Module D Exercise

In the integration corner under chapter 4, I found an awesome website. This website is called C.O.O.L. Classroom created by the Rutgers Marine and Coastal Sciences and stands for Coastal Ocean Observation Laboratory. The website has many different kinds of activities that explain certain issues about the sea. On the home page there is a list of things to click on, each taking you to a different area of the page to learn something different about the ocean. This website is for students and educators, students can learn and teachers can get fresh and fun things to tech to the students.  Under the student section there are PowerPoint’s, pictures, videos, and projects for the student to engage in, either by themselves or with family and friends. The projects actually have the students do hands-on activities then come back to the website and compare their findings. Under the teachers section, the website explains the importance and fun of using COOL Classroom activities. The projects that the students engage in have corresponding activities for the teachers to include in the lesson, which is pretty COOL. Get it? Anyway, the website is cute, creative, and informative for students and educators.

Here is the website if you want to visit it for yourself. Have fun!

http://www.coolclassroom.org/teachers_guide/teachersguide.html

Module C Exercise

In chapter three there are some good ways to integrate technology in the classroom. In the integration corner, under Preschool Express I found some very interesting websites. However, these websites are not for the students to use, it’s for the teachers/educators. These websites have many different activities that the teachers can use to get ideas for lessons in the classroom. Some activities are based on holidays or seasons. Other activities use objects to base their learning on. For example, some categories are crayon learning, pencil learning, or computer learning. Other activities are readings, poems, and songs to sing. Under each category are lessons that are based on learning with that object. I think teachers using this website will find it very helpful and fun to use within the classroom. The students are learning based on certain objects, including technology and computers. I also think this website is good for the teacher because it is categorized neatly and easy to navigate through. The teacher can easily look up a lesson based on a certain learning object. Some of the computer lessons require the students to use the computer also. The different themes and activities make this website useful within a classroom, including calendars for the teacher to save and continue different lessons throughout the month.

Module B Exercise

        In Chapter 2 Integration Corner under Internet for Kids, I found a great website that teaches children how to actually use the internet and the computer. The beginning part of this website explains how to use a mouse and other various things associated with a computer. These things are important to learn especially when trying to add internet and computer based lessons in the classroom.

        However, a down fall to this website is that all the instructions are a little hard to read for students in younger grade. So, what do you do? Just have the older students use this website. But, this poses the issue that some or maybe even most students who are old enough to read and comprehend the instructions are probably already capable of using a mouse to point and click on things, since these types of activities are being done at home. This just means that if the teacher wants to use this website for younger children who do not yet know how to use the computer or anything associated with it, will have to read the instructions out loud to the children. This could be a positive thing though, so that the teacher can be there if student has trouble and needs help or if a student does well and deserves appraise.