CEP 811 Evaluation of Learning Material

A review of Understanding the Nutrition Facts Label.

This resource is a interactive lesson on how to read a nutrition facts label. The lesson presents information on how to read a food label. The students move their cursor over different parts of the screen for more information. Then, the students take a quiz. It is a valuable tool for the students to learn after they have learned about the different nutrients that food has to offer. Nutrition is one of the topics I am always looking for something new to use as it is such a vast topic and hard to get the students to understand the importance of. I can see the use of this site as an assignment on a Moodle page for the students to complete at home as a reinforcement of the information taught in class.

Quality of Content

• The site does present valid concepts about how to read a food label. Students in high school have seen the labels before, but need to learn how to read and decipher the information for their own diet needs. It is a simple concept that carries a lot of importance.
• This site offers educationally significant concepts for educators teaching about nutrition. After students have learned about what the nutrients do for the body, they need to know how to find the foods with the right nutrients. Or, they will be able to tell if a food is helping or hurting their body.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool

• The information of reading food labels would fall in the explanation and demonstration stages of learning. After viewing the presentation and taking the quiz, the students should be able to read a food label and determine what nutrients they are eating in a particular food. This lesson is aimed at middle and high school students learning about nutrition in health class. The interactive portion of the presentation will engage the students into the topic of reading food labels as the presentation is full of information and the quiz looming keeps the students mind on the information. This presentation can easily be integrated into a curriculum as a in class quiz or as an assignment on Moodle, depending on technology available. This type of presentation can be utilized in a variety of different topics in all subject areas. The presentation type allows for the uses to interact with the information and it tests their knowledge after the presentation. Good learning assignments can be developed easily with this type of application and it would just take the time to transfer lecture material to the presentation.

Ease of Use

• The layout of the site works well for this type of assignment. The buttons are easy to find and select, but it was a little hard at first to figure out which label was which and the text on the labels can be a little hard to read even with the magnifier. The material is very easy to follow and the students should not get lost unless they do not put the cursor over each part of the food label. The presentation tells the users when they have gotten a question right or wrong and it gives them the chance to correct their answers. The presentation is easy to use and does not require much technical support to use. The material is presented in a way that is familiar, clear and allows them to control the pace of the lesson. The presentation is visually appealing to students and presents the information in a way that is more stimulating that the usual lecture.

Personal Learning Reflection

Looking back on the past two months, I have learned a lot. I came into this experierence having heard of some of the Web 2.0 terms, but had no idea what they were. I can now speak on what Web 2.0 means and how it can be used. Before I took this course, my integration of technology into teaching was to have the students use word processing and had just started to use Moodle. The technology