EDET 628 Technology In Education - Rodawalt

It was a busy week with meetings.  I also have decided to try to do some combination of classes for my fifth period.  Right now I have two classes during that period.  I have a handful of kids in US government and then a few more in a psychology class.  Our new superintendent is interested in seeing more collaborative classes and I thought this would be an opportunity.  I am planning on having my government and psychology classes collaborate on a project looking at three main issues.  First is the issue of mass shootings.  I feel like this is a natural collaboration as I can have the kids who want psychology credit do some case studies of the perpetrators in the most recent mass shooting incidents in Las Vegas, San Bernardino and Orlando.  We can look at the commonalities between the perpetrators as well as the difficulties in identifying them beforehand.  We can also look at possible mental health diagnoses for these people and the statist...

Stage 2 - Evidence Evaluative Criteria Assessment Evidence Spreadsheet Analysis of Loan Offers PERFORMANCE TASK(S):                                                                                                   Students will create a spreadsheet using Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel with the purpose of evaluating loan offers for the purchase of a new car.  Variables for analysis will include: 1. Required down payment for the loan 2. Inter...

Stage 1 Desired Results ESTABLISHED GOALS                           Alaska Standards: Government and Citizenship Standards G: A student should understand the impact of economic choices and participate effectively in the local, state, national, and global economies. A student who meets the content standard should: 1) apply economic principles to actual world situations; 3) identify and compare the costs and benefits when making choices; Mathematics Functions: F-IF.2. Use function notation, evaluate functions for inputs in their domains, and interpret statements that use function notation in terms of a context . ISTE NETS 5b Students collect data or identify relevant data sets, use digital tools to analyze them, and represent data in various ways to facil...

Blog reflection question: Reflect about the information that you have encountered this week, the conversations you've had, the learning community you've built, and the progress you've made in this class.  Post a reflection post to your blog that outlines your areas of confusion, celebration, and of interest.  Be sure to share the link to that post to this assignment .   I am finally seeing my students turn the corner on Google Sheets this week.  The unit design I am doing for this class is related to the class I am teaching in personal finance this term.  I have been using https://screencast-o-matic.com/ to post videos tutorials on my website ( http://www.maximumachievementprogram.org/Business-Math.html ).  Actually I am using it for my Alaska History class too.     In the Personal Finance class I have a lot of the kids who struggle with math and I am using Google Sheets to show them how to use fairly simple concepts in Algebra. I ha...

An essential question to consider: How can you use these tools and techniques to promote collaboration and build community culture in your classroom? A constant challenge in working in a small alternative school is the intersection of small class sizes and problems with attendance that make collaboration and group difficult to sustain.  Often I have barely enough students to divide into groups and then when groups get form, almost invariably, someone is absent and the group project turns into an independent project. It occurs to me that one way I might try to approach this is by doing some sort of asynchronous collaboration, but often, when students return from absences, I am so focused on "catching them up" that I feel like the projects get more in the way of progress than helping the kids move forward.  Right now, I am working with the kids in my Junior English class on doing storyboarding.  We are reading the novel MONSTER and I have ask the kids to write a scr...

Blog reflection question: Reflect about the information that you have encountered this week, the conversations you've had, and the progress you made in class.  Post a reflection post to your blog  that outlines your areas of confusion, celebration, and of interest.  Be sure to share the link to the blog post to this assignment. One of the things I have noticed in the last couple weeks is that I have become more aware of or open to doing more things with technology in my classroom. Two examples from this week: Example 1: I have a special ed student who was having difficulty in completing his math assignments.  I decided to try to present the assignments in a different format.  I have transferred his assignments to a Google Sheets document and I am breaking the problems down for him into the smaller steps.  In a way I am ripping off a lot of the concepts from Saxon Math and applying them to math Personal Finance class for him.  I am givin...

An essential question to consider: How can you integrate these tools into your classroom to promote higher order thinking in your students' learning experience? Colin and Nicole have asked Catherine and I to lead the Twitter conversation this week so I spent a fair amount of time investigating some tools that might lead to higher level thinking skills in the classroom.  I started off my search by going back to a lesson I did a few years ago in Physical Science using a Roller Coast Builder on www.brainpop.com/games  .  We were learning about momentum and velocity.  Momentum is a function of velocity and mass.  The Roller Coaster Builder allowed students to play with the mass of the coaster as well as the height of hills which changed the potential energy.  In building the Roller Coaster, one had to build it in such a way as to eliminate any potential energy by the end of the ride to prevent the roaster from crashing. While the Roller Coaster is no longer...