Week 8

I watched Andrea's, Heather's, and Katie's voicethreads

The benefits of using the science activity is that it is easy and fast. The children will have a riot using the computers. The activity also shows how scientists can predict future movements of the moon. This will help teach a concept of science. The other nice thing about the activity is that the moon can be see very close. The children will be able to see the craters and texture on the moon's surface.

The drawbacks to using the science activity is that there is something very special about going outside to gaze at stars. Computer generated stars, moons, and planets do not have the some beauty and effect of the real life objects. This could be solved by having a star gazing night in combination with the computer activity. Although drawback is I would have to have a whole lot of computers at my disposal to complete the activity. I would need to schedule the school computer lab and have stellarium downloaded on all the computers.

Week Seven

Content

Third Grade Science Standard 1,Objective 2, b. Use a chart to show that the moon orbits Earth approximately every 28 days

For this science activity the students will be looking at Stellarium to chart the moon's position for day one, day 4, day 8, day 12, day 16, day 20, day 24, and day 28 of the moon cycle. At each day the children will write on a document (created in Kidsperation) about what the moon looks like and where the moon is in the sky. At the end of the activity the entire class will make a chart on the moon's positions and looks through the 28 day cycle.

The teacher will begin class by explaining how to use Stellarium. Using a computer, the teacher will show the kids how to use the date tool on stellarium to skip over dates to be able to look at the first, fourth, eighth day, etc. of the moon cycle. She will also show them how to use the chart to make observations. During the activity the teacher will go around talking to the students about what they see. When the activity is over the teacher will gather the class together to make a class chart based on the moon cycle observations of the students.

Pedagogy

The science strategy I decided to use was observation. This strategy seemed to fit perfectly with the moon because is an easy object to observe in science. It appears nearly every night and children can easily see the differences in the position and shape of the moon. This activity also involves data collection as the children write down their observations about the moon. This data will then be used by the class to create a scientific moon cycle chart. Data analysis is another activity type that will be used to create the moon chart.

Technology

Stellarium is used in the activity because it allows the children to see the moon in the sky without having to come to school every night to look. The kids can zoom towards the days required to look at in one day to see how the moon cycles around the earth. Kidsperation was used because it had a nice observation chart that the kids can record observatons about the moon in.

The content is represented well through the use of Stellarium. Stellarium shows the children what the moon really looks like during any time from earth. Because of that Stellarium shows the position of the moon and its phases during the 28 day cycle. This technology will help the students because it provides real life photographs of the moon and the sky and it is very interactive. The children get to explore the concepts about the moon themselves. This will help the content sink deep into their brains.

Week 6

I watch Heather Musser's, Andrea Barlow's, and Katie's Google Tours.
The ups of using Google Earth is that it is very interactive. It provides visual pictures of places around the world that children will probably never see. This helps the kids connect to others across the world. Google Earth also has applications for looking at the moon and at the stars that would be very helpful in showing the kids about the universe when they can't go outside and look at a telescope. The downs of Google Earth is that the school needs to have it installed on the computers. Younger children may not be able to use Google Earth as well as older children. Google Earth also doesn't show the globe in past centuries which makes historic connections more difficult.

The Journey of Columbus

Content for Google Earth

Fifth Grade Social Studies, Standard 1, Objective 1, c. Identify explorers who came to the Americas and the nations they represented.

I chose to do a virtual tour on this topic because Google Earth can easily provide a picture of where explorers can from and where those explorers went. Google Earth also provides a look at the different landmarks that the explorers saw. In a way Google Earth lets the children see what the explorers saw when they were sailing. By having the students go to different stops on Columbus's journey they will be able to see the scope of what Columbus had to sail. Google Earth also provides a visual representation of the Americas and India to show how Columbus might be confused about his location. Basically Google Earth gives students a visual representation of what Columbus went through.