Using serious games to teach about the 1920s is an awesome idea. As an elementary and high school student, I absolutely loved every chance I got to use the computer lab or laptops to play games. I definitely want to integrate them into my classroom because of my positive experience growing up. For my 1920s themed lessons, serious games would be beneficial. Since the 1920s was a very different era and there is not a ton of high quality videos from that time period, an interactive game or simulation would better the understanding of the 1920s for my students. The 1920s was a very exciting and upbeat time period, and a game that matches its "personality" would be very entertaining for my students. Students are motivated to learn when they have fun (or are distracted from the fact that they are learning), so they will definitely retain the information better through a game. A positive experience with a game will also make learning about the 1920s a positive experience.
This was a very interesting case to work on. Since we were challenged to formulate objectives and find a lesson to work with it rather than the other way around, it made this case much more difficult than Case 1. Right away for Case 1, we had an idea and worked from there. Now, we faced the obstacle of having to do the opposite. I definitely think this was beneficial because as teachers, we will have to follow a curriculum and stem lessons off of teaching standards rather than just teaching the lessons we want.
Lesson plans are not getting much easier to write. We felt that we built very strong learning objectives and the standards we found work perfectly with the lesson. We tried to be as thorough as possible in the procedures. We believe that if someone were to read our lesson plan, they would be able to clearly execute it just by reading what we wrote. The lesson is practical because not too much is incorporated in it, but it also works on connecting multiple aspects of numbers. All parts of the lesson can be done by the students because of what they have learned in school prior to this activity night. By the mentors briefly explaining the concepts, the students should be able to individually understand what to do. If they do not understand it, they should be able to pick up on it quickly from the help of the mentors. It is definitely a motivational lesson because the students will enjoy it. The pizza makes the lesson more fun for the students. Also, using the pizza makes the lesson realistic. When the students see that the lesson is relevant to their lives, then they are more motivated to learn about it. A) What was great about Edmodo's job aid was that I got a true sense of what it was all about. I chose to view Edmodo because it was something we used in high school and I wanted to see if this group explained everything that it had to offer or taught me more about the application that I did not already know. Their explanation definitely covered everything that Edmodo does for teachers, students, and parents. It is very clear and to the point. I also loved the long list of examples of how Edmodo can be used. It shows that it is a very useful resource and can be used for a variety of classroom activities. The lesson plans nicely integrated Edmodo into the lessons. The lesson was not built off of Edmodo, but rather Edmodo was integrated after the main objectives were formed. This is valuable information because it shows that the appropriate content is being learned rather than solely building the lesson off of using the application.
B) For the job aid, the only suggestions I would make would be to look it over once more for grammatical errors. There are times where editing the punctuation would help the reading of the job aid to be more smooth. To fix this problem, revision just needs to take place. The only other spot I would fix would be the descriptions of the lesson plans. These could be a little more thorough and give a better sense of the lesson before you read the entire lesson plan. As far as the lesson plans go, I believe a lot of work still needs to be done. Just like the job aid, there are some major grammatical errors and a few cases where the sentences do not completely make sense. This is difficult as the reader because you cannot get a full sense for what the lesson is about; you have to try to guess what the writer was trying to say and piece the lesson together. To fix this problem, again, revision needs to take place. The writer just needs to pay attention to their explanations to make sure that every step can be clearly understood. Another thing this group should consider is incorporating lessons that show different aspects of Edmodo. In two instances, they explain how the class should take a quiz on Edmodo. To fix this problem, they can easily review their job aid and see the list they created of all the different ways Edmodo can be used. The list shows many examples of how Edmodo can be used and this should be shown in their lessons to give more of a variety. C) This group's job aid would be helpful to teachers because it is clear and shows exactly how the program works. You can definitely see the benefits of Edmodo through their job aid. However, the lesson plans would not beneficial to these teachers. Since they are lacking clarity and variety, they do not do the application justice. With a little more work and thought into the lessons, they could be helpful, but they are not at that point just yet. I could potentially see myself use this program again in the future. Since I plan to work with elementary level special needs students, I do not think this website would particularly benefit them. It does not have the same appeal on them as it would middle school students or high schoolers (because of Facebook). However, life could take me anywhere, and if I taught older students, then I would use this application. It would be an excellent source for keeping the class content all in one place. They could turn in homework assignments, take quizzes, watch presentations, respond to questions...there are so many options! It would be a very useful tool as a teacher for organization and a useful tool as a student because it keeps them active on the Internet while doing assignments. A) When viewing Animoto's job aid, I was honestly blown away. What I loved about it was that they did not just simply explain their application, but instead they got you excited to use it. Their "purpose of the application" and "examples of how it could be used in education" sections definitely made me want to use this program. Their video was short, but to the point that it was entertaining and it was the perfect example of how to use the application. Since they were enthusiastic and interested in Animoto, so was I! It's amazing how word choice and positive descriptions can go a long way. Their lesson plans all incorporated Animoto in an appropriate manner and the students would definitely be excited about any of these assignments because of how they would be used in a lesson.
