Tech Savy Teacher

Genetics and Technology in the Fifth-Grade Classroom

This week while I was observing the fifth-grade classrooms, I noticed Mrs. Baker using technology in the classroom. To learn more about it, we are sitting down in an interview together.

Principal Owen: What were you teaching in your classroom this week?

Mrs. Baker: We were talking about hereditary traits. We were able to use Kidsperation to classify different qualities as either environmental or hereditary. The technology we used was able to help me to be able to clearly assses how well I had taught the differences. We we were also able to use the technology to correct mistakes and make adjustments to what they missed and go over the information as a class. The technology was also very helpful for the students, they were forced to make a clear descision about all of the objects in the middle, it helped them stay on task and learn the matierial better.

(Screen capture of Kidsperation before students separated into categories)


(Screen capture from Kidsperation while students were in the middle of the activity)

Principal Owen: The kids looked like they were really engrossed in the activity!

(A students intently working on the activity)

Mrs. Baker: They were! The technology engaged all the students in a subject that some of them would otherwise not have liked. And once the kids saw the picture of the tongue roll, they all wondered who in the class could or could not roll their tongue. We used Excel to collect data from a class poll. It was really great to be able to use Excel in order to inhance their math skills in collecting data and figuring out ways to display it.

(A few students showing their ability to roll their tongue)

(Screen capture from Excel after taking data from the class)

Principal Owen: That’s great! But which science standard does this fulfill?

Mrs. Baker: Well, it is actually based on Fifth-grade science core curriculum, standard 5! So we combined fun with learning with the curriculum!

TPCK

TPCK is a very useful way to categorize all of the types of things we learn. T-Technological knowledge, P-Pedagogical knowledge and C-Content knowledge. This is a good tool to help evaluate your teaching and see where you could improve and what more you can learn.

I really liked the temperature probe I had fun exploring making different letters and shapes by manipulating the probe between rubbing it in between your hands and the cold water. I think that this will be very helpful in my future classroom because it will make it very easy to record teh temperature of different objects very accuratly and will make kids more familure with the technology and more excited about learning.

RSS Is a really cool function that seems to be showing up everywhere! It is really cool how you can have thing feed right to a blog or to a reader and it brings you the information instead of going to find that information. Its cool that you can have it all on one spot. I think that I could use this in my classroom by setting up a blog that has information coming to it on a daily basis we could check the wether report, the Nasa picture of the day, and even a book review of the day to allow children to learn more everyday with out much work on my part. I think that I will be able to use WEB 2.0 to help keep my students connected and help connect my studnet to other resources.

I Love Technology! I have my own computer and am very quick at picking things up that have to do with technology. I have a cell phone, an ipod, I buy music online. I am able to use Final Cut Pro, as well as the basic Microsoft programs. I am a TA so I use Excel to make formulas and calculate grades. I am a frequent user of YouTube and am a member of Facebook.