TPACK

1. The content area I focused on was teaching students about the seasons. Specifically, it addressed standard 3, Objective 1.

2. We used several pedagogys, they included acquiring data about the inside and outside temperatures and then classifying areas based on the temperatures we found.

3. The technologies we used allowed us to chart the inside and outside temperature with the thermometer and gather temperatures from different areas of the world for the students to classify. It was a good fit because it made the material easy to access and in a format that would be convenient to early learners.

The Tech Savvy Teacher

We are honored to have our classroom nominated to write an article for the Tech Savvy Teacher. We strongly support the use of technology in the classroom. The following is a science experiment conducted in our kindergarten classroom using thermometers and Google Earth.

Kindergarten Standard 3, Objective 1 - Investigate changes in the seasons. We taught children how to identify the seasons by observing known weather and comparing to unknown locations.

This objective for kindergarten requires students to observe and identify the seasons. Our goal to reach this objective was to measure the current temperature in Utah, which are typical of winter, and then measure the temperature inside, and have the children classify different areas of the world's seasons based on the inside and outside temperatures. This lesson would take place after an initial introduction to the seasons and their characteristics.

We used a thermometer to measure the temperature inside our classroom, we found the inside temperature to be 80 degrees F.

(chart of classroom temperature, measuring inside temperature)

After measuring inside the class, we moved outside and measured the temperature of the snow. Outside the temperature of the snow was 30 degrees F.

( measuring snow temperature, chart of outside temperature)

Following a short discussion that linked the temperatures to the seasons, we put together a PowerPoint presentation with weather pictures from all over the world using the Google Earth application. Here are some examples:

Hudson Bay, Canada

San Francisco, CA

Norway

After each student identified the season of the different picture based on its temperature we would classify them as a group. An extension of this activity would be to have the children sort clothing items into what season they would be appropriate for. These activities help the students understand that the world experiences different seasons, in different places, at the same time.

Awesome technology

TPACK was a great break down for seeing steps in planning. It would allow a teacher to analyze 1. what's my objective, 2. which skill am I going to use to achieve my objective, and 3. what awesome technology is available for my use. Each of these steps are critical for a efficient lesson planning process. Streamlining the process in this way makes planning much easier for beginning teachers.

I played at the microbe zoo and it was awesome (I need to stop using that word). When you clicked on different exhibits it would break down what it was teaching, and if you clicked further it had real pictures of the different bacteria. You could explore about dirt, or ponds, but I explored about the snack bar. In the snack bar it talked about food that's produced with the help of bacteria. Really interesting!