time. The second game was Recycle Roundup, the goal is to pick up and sort as much trash in the recycling bins as you can in two minutes. The third game is Creek Clean up, where you are a bird with a net in your beak trying to clean up the creek from all of the trash. All of the games were fun and are good to help get children excited about recycling. My favorite was the one with Recycle Roundup. I saved this site because I have a three year old son who loves playing on the computer. He, like most boys loves animals and learning about them, not only does this website have games for children it also has videos. I even saw some information about frogs, a game and some videos that I would like to use in the classroom tomorrow because one of the students vocabulary words is hop toad and we did our writing assignment on frogs. This class is not very interested in writing and we are a little boy heavy in the class. I think that the game and maybe a short video might get them a little more excited about the writing assignment. I will have to run it by the teacher that I work with first but I'm sure she will be thrilled. How FUN and exciting! I can't wait to share this with my students and with my son.

Hardware in the classroom

In looking at the different hardware technologies that can be used in the classroom I was amazed. I also felt fortunate because at my school every classroom has a SMART Board. We also have clickers for grades 3-5. I was really impressed with the mouse mischief; I have never seen that before. It seems like an inexpensive way to get all of the children working hands on with technology in the classroom. You wouldn’t even have to have one for every student; they could share and work in groups or as partners.  Some of the disadvantages would be first the cost of the hardware. Then comes the responsibility of taking care of it. If you break it or your children do, you are responsible for it. Another disadvantage is that it may take some extra time and effort on your part to get to know how to use the hardware and ways that you can implement them in the classroom. The advantages are far greater than the disadvantages. Lessons that you create for your students do not have to be filed in a cabinet, they can be saved on a disk or a flash drive for the next year or when you want to reference back to them. You can add to them or take information away. The children are interested in technology so it is easier to get them involved. You can easily share videos, music, power points, graphics and other information right then and there when a question or interest arises in your students, by searching the internet via the SMART Board.  I shared the information about taking a virtual field trip with the teacher that I work with and when I walked into the room today the children were viewing a virtual tour of the home of George Washington! It was so exciting, they can actually see what things were like then and it didn’t cost anything.

I would use the SMART Board in my class every day. There are so many possibilities with it. You can do all of your lessons at home on the computer and then just open them up on your computer at school. It is an interactive way for the students to learn. They can actively participate in the lesson by utilizing the SMART Board. You can add pictures and sounds to your lessons. You don’t have to spend time getting hands on materials ready to get ruined or lost before the next school year. I was introduced to something at my school today called a web pen. You can use it with the SMART Board. It records what you do with the writing as well as recording the sound. The teacher that introduced it uses it while they do their lessons in class and then post it on a site where the children and parents can look back at the actual lesson as if they were in the classroom all over again. If the child gets stuck on their homework and they need help they can look back to the lesson. And if the parents want to look back so that they know how to help their child with their homework they can. The world of technology is amazing.

Recycle/NETS*S

The NETS communicate and collaborate is a very important part in learning and in teaching. Not only does it help students to become comfortable in their surroundings it helps them to think of things in a new way. Communication in the classroom can also open a new understanding to the teacher. For example if the children are given time to open discussion you may realize the reason why they had given a particular answer that you as the teacher stated as wrong.  I have experienced this personally in the classroom. We were sorting items in a Venn diagram and when the student said to put it on one side I said no it should go on the other, she then proceeded to explain why she sorted it that way. I could see her way of thinking, her point of view and she was right. Also I think now days a lot of children are involved in television, electronic games and things that they may miss how to communicate and express themselves. Not only does collaboration help on an academic level it can help children to learn how to simply communicate and work with one another.

When I think of collaborative learning it reminds me of the gentleman who we learned about our first week in this class. He had put a computer on the wall in a place where children had never seen such a thing. In a short amount of time they were e-mailing other children. Then later he gave information to a group of students in a language that they did not know. Through collaboration with each other and the internet within about 30 minutes they were able to tell him what it was and what it meant.

