Tech Club Week 6

This week, we planned to work with students using the video cameras on the computers, but the site that we found last week with Mrs. Mathews did not work this week.  Because of that, we had to find an alternative, which ended up being a math website where we helped students with problems in games.
  The big downside this week was that the technology that we had once again did not work for us.  It really sucked because this is the third week that something like this has happened and we were kind of upset.
  A good thing about this week was that the students really worked with us, they followed rules, didn't create problems, and were genuinely interested.
  I just wish that we had the ability to work with the computers at LaMotte more because then we would have known whether something works everytime that it is used.

EDU Innovations Worksheet

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11gPY7boVMeNEw4T7k7QEQ5Uvr9GlTh1lyVXvuIdNrUc/edit

I think that the Flip Video Camera would be a good tool in a classroom.  It gives students the ability to go on virtual field trips, by giving them the ability to see what is going on or what something looks like without having to leave the classroom.  I think it also gives students a fun way to do projects, which would be good in a high school class where students get easily distracted or think that a certain project is pointless.  It also provides a kind of assessment that students would understand because it links school to the types of technology that they use everyday.

Tech Club Week 5

This has been the best Tech Club we have had so far, in my opinion. We used the Vacaroo podcasting site to have the students create their own stories. Several groups made stories about the Three Little Pigs. And they all used their imagination, by combining different stories together. And they created songs, or told us about the weather. It was nice because we only had 8 kids by the time that Tech Club started, so we didn't have to worry about certain kids not getting attention or help, and the students weren't getting too loud or disobeying what we were doing. We also talked to the after school coordinator this week, about what she wants the students to get out of the program. She told us that she would love it if we had certain things that we have to teach, and that the lesson plans would all be prepared on the first day, so that we wouldn't have to worry about not having the resources that we need or that we would have any other sort of problems.

Tech Club week 4

This week we planned to use Google sketch up because we wanted the kids to be able to do something fun, that they could understand, while also having them work with shapes and demensions. The school computers did not have this program and we did not have the administrator's password, so we couldn't download it onto the computers. Instead, we went to the Classroom Architect website and had students work with shapes and demensions there instead. It actually worked really well, they created what each of their classrooms looks like at their school first, then we let then design their ideal classroom. They had fun doing this. And it seemed to work better than last week because they were all interested in what they were doing, instead of some of them running around, not paying attention to us. It's still hard though, to do this program at La Motte because we never know how many students we will have or what ages they will be. And it's even more difficult because we don't have the ability to show students cool programs like Google Sketch Up.

Tech Club Week 3

This week, we tried to show the students how Google Earth works. The plan was to have them located different places in the country and tell us information about each place. But this turned out to be harder than we thought it would be. The students kept arguing with us and one another. Or they would run around the room and disrupt other kids in the program. And, I think it was just too hard for some of them because they didn't understand what we were doing. It was also hard because there were so many different age groups. We had three older students that knew what they were supposed to be doing, but the rest were all third grade and below so they didn't seem to care.

Week 12 Case Study

Since virtual high schools tend to be based out of public school systems, they should be funded the same way as face-to-face high schools. Taxes are how high schools are paid for, so the tax money that is dedicated to all high schools should also include virtual high schools. I think high schools should have a virtual component. Because there are so many different things that students want to learn about, they should have the option to study those, even if they are offered in a virtual high school instead of the one they attend normally. It might be a little bit harder to do online classes if the child is in a lower grade because they may not stay focused as easily, or know everything that they can do with a computer. There should be several ways to notify parents of opportunities for online courses. There could be an email that gets sent out at the start of each semester or trimester, as well as telling the parents of these opportunities at school events like parent-teacher conferences or some other activity. And there could be an attachment to the online courses on the school's homepage. That way, most parents will have some idea that there are options for their children. I don't know if all teachers need a degree in teaching online courses to teach online courses. If the online class is very hands on and requires that students and teachers know a lot about different things that can be done with a computer, then they should probably have some form of degree. But for teachers that do not do as many things on the computer through the online class, maybe they don't necessarily need a degree: instead, maybe they should have a tutorial or workshop on what they need to know. The fact that this was a very short case study resonated with me. It didn't provide very much of an actual case study, but focused more on the background. I would like to know if the online classes helped Michael get better grades and graduate. I agree that he should have the option to attend an online high school. And that it should be funded the same as a regular public school. Because that is what it is at its core... a public school.