Google Sites,
8th Grade Physical Science Web page
Let me start off by saying of all of the Google apps that I have used in this class, this by far was the most difficult for me. All of the other apps seemed to me to be very intuitive and the Atomic Learning was very easy to follow. This was not the case for me on this assignment. First of all the Atomic Learning tutorial seemed to be working with a different version of Sites. For the most part I could follow along, but there where some major differences. In managing the Side Bar, the Atomic Learning had a link on the bottom of their page that allowed them to make changes that I could never duplicate. I also tried to use the templates and never could find a way to make changes in the side bar. This was by far the most difficult part for me.
When it came to adding pages or making changes on the Home Page that was very easy. I particularly liked the variety of pages that could be added. It became very easy to add or adjust the website and link more pages. Also to be able to link my Google Calendar to the Home page was very convenient. (The Calendar that is currently linked is my personal, I will need to create one just for the class.) I was able to insert a form that will allow me to register that everyone has accessed the page. This was particularly easy to do and I could see this becoming a regular part of my Homework. To have a short form that insures the students have accessed the homework assignment would be very handy.
I was able to see the revision history and it showed me all of the work that I had done on the web page, but I was unable to view the previous ones as I had been in the other applications. Was I doing something wrong or is this just the way that it is?
On the whole it was a little more "painful" that I thought it would be considering how easy the other Google apps had been. But I have had a lot less experience working with Web sites so I think this added to my difficulty. Compared to how hard I had previously imagined website building to be this was fairly easy. At least I was able to do it in a couple of days where I would have thought that building any type of web page would have taken a lot longer.
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Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
iPad Disciplines
I really think that I spent too much time on the Disciplines Apps and did not have enough time on the other, but it was worth it.
I was very impressed with the Algebra app. I had time to look at the Word Problems section as well as the variable equations. It would be very useful as a remedial tool or an introduction tool. As a remedial tool it would allow a student to go back and review a topic. The test were very good, I felt that this was the best feature. The videos were short and too the point. The reason that it would not replace teaching is because what I saw didn't tie into the other aspects or deal with the concepts surrounding the problem. Each topic seemed to be designed to completely stand on its own, and I don't think this is really what you want in an Algebra Class. But to aide the struggling student it would be great. Also if you were trying to flip the class, these could be a very handy tool to give to the students. The videos are certainly better than doing them yourself, and then in class the teacher could review and build the bridges and the tie-ins. Having the test are a quick evaluation tool at the end to measure the immediate effectiveness. If a student is struggling with this format it would become immediately clear. I didn't see if there was a way to export or send the results of the test to an email address, but if there were it would speed up the process.
The Macaw-Hill Mathematica was for a much lower grad, but still very useful. It was like having flash cards on steroids. It would be great if this type of program was not as necessary as it is, but the reality is most kids either don't know how to do flash cards or if they have them there is no one to help them use it. This program would give the students the opportunity to work on the quick addition and multiplication tables on a regular basis. This is a skill that is getting less and less focus in elementary school as the standards are changing and state testing for other concepts are driving teachers to ignore the multiplication tables. By using this type of program it would allow the upper elementary teacher a chance to encourage the students to master this.
The Pocket -CAS is very nice graphing calculator. But as these generally cost around $100 it woudl help offset the cost of the tablet. This app could replace the graphing calculator. It had all of the functions that is required for all the classes that I know of. It would take a littel getting used to, but it woudl be nice not to have to carry both.
Graph-Book and Sketch pad were for geometry class. To be honest Graph-Book is a toy, it is nice to look at and play with, but until you get into college and upper Math classes it it not really that useful. It could be used for transformation, but that is about all that I know of for High School. It would be nice to have to show the students the possibilities, but that is about all. Sketch-Pad on the other hand is a very useful tool. It would be very helpful to illustrate concepts and allow the student to go deeper in some areas of interest.
I really think that I spent too much time on the Disciplines Apps and did not have enough time on the other, but it was worth it.
I was very impressed with the Algebra app. I had time to look at the Word Problems section as well as the variable equations. It would be very useful as a remedial tool or an introduction tool. As a remedial tool it would allow a student to go back and review a topic. The test were very good, I felt that this was the best feature. The videos were short and too the point. The reason that it would not replace teaching is because what I saw didn't tie into the other aspects or deal with the concepts surrounding the problem. Each topic seemed to be designed to completely stand on its own, and I don't think this is really what you want in an Algebra Class. But to aide the struggling student it would be great. Also if you were trying to flip the class, these could be a very handy tool to give to the students. The videos are certainly better than doing them yourself, and then in class the teacher could review and build the bridges and the tie-ins. Having the test are a quick evaluation tool at the end to measure the immediate effectiveness. If a student is struggling with this format it would become immediately clear. I didn't see if there was a way to export or send the results of the test to an email address, but if there were it would speed up the process.
