Final PBL

This is a picture of my grandparents. My great grandmother I talked
about this is her son and we are very close. 

For our final group project we did a project around family tree.  We wanted the class to begin to understand why family is important.  I could really relate to this.  I love to crochet I have been doing this since I was little my great grandmother taught me.  There have has been so many things I want to learn to do with crocheting, knitting, and sewing but I will have to learn on my own she has now passed away and she took all  of her techniques and trick with her.  I have missed out and can not get that back and that is hard for me.  Yes I have taught myself so many things with crocheting and complete taught my self to knit but with out her way and the stories that go along with it.  This is what we wanted to get across to the class. There are thing that I would have like to do different I would have like the class to have more of a discussion not as much lecturing because this PBL was design for fourth graders. I do have to say I disappoint that some people choose not to do the homework  I did every thing that was asked of me for all the groups and learned so much.  I will miss The Short and Sticky Ones very much we did a great job of working together.
 

Interactive WhiteBoards

These are the items' web pages that  I walked about in the video.

Mimio Interactive White Boards
http://www.mimio.dymo.com/

uBoards and the Duo Pen
http://www.penandfree.com/

HP Tablet - my touchsmart is first generation
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/touchsmart/#/TouchSmart-Tm2




Here are other interactive boards I have used in the classroom.

Smart Boards - I used in high school
http://smarttech.com/us/Solutions/Education+Solutions/Products+for+education/Interactive+whiteboards+and+displays/SMART+Board+interactive+whiteboards

Promethean Boards
http://www.prometheanworld.com/

Collaborative Tools

Google Doc
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/documents/

Google Video Chat
http://www.google.com/support/chat/bin/answer.py?answer=159499

Skype
http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/features/allfeatures/video-call/

Technology in the Classroom - Lincoln Elementary

           In CCA we went to a school were the administrator have been open to technology. We went to the school to see how the teacher are using interactive white boards in the classroom. We were able to see a demonstration done by a younger classroom. It was amazing to see how the teacher was sitting back and letting the student run the class. I was able to see the advantages of having this interactive white boards.  The students not just sitting and listening to a lecture about numbers they were doing it.  The interactive white boards that Lincoln was using are called the Mimio (picture to the right). This is a bar that is attached to the white that sends out an sound wave and turns the white board into a interactive board.  At Lincoln the teachers also used a amplification system. This allows the teacher to he heard throughout the class.  It was nice, when I first heard of this idea I thought it would sound like she was speaking from the ceiling but school had it set up so that is sounded like she was next to you, it was comfortable.  We also got to see an older class using Google sketch up in a math class.   Some of the items that children where coming up with was great.  Dr. Z asked a girl if it was ok that a teacher did not know everything about the software they are using in class and her responds was that she hate teacher who are know-it-alls. I think being honest with student about your knowledge on something is great then they seen that you don't need to know everything but you show them that learning is taking place all the time. You also show then good learning techniques, about how to find the information you need.   Another great thing to see about Lincoln is the relationship between the teachers and administrator. It was great. Other schools can really learn a lot from Lincoln and I can only hope that I will be able to work in an environment like this. 

Flat Classroom

Taken from: http://123elearning.blogspot.com/2008/08/flattening-world-again-flat-classroom.html

         So Dr. Z is in China for the flatclassroom conference.  I was unable to attend the conference online because I was working that weekend.  I tried to see the video after but there was some technical difficulties. Of the few I was able to watch I think this idea is amazing. I would love to do this in the classroom.  Being able to let my students interact with the same age students around the world is the best way for student to experience diversity up close.   I have not been able to see how to incorporate flatclassroom with Early Childhood student. I do have a beginning idea how to use student from other countries into our classroom.  I could work with another teacher  around the world and come up with a unit  where my class is learning about the other classes culture and vice a versa. Each class can video chat on a regular visit throughout the unit.  It is just the beginning of an idea and still needs to be developed.  I would love input so please add.

What happend to all the bikes in China?

Clip art from Microsoft Word 2007

     For those of who don't know what PBL is it is Problem Base learning. This is when you (the teacher or parent) gives you  child an essential question.   Then your children will work through the question to come up with their own solution.  In my group we are all early childhood majors and for our project we decide to go with kindergartners it is the age group that is right in the middle of our major. We choose to come up with a scenario and that is the children of China have lost their bikes.  Our essential question /statement is create a new form of transportation for the children in China.  The reason we choose go with transpiration is that most young children know what a few different types of transportation and the reason for choosing bikes is that we the teachers know that one of the main forms of transportation in China are bikes.  The reason for choosing China was that our professor is going to China for a week.           

     From my perspective doing this project is a great way for students to be exposed to another country and be able to use their imagination at the same time.  The philosophy of where I work now is the same as my own and that is "The CDC recognizes the uniqueness of each child by providing a developmentally appropriate, child-directed learning environment in which the child can construct his/her own knowledge through teacher-guided, hands-on experimentation and exploration in the areas of social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development" (from Child Developmental Center at Price Lab and is taken from  the student handbook).  Using this philosophy and PBL would work well together,  PBL is student directed.  I think that PBL should be used with young children but  not one essential question  yearlong.  If you take the year and dived it in parts and each part get an essential question than you can do it all year long but if the children want to build on one question than follow their lead. 

     In the future I plan to use PBL in my classroom. As I develop my skills and become comfortable with using PBL I want to be able to do PBL full out. There was an example that was found that was amazing and was done all out. The name of the school was Auburn Early Education Center in Alabama.  One of the main PBL was about Brazil and the essential question was who do we get to Brazil. Then children learned a lot about Brazil and a lot about different forms of transportation.  A member of the group found it on Edutopia. 

CCA Expectations

My expectations for CCA is to understand  the technology that can be used in  classroom.  I also want to have the knowledge on how to choose the best technology for a project/assignment. I want to know the new technology/product/software that is out there to use and to have resources to find new things.