Student Sample Lesson 12

In the video the scientist describe how Aristotle and Galileo had different theories about how fast an object falls depending on their mass.  They said that Aristotle believed the stove would fall 400 times faster because it weighed 400 times more than the pillow. The stove did crash into the ground first. The same thing did happen with the soccer ball and cannon ball. The scientist said that this was due to air resistance and the terminal velocity reached of the soccer ball. They then dropped a tire and car from a higher distance and they hit at the same time even though the car was heavier.

I was right that the pillow and soccer ball fell slower but it blew my mind that the tire and car hit the ground at the same time. I still am a little confused about the role air resistance played in the experiment. How do you subtract or even calculate air resistance? I did see what the scientist was saying about Aristotle being wrong about the lighter object falling slower proportional to its weight. An example is a 250lb man sky diving will not fall twice as fast as a 125lb woman although he may fall faster. Here is the link to the video

Big6 Project

Big 6 on Prezi

EduBlog comparisons

The three bloggers and their blogs that I plan on comparing are............
                           
                             Kathy Schrock - http://blog.kathyschrock.net/

                             Richard Byrne - http://www.freeteh4teachers.com/

                             Tom March - http://tommarch.com/

   

 Stay tuned for further updates about these three blogs.

Engaged Learning Indicators

I analyzed the 19th Century Immigration web quest for the engaged learning indicators.  Here is my analysis of it.  Online Investigation Investigating Engaged Learning with the Best Use of Technology

Creation of my Vision Statement

I created my vision statement for teaching, learning, and living in the 21st Century. I have refined my statement and polished off my justification of my views and uploaded it to Google docs. Here is the link.  My Vision Statement

So my reflection on these three web applications will be mainly focused on how I may apply to my classroom and students.  This being my first year teaching I have only a few classes to reflect on how the apps may be used.

Edmodo
Pros:  Of the three this site is the most likely to be used in my classes.  The site layout is very similar to Facebook making the ease of use for my students manageable.  Its biggest upside is that allows students and teachers to communicate sharing ideas, assignments, and learning from one another.        

Cons:  One of the negatives to this website is that with the new Ritenour website, teachers have the capability of doing some of the same things that increase organization and communicate the assignments.  However the Ritenour class websites do not have discussion boards yet.

Collaborize Classroom
Pros: I can add all of the work my students need to complete for a unit on to Collaborize.  Some of my students do work at different speeds or they have different work because of their skill level,  this site allows me to organize their material.  Students in the engineering program at our high school participate in a project based curriculum that I could see this working well for the program.   


Cons:  For the students in my classes the website doesn't seem to be as easy to use as Edmodo.  With time students may be able to use this site to enhance learning instead of it taking away from the content.   

COURSEsites (Blackboard)
Pros: Similar to Collaborize, Coursites is a website that I really don't see a future for in the current classes I teach.  This site offers plenty of pros for teachers that have online classes of upper level classes in high school.  I like how I can have all my materials online for students to access when they need it and I don't have to go hunting for a copy in my desk.  Also when I have students that go on homebound for medical reasons or suspensions they can still access the curriculum.

Cons:  This is great for me as a teacher to layout my class prior to a semester starting.  However, most of my students do not have computers at home or Internet.  That makes the benefits of Coursesites greatly diminished especially since my school does not have a computer for every student. 

Building My Online Presence

I had started to integrate my new found knowledge of blogging into my classroom.  It wasn't the best way to organize the information I was providing for my students but it's all I knew.  I browsed through the possibilities for this assignment and I couldn't help but get excited that there was a way to organize the information.  I will still keep up with the blog but I can create the binder that I expect students to turn in with the daily assignments.  As of right now only one of my classes have really taken to my incorporation of technology into our learning.  I have also shared my blog with some of my colleagues and they have appreciated the help with the activities an learning I have shared with them.  The link to this binder LiveBinders (the access key is "ritenour")