The Macaw-Hill Mathematica was for a much lower grad, but still very useful. It was like having flash cards on steroids. It would be great if this type of program was not as necessary as it is, but the reality is most kids either don't know how to do flash cards or if they have them there is no one to help them use it. This program would give the students the opportunity to work on the quick addition and multiplication tables on a regular basis. This is a skill that is getting less and less focus in elementary school as the standards are changing and state testing for other concepts are driving teachers to ignore the multiplication tables. By using this type of program it would allow the upper elementary teacher a chance to encourage the students to master this.
The Pocket -CAS is very nice graphing calculator. But as these generally cost around $100 it woudl help offset the cost of the tablet. This app could replace the graphing calculator. It had all of the functions that is required for all the classes that I know of. It would take a littel getting used to, but it woudl be nice not to have to carry both.
Graph-Book and Sketch pad were for geometry class. To be honest Graph-Book is a toy, it is nice to look at and play with, but until you get into college and upper Math classes it it not really that useful. It could be used for transformation, but that is about all that I know of for High School. It would be nice to have to show the students the possibilities, but that is about all. Sketch-Pad on the other hand is a very useful tool. It would be very helpful to illustrate concepts and allow the student to go deeper in some areas of interest.
My experience in using Google Drawings was pretty simple and easy. It is very similar to Microsoft Word, with the same type of funcitons. Everything is very well labeled and very intuitive. the inserting drawing fuction was a little different, but certainly didn't need any training to use. I haven't used Microsoft Word for drawing too much, but from what I saw and can remember it was very much the same. Probably the greatest advantage of Google Drawing, outside of the collaborative aspect, was its feel. Microsoft Word is definitely a word processing program with drawing capablities, while drawing felt like a drawing program with word processing capabilities.
Certainly if I were going to primarily make a drawing document it would be very helpful just using the drawing function. Below is the drawing I did, it was also very easy to insert it into the blog. It was even easier to insert it in a document. It was a very easy and useful program to have.
What a wonderful lesson plan, and what a great assignment for a chemistry or physical science class. Right off I can see me using this idea in my class. What a better way for the student to show that they understand a concept than to represent it graphically. Already I am trying to decide just how I want to use this either on a particular assignment or allow them to choose their own. Either way it is very exciting way to show the students alternative ways to think about science. Also using the Google Documents would allow it to be a group assignment. The great thing about still have the revision history function would allow a teacher to option of seeing the work that different students put into the program. I did have one question, does the revision history also save the chat dialogue. If it did it woudl be very useful to konw and to have.
(Dr. Krug you said that we are to take a look at these lesson plans, do I also have permission to download them and use them in my class. I would like to have both the middle school and the High School plans if that were possible.)
Google Drawing, as one of the videos put it, real time collaborative drawing is its strength. Whether you are talking about using this as a group project for a class and the students are collaborating together, or as monitoring a classroom assignment in geometry from a teachers desk I this is a powerful tool. It would be very easy to build a graphic organizer on line and then by giving the students access allow them to fill it out. Also they would have the ability to make their own graphic organizer or modify the one that was given. I think that allowing them this option or making them do their own would improve the assignment. This would be especially useful if at the same time the teacher could monitor their progress. Also it would allow for differentiated teaching. If a teacher made up a geometry worksheet with Drawings the students could work on it at their own pace. If the file is shared then again it would allow the teacher to keep a constant monitor on the class. It would be a great way of keeping a group of students on task without having to walk around the class. (One of the first things a studnet learns is that the teacher can't see across the room very well, this could surprise a lot of kids.)
Certainly if I were going to primarily make a drawing document it would be very helpful just using the drawing function. Below is the drawing I did, it was also very easy to insert it into the blog. It was even easier to insert it in a document. It was a very easy and useful program to have.
What a wonderful lesson plan, and what a great assignment for a chemistry or physical science class. Right off I can see me using this idea in my class. What a better way for the student to show that they understand a concept than to represent it graphically. Already I am trying to decide just how I want to use this either on a particular assignment or allow them to choose their own. Either way it is very exciting way to show the students alternative ways to think about science. Also using the Google Documents would allow it to be a group assignment. The great thing about still have the revision history function would allow a teacher to option of seeing the work that different students put into the program. I did have one question, does the revision history also save the chat dialogue. If it did it woudl be very useful to konw and to have.
