Multimedia in the Classroom

Title of Learning Object: Learning to Read with Music

Subject: Music

Grade Level: 4

URL: Music Website

Description of Learning Object: You can go the link above and then directed to the site entitled Music Adventure Land. This site has many different types of music that students can listen to and then identify. The styles of music include classical, jazz, blues, country, folk tune, popular tunes, and more. This site engages students with music and teaches them the skill of “learning to read with music.”

Description: I would incorporate this site with the ‘listening’ unit in grade four, in order to introduce students to the different styles of music. I would have the students listen to ten different examples of music and have them individually identify what they read in the song to be key points of a certain style of music and how they read the title of the song in the orchestrated music.

Planning and Prep: I would listen to all the media clips on the website to make sure all the examples were valid to my objective with the lesson. I would make sure all the student computers had the necessary software to listen to the media clips, an internet connection, and that the site worked on each computer. I would have the students work independently when listening to the music clips, in order to get different perspectives on the music styles. After the students finished listening to the ten clips selected, I would have them team up with a partner and discuss their thoughts and findings. If a pair or individual finished early, I would have him/her listen to five more pre-selected clips and discuss their answers together. I find that having individual and group work in an activity allows deeper insight and discussion with the topic, resulting in a richer learning experience.

GLO:
Awareness and appreciation of a variety of music, including music of the many cultures represented in Canada.
SLO:
21. Recognize music and some composers of other times, places, and cultures.

ICT Outcomes:
F6- Students will demonstrate a basic understanding of the operating skills required in a variety of technologies.
C3- Students will critically assess information assessed through the use of a variety of technologies.

Internet Safety

Integrating technology into the classroom is a great way to enhance learning for students but requires the teacher to inform students of internet safety and being responsible. Students have to be aware of sharing too much personal information on the internet that may lead to an invasion of privacy, therefore affecting the student’s safety. Also, students have to be aware of when searching for a certain topic that their word choice is specific and relating to their topic they want to gain information on. A teacher can help with student safety on the web and student responsibility by providing reliable search engines for the students to use and having restrictive access on any websites he/she feels is inappropriate for their students to see. In order for the use of internet to be safe in the classroom it requires both the interaction of the teacher and student to be always looking out for protecting one’s identity and using the internet for a information resource.

Creating a Web Quest

This link leads to my activity I created for grade three science:
Extinct Animals
In my activity the students investigate one of four different types of animals gone extinct by answering three questions and creating a final poster at the end. The learning objective I focused on was:
Animal Life Cycles
Identify examples of environmental conditions that may threaten animal survival, and identify examples of extinct animals.

Discussion Boards

I think discussion boards are a great tool to use in the classroom and a great way to get student’s interacting with technology. Three pros of discussion boards are: they promote student interaction, flexibility as they can be accessed from anywhere, and create opportunities for critical and creative thinking. Three cons of discussion boards are: they require specialized hardware and software for users, not every student may have access to a computer, and topics may go off subject.

Five Ways to Enhance Classroom Interactions using Discussion Boards
1. Variety of topics can be covered and discussed by the students.
2. Encourages group task accomplishment.
3. Peer review and tutoring.
4. Develops written communication skills.
5. Involves collaborative learning and problem solving.

Concept Map

I would integrate this concept map into my grade three science class when we would be examining the topic of hearing and sound. The general learning objective is describe the nature of sound, and demonstrate methods for producing and controlling sound. Therefore, I focused in on one of the specific learning objectives which is compare the range of hearing in humans to that in other animals (I used a dog). This concept map lays out the facts of how hearing is interpreted with humans and dogs but also what makes them so different. In this lesson I will be covering the following ICT outcomes:

C1: Students will access, use and communicate information from a variety of technologies.

F6 1.1- Perform basic computer operations, including powering up, inserting discs, moving the cursor, clicking on an acon, using pull-down menus, executing programs, saving files, retrieving files, printing, ejecting discs and powering down.

P4 1.1- Integrate text and graphics to form a meaningful message.

Addition Lesson

Visual Learning and Math

Title of Activity: Addition

URL: http://www.visualmathlearning.com/index.html

Grade Level: Grade 2

Brief Description of Activity: This website includes many great lessons and activities to keep kids busy and learning about math. The lesson I chose for grade two is addition and it contains a 15-20 minute lesson, along with the left over time to be playing addition games. By having a lesson dictated on the screen for the students to follow along with pictures and text, really adds another way to teach students math and to make it fun and interesting. The games that the students can play afterwards on the website are used as reinforcement, ways to keep the students concentrating, and less paper usage for worksheets. This is a great website to give the teacher time to circulate throughout the room and notice the students’ level of knowledge and ability to learn math concepts online and interactively.

General Learning Outcomes:

Apply a variety of addition and subtraction strategies on whole numbers to 100, and use these operations in problems.

Specific Learning Outcomes:

13. Use manipulatives, diagrams, and symbols to demonstrate and describe the process of addition and subtraction of numbers to 100.

14. Apply and explain multiple strategies to determine sums and differences on 2-digit numbers, with and without regrouping.
Most Relevant ICT Outcomes:

F1. 4.2 Solve mathematical and scientific problems by selecting appropriate technology to perform calculations and experiments.

F2. 4.1 Use technology outside formal classroom settings.

F6.1.1 Perform basic computer operations, which may vary by environment, including powering
up, inserting disks, moving the cursor, clicking on an icon, using pull-down menus, executing programs, saving files, retrieving files, printing, ejecting disks and powering down.

Brief Rationale: Mathematics has a persona of having children work independently on worksheets containing math problems. However, this website shows that students can interact with technology by following the dictated lesson and then playing interactive games. By using this website for a math class, you are allowing the students to explore the world of technology and making math fun to learn. Plus, the students can continue to learn more on their own time with this website by the lessons and games. It is great!

My Comment for Jackie

I agree with you Jackie that blogging has its time and purpose, especially when dealing with the appropriate grade level. I also feel that blogging is a great resource for the higher grades, as by this time a major of the students know web safety and the best ways to blog. I appreciated your opinion and I feel that it is for sure a valuable one. From
Jackie's blog

I Support Blogging

I think blogging is a useful resource in that it provides students and teachers to interact with one another. I would use blogging in grade three social studies as I see it being a useful resource for when the students are studying geography. From
Clarence Fisher’s point of view, he talks about being able to read the view point of students through blogging, from countries such as Australia and Brazil. I think this is a very useful resource as kids can post their thoughts or creations (drawings) on the blog for others to comment on and learn from. The reason I would use blogging for grade three geography is that the students could look at pictures of what the world looks like by interacting with other students through blogging. Blogging also has its advantages for students and teachers, which are mentioned at this website. For students, blogging provides the opportunity for reflective journaling, assignment submission, and e-portfolios. For teachers, blogging provides networking and personal knowledge sharing, the chance to share instructional tips to students, course announcements, and links. Of course with having an online section in the classroom causes the teacher to deal with web safety. The teacher would be able to ensure the students were blogging safely if he/she requires the students to limit their comments option to only users and to only allow certain people (e-mail addresses) to look at their page and blogs. Blogging is a new source of technology that I am positive about using in my classroom and encourage other teachers to do the same.

Impression of Blogging

My impression of blogging is that it is a new source of communication for me and will take me some time to get into the groove of using it. However, I see that it can be a very useful tool in that it can be used as a journal, diary, research source, administrative tool, and/or a publication tool. In my opinion, blogging is both good and bad for the student. Its good qualities are that it provides an extra learning tool for students, allows quick and easy communication on a variety of topics, and allows teacher and student to interact outside of regular class time. The bad qualities about blogging is that it reduces the amount of ‘face to face” interaction between student and teacher and it is dangerous personally for a student, if they do not follow the correct steps in keeping themselves safe online. However, if a student is not in class with the teacher and using blogging, there is a good chance that he/she is at home and his/her parents can be aware of what their child is involved in online. I see blogging as a useful resource and look forward to expanding my knowledge even more.

Personal Introduction

Hi my name is Chelsea Pederson and I currently reside in Lethbridge, Alberta. I am a music education major at the University of Lethbridge with a minor in Physical Education. My passion's are music(piano), sports (basketball, soccer, and football), animals (my two cats Pebbles and Socks, my dog Darbie, and my 6 fish and two frogs), and my family. I love to learn and I am enjoying the education program because it is allowing me to experience the art of teaching and what I can do to be the best teacher I can be.

Learning how to blog

So I am just getting used to all this "blogging" stuff and I am trying to figure out how to post a picture! More complicated then I imagined!