 I would implement collaboration in my classroom through a project on recycling. We would discuss what trash is and what it means to recycle. Once we have come to these conclusions we would then search the internet for any more information that we could find. We would discuss ways that we could recycle in our own environment, starting with our classroom. Next I would have students get into small groups. Than have each group go to a different classroom in the school and tell the students in the other classroom about recycling and how they need to separate the objects before recycling can take place. By presenting how to separate objects in every classroom the whole school can have a school wide recycling project to help the community. I would tell students that the class is going to keep the bins in the classroom so they can continue to recycle and help the community reuse things. Last I would have the students decide where the best place is to have the recycling bins (classroom, hallway, and cafeteria.) ©2007 K6edu.com

http://www.k6edu.com/2ndgrade/social_studies/recycling.html

Delicious

Creating a Delicious account was fairly easy.  It does seem like a good concept, especially for teachers. Being able to have access to lots of websites on certain topics without having to spend the time doing the research is a great benefit. I have just bookmarked one website so I am not real familiar with using Delicious at this point but I do think that I will like using it. This would be a good tool for group research because you can share and see what websites your group members are getting there information from.  I can see how using Delicious bookmarking would be a good resource for me in the classroom. Not only is it a quick and easy way to look at websites that you like to use, you can retrieve the information from any computer. It also is better because instead of e-mailing other teachers websites that you feel would be helpful and risk them being deleted or forgotten about, they are always there available at anytime, anywhere.

wk 5 Recycling webpage evaluation

Website Evaluation Checklist

Student Name: Carrie Blanchard       Date of Evaluation: 02/09/11

Name of the Website:  Education World

URL of the Website:  http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson308.shtml     

Accuracy of the Web Page	Yes	No	Notes
1.  Can you find the author of the page? Hint:  Scroll to the bottom of the page.  It may be an institution.	x		Author Name: Gary Hopkins
2.  Can the author be contacted: Hint:  Look for an “About Us” or “Contact Link”		x	Author email:
3.  Do you think this person or institution is qualified to publish this webpage?	x		Why or why not? Education World is a creditable source.
Authority of the Web Page
1.  Check the domain of the URL, particularly the extension.       Is this a commercial site?   The URL can give clues to the authority.			What does the extension tell you? The extension has the word help on the home page and the word lesson on the recycling page.
2.      Are there credentials listed for the author(s)? If not, try Googling the name of the author or the institution.		x	What did you find? Gary Hopkins: Founder, Editor in Chief who joined Education World after eight years with Weekly Reader. He was also managing editor of the third and fourth grade editions. His planned the content of the student and teacher editions and managed the teams that produced them.
Purpose of the Web Page
1.  Read over the information on this website carefully.  Can you determine the purpose of this web page?	x		Why is this web page on-line?  Think critically about possible opinions or bias? This page is online for the purpose to educate children and to assist teachers in the process. It gives fun activities, ideas and objectives for the topic.
Currency of the Web Page
1.  Can you find a publishing date?	x		When was it published? 04/11/2003
2.  Can you find the date it was last updated?			When was it updated? 03/28/2008
3.  Are the links working and current? Click on some of the links to check.	x		What do you think about the links?  Yes
Looking at your answers, do you think this website would be a reliable, credible source of information?			Why or Why not?  Yes because it is not for advertisement, there is no persuasion. The information on this website is for educators to use as a tool to help the students learn a particular topic.

Group Project

The group project that I participated in was blogs in education. I was not too excited at first because of my past experience of working on a group assignment online did not go so well. I did get off to a rough start, not knowing how to even get to my own wiki page. I was posting comments on the front wiki instead of my own…..oops. Dr. Keesee came to my rescue and through taking to her she gave me some tips and helped me to create a discussion page for my group which was very helpful in making decisions for our wiki. I was surprised that my other group members wanted to get started early, just as I did, that was a relief. I wish we would have made it a point to get to know each other a little more on a personal level first, not that I think it hindered our project, it may have made our collaboration a little easier. I also wish that I had set up a session where we could have all collaborated together and had someone have control of the wiki. It would have made the whole process go more quickly, rather than having to wait until someone else got a chance to work on it.  Overall I feel that our group did a great job. We all did our share and we worked well as a team.

