tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51120483482591773542024-03-14T02:06:59.240-07:00K-12 Computer Science CurriculumTowards creating a K-12 computer science curriculum, I've been privileged to use my experiences in computing to teach, and to meet wonderful people who share ideas with me and allow me to share with them. This blog documents my experiences implementing technology lesson plans.Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-91999701662692577232011-02-02T19:59:00.000-08:002011-02-02T21:10:33.695-08:00Quiet Little Google FeaturesIt's no secret that I'm a fan of Google because they offer so much good stuff ... for free! So they recently rolled out a new GUI for Google Docs, no big deal, I ignore things until I have need for them. So today I notice that there's a link for "Images and Videos", I take note and click away. Google Docs has separated my few image files from the document files. But the more interesting thing is Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-44680613344498872342011-01-13T20:25:00.000-08:002011-02-02T19:59:08.708-08:00Students don't have an e-mail account? Here's your solution...and other Gmail hacksProblem: Web 2.0 tools need an e-mail address, no two ways about it, for security reasons and for password reset functions.
Problem: some of the most popular free e-mail sites do not allow people with birth years in a certain range to create accounts for certain services (ex. Google Accounts work for Gmail with parent credit card, but not at all for Blogger).
Problem: teachers encouraging Margaret Nkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735521509029300504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-15124075963227653762011-01-11T20:51:00.000-08:002011-01-13T21:12:17.700-08:00Spring 2011 Curriculum IdeasI'm thinking about what I'd like to teach my students before June (t minus 3 months) and I have so many ideas! Problem is there's so little time...basically 4 months and some weeks before the end of May, which is when the best teachers cease teaching and begin planning for the end of the year. I mean, going beyond May is torturous for your students with all the sunshine and graduation planning!
Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-65902711907126730002011-01-10T20:05:00.000-08:002011-01-10T20:05:52.433-08:00Back in School: Resources for the tech teacherI am taking a credential class, Instructional Strategies for the Adult and Adolescent Learner, and have the great honor of being a student of the NASA - Endeavor Science Teaching Certificate Project, so I will be a busy bee! Though each class has just met for the first time in the last 48 hours, I already have useful resources:
Benchmarks & Standards
entire book! Science for All Americans: Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-8214691730151018322010-12-12T18:27:00.000-08:002011-01-11T17:02:47.400-08:00Cartoons in the Classroom!Found a wonder blog that features lots of lovely tools for technology in education. Not sure how I happened upon Creating Comics Online, but I'm glad I did: cartooning makes teaching storyboard design relevant, and the online tools are much easier than demonstrating my stick figure storyboards and having students draw on sheets of paper.
He ends the article with 20 Ways to Use Comics in Your Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-11304804850239994442010-12-11T04:44:00.001-08:002010-12-13T12:14:19.519-08:00Agrarian Fascination in gamesWhat's with all the apps and games focusing in farming? This point hit home for me when attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and one of the meet-and-greet questions was whether you checked your farm before the event! At the time I had 3 farms to check so that was a box I signed for others! How can we harness this obsession in academics and computing? Planning for periods Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-73220902949812846252010-12-03T23:22:00.001-08:002010-12-13T11:39:46.586-08:00Beginning ProgrammingSchool is very different: I once worked with a man (not in an educational setting) who lamented the fact that schools don't teach what they did in the 1950's, which directly contributed to students and scientists' abilities to create the computer revolution: counting in bases other than 10, logic, games. Unfortunately our students are not receiving this same knowledge so before students can Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-59622696142713101182010-12-03T23:09:00.001-08:002010-12-03T23:22:15.981-08:00Tech tools for class useNing: free Ning Mini for educators: http://about.ning.com/pearsonsponsorship/
iTeach: free website, course management, and more: iTeach.org
K12 High Speed Network: free tools for educators: k12hsn.orgMs. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-84676977312798896252010-11-20T13:43:00.000-08:002010-11-22T14:31:27.605-08:00Thanksgiving Origami
Turkey origami courtesy of tammyyee.com
I'm not sure how this idea manifest: a combination of having students for 2 days and not wanting to begin any substantial topics that will be forgotten after the turkey stuffage, and paper being a topic as I put together my spring materials and write grant requests. Somehow my brain came up with board games (no-tech + logic), coloring (no-tech + art), Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-9200048177559246092010-11-19T14:58:00.000-08:002010-11-20T21:12:44.088-08:00Holiday e-Cards...Thanksgiving editionWill have students in my after school class use Scratch to create e-cards (electronic cards) ala Hallmark e-cards. Thanksgiving edition is practice for a Christmas extravaganza!
Gobble, Gobble (to the tune of Master P "Drop it, Drop it"
Gobble, Gobble
Shake 'n' Bake it
Cooking dumplings / Hushing puppies
Ate it, ate it!
Turkey images
http://dclips.fundraw.com/zobo500dir/Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-10042489557481727912010-11-17T15:57:00.001-08:002010-11-17T15:57:49.918-08:00Robotics are the new Computer ScienceAt the Grace Hopper Conference 2010 I attended a workshop on getting girls in grades 4-12 excited about computing, and 2 of the 4 technologies featured used robotics of some sort.
Scratch & Alice are programming languages, and allow students to make incredible animations (2D and 3D respectively) limited only by their imaginations.There are lots of programming challenges for students toMs. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-30986877081951809342010-11-04T14:38:00.000-07:002010-11-04T14:38:55.244-07:00Adding Interactive LessonsI now have to practice what I preach: I have a severely learning disabled student in my class for whom I CANNOT give text-based lessons. In addition we read an article in our staff meeting about the purpose of homework and types and length of assignments we should give students. All of this coalesced in my looking for interactive lessons on cyber safety.
