TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

Students in Ms. Randolph’s Early Childhood Education class have been designing their dream kindergarten classes. I have been working with a few of her students to create 3D models using Google Sketch-up. The students are applying what they have learned about early childhood development to optimize their designs. Everything from the color of the floor tiles to the arrangement of the furniture and the objects included is carefully planned. Here is the sample classroom I created for the  students.

Over the past few weeks I’ve helped with a Scratch project with Mrs. Beatty’s 5th graders at Byrd Elementary School. In our introduction, the students created an atom with rotating electrons. When the different parts were clicked, the name popped up in a think bubble. our latest project is creating a model of a plant cell. When the different organelles are clicked, the name appears and a voice describes the function.

Over the past couple of months I’ve worked with several teachers on projects focusing on collaboration, creativity, and communication using web 2.0 tools.

Mrs. Ray’s interactive, collaborative cookbook project allows students to hone their narrative skills by sharing family stories and recipes. For this we have used PBWiki. Unfortunately, we decided to keep the wiki cookbook private and only Mrs. Ray and her students have the password. You won’t be able to get past the log-in screen, and I’m respecting their privacy by not posting a screen shot here.

Mrs. Edwards students created TV commercials using iMovie. The results are posted on YouTube for everyone to see, rate, and comment.

On September 25th I collaborated to teach a lesson using the Promethean ActivBoard, ActiVotes, ActivSlate, and InspireData software for data analysis. I worked with a 6th grade science teacher to analyze the data collected in a previously-executed experiment. We produced graphic representations of the data collected by all the teams that conducted the experiment to compare their results and draw conclusions. We predicted the conclusions using the ActiVotes to collect hypothetical data prior to analysis. Both the Promethean and InspireData were new to the science teacher and to me.