Joke of the Week: Einstein Teaches

Digital Divide 2.0

The digital divide is something that has been plaguing and concerning the education community for some time now. The growing gap between people with access to computers and people without has no diminished as technology has become cheaper and a force found everywhere. The new problem, coined as "The Digital Divide 2.0", is the gap between people with home internet access and people without it.

Most schools these days provide computers with internet access for students to use as classroom resources. Even schools with low SES get grants and donated computers. And teachers are called on more and more to make technology apart of their classroom. They are supposed to find new and inventive ways to incorporate social media into lesson plans to keep students interested. But teachers can help lessen the hurt of the Digital Divide 2.0 by keeping assignments the require the internet to the classroom and not at home. If a homework assignment will require internet access, be sure to have time before and after school as well as during lunch that students can come into your classroom and work on the school computers.

My First Lesson Plan

With a fellow Secondary Education- Natural Science Major, I made a lesson plan that I hope to use in the future. It is for teaching unit conversions (English to SI as well as within the metric system) and basic dimensional analysis. The lesson plan we created is actually three different ways to teach the same lesson: the first is for a classroom where each student has their own computer to use, the second is for a classroom of 25 students and five computers, and the third is for a classroom in which the only computer is the teachers. I hope that you find it useful (and one day I will be able to use it!), if you have any comments please let me know. I can use any and all help in this point of my career.

Joke of the Week: Ferrous Wheel

Fe -- Fe

/                \

Fe                 Fe

\                /

Fe -- Fe

Taxonomy of Learning

I recently learned about Benjamin Bloom's system of classifying different stages of learning for the student. There are six levels: Remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating and creating. Mind mapping is a way to get ideas based around one central them out in an organized, pictorial way. Many students use mind maps to signify different stages of Bloom's Taxonomy.

For example, as an Instructional Technology student I could use Bloom's Taxonomy to classify at what stage I am. The blogs that I write after class every week are a way to analyze what I have learned. And if I were to look back at these blogs in a year or two, It would help me remember the information I covered in class. I also apply my understanding by creating things like UDL books, Glogsters, and Mind Maps.

This week I created a Mind Map that uses Bloom's Taxonomy to teach Stoichiometry (the units method) to high school chemistry students. I hope to use this mind map to make a lesson plan that will help me one day in the classroom.

Digital Citizenship for the Digital Student

The four topics above are what I perceive as the most important components of digital citizenship in a classroom. A big part of any class is researching. Whether doing assigned research for a project or trying to find more information on a topic being studied in class, students need to be able to evaluate the sites they are using. Digital communication, digital law, digital etiquette, and digital literacy are key aspects in evaluating websites. I will explain these components to my students and how they can use the questions on each index card to help them decide if a site is appropriate or not.

For parents concerned about internet use in the classroom, I will refer them to the school's handbook on policies and procedure as well as to the IT department. This will allow parents to fully understand what their child is, and is not, allowed to do on school computers and internet. For parents concerned with internet use outside of the classroom, I will suggest that they talk to their kids about their own expectations and make sure the children understand exactly what is appropriate behavior for themselves and other users on the web.

Cyber bullying is becoming more and more of problem. It is important for students to know what exactly cyber bullying is so they know it is not appropriate to treat people in that fashion nor is it ok if someone treats you in that fashion. Knowledge is the biggest way to prevent cyber bullying as well as access to sites like The Big Help or Stop Bullying. If cyber bullying is brought to my attention, I will make sure to deal with it consistently and immediately so students know that it is not acceptable.

Joke of the Week: Partial Credit