My first recommendation would be for you and your group members to follow each other’s blogs so you can get to know a little bit about each other.  This I think will make it easier to collaborate with one another. Setting up a discussion page is necessary in order to give direction and share ideas about your project. It is a good idea for you and your group members to have one another’s e-mail address and or phone number in case you need to get a quick response.  Also getting started early is helpful because doing an online project can be a lot of waiting. Creating an Elluminate session would be very beneficial for your group. You all could talk through the computer and view the project while one person makes the changes as you decide on what to do. Checking on your group project every day is important so that you do not miss out on anything or get behind.  Keep in mind that someone does need to be a leader, someone to guide the group in the right direction.  Laying out a plan from the start is a good place to get started. Just try your best, be present and be sure to be there for your group members.

Sat. Q and A Session

 I did enjoy participating in the session. Next time I will try to be better prepared and e-mail any questions ahead of time. I was going to just sit in and see what other people asked and then go from there. Not that many people participated though. It was extremely nice to have Dr.Keesee be able to show me exactly what I was talking about by her letting us view her computer. Pretty much just like being in the classroom but you don't even have to worry about getting out of your PJ's. I felt like it was a good time for me. Through the week it is hard to find time to sit down and do anything before 10pm. Sundays I like to just spend time with family. The time for me was good. Just enough time to sleep in and it doesn't interfere with your Saturday.

Collaborating

In this week we had to work on a group project. Is so far has been a good experience, especially compared to a prior group project. It is nice to know that all of the work is not only on you, if you have a group in which everyone does their share. In my case I think we have all done our share. Though there were supposed to be four of us only three of us have worked on the project. Maybe our other group member is no longer a part of the class? I do wish though that we would have taken the advice of how to work in a group and had gotten to know each other more on a personal level. I really do not think that in the time allowed to complete the project, along with other assignments, that we actually had much time for that. It would have been nice to have some kind of assignment on getting to know each other in our group and then moving on to the project. I would be interesting to work with another group on a future project but at the same time I would like to be able to work with my group again. One challenge for me has been trying to communicate. We did create a discussion page on the wiki but it is not instantaneous.  Someone may ask a question and not get a response until the next day. That can be a little nerve wracking. Though we have access to each others phone numbers there hasn't been anything that couldn't wait for a response. I do think that collaborative learning is a good way for students to learn, but I feel that is has a more profound impact when it is in a face to face class.

Assessment Questions

Content standards are goals that are set two to three years prior and they are set up as benchmarks. These assessments are used to see if the student has mastered the skills that are at predetermined times throughout the year. The results of these assessments help students and teachers have an understanding of the student’s growth and what they may need to focus on more in the future.

Individual learning characteristics of children include what their prior knowledge and experiences are. What their learning skills are and their strengths in academics. Knowing their talents and interests can be helpful. Also knowing if there are any language issues and factoring in their cultural community and religious beliefs can be beneficial. Gathering information about your students prior to teaching will actually speed up the process of their learning because you will not be wasting time trying to figure out what works, you’ll know because you already did the planning.  Getting to know the children personally and building a relationship is important in a learning environment.  When children are comfortable they are confident. When they are confident they are willing and eager to explore and learn.

The information processing model of learning is when the children receive the information where it is stored in short term memory. Then the teacher must connect the information to prior knowledge thus moving it to long term memory.  Last the teacher needs to be sure to help the students to use the information in ways that help them to retrieve and connect it.

Adapting instruction is important because we want to maximize the students learning and we do not want them to be on curriculum overload, where we cover a lot of information but nothing in depth. Which will result in quantity of work, not quality of work?

Different types of assessment need to be done throughout the year in order to have an accurate evaluation of the student’s achievements and knowledge.  Individual-referenced is where the assessment compares the student’s growth with previous assessment taken by him or herself.  Another is norm – referenced where the students’ performance is compared with others. Criterion – referenced is when the knowledge is assessed with an objective through multiple choice and true false questions.

There are there stages of instructional cycle. Stage one is intended instructional outcomes, at this stage teachers know what needs to be taught according to standards. Stage two is planning, teachers plan activities and strategies that will be effective towards the child’s academic growth.  At this point assessments are planned as well. The third stage is assessments.  The assessments are used to see if the students have met the appropriate predetermined growth.

Curriculum mapping is a guide for teachers to meet the needs of the student. First they must know what have the students already learned, what they need to learn now and what are they going to learn in their future grades. This helps you to make connections in all areas of teaching that is bifacial to the children.

The lesson topic should come from standard based curriculum. It is good to focus on the specific lesson that the students have shown interest in.