Putting Educational Innovations into Practice.

Noyce Workshop March 14th Successes and Challenges

This discussion is intended to initiate the engagement of the March 14th Noyce Scholars Workshop in a MERLOT Voices discussion. From the Workshop and activities, you may have discovered a great tool or strategy to use in your teaching. You may have also experienced a few challenges. MERLOT Voices can share with the Noyce Community your successes and challenges, so others may share your discoveries and/or may be able to help you solve a problem.

Please take a moment to share with the group:
1) the best thing you took away from the workshop, and
2) what is your greatest challenge regarding your experience with the workshop?

Cheers,
Ron Hughes

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steven on March 14, 2009 at 12:23pm

The best thing was learning about these tools that we have available to us.
The greatest challenge was my lack of computer skills, and being unfamiliar with the way the websites work.

Permalink Reply by Jodye Selco on March 14, 2009 at 12:23pm

The best thing about today's workshop is that the hybrid workshop is working well - once we all have figured out the pacing, volume controls, etc. Happy pi day everyone.

Greatest challenges were the technology requirements - just getting it set up for 6 participants at one site and needing to begin early on a Saturday morning.

Jodye

Permalink Reply by Tiffany Adams on March 14, 2009 at 12:23pm

Being able to access and use the E-Portfolio. I think the amount of time to create and add lessons to the portfolio will be my greatest challange as far as creating the portfolio.

Permalink Reply by Claude Phan on March 14, 2009 at 12:23pm

1. i got a chance to explore new teaching methods and expand my creativity.
2. It was hard try and follow along at times, because i was not familiar with some of the websites.

Permalink Reply by Frank on March 14, 2009 at 12:23pm

1. Getting a better feel of how to use virtual labs. Discussing ways that I might use new material in the classroom w/ other teachers.

2. Trying to decide how much time to spend w/ materials in the classroom and try to find computers to use in the classroom.

Permalink Reply by Ron Hughes on March 14, 2009 at 3:34pm

Ah! Time management! This was my toughest task too as a beginning teacher. My colleagues may have better suggestions regarding "how much time," but my best suggestion is to weigh the activities contribution to the total lesson. If I have 3 learning objectives (for example), I weigh (by percentage) each objective. In a 60 minute lesson (for example) dedicate the amount of time to the activity as reasonably acceptable. Also, think about the pieces of a lesson that may be worked on by students (online) outside of the lab period. Does this help?

As for access to computers, with a great lesson in hand and a strong rationale for the need to have access to computer technology, you could create a strong need for access to a computer lab or equipment. This could also be the foundation for writing to a grant RFP for computers for your classroom.
Ron Hughes

Permalink Reply by Garrett Benjamin on March 14, 2009 at 12:25pm

1- The best thing that i learned today is just to always push forward with technology! To always look for new ways to educate and increase learning in a classroom setting.
2- The greatest challenge was trying to create a cfkeep.org webpage that is both functional and informative. So i think it will just take some more time with me working with it to make sure that it become everything that it can and should be.

Permalink Reply by Trinity Wedgworth on March 14, 2009 at 12:28pm

These online labs are a fantastic way to teach complex concepts in science. I am very excited to use both of these labs in my classroom. I didn't experience any challenges while participating in this workshop. It was very exciting!

Permalink Reply by Pollavet Hansanugrum on March 14, 2009 at 12:28pm

I really like all the sessions that we have so far today. It's really great to see all these technologies that are available for Noyce community. These presentations and lesson plans link will help guide me to be a better teacher in the future. Let's face it. We can't teach our children like how we learned from the past. Teachers need to incoporate technology with lesson plans in order to get attention from our children.

Permalink Reply by Samuel Jaramillo on March 14, 2009 at 12:38pm

1. One of the best things, for me, was the virtual labs. I can use these in my lessons and I know my students will benefit from all of this. All students can benefit from it no matter if they are ELD students or students with special needs.

2. One of the challenges I see is keeping up to date with the eportfolio. It is very time consuming and I'm also not very good with all the codes and things like that. I just hope I can keep up with it because I do like it a lot.

Permalink Reply by Ron Hughes on March 14, 2009 at 3:18pm

Samuel,
Through use and practice of eportfolio you will become increasingly proficient. As you make suggestions, we can also improve the products we use. Never hesitate to ask a question. There are always others with the same question. Getting it on the forum (such as MERLOT Noyce Voices) is the first step to finding a solution. Good comment!
Ron Hughes

Permalink Reply by Christopher Borquez on March 14, 2009 at 2:41pm

1. Meeting all of you through the amazing Elluminate Live! and learning more about the interconnectedness of the wonderful resources.

2. The biggest challenge will be to go back and adapt all my activities in to fully developed lessons that will further assist the cohort.

Chris