BBC WonderWebWorld
Impressed by Dance Mat Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-16682812180709541962010-10-28T15:26:00.000-07:002010-10-28T15:26:33.700-07:00Teaching Logic Using Board GamesToday I had the privilege of fore knowledge of a planned network outage so I brought in some board games and cards that had been used in an outreach 10 years ago to keep students occupied. My 7th and 8th graders were mystified by Kerplunk, a game that came before their 1999 birth years lol! It got me thinking that it's possible to teach logical thinking "unplugged" using certain board games that Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-4343270022592311092010-10-28T14:42:00.001-07:002010-10-28T15:35:08.649-07:00CS UnpluggedI have been using CS Unplugged to reinforce computer science concepts after teaching technical skills that have been abstracted. CS Unplugged is a great curriculum for teaching computer science concepts to students without being plugged to a computer. I've found students are able to complete the worksheet activities with little to no assistance, though I have class discussions to ensure Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-37153754683109534022010-10-27T23:16:00.001-07:002010-10-27T23:16:08.555-07:00Anytime-Anywhere LearningIt's 11pm on a Wednesday evening, final email check, lo and behold there are changes to the class wiki. Students are working on the class project, sharing resources by commenting on each others' pages...isn't this the learning we educators want to see? I thought students would only work during class time...I go to sleep happy that they are enjoying the activity enough to show off at home :) Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-71139597940094917972010-10-25T16:03:00.000-07:002010-10-25T16:07:35.534-07:00Oh So Connected!Reflecting on today's classes and I feel...Oh So Connected! Using Web 2.0 tools, my students have created blogs and are now using wikis. Having covered internet research (search engines), depending on how much they remember, they're now equipped to find information on any subject for school.I will not be able to cover word processing before time ends with 2 classes, but I am confident that the Margaret Nkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735521509029300504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-84567522483123645192010-10-23T15:59:00.000-07:002010-10-23T16:06:48.513-07:00Class Blogging as a Computing Activity
Image © 2010 M.Agbowo
Blogging is a Web 2.0 tool, meaning users can contribute to online discourse without knowing how to manually code (WYSIWYG-What You See Is What You Get). I had students create their own and write in wikis daily as a computing activity for the following reasons:
technology exercise: to wrestle with setting up the blog as a means of reading and following directions, and theMs. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-18369512954504449102010-10-13T20:17:00.000-07:002010-10-13T20:17:33.802-07:00Teaching Standards are a good thingI have the privilege of being evaluated since I'm a new teacher. My rubric will be the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (full document), which have to do with students, curriculum and learning, and growing as an educator.
I like to multi-task, kill two birds with one stone, so I will also infuse my technology standards via ISTE NETS for Teachers concurrently, which luckily are Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-69931366004951791542009-04-10T13:23:00.000-07:002009-04-10T13:53:26.338-07:00Internet & Web Design UnitToday was *almost* the last day and I realized something: instead of reviewing students' work I could have had them e-mail me their code!I compiled resources from all over the web, special thanks to Dave Site for providing great tutorials about the Internet's origins, beginner's HTML (have to accept ads for free stuff!).Sequence (all resources are available at my class website):History of the Margaret Nkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11735521509029300504noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-70768592523437989632009-01-29T22:01:00.003-08:002009-01-29T22:03:21.374-08:00That's what I'm talking about!This article demonstrates the drive, innovation, initiative required by teachers to bring technology to students. These people persevered through theft, indifference, lack of compensation, and (from personal experience) an inattentive and insensitive technical staff to impart technical knowledge to their students! Kudos to them!!!!!!Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-732808246216909782009-01-29T22:01:00.002-08:002009-01-29T22:02:16.552-08:00That's what I'm talking about!This article demonstrates the drive, innovation, initiative required by teachers to bring technology to students. These people persevered through theft, indifference, lack of compensation, and (from personal experience) an inattentive and insensitive technical staff to impart technical knowledge to their students! Kudos to them!!!!!!Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-56291276775303394612009-01-29T22:01:00.001-08:002009-01-29T22:01:45.133-08:00That's what I'm talking about!This article demonstrates the drive, innovation, initiative required by teachers to bring technology to students. These people persevered through theft, indifference, lack of compensation, and (from personal experience) an inattentive and insensitive technical staff to impart technical knowledge to their students! Kudos to them!!!!!!Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-43049462936461989942009-01-13T08:56:00.000-08:002009-01-13T09:02:50.799-08:00Free books! International Children's Digital LibraryNeed an activity to keep your quickest learners occupied? How about a book? But instead of keeping a print library in your computer lab that you constantly have to update with new books, why not allow students access to a digital library such as the International Children's Digital Library (ICDL)?Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-42281534443322462052009-01-12T09:19:00.000-08:002009-01-12T11:22:59.015-08:00Celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King DayAs part of my efforts to document lesson plans for U.S. holidays, here are links with great activities to celebrate the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.Sample Lesson PlansKing-Raleigh: read Why We Honor Dr. Martin Luther King to understand the reason for the holidayA to Z Teacher Stuff: a great lesson that demonstrates the effects of prejudice (any age, esp. lower elementary)The Seattle TimesMs. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5112048348259177354.post-22106176621385028792008-12-26T12:06:00.000-08:002008-12-26T12:42:12.213-08:00Holiday Lesson IdeasComputers are an interesting conundrum: we either love the technology but don't emphasize the learning or we emphasize the learning but minimize the technology. December is a great month to teach about tradition, religion and cultures because there are 4 major holidays in this one month: Christmas (Christian), Hanukkah (Jewish), Eid-al-Adha & Al-Hijira (Muslim), and Kwanzaa (African-American)Ms. Agbowohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13450820332471112624noreply@blogger.com0