It's kind of weird to be embarking on the summer and starting class on the same day. I'm over it, but it's still a little strange. I thought that the Wordle was fun, and it was interesting to see what everyone managed to do with theirs to make it unique. II was thinking about how kids would use this, both personally and academically.
One thought I had was to use Wordle to talk about books that you had read. Have each student take something that they thought was interesting or what was their favorite part of the book, and type it into Wordle. Then you could make the word cloud and print it off and hang it up with a photo copy of the book's cover. It would be fun to have something like that in the classroom to show parents and also to jog a student's memory about what the book was about.
Personally, I thought it would be fun for students to make one of these word clouds with their parents and bring it in, then it could be put on a bulletin board with a picture and it would be a fun means of introduction to your classroom.
Overall, I'm really excited about learning how to extend lessons with technology. Too often, I think that technology is the lesson or it's absent, and we don't often have lessons that are extended by our choice of technology. That's my goal in this class, to figure out how to use technology innovatively so that it is fun for students to use, it is effective in meeting your objectives for the lesson, and so that students would be motivated to use it again in the future for a purpose of their own.
I agree I think that when technology is in a lesson, the technology becomes the main focal point of the lesson. The focal point of the lesson should be the content or skill that you are teaching and the technology is a tool that is used to teach it and enhance it.
ReplyDeleteToday we learned about innovative technology. Teachers need to use innovative technology, which means to get away from just adding technology into a lesson just to fill a technology requirement. This is a new way for me to think about technology in teaching. How about you? Teachers need to be creative in thinking about how content can be taught through a technology that it can't be taught in any other way. I am looking forward to learn how to do this!
I agree with you, there are so many possibilities to use wordle in the classroom, who would have thought! I think both your ideas are great! I also agree with your last paragraph, before this class I hadn't thought of it much but too often we only teach technology or the content, but never both. I believe these next two weeks will be very interesting to learn of new ideas to incorporate TPACK into our daily schedules.
ReplyDeleteI liked your idea about using Wordle and allowing the students to work with their families to create something that describes them to bring to class. Also, I might use your idea in the future and have students create a Wordle about their favorite book including the theme, main characters, their favorite part or even the plot.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit it right on the money when you said that technology is either absent or the lesson. I am very excited to learn about how to fit these two together using TPACK to create more engaging and effective lessons in the future.