Technology Reflection Assignment
Description/Experience
In our last seminar, the technology presented was an educational social networking website called Edmodo. As soon as my account was made, I could already see why teachers can use it. It is almost identical to Facebook so it is easy for students to navigate and ask each other questions. It also keeps them in close contact with the instructor and allows the instructor to post assignments and receive them directly through Edmodo.
Application
Assuming the students have already made Edmodo accounts, one activity that could be conducted is a virtual dissection of a frog. A link with a virtual dissection could be posted on Edmodo and the students take time to go through and place parts in categories or label them. The students would learn the parts of a frog without the instructor having to clean up everything. I believe the age group for this activity could be 12 years old and up. For an assessment, a printout of an open frog could be given out and the students label each body part and what it does.
The first thing the students would do is log on to their Edmodo account. This should only take a minute. Once logged on, they follow the teachers link that has already been posted. Because this should not take more than three minutes, the students will have nearly 20 minutes to learn body parts of the frog while the instructor walks around to answer questions.
Reflection
Pedagogy-Content:
A good way to represent the content to make it comprehensible to students is to compare the shape of the part to its function. The stomach, for example, looks like a large pouch and it is made to hold food. Some conceptions and pre-conceptions could be similarities between frog organs and human organs.
Technology:
Major functions of this technology are the interactions between students during homework activities while out of school, and the ability to contact the teacher outside of school. Edmodo is very easy to access; the URL, username, and password are all that are needed.
Technology-Pedagogy:
The technology would be used in my activity to facilitate the dissection of a frog. The only way it would change the way I teach the activity is by speeding up the pace because time wouldn’t need to be taken to cut out different parts.
Technology-Content:
The technology would make it easier for students to see the different organs of a frog, doing a real dissection can get difficult. Using this technology wouldn’t change the understanding of the content.
Technology-Pedagogy-Content:
Because this technology is being used, the students can clearly see the shapes of the organs, which can allow them to make an association with function. It enhances the material by giving the students more time for critical thinking and less time wasted. A good teaching strategy would be to let the students work in small groups of no more than three to allow them to collaborate as if doing a real dissection.
I really like the way Ty is incorporating Edmodo with this specific activity of dissecting a frog. I think it's quite clever! Dissecting organisms can take an extremely long time with setting up, going over safety rules, directions, clean up, etc. This would eliminate all of that but still give the chance for the students to learn the body parts in a fun way. I agree that a good assessment would be to have the students fill out a blank internal "map" of a frog...like filling in the 50 states on a blank map of the United States. I think Ty did a superb job at the creativity of his lessons and explaining his reflection towards the technology
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