Mary+Beth's+page

Mary Beth's pagePersonal Space = Mary Beth's Page =

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media type="youtube" key="7zJvSLG8jnk&hl=en&fs=1" height="344" width="425" Video provided by youtube.com

=Since you asked me... =

 Day 1: Effective use of the internet in the classroom  Day 2: The process of learning and using the web as a classroom tool  Day 3: Effective use of Microsoft Office Suite in the classroom Day 4: The process of learning and using Microsoft Office as an effective tool Day 5: Effective methods of using digital imagery and video in your classroom Day 6: The process of using digital imagery in the classroom Day 7: Other effective uses of technology not discussed thus far in class Day 8: This class, its effectiveness, its content, and my place in it =Projects! =


 * Week 1: Effective (hopefully) use of the internet in the classroom **

Internet research is probably one of the most widely applicable uses of internet in the classroom, but it is important to educate students on how to use reliable internet sources for information. Since we are discussing Wikis in this class, Wikipedia is a great example of a classroom research tool with a lot of potential for productive use and unproductive use by students. In my experience in using internet research to teach Middle Ages history to sixth graders I have found that no matter how many times you try to push the students to use Grolier's or some other approved academic database, they will STILL try to Google everything. So why fight against that when you could teach productive uses of the tool (which often leads to Wikipedia) instead? As a precursor to the actual activity of classroom internet research, the goal of this lesson plan is to help students use commercial sites like Wikipedia for reliable research.


 * Week 2: Using MS Office...er, Google Documents... in the classroom **

Coming into this project my Excel knowhow was extremely limited. The most I ever used Excel was in keeping track of Border Patrol seizure stats for my old job, but the majority of that was in managing spreadsheets that were created by someone else, not in actually inputting all the formulas myself. In doing this project, [|my spreadsheet grade book], I learned how to create and format spreadsheets using simple averages, conditional formatting, and averages from cells in multiple worksheets. I also learned quick tricks for replicating formulas, sorting, and color coding data within the workbook. I also learned how to link a Google Document to my WIki!!


 * Weeks 3-4: Photoshop/Video Editing

**I am using digital imaging here to create photos for a science activity called "discrepant events." In this activity students are asked to look at the photo to figure out why the scene or event shown is scientifically impossible. In the first example below, the sun cannot possibly be positioned where it is in the scene for the shadows to fall where they do. Next is a bottle of olive oil with water in it. The water is floating on top of the oil. For older, tech savvy students they might be able to use digital imaging themselves to create and explain these types of scenes for a class project.

Image coming soon... maybe...

And now for the VIDEO... 