This week I watched a video of Mr. Duey, a rapping math teacher. I think it was a really fun video. I think children would enjoy watching this and they could watch it over and over until they understood. A teacher could teach them a rap about fractions. I have a neighbor that has had a lot of problems with math. This video could help him learn the rules about fractions. I remember a song I heard a few years ago called "Turn it to the left" about how people need to turn the volume down on their music or they will have serious hearing damage. It was a fun but informative song. I think it would be neat in the classroom to have kids share music occasionally and listen to quiet classical music while working.

I watched another video on Web 2.0. It was very informative and I liked the visuals and the music. It's amazing all the technology that is available-blogging, wikis, tagging, and podcasts. I would like to use some of these technologies in the classroom. I think tagging would make it much easier for children to find information. Blogging would be a good way to get children involved in a conversation about subjects that you are studying. You could even have a class blog that you share with a class far away-a modern version of pen pals. It's true that the world faces many difficult challenges and that computer technology could help solve some of these problems. I loved the phrase "come visit the digital sandbox."

I enjoyed learning about igoogle. I think it's great to be able to have your gmail, documents, facebook,and even bank accounts all accessible in one place. It will save me a lot of time. I think it's great to be able to teach your students about the latest technology. Some of the most important things that we may teach them may be knowing how to navigate a computer, do graphics, and simply be able to do things online. As a teacher I'm sure I'll use many sites like UEN to plan my lessons.
This week we are talking about similar things in social studies and educational psychology. In social studies I read about asking "essential questions" to the students which make students really think about important concepts to decide how to interpret historical data. The students answer questions such as, "Should there be limits on personal freedom?" In educational psychology I listened to an audio called "accountable talk." It talked about getting students to really listen and also help other students by asking questions like "who can repeat this?" or "does anyone agree or disagree?" They found that this type of talk improves linguistics and math and helps students listen better because they like to get the attention of responding and also want to know if they are right. I would like to use these deep questions and interactive teaching with my students.