Teeters,+Amber+Michelle-+Cool+Tools+Review


 * Review/Reflection of the Cool Tools Sessions: **

I sat in on several different Cool Tools sessions while I attended as a part of the Institute. The first round of Cool Tools sessions were three very brief sessions about how to find and select tools, gather and analyze information, and evaluate, publish, and share. These three were very fast paced and covered multiple tools within each mini session so there was not enough time to process all the information given but they did supply me with several great resources that have been helpful. The first of the mini sessions was about how to search using Google. Going through this process showed me that it is important to model to students how to gather and analyze the resources to find the appropriate one for their purpose. I plan to use this technique with my students to help teach this how to conduct online searches. The second mini session talked about Symbaloo and Livebinder. These tools are great to use as an online book mark. I do plan to use these tools in my class to help students collect and organize information. The third mini session group tools based on their purpose and compared their price, number of users, privacy, and teacher control. The tools discussed were Google Docs and Wikispaces; Blabberize, Sock Puppets, ToonDo, and VoiceThread; Edmodo and Twitter; and Glogster, Prezi, and SlideRocket. I also attended a session called “Google Tools for School” that I found very beneficial. The instructor explained how Google Tools worked and walked us through some basic processes and allowed us time to play with the tools. She showed us how to respond and create Google Forms. The last session I attended was a Science session. Although I found this session useful I felt that the time could have been used in a more effective way. We used the majority of the time working with a website that allows you to perform interactive physic labs. This is a site I can use in my class when I teach the physic standards. I liked the share session at the end where different teachers shared tools they had used that worked and how they used them in the classroom.
 * Conceptualized Lesson Plan: **

Essential Question: How do the different parts of the water cycle work? Students: 7th grade students. Standards: 7 E. 1.2 Explain how the cycling of water in and out of the atmosphere and atmospheric conditions relate to the weather patterns on Earth. Before the lesson started I would show a short clip of some type of precipitation, maybe from a more recent movie or cartoon to spark their interest, and then I would allow them to comment to each other on Today’s Meet about what they saw. After letting them share I would lead the discussion to introduce the concept of the water cycle, only giving them enough information to get them interested and started in the right direction. The students would have to do some independent research to fill in the missing pieces of the water cycle. They would have to create an online poster about the water cycle on either Glogster Edu or Prezi. I would use the tool to make an example to give the students a visual of what is expected. Then the students would be provided a rubric of how their product will be graded. On their poster they would have to have an illustration of how the water cycle works and then break up the individual parts and explain how they work separately and how they tie together. When the final product is complete, the students would have to submit their work on Edmodo. A few volunteers would be asked to present their Glogster or Prezi on the water cycle to the class. To wrap up the lesson I would have the students complete a 3-2-1 on Edmodo. They would have to write 3 things they learned, 2 things they are still unsure about, and 1 way to improve. This is an easy way to formatively assess the students and gives you their personal feedback on what parts they struggled with and needs to be addressed the next class period.