Interactive Spreadsheets

Interactive spreadsheets are awesome!! I always thought of Excel as a program that was only used by people in finance and business. I always saw my business major friends using Excel in their homework assignments and complaining about it. I never thought that it could be used to create such an exciting and interactive activity for an elementary level classroom. Interactive spreadsheets can be used for any subject and in any grade level. They make for a great review or enrichment activity in the classroom. In an elementary school classroom, I think that the teacher should be the one that makes the spreadsheet game, and the students play it. However, in upper grade levels, I think it would be a great idea to have students make the spreadsheets on their own. Given detailed, step-by-step, and some previous knowledge of Excel, I think that this activity could easily be one that requires the students make a spreadsheet game to share with the class.

I think a great way to use these spreadsheets would be to have a collection of them on the classroom website. This gives the students a place to go while they are at home to work on skills or concepts in a way that is fun and interactive, or even to play them just for fun! If an upper-grade class made interactive spreadsheets, they could all be loaded on the website so that students could explore the work of their classmates. The only downside to creating an interactive spreadsheet is that it is rather time consuming, and students who are not very tech savvy may have a difficult time.

In this project, I chose to continue the space topic I started in my Inspiration project. I decided to format my Inspiration project in a way that the questions were stated in a "I am..." clue. The first person clues are to be answered with the space object that is being described. I alternated the colors of each line and removed the grid lines in order to make it easier to read. I added graphics to make the game more aesthetically appealing, and the picture of the solar system also serves as an aid to students when figuring out which planets are which.

Inspiration

Inspiration is an excellent tool to implement in the classroom. Inspiration is a computer program that is used to make graphic organizers. I like this tool because it is great for teachers to make graphic organizers for lessons in their classroom. It is also great because, rather than using a pre-made one, a teacher can create an organizer that is more personalized to their class and what they are teaching. Once a teacher becomes relatively familiar with Inspiration, creating graphic organizers becomes very quick and easy. Inspiration is also great in classrooms because it is easy for students to use on their own. Inspiration is a program that students can use for projects and classroom assignments. An Inspiration graphic organizer would be a great option for a student choice project.

In this assignment, I chose to do my graphic organizer on objects in space. I am very interested in space and it is a subject that I am very excited about teaching. I found using Inspiration a little difficult to catch on to at first, but once I caught on I found that it came easier and I began to experiment with different options. I think that the wonderful thing about Inspiration is the unlimited things that can be done with it. It can be incorporated in any subject and any grade level. I think that it is something that every teacher should become familiar with.

Scavenger Hunt

Another digital slideshow by Smilebox

I think that scavenger hunts are an awesome activity to do in the classroom. I think that if you can come up with a scavenger hunt that is meaningful and relevant to \ the lesson, it is a great way to get students actively involved. They will be engaged and excited about the lesson. It gives students the opportunity to get up and move around =, possibly get outside, and collaborate with their peers- all of which are needed during the school day. I think that scavenger hunts are also a way that you, as a teacher, can reach out to kinesthetic and visual learners.

The other thing I like about scavenger hunts is that they can be used across subject areas. A math scavenger hunt may include looking for numbers, shapes, or fractions. A language arts scavenger hunt may be finding spelling words or taking pictures of verbs in action. A science hunt could be taking pictures of various natural phenomena. Scavenger hunts provide a very versatile activity and I plan to use them in my future classroom.

Blog Review: Teacher Tom

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/

The first thing that hooked me when looking at this blog was the picture at the top, and the "About Me" section. The picture is of a middle-aged man with long hair in a cape. The "About Me" informs readers that he is a preschool teacher in Seattle, as well as an artist and author. He is also the ONLY employee of this preschool. The next thing that hooked me, was his most recent blog entry. It was a very profound and insightful reflection on hiding the truth from our children and students. He recounts a student incorporating the earthquake in Japan in a story he was telling, and other student asking questions about it. He also remembers a time when he and his daughter walked to Ground Zero. His daughter got angry with him when she found out that 9/11 happened when she was alive and he had never told her about it. He discusses the importance of telling our students and children the truth in a way that they understand.

From looking through more of his blog posts, he presents very insightful reflections on parenting and teaching. He also posts activities and projects that are going on in his preschool. This blog is very entertaining and informative. It has won some blog awards as well. I found it so enjoyable to read and I plan to follow it now and read it regularly.

Digital Images

I ♥ WebQuests!

I think WebQuests are awesome. I am very excited about the possibilities they hold in the classroom. From the first time they were explained to me, I thought it sounded like a very interesting and engaging idea to implement in the classroom. I think what got me really excited about them was the first activity we did, looking at 5 examples and comparing them. The one about the Underground Railroad (here is a link: http://questgarden.com/88/01/4/091112091643/index.htm)  stood out to me. I think that it was a great way to get students immersed in what they were learning, and it allowed them to look at it in many different ways. Although I think that the role playing activity may be taking it too far considering the sensitivity of the subject. All in all, I think WebQuests offer students a chance to do something different, to do something that varies enough that it appeals to all types of learners, and something that offers a deeper level of immersion and engagement.

I found another WebQuest that I thought was really neat (link: http://www.questgarden.com/113/36/8/101108153227/) This webquest is called astronaut for a day. It is a webquest on space and the solar system. I would love to implement this webquest into my classroom during a unit about space. The webquest requires students to do rather in-depth research on their groups planet. They compile their research and then create a paper mache model of their planet. At the beginning of the webquest however, they are told to color a picture of a space ship. I think that I would probably take this out. It seems like it would take a lot of time for nothing that is really beneficial. Instead, I would have my students spend more time on the research part of the process and do a write up or poster to put with their planet. We would discuss which planet is most like Earth and then we would do a display by hanging up the planets with the posters. I would also demonstrate the vastness of the solar system by laying out the planets to scale. 

I think I will definitely use WebQuests in my future classroom one day! 

Reflection: Website Evaluation

I think that this exercise in evaluating the legitimacy of websites was very beneficial. In today's society, the internet is such a huge part of everyday life. Everybody utilizes it, and now everybody can add to it. With everyone having the ability to contribute to what people see in the internet, it is necessary to have a way to judge whether or not what you are reading is accurate. This exercise allowed me to learn what I need to look at on a website in order to make this judgment. This is especially important when incorporating websites into educating young students. Younger students are apt to believe things the read on the internet, especially if it is their teacher showing them.


Not only is is it important to judge the accuracy and legitimacy of the information, but the way that the information is presented is important as well. The information should be presented in a way that makes it easily accessible to students. Graphics must support the information presented. The information must be presented in a clear and clean manner. Colors and texts should not be overwhelming, but aid in engaging the student with the information. All of these things are important to look at when considering including a website in your teaching instruction.