Teacher Web Reflection

1. The use of a website such as Teacher Web provides a valuable opportunity to communicate and additionally engage your students through technology. The teacher website has several applications that will help with communication, such as the web calendar, announcements, and newsflash. The use of review quizzes and reflections through Teacher Web allows to students to check their answers and submit essays. Class handouts can also be posted on Teacher Web, to supplement information in class. The Teacher Web also links to PB Wiki, which contains many collaborative projects. The additional web links provided gives the students multiple resources for health content. I think one of the most important features of Teacher Web is the class grades. This is extremely helpful for communication of grades between teacher, students, and even parents.

2. I think two of the biggest advantages for using a Teacher Web classroom website is communication and supplementation. As stated above, the newsflash allows students to receive updates via their email or even text message. This gives students no real excuse to not be informed of classroom assignments. The other advantage is supplementing the class with more specific information regarding health topics. In addition to the pb wiki, students have many resources for seeking out information. One activity that could be done is a resarch presentation on a certain health topic, which would be found through the links provided.

Two disadvantages of using a class website would be technology difficulties or lack of machines. Often times there may students who do not have 100% access to a computer at home. If they are required to do assignments online, it would not be fair to those who don't have computers or high speed internet access. I could also see possible technological difficulties in running the website, but I dont think it would be a huge problem for students navigating the site.

Blogs and Wikis in Education

1. Classroom management is one simple way that blog are used in K-12 classrooms. The teacher could simply post classroom announcements and students could check the blog page for new notices made by the teacher. The blog site could also feature links to additional content regarding the course.

One way that blogs/wikis are being used in K-12 classrooms is through the use of online "journal-keeping" by students. A teacher can have an assignment where thoughts and reflections regarding a specific topic (for example: current events) is discussed on blog posts. Each week would feature a different news topic/event that currently is going on in the nation. This could be simply a link to an article or a youtube video of the news story. Students could instantly post their reflections on the topic and be required to comment on other students views. This would work very well for a civics/social studies high school classroom.

Another way that blogs could be used is involving the parents. A teacher could have a private blog site and post updates to the parents. This would allow for a smooth communication medium for both parents and teachers.

2. One unique way RSS readers/aggregators could be used is through its podcasts capabilities. Students in the classroom could broadcast their own weekly/monthly podcasts. This could encompass a number of activities, such as poems, music, news reports, discussions, weather, or book reviews. This could be done in any classroom K-12.

3. Pros - Students are able to instantly interact with one another through the medium of the World Wide Web and computer. Wikis allows students to edit pages collectively as a classroom and also allow for collaboration and sharing of ideas.

Cons- Wikis and Blogs open the classroom discussion to the whole world. This is a great concept, but students’ privacy must be noted.

A student may also have a problem with not having access to the technology of the internet or computer. This could pose a problem if you required students to post daily and they may not be able to afford the luxury or a home computer.

Concept Mapping

(A concept mapping template used for goal setting).










The use of concept mapping is an important aspect of displaying information in a visual form. I feel that using concept maps in my health class will further help students with understanding specific concepts discussed in class.

One idea, is using a concept map to explain the global transformation of viruses (such as HIV). Through image mapping, it could cover the history, significance, and reasons for the virus spreading.

Another idea I have is using goal setting through concept maps. This would be useful in the physical education setting, having students set goals for their physical fitness tests along with dates that they want to achieve the specific benchmark. Another idea encompassing physical fitness is through the use of concept maps is explaining the history of a sport. For instance, a brief history of baseball in America could be covered through visual images in concept mapping.

I think that the impact of concept mapping in my classroom will be able to support student learning. At a first glance, I felt that concept mapping may not be very useful, but I realized that much of p.e. and fitness involves goal-setting. Mapping out certain students' individual goals along with classroom goals, will provide the students with a sense of self-efficacy and self-reliance for the specific activity or assessments. I think it would be useful to for students to work on their personal goals rather than ranking the class individually.

I would have to decide whether or not concept mapping is useful for a specific lesson. In teaching a health classroom, I could find many more ways to integrate concept mapping. If the lesson touches on an environmental or worldwide issue, I think concept mapping would be of great use. For the p.e. setting again, goal setting for assessments would work well, but other than a covering a brief history of a sport, I don't think concept mapping would be of much more use.