(Dr. Krug you said that we are to take a look at these lesson plans, do I also have permission to download them and use them in my class. I would like to have both the middle school and the High School plans if that were possible.)
Google Drawing, as one of the videos put it, real time collaborative drawing is its strength. Whether you are talking about using this as a group project for a class and the students are collaborating together, or as monitoring a classroom assignment in geometry from a teachers desk I this is a powerful tool. It would be very easy to build a graphic organizer on line and then by giving the students access allow them to fill it out. Also they would have the ability to make their own graphic organizer or modify the one that was given. I think that allowing them this option or making them do their own would improve the assignment. This would be especially useful if at the same time the teacher could monitor their progress. Also it would allow for differentiated teaching. If a teacher made up a geometry worksheet with Drawings the students could work on it at their own pace. If the file is shared then again it would allow the teacher to keep a constant monitor on the class. It would be a great way of keeping a group of students on task without having to walk around the class. (One of the first things a studnet learns is that the teacher can't see across the room very well, this could surprise a lot of kids.)
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Preparation
Out of the Preparation section I was able to look at the Grammar Express and the Dictionary app and was very impressed with both of them. The Grammar Express app would be very useful to either a class or to individual students. If used as a class it would allow the teacher to evaluate the students understanding of the different parts of speech. I could easily see a teacher assigning these lessons and tests to a group and then monitoring their accuracy. If a student missed more than a certain percentage then the teacher could adjust a lesson if too many students missed it or remedial work if only a few. And this would be the other use for this App, the individual student. A student or several students could be given certain parts of speech depending on the deficiency. Or just as a matter of review a teacher could assign aspects of the application for different students. Differentiated work is, for me, one of the most difficult things to do in a class. There are always those students who pick up different aspects at different rates. This application could give an English teacher a very powerful tool to help individualize the lessons and still monitor the students progress. This was the most important aspect to me, the ability to monitor their progress. I did not find a function that would all the results to be exported as perhaps an email to the teacher, but it would not too difficult for a teacher to still go back and check what was missed on the test. And using the ability to review would allow the instructor to see if there was a consistent problem. I really only had time to review the verb portion of the application, so I am assuming the other parts of speech section are the basically the same.
I am not a English teacher, but it seemed that it was aimed at the Middle grades, perhaps 5th - 9th grade. I would hope that by 9th grade a student would definitely know the grammar rules that were covered by Grammar Express, but if they didn't then this would be great tool for a self-study to help that student get caught up. The fact that after the test the student not only gets to see the mistake, but also a short explanation would add to its effectiveness.
Dictionary is an excellent reference tool. I would say that it is like having a full size dictionary sitting right next to you, but it is much better. To be honest it is like having the smartest kid in your class sitting right next to you and he/she doesn't mind helping you out. Being a terrible speller the fact that it starts showing the choices of words as soon as you start typing is a huge help. This is the first way that Dictionary is a step above. It does not force you to do a search with the exact spelling of the word. The memory of recently searched words and the pronunciations for all of the words could be very useful. The thesaurus is a huge added bonus to the program. It does what any dictionary should do, with some very important pluses. The word of the day rounds out the application and make is it a very useful tool. Certainly better than just using the internet for a word search.
I did not get to look at the Photoshop app as much as I would like to, but from what I saw it was effective. It is certainly not as powerful as the complete Photoshop application, it is correctly named Photoshop express. If a student needed to do major photo editing I don't think that I would recommend this application, but for a tablet it seemed to have all of the normal functions. There was the crop function as well as flip or rotate the picture. There were some effects also available, borders, tint contrast and black and white. There were some special effects built into the program as well. With this program is is possible to change the appearance of the picture itself. It also allows for importing pictures as well as taking the picture with the device.
There is one more important aspect of this review that I would like to point out. I did some searching that the cost of this application is $3.99. Compare this to the cost of Adobe Photoshop Element 11 which is more than $100. It is certainly true that the $100 program will do more than the $4 application, but for 99.9% of the people that use tablets the Photoshop Express will do more than enough of photo editing. It could make a very nice edition to a students presentation.
I really enjoyed the Story Kit app. It gave the choice of creating a new story or editing an existing story. I think that the students would love to write their own stories using there own pictures or drawings, their choice. Also to add the sound to it so that it would be an audio book would be great. I could see this being used as an assignment or as a reward for a younger student. From what I saw it seemed very easy to create the story. The kids could either act out the pictures or draw them, either one would add to the kids enjoyment. I did not notice if there was a print function, but I would imagine that there would be. It wouldn't be critical, but if iPad is part of a classroom set then to print out the picture would be helpful. I did see on the video that there is some difficulty in recording. It was not insurmountable, but it would definitely take some teachers assistance. I could see this being a huge determent for some teachers using this function. But even if you didn't use this part of the application young students would certainly enjoy writing their own "books". The ability of edit an existing book would also allow for some creativity for a group of students.
Out of the Preparation section I was able to look at the Grammar Express and the Dictionary app and was very impressed with both of them. The Grammar Express app would be very useful to either a class or to individual students. If used as a class it would allow the teacher to evaluate the students understanding of the different parts of speech. I could easily see a teacher assigning these lessons and tests to a group and then monitoring their accuracy. If a student missed more than a certain percentage then the teacher could adjust a lesson if too many students missed it or remedial work if only a few. And this would be the other use for this App, the individual student. A student or several students could be given certain parts of speech depending on the deficiency. Or just as a matter of review a teacher could assign aspects of the application for different students. Differentiated work is, for me, one of the most difficult things to do in a class. There are always those students who pick up different aspects at different rates. This application could give an English teacher a very powerful tool to help individualize the lessons and still monitor the students progress. This was the most important aspect to me, the ability to monitor their progress. I did not find a function that would all the results to be exported as perhaps an email to the teacher, but it would not too difficult for a teacher to still go back and check what was missed on the test. And using the ability to review would allow the instructor to see if there was a consistent problem. I really only had time to review the verb portion of the application, so I am assuming the other parts of speech section are the basically the same.
I am not a English teacher, but it seemed that it was aimed at the Middle grades, perhaps 5th - 9th grade. I would hope that by 9th grade a student would definitely know the grammar rules that were covered by Grammar Express, but if they didn't then this would be great tool for a self-study to help that student get caught up. The fact that after the test the student not only gets to see the mistake, but also a short explanation would add to its effectiveness.
Dictionary is an excellent reference tool. I would say that it is like having a full size dictionary sitting right next to you, but it is much better. To be honest it is like having the smartest kid in your class sitting right next to you and he/she doesn't mind helping you out. Being a terrible speller the fact that it starts showing the choices of words as soon as you start typing is a huge help. This is the first way that Dictionary is a step above. It does not force you to do a search with the exact spelling of the word. The memory of recently searched words and the pronunciations for all of the words could be very useful. The thesaurus is a huge added bonus to the program. It does what any dictionary should do, with some very important pluses. The word of the day rounds out the application and make is it a very useful tool. Certainly better than just using the internet for a word search.
I did not get to look at the Photoshop app as much as I would like to, but from what I saw it was effective. It is certainly not as powerful as the complete Photoshop application, it is correctly named Photoshop express. If a student needed to do major photo editing I don't think that I would recommend this application, but for a tablet it seemed to have all of the normal functions. There was the crop function as well as flip or rotate the picture. There were some effects also available, borders, tint contrast and black and white. There were some special effects built into the program as well. With this program is is possible to change the appearance of the picture itself. It also allows for importing pictures as well as taking the picture with the device.
There is one more important aspect of this review that I would like to point out. I did some searching that the cost of this application is $3.99. Compare this to the cost of Adobe Photoshop Element 11 which is more than $100. It is certainly true that the $100 program will do more than the $4 application, but for 99.9% of the people that use tablets the Photoshop Express will do more than enough of photo editing. It could make a very nice edition to a students presentation.
I really enjoyed the Story Kit app. It gave the choice of creating a new story or editing an existing story. I think that the students would love to write their own stories using there own pictures or drawings, their choice. Also to add the sound to it so that it would be an audio book would be great. I could see this being used as an assignment or as a reward for a younger student. From what I saw it seemed very easy to create the story. The kids could either act out the pictures or draw them, either one would add to the kids enjoyment. I did not notice if there was a print function, but I would imagine that there would be. It wouldn't be critical, but if iPad is part of a classroom set then to print out the picture would be helpful. I did see on the video that there is some difficulty in recording. It was not insurmountable, but it would definitely take some teachers assistance. I could see this being a huge determent for some teachers using this function. But even if you didn't use this part of the application young students would certainly enjoy writing their own "books". The ability of edit an existing book would also allow for some creativity for a group of students.
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