B) In my opinion, the job aid is almost flawless. The only minor change I would add to it would be to consider changing "examples of how it could be used in education" to a list. I believe the appearance of it as a list would make the reader see there are multiple different ways it can be used. When viewed as a paragraph, you do not necessarily get that impression right away. However, this is not a big deal if they do not see that this section needs to be changed. Unfortunately, I think some of the lesson plans need work. All of the objectives need to be reviewed in the lessons. Some of them have a difficult time addressing the "true" objectives in the lesson. Rather than integrating Animoto into the lesson, Animoto became the topic of their objectives. This should not be the case because their lessons should not teach them how to use Animoto, but rather to use Animoto as a tool in learning the information. To fix this problem, the group just needs to reread their lessons and see what the students should have learned by the end of the lesson. Yes, they will learn how to use Animoto, but that should not be the central idea behind their lesson. Also, some of the lessons need to go more into detail in their procedures section. At times, the lessons were vague and left me wondering how I should teach the whole lesson. To fix this, the group needs to look over their procedures and give a detailed explanation of every step rather than just a longer overview of the lesson. C) The job aid is perfect in selling Animoto as a resource to teachers. However, I do not think I would use the lesson plans as a helpful resource. The job aid perfectly and clearly describes how Animoto works and should be incorporated. Anybody that reads it will have a clear idea of how it should be used. The lesson plans need more clarity before they are used as examples of integrating Animoto. They are somewhat helpful, but need a little revision before they will be completely helpful to in-service and pre-service teachers. In my future classrooms, I can definitely see myself using Animoto. If I teach a lesson that may be boring to the students, I can spice it up with Animoto to help them get excited about the topic. If I want the students to work on a project to present information, then they can use Animoto as an interesting form of presentation. It does not seem to be too difficult to use and it actually looks like a lot of fun! I have used Prezi in the past, and I absolutely love it! However, even though I have used it before, I am still not completely familiar with it. I was really excited when I opened Prezi and found the automatic templates. This was something new that I had not seen offered by Prezi before. I was also excited because there was a background that fit my topic about travel in the 1920s perfectly! It was very easy to use because all I need to do was fill in the template with the information I wanted. I was very happy with how my presentation turned out, and it is definitely something I will use in the future.
Glogster
This can be used in a classroom to present a topic and to elaborate on it. If you have a small topic and want to hit certain points about it, or if you are introducing a topic and want to get the students excited about it, then these interactive posters would be perfect. This is an application that I'm not sure if I would use. It is very fun and shows creativity, but I may not use it as a means of presentation for my students because it only provides one page of information. It is hard to provide a lot of information on it at one time. Jing When teaching the students how to access certain information on a computer, Jing is a great source to use. Jing allows you to record what is happening on your screen so others may watch it as a video. I would probably use this in my classroom if I have an online assignment for my students to complete and there are multiple steps to get there. Rather than having to constantly explain over and over again how to reach the website, they can replay the video. Prezi This is definitely considered to be an "upscale" PowerPoint. Every Prezi is new and exciting because many options are offered. Rather than flipping through slides and lecturing the class, Prezi makes learning interesting because of the setup of the information. This is something I would definitely use in my classroom. It is not only fun to present, but it is also fun to create it! |
AuthorLexie Costa - Archives |