Ed Puzzle: Our Awesome Solar System

Our Awesome Solar System!

UEN:

Standard 3

Students will understand the relationship and attributes of objects in the solar system.

Objective 1 Describe and compare the components of the solar system.

Education Technololgy:

Standard 8 Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem-solving, self-directed learning, and extended learning activities. (5, 6)

ISTE:
Computational Thinker Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

The tool that I chose to use was Ed Puzzle, I was able to edit a video or shorten it and add thinking questions that were relevant to the video.  This was a great tool because I was able to use a video as well as I was able to ask questions about the video in the video.  This tool would be a great tool to use when making projects and making presentations in classes.  It would be a fun and different way to present information.  I would use this in my future classrooms when I present information.  You can edit the video between the start and the end.  It would be really easy to use this tool when wanting students to review information.  

Pros: This was a fun tool to use, you are able to choose your own video from wherever you want.  The website has helpful hints and tutorials that show you how to start and what to do on each part of creating the Ed Puzzle.  

Cons: this tool was nice to use, but I didn’t like that I wasn’t able to crop multiple times I could only crop once.  All in all it was a great tool.  

I can use this tool in my classroom to present information through videos.  It would be a great why to test what they know and what still needs to be discussed. The questions that you add to it can be thinker questions which would help them to think about what information they know.  

How my students can utilize this tool is they can find their own videos and add their own information and questions to videos.  This would also be a fun project that my students could use to present to the class.  

Pinterest Weather

Weather types in 1st grade! 

UEN:

Standard 2 Earth and Space Science. Students will gain an understanding of Earth and Space Science through the study of earth materials, celestial movement, and weather.

Objective 3b Compare and contrast seasonal weather changes.

Identify characteristics of weather, e.g., types of precipitation, sunny, windy, foggy, and cloudy.

Education Technology:

Standard 5 Use technology tools (e.g., multimedia authoring, presentation, web tools, digital cameras, scanners) for individual and collaborative writing, communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge products for audiences inside and outside the classroom. (3, 4)

ISTE:

Knowledge Constructor Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

The tool that I chose to do was Pinterest, this is an amazing tool that you can use to get any type of information easily and fast. There are so many resources from teacher blogs that make this source great.  I will use this as a future teacher because it’s an amazing resource, it is also a great way to learn from other teachers and to find fun hands-on activities.

The pros of this tool is that it has so many wonderful and fun ideas and activities that you can pin and save for later.  It’s also great because in finding the different types of resources that you can use, you find blogs and websites that have been put together by teachers which is great.  

The cons of this tool is that with it, you can get distracted so easily.  For me, I can spend hours upon hours of time on Pinterest.  Also, on occasion, you can get false pins that don’t actually go to what the picture is telling you that it is.  

I would use this tool to present information to my students in a way that they would be able surf Pinterest and get so many hands on ideas on different topics.  I would allow my students to use this to find different ways that they would like to learn, and what they would like to learn about more in depth on certain projects.  

My students would be able to use this tool to learn more about what I am teaching them and they would also be able to go more in depth on certain topic.  I would make a classroom Pinterest where my students will be able to go to for more information on all different kinds of subjects.  

eMaze Parts of plants

The Major Parts of Plants for kindergartners! 



UEN:
Standard 4 Life Science. Students will gain an understanding of Life Science through the study of changes in organisms over time and the nature of living things. Objective 2 Describe the parts of living things b. Identify major parts of plants, e.g., roots, stem, leaf, flower, trunk, branches.

Education Technology:

Standard 8 Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem-solving, self-directed learning, and extended learning activities. (5, 6)

ISTE:
Knowledge Constructor, Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

The tool that I chose to use was eMaze, it was a fun way to put a presentation together. This is a great tool to use if you don’t just want to do a regular powerpoint.  It was relatively quick and easy to put together.  eMaze will be a resource that I use in the future and in my future classrooms.  It is a funner way to present information then a powerpoint.  The backgrounds and templates that eMaze offers are great.  

The pros of this tool are that it is a great alternative to powerpoint.  It is also very easy to use and put all together.  The templates that eMaze offers are great because you can add in the information that you need in the different templates that they have which makes it so much easier to put the whole presentation together.  The backgrounds that they offer were great as well, they have many different styles and pictures to choose from that would be relevant to your subject and also look great while presenting.

The cons to this tool are that on some of the backgrounds that you can choose from, like the chalkboard one that I chose, you have to find pictures that don’t have any type of colored background or else the pictures would look funny and out of place.  

I will use this tool in my classroom to present all different types of information, it would be useful for any subject.  It is also similar to a powerpoint, but just different enough that it is new and exciting for the students.  It is also a different way to quiz because you can add in questions and you can have students answer those, which I liked.

My students can use this tool to create their own presentation, it is fun and easy.  I like how easy it is to make a nice and clean looking presentation because of the templates and I think that that would be useful to my students as well.  They can make presentations with their own pictures, videos, questions. It would be a great tool for students to use.

Padlet Dinosaurs in the Dark

Reading Dinosaurs in the Dark

UEN:

Standard 3 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

Education Technology:

Standard 7 Use telecommunications and online resources (e.g., email, online discussions, web environments) to participate in collaborative problem-solving activities to develop solutions or products for audiences inside and outside the classroom. (4, 5)

ISTE:

Knowledge Constructor, Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.

The tool that I chose to use was Padlet, it is a fun and interactive tool.  You create a cork board where you can pin information and questions that students can look at and add to.  This is a fun resource to use to add information onto, it’s a virtual cork board.  It would be good to use if you want to keep information together about subjects or also if you have questions. This would be a great way to get students to collaborate with one another. On this you can ask and answer questions, post information on the topic, and opinions that you have.  It’s a great way for students to learn from one another.

Pros of this tool is that it is a great way to collaborate with others. You can add pictures, videos, anything that you want to a post.  It gets students to think more in depth about what they are learning. It’s was also fun and easy to create, you can teach any subject with this and it would be useful.

Cons of this tool are that it wouldn’t work very well for younger aged students, it might be a little hard to navigate and understand.  The Padlet that I did was for first graders, which now after creating it, I think that for younger students it might be a little bit difficult to use.  To use this with younger grades you would need to present it as a lesson more than something that they would do by themselves.

I could use this tool to present information to students by allowing them to look at the information that I have included and then we can go over what they think about it and what the Padlet was about.  For the older grades, you can introduce information to the students and they will be able to use this to add their own ideas.   

My students can use this tool to collaborate with each other.  They can make their own Padlet about whatever subject they want and their classmates can ask and answer questions that they may have or know.  This would be a good tool for 5th and 6th graders, they can use it to work with each other to introduce, clarify, and question what they know and what they want to know.

Google Forms Simile and Metaphor

Learning about Similes and Metaphors in 5th Grade

UEN:

Reading: Literature Standard 4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.

Education Technology:

Standard 8 Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem-solving, self-directed learning, and extended learning activities. (5, 6)

ISTE:

Computational Thinker Students develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions.

The tool that I chose to use was google forms.  This is a great tool because with it, you are able to collaborate with others and also learn from others and their responses to the questions.  I like that the responses you leave can be anonymous or they can be recorded.  I would like to use this in my future classrooms with older students, this would be a great way to gather information on what they know, it can be taken as a pretest or even a post-test.  I would use this as a less intimidating form of assessment because for some students test can be nerve wracking.  

Pros: It is easy to manage and answer questions. You can create any type of questions that you would like, for example that quiz that I made I includes both multiple choice answers and also short response.  The quiz can also be anonymous, which is helpful in assessing what the students already know when preforming a pretest  

Cons: You do have to have a google account to create this, but I don’t believe that you need a google account to take quizzes already made.  To add certain things to the quiz you do need to know what you are doing, that make the process go a lot smoother.  

I can use this tool in my future classroom in order to assess information already known, what to teach more in depth, and it is a different way of assessing information that I will have already taught.  

My students can utilize this tool when they are trying to learn or to see what they need to focus more on.  It is a good way to reduce stress that some students have in relation to testing.  

Animoto Physical Environment

Learning about Physical Environment

UEN:

Standard 1 Analyze ways cultures use, maintain, and preserve the physical environment.

Objective 3a Identify ways people use the physical environment (e.g. agriculture, recreation, energy, industry).

Education Technology:

Standard 8 Use technology resources (e.g., calculators, data collection probes, videos, educational software) for problem-solving, self-directed learning, and extended learning activities. (5, 6)

ISTE:
Creative Communicator, Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

The tool that I chose to use was Animoto, it’s a tool where you can create videos with pictures and music. This is a great tool to use, to show people something visually, which I like.  I am more of a visual learner myself, so I like this tool.  You have a description of what the picture is and then you can teach material through that.  I would use this video to teach certain material, it’s great to show or explain things.  There are so many different kinds of learners and this would be a great way to teach by showing my students visually what they are learning.  I like to be able to teach by different types of tools.  

The pros of this tool are that it is a great way to teach visually, you can show students these videos and they are able to learn from seeing.  It’s a good alternative to just teaching them.  You can insert your own pictures that you want and you can also add in text slides which is nice. There was also music that you added to the videos, the music had a nice variety to choose from.    

The cons of this tool are that it is difficult to introduce all the information about a picture that you need in only a few words or only 50 characters.  Also some of the templates or backgrounds, make it harder to pay attention to the video because they are distracting or they cut the pictures down.

I will use this tool to present information as a new and fun way to introduce information.  I can have my students watch these videos and they can then tell me what they saw and why what these videos presented were important.  They can also watch these videos as much as they want.

My students can use this tool by making their own presentations, they can make presentations on whatever they wanted.  You could make one of these to introduce a book, introduce new concepts, or even make this an option as a project.