Final Tech Club Visit #6

Today was our final tech club visit and it ended extremely well.  We let the students put finishing touches on their presentations and posters for the first twenty minutes and then had them to present.  We have the 3rd through 5th graders in tech club, so the coordinator had the 2nd graders come in to watch the presentations after a few kids had already presented.  All of the students were very excited to present, with all but about three students volunteering to go.  They seemed proud of the work they had done, both on the posters and Keynote presentations.  Some were so excited that they presented twice, once in front of just the 3rd through 5th graders and then again when the 2nd graders came in.  A few parents got to see their kids present as well, and they seemed to really enjoy watching.  The projects ended up being a success after all of the students' hard work.  The coordinator had the kids thank us and they seemed genuinely happy and like they had fun.

Tech Club Visit #5

For today's tech club visit we combined with book club again.  The students worked on finishing their presentations for tech club and their posters for book club (on the same subject).  Some students only had a presentation or only had a poster, so they worked on whatever they had.  All of the students were extremely focused and engaged the whole time (surprising for right after Thanksgiving break!).  We helped students add finishing touches such as pictures, fonts, and backgrounds to finalize everything.  Unfortunately, one or two presentations got deleted from the laptops and those students had to either start over or create a poster instead; luckily these students were very easy going and worked well on their new projects.  Tomorrow we will have the students present both their posters and presentations to their peers, possibly the younger kids in the after school program, and any parents that decide to come, as the kids were encouraged to invite their parents to come.

Tech Club Visit #4

At today's tech club we had the kids continue working on their Keynote presentations. This week went more smoothly than last week because most of the kids had already started their presentations. For those kids who had not started we got them laptops and they started quickly without slowing down the group. The speed at which the student's are working differs greatly, but luckily we have found ways for all of the students to stay engaged and continue working. We have them add more features, such as pictures, transitions, different fonts, etc. The kids seem to be enjoying the project and some of them don't want to stop working when the time is up. The next time we go the students will finish their projects and on the last day of tech club we will have the students present their Keynotes to the younger students in the after school club.

Tech Club Visit #3

For our third tech club visit we introduced the students to the program Keynote. We made a PowerPoint presentation beforehand that we showed the kids using Keynote so they knew what their presentations would look like. We did not go into much detail on the presentations yet; we mostly let them get comfortable with the program while still starting their presentations. Most of the students had never used the program before, so we spent the majority of the club time helping students with individual questions. Many of them were excited to show us what they had already accomplished, while others felt a bit frustrated by the new program. I think the day could have gone smoother had we given more instruction on how to use the program. Another obstacle we encountered was students who did not have a topic to do their presentation on because they did not attend book club the day before. For these students we allowed them to pick a topic of their choice that they already knew some information about so that they could create their presentations based on what knowledge they already possessed. Our following weeks will be focused on completing and presenting these Keynote presentations, and hopefully students will enjoy this project their coordinator has given us to accomplish.

Tech Club Visit #2

     For our second tech club visit, we came on Monday instead of Tuesday because the after school club had previous plans for Tuesday. The book club from another class comes on Monday, so we worked in coordination with them, split the kids into two groups, and spent half of the time with each group, giving us only about 15 minutes with each group. In the time we had, we took a Halloween quiz on the National Geographic Kids' website as a group with our laptop screen projected so the kids could all see the questions and work together to answer them. After that we let the kids get their own laptops and they looked up ideas for science projects on Science Buddies. It was really hard to keep the kids interested in looking up ideas, and they were not shy about disliking it.
     Luckily we learned a lot more about what the coordinator wanted us to do in the upcoming weeks during this week's visit because she was more available to talk to us. Instead of science projects, the kids picked a subject or person they were interested in in book club and will be using the research they do there to create a presentation in our tech club. Originally she wanted the kids to use Prezi, but because each student has to create their own account, we decided to use Keynote since it is already included on their laptops. For next week we are planning on making a presentation example to show the students how to use the program and different ideas on how they can incorporate their own creativity into their presentations. Then we will give them time to make sample presentations about a topic of their choice to practice their skills.

Podcast: PBS Cyberchase Smart Board Games

Our podcast did not save on Podomatic, but it was about the PBS Cyberchase Smart Board Games that was explained on freetech4teachers.com.

Here are our notes (I worked with Leah):

PBS Cyberchase Smart Board games

Cyberchase tv show on PBS

Create free games in mathematics to use interactively on the Smart Board with the Cyberchase characters

"Lucky Star Gameshow" Gameshow format

Can show thinking and process on side of smart board while trying to solve the multiple choice problem 

Make up your own questions or use pre-made gameshows

Can be used with or without smart board

Tech Club Visit #1

For my first visit for tech club, I learned that the school has a mobile computer lab which sometimes is available to us, but sometimes is not because the cart is misplaced or the computers aren't charged. When we can't use the computers, there is an Elmo that we can use to project a book or paper for something else somewhat technology related. The people who did the tech club at our school before us were extremely helpful in telling us about their experience and what to expect. The coordinator wants us to focus on science as much as possible because she wants to do a science fair with the kids. She gave us some suggestions of what we could do, but said we can go in whatever direction we would like. The biggest challenge I think we'll face is not having the computers available to us. We will always have to have a back up plan in case that situation arises. I'm excited that the coordinator wants us to focus on science since that subject has the opportunity for experiments and other hands on things that the kids will be genuinely interested in. My main fear is that we will not accomplish everything that the coordinator would like us to do by the end of our tech club experience. The kids seem great and were fun to hang out with on our day of observation.