Inquiry Based Assignment

For this assignment Laurel and I worked together to put together an activity for 5th grade student receive special education services in a social studies class.  I think that we did a great job and learned a lot about finding good websites for students.  One major thing I learned is that a good website for one group of student may not be so good for another.  I think we all really benefited from the fact that everyone in the class really created excellent activities.  Everyone had perfect sites for their target students.  Like I mentioned not all of these sites would have worked for our students, but they worked for the grade level and subject they were intended for.  It was important for Laurel and I to find websites that were not overwhelming and distracting for our students.  Many students with special needs have trouble focusing so I site with too much going on would have been no good.  I really enjoyed putting together this activity and can easily see it being one I could use.

There were some other minor lessons I learned from this assignment.  One was the benefit of having someone to work with while putting together an assignment.  It was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of and catch some of the simple things you may overlook.  Another little lesson I learned was the importance of explicit direction.  By missing something simple like, not putting the name of the website or stating to answer in complete sentences, students can be easily thrown off.  This was a good lesson I learned a lot from.

Web Quest

This week we did some research into web quest assignments.  I really enjoyed this assignment because I had never experienced a web quest before.  I see how they have a amount of benefits in helping students organize a research based assignment.  I also liked how we got to learn what to look for in these assignments and what makes a good one and what makes one not so good.  I think these assignments, if done right, have excellent academic value and are something the students will enjoy doing.  Must of these assignments were built for groups to work together, but I can see some room for them to be done individually.  I believe that they could be used by just one student if you have an advanced student who you are trying to find more advanced activities for them to do.  This would work if you found a web quest that covered an extention of the material the class is working on, and is something that interests the student.  I certainly think I will use these later on my career when developing a lesson over in depth material.

Website Review

During the website review I learned the importance of taking the time to look into the validity of websites I am thinking about using for class.  It did not take very long to look into the site to figure out if was a reliable or not, so I can see how taking that little bit of time really pays off.  The specific site I looked at was Thinkfinity, and I really thought it was a great site that I could rely on as a teacher to find new ideas and strategies for teaching.  I think it would also be important to teach students in my classes how to also evaluate websites for when they are working on research.  There is a lot of stuff out on the web, and it is an important skill to be able to sort through all the sites finding which ones are worthwhile.  So overall what I would take away from this is the ability to evaluate websites I could use in my teaching and the importance of teaching my students this same skill.

Expectations for course

During this course I expect how to learn how to use various tools on the web.  Hopefully I will then be able to take these tools and apply them to my classroom when I am teaching.  Currently I use the Internet everyday, but still don't understand how to use many of the features out there.  I want to learn how to use a site to share videos, pictures, and information to my selected audience.   By the end of the class I think I will be able to decide which of these tools will be best for my classrooms.