Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. (Jonathon Feinberg). This can be used to by students to enhance vocabulary, use as a group project, to make a graphic designs that promote cognitive development and social interactions. Encourage visual and hands on learning. Nets for Students: Extended Rubric for Grades PK-2 can:  Promote Basic Operations and Concepts, Social, ethical and human issues, Technology Productivity Tools, Technology Communication tools and Technology problem solving and Decision Making Tools.

Disadvantage would be students may take extended time to develop word clouds. Some may need more time to determine which words to use. A teacher would need to specify a time limit and a word count. Advantage is the students are able to view and manipulate onscreen the words and promote literacy through vocabulary.

Kerpoof

Kerpoof is a great site for children to increase their creativity. This site allow users to

·         make artwork (even if you aren't good at drawing!)

·         Make an animated movie (really! it's easy!)

·         Earn Koins which you can trade for fun things in the Kerpoof Store

·         Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug

·         Tell a story

·         Make a drawing

·         Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made

 My granddaughter found it to be exciting and very interesting.  She would like to visit and do birthday cards for the entire family.  We did complete a scary scene with sound, text, pictures and all in its predesigned element.

Users have been identifies as young as 2 years old to as old as 90 years of age.  As a teacher , this can be used to make projects more creative and entertaining. Create storylines in a collaborative group setting and promote the understanding  operation of technology . NETS for students can be applied can be incorporated with this site.  For example  in the extended Rubric for grades PK-2, Basic Operations and concepts where students recognize the major hardware components, know how to select applications, recognize technology as a source of information, learning and entertainment and so on.

Students are rewarded with Koins and can purchase things from the store to incorporate in their game. For its creativity and entertainment I would rate it as a 4 star.

the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating mobile computing devices in the classroom

Many people around the world are the owners of mobile, hand held devices. When thinking of these mobile devices and interworking them into school, the ideas of advantages does not come to mind. The advantages could be as simple as recording a performance or lecture. The audio can be used like e-books, where you are able to read your own books electronically. This will also allow you to help share documents. With the mobile devices it’s also possible to use references like a dictionary, thesaurus, and Wikipedia. Due to advanced technology, the internet is also on most mobile devices allowing you to review notes, study, and quiz yourself. Instead of having your notes and things scattered around it will all be organized inside of the mobile device.  A great disadvantage would be that if the mobile device is lost, all of the information stored on it will be lost as well unless there is a back-up. Another disadvantage is not being able to work the mobile device and the different operations are not being carried out.

Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information

Identifying the computer and how it works along with basic computer terms a student is able to understand the functions and shortcuts. Ex: basic computer terms and understanding the input and output devices.  To use this in the classroom a teacher can demonstrate with labeled pictorials of the computer. Student will become more comfortable when they are more familiar with the device. After retrieving information then the student can decide which storage medium they would like to use to keep the data.  There are many storage mediums available and each can be described and chose to meet the students need Ex:  storage mediums that can be used are the flash drive. The students can save all information for that class on a flash and retrieve when needed.  CD-R can be used to record music or video.

Circle Time -Weather

http://www.suite101.com/content/circle-time-songs-a81963
 This website is a non-profit. The author is getting a degree in Elementary Education. The links are helpful that they give you specific information that will help you with your topic. This site give ideas on how to make activities fun and at the same time educational. I think this website is reliable. With all the links and resources provided, the author is going to great links to provide  as much information that is available to her.

Identifying Lesson Topics

  The teacher begins to plan each lesson by considering the students' characteristics as well as the learning context. This consideration entails a deep understanding of what he or she is to teach (content standards, standards-based curriculum, and guidelines), what students should be able to do, and what performance will look like when instruction has been completed. Lesson information includes not only the content but also the learning and developmental needs of the students. The teacher must consider if resources are available, and should decide whether or not the lesson should take one class period or several.

Meeting the Needs of All Students

In order to meet the needs of all students a teacher must ensure that students with disabilities receive the same curricular content as their peers without disabilities as is required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (IDEA '97). As part of the objective with students with IEP, student’s curriculum is the same but the teachers provide the accommodations that may allow a student more time to take a test, or may allow them to be in a small group.

Instructional Cycle

These three items comprise the instructional cycle stages .Stage 1 is called Intended Instructional Outcomes: where effective teachers begin the instructional cycle by identifying the content standards and benchmarks that the lesson or unit will address. Next, the content standards are translated into measurable learning outcomes. At this stage of the instructional cycle, the teacher has a clear idea of what students need to know, understand, and be able to do to meet the standards-based curriculum. It is important for teachers to keep in mind how they will assess the intended learning outcomes.
Stage2 is called Planning where teachers should plan effective teaching strategies and instructional activities. It is also important that teachers plan on-going formal (e.g., standardized tests) and informal (e.g., teacher-made tests, portfolios) assessments to determine students' progress. Once the learning outcomes, instruction, and assessment have been planned, the teacher will carry out the planned instruction.
Stage 3 is called Assessment where teachers actually implement their planned assessments to determine whether students have met the intended learning outcomes. It is important to understand that assessment is not something that occurs only at the end of the instructional cycle. Assessment is planned when the intended outcomes are conceptualized and implemented during instruction and at the end of instruction to determine whether students have mastered the intended learning outcomes .
(Content Standards: Connecting Standards-Based Curriculum to Instructional Planning IRIS Tutorial)

Components of Good Assessment

There are three types of performance measures. 1) Individual- referenced: assessments compare a student's performance from a previous test  used to monitor a student's progress toward long-term goals. Help teachers to identify areas of strength and weakness, particularly in reading, mathematics, written language, and spelling. If growth is not observed, teachers should design a new method of instruction or intervention for the student. 2)  Norm -referenced: assessments compare a student's performance with the performance of a particular group. Norm-referenced tests are used to compare school performance outcomes to national norms. and 3) Critereon assessments compare a student's performance with an objective. The standard by which accepted performance is judged; may include a time limit, accuracy tolerance, proportion of correct responses required standards, and/or qualitative This  assessments consist of traditional tests, or indirect measures (e.g., multiple-choice, true or false) as well alternative tests, or direct measures (e.g., portfolio, book reports). (textbook,

 Content Standards: Connecting Standards-Based Curriculum to Instructional Planning IRIS Tutorial)

Adapting Instruction

Adapting instruction is important. Discuss two reasons why this is so. Adapting instruction important because it makes changes to instruction in order to allow students equal access to the curriculum and to give students the opportunity to process and demonstrate what has been taught. Instructional adaptations can include both accommodations and modification Accommodations include services related to a student's disability that help them to fully access the subject matter and accurately demonstrate such knowledge without fundamental alterations to the standard or expectation of the assignment or test. For ex: children with IEP (Individual Education Plans whereas they may have learning disabilities where given extra time to complete test and task.  Modifications which include services related to a student's disability in order to help a student access the subject matter and demonstrate knowledge, but in this case the services and supports do fundamentally alter the standard or expectation of the assignment or test. I have noticed with the children at Daycare.  Some children may have five spelling words where others may have ten. This would be an example of modification.

Information-Processing Model

Learning process is divided into 3 stages. 1) Receiving information: ensuring that when a student receives information they are processing the information from short term memory into long term memory. To help get this information to long term, teacher can promote 2)Connecting the information to prior knowledge by organizing the information, repetition, and grouping the information together and 3)Using the information, teach them ways to more effectively and reliably retrieve the information after she has taught it to them in class.  My son Dean had a problem with transferring information from short term to long term memory. When he was in primary school and had to learn spelling words, one week he would know all of his spelling words and make a score of 100 on the test. Next week could spell about ¾ of the list correctly.

Learning Characteristics

Teacher must determine the level at which students are functioning along with the standards they have or have not met. Teacher must figure out her students' individual learning characteristics such as students background knowledge and experience, Learning styles (i.e., visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile), academic strengths & weakness, how they respond to instruction and correction and so on. This is important because the teacher can develop a number of curricular and instructional decisions that can increase student’s performance. For example: my 7 yr old granddaughter first arrived to stay with us she could not accept any form of correction. And when she started school in the district the teacher identified her as a visual learner. Providing adding visuals allowed her to understand at a quicker pace.

Content Standards

Content standards are designed to encourage the highest achievement of every student, by defining the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students should acquire at each grade level. Content standards refer to what gets taught in specific content areas (e.g., reading, language arts, mathematics, science, history). In other words, what knowledge and skills our students should acquire in the classroom. Content standards do not work alone. They require a support system. Benchmarks are one of the supporters.  Benchmarks measurable descriptors of student knowledge and expected student learning outcomes based on grade level. They are among the tools used in rating the effectiveness of teachers and schools. Providing a learning target for a span of grades. As a parent, I prefer that my child is held to a standard of his grade level or above his grade level. Benchmark results provide the information of what my child need to study more or even get a tutor.   (http://www.iowa.gov/educate/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1350&Itemid=2287)