Tech Tool Review

Pinterest in the Classroom

I discovered various things from my exploration on Pinterest . Firstly ,this site is vast with tons of information according to topics. Some of which has to be broken into subtopics.

The information on Pinterest is like being in the ocean with beautiful colors around you for you to chose your destination . Every direction brings you to new and exciting paths that leads to new endeavors for exploration.

I believe as a Teacher Pinterest can be used to facilitate many needs such as collaboration of various lesson plans in different subject areas , ideas for classroom management and set -up, as well as strategies for teaching .

I think the strengths of Pinterest are many. It's visually appealing ,engaging , motivating and inspiring . I believe that some of the challenges of Pinterest are that there's a multitude of choices where a person can get over stimulated, with the mass amount of information available based on an unlimited amount of topics .

Overall , I am impressed with the quality of information on Pinterest . I believe that it will become a great value with teachers across the world to share various ideas ,topics and inspiration for free. This is a site I will be using to gain different perspectives , inspiration and sharing with my older students.

"Khan/Koller Review"

My impression of Khan Academy

I recently visited the site called Khan Academy and I was very impressed by the site itself. The site wasn’t just colorful, but simply easy to navigate. I liked the fact that the site used subjects and broke it down to various topics of that subject with appropriate videos. It was as easy as turning the pages of a book without effort. This site is truly driven by one’s desire to learn, if you want to learn anything about Math ( from K- 8 grade& High school) , Arts & Humanities , Economics & Finance ,  Computing & Science Engineering, it’s there.

I can see myself using this site not just for myself to brush up on some skills, but also with my students. Since our students are intrigued by technology, this is a wonderful site for them to explore topics like the Aztec Sun Stone or “What advice can Salman Khan give Lebron James” both of these great topics with engaging videos to watch and learn from .

 I believe that Salman Khan is right when he says that in the future ,we will rely more on “credentialing” through the use of online courses. More and people are relying on technology and it’s use, so to take advantage of learning from the safety and comfort of their homes. Especially students who may home schooled, sick or can’t handle  large groups of social interactions.

 

My impression of Coursera

 

When I explored the Coursera course offerings, I was very interested in their Language Learning course. I would like to explore the option of their online courses available.  I am not aware if Columbus State accepts Coursera transfer credits as I didn’t see their name, nor the names of the Universities the instructors  of  Coursera come from under the “Transfer & Articulation” section of the school website. However, with the growing population of people taking courses at Coursera, I wouldn’t be surprised that eventually credits from them  can be transferred to Columbus State.

The courses at Coursera appear to be more interesting than those I have taken or experienced before because of the 8-12 minutes interactive lessons. I also think because there’s that community of Global learners that can help with questions is forever evolving the learning experience. I wouldn’t say that my opinion of who is teaching at Coursera  has anything to do with my decision of maybe taking courses there, however , it’s the method of instruction that intrigues me.

I really believe that MOOCs ( massive open online courses) are the "wave of the future" because of the leaps and bounds we have with technology right now.  Eventually I believe that all teachers will need to know how to give engaging instruction online for all students because  that will become the norm of our society  

Exploring Standards-Based Lesson Plans

One of the lessons plans I found from the Ohio Department of Education site is called “Making a Career Choice”. This lesson plan is based on career assessments of the students, as well as their knowledge and abilities. The students range from grades 9-12. They are expected to choose an occupation  on the bias of Self-awareness and goal-setting . When they choose the topic, they are required to use the OhioMeansJobsK-12 and look up that specific occupation with the following considerations in mind; Interest areas, work setting, employer’s hiring practices, number of people employed (by area or state), wages, outlook, skills required, education required, courses in high school that are needed and knowledge.

The Common Core standards aligned to this lesson is English Language Arts and it is designed to meet the following objectives; Vocabulary , Reading Process, Reading Application, Non–fiction, Writing Process:, Use variety of strategies to revise content and organization; prepare writing for publication, Writing Application, Research, Formulate open-ended questions for investigation; evaluate usefulness of data; communicate findings and Communications. There are many ways to facilitate these objectives, some of which include having a class meeting to discuss the research found on the  web site, create a word wall of all the words that pertains to certain occupations, and write a journal pertaining to the findings of the career choice.

This lesson will be implemented by activating the student’s prior knowledge of careers they know about personally by either from their parents, grandparents and or other members of their families. The lesson will be introduced via a video to catch their attention and then the handouts will be passed around to facilitate the lesson , along with the worksheet.

For my inclusion practices , I would “1)Provide cue sheet with computer procedures.

2) Provide assistance in identifying the ten considerations of the occupation being researched.

3) Instead of a chart, have students make a presentation board that includes illustrations and a transcript of the courses the student took in school".

My lesson plan can be found at the following link

http://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Career-Tech/Career-Connections/Lesson-Plans?searchtext=Making+career+choices&searchmode=anyword&subjectsearchfilter=0&gradessearchfilter=0

The online site OhioMeansJobsK-12





The Worksheet associated with the Lesson Plans 

Key Topics  associated with the Lesson Plan