Instructional Architect

Nutrition
Assessment
In order to ensure that my students were completing the tasks, I had them take some notes. On the first video that I have them watch they have to write three things that they learned from the video. In the second activity, the students had to take notes on what each nutrient does and one source of the nutrient. The last activity was a game where the students have to create a balanced diet so that the rocket ship can take off. At the end there is an option to print their menus. I have asked the students to print off their menus, and told them that I expected appropriate menus.

Implementation
I set up my IA as a homework assignment. It turned out to be pretty long so I would give students a couple of weeks to work on it. So I would type up something that had the web address on it with simple instructions (i.e due date, time management, etc.). After the due date I would have students take a small assessment that would be anonymous, to see if they learned what they needed. If not then, I would take time in class to teach it.

Four NETS for Better Searching

I thought that the information provided on this site was very useful. I have never used the advanced Google, but I have actually used some of the tips that were found on here. One thing that I have done was use quotes in my search, I feel that this serves the same purpose as using the exact phrase. I have always found that it has helped me find exactly what I am looking for. I love the idea of a similar site search. As, a teacher, I think that this could help to gather a large amount of resources in the most effective way.
I also think that it would be very useful to use the without field. When I am doing searches, it is usually pretty obvious to tell which words need to be omitted. I think that it would be good to weed out all of the websites that aren't even close to what yo are looking for.
I think in the future this information will help me to weed out all of the bad information. I also think that if I teach any of the upper grades, I will teach these tips to them to help them to save time.

EDUCATIONAL WEBSITES

Scholastic
homework hub
This gives students help with their homework. It includes articles that teach about memorization devices, where to obtain research, note-taking tips, taking multiple choice tests, and more. These articles are short and simple so that students can easily understand the information provided. There is a flashcard creator that help students to create their own flashcards for math, history, or vocabulary. Students can use the flashcards on the computer or print them out. There is practice quizzes, but they are a little too generic to be very useful. A grammar guide is also available presented in a simple layout. I might use this resource when teaching about research papers because it talks about different types of resources, a grammar guide, information on plagiarism, final draft tips and much more that would useful in helping kids to create a professional paper(for their age!).

Book Central
I thought that this was awesome! Kids can choose their favorite book series and play games, take quizzes, download videos and pod casts, and write their own reviews of the book. The only downfall to this is that some books have many more activities than others. I think that this site could get kids really excited about reading. If we were reading one of the books together as a class I think that it this would be a fun follow-up activity.

Games
This section included a lot of the games in the book central station. But this makes specifically games easily accessible to students. Kids can also join clubs, usually related to books. I went to theU-Solve-it mysteries club and thought that is seemed really cool. But unfortunately purchase was necessary. Also from this site, you can connect to the magic school bus, I spy, Goosebumps, and other popular series books.

Internet

WWW stands for World Wide Web. The world wide web is a group of electronic documents connected together like a web(the last w in www). These documents are stored on servers throughout the world. The web has grown to a means for publishing electronic documents and conduct electronic commerce, such as selling and purchasing goods and services.

In order to teach my students I would explain that the Internet is also called the world wide web. And all around the world people can put new information on the Internet, and people all over the world can look at the information that people put up. I would then ask them, "Do you know any of the things that you can do on the Internet?" I would expect answers such as email, shop, watch movies, get information to write reports etc. I might also explain that while the Internet is good and can help us do a lot of good things, that there are also bad things and it is important to have someone help you when you are using the Internet. I think that it would be neat to show how to e-mail and I would e-mail it to one of my other e-mail addresses so that I could show how fast that it can send to someone anywhere in the world.

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator. When you enter t he URL of a page it sends a request to the server.

Some common error messages that appear when using the Internet are:

• Error message 404- not found. Either web page doesn't exist or it can't be found. If this appears check the address carefully searching for any mistakes. If the site has a search engine search for what you are looking for.
• Error message 503- Service unavailable. Your Internet service provider is down or you may have lost the connection. If this happens you just have to wait it out.
• Bad File Request. The browser you are using may not be able to decipher the form, or there may be a technical error in the form.

HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. A set of special codes that tell the web browser how to display text in a document.

Http stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. Http is the method used to transfer hypertext files through the Internet.

I think that the Internet is a very useful resource for students writing papers or working on projects, but most young students don't understand that not everything on the Internet is credible. I think that it is important to explain this to the students and teach them ways to tell whether the source is credible.

imovie

I thought that this assignment was difficult, and very time-consuming. But, I do feel that if you simplified it enough fifth and sixth graders could use imovie. For example have them record footage but not spend too much time editing and adding music. I think that it would depend on the movie. If they made a movie where they had to demonstrate a concept the planning might help them to clearly understand the concept so that they could depict it well to other classmates. But while editing technology would probably take precedence depending on how well the students know the technology. I think that in order to make sure that technology doesn't take over you would need to teach about imovie for a few weeks so that it becomes easy to reach the desired product. I might actually use it if I had an older class for vocabulary or other clarifications of topics, but it is unnecessary for topics that are easily understood from typical classroom activity.

Online Photo sharing tools

Bubbleshare seems to be the most simple put of the three photo sharing tools that we covered in class on Monday. It allows you to upload multiple pictures at once, add characters, video and sound to your album, and tag your photos. If I were to use one of these online photo sharing tools it would be Bubbleshare. I think kids would really enjoy adding sound to their photos as well as other images or video. It also would be the easiest for student to navigate around in a short amount of time. Photobucket allows you to send pictures to Myspace, Facebook, and even cell phones. I think that there were too many inappropriate photos right on the front page to use in a classroom. Flickr allows you to easily set up an account where you upload photos from your desktop, email or your cellphone, it then allows you to create albums, create a map to show where the photos was taken and make photo books, cards, and DVDs. I think that this could be a fun way for students to share photos for assignments but I think that it would require heavy monitoring and firewalls. In Flickr it allows you to create a group, if you were using this in a school you could create a group for your class and then only allow students to view only photos in your group.

Geometry Assignment

I loved doing this assignment! I think that this would be a good assignment to have students learning geometry do because it ties geometry to the real world. Students are always asking how they will use math they learn in real life, and this does a good job of having students find that connection for themselves. In order to find the photos they could use, they would have to have an understanding of what each item is establishin that base of knowledge. Then, when asked to create their own definition, it helps students to organize their ideas and explain their thought process. I think that this would be a good assessment of who understands the concepts and who doesn't. In order to balance the time between geometry and technology you would need to create blocks. For example, give the students 45 minutes to take pictures one day and then the next day have them create their books with their pictures, Then the next day have them add their defnitions and complete the book. I also think that is important that it is clear that your main focus for grading will be that the definintions and pictures are correct, and that it should look nice but appearance isn't the focus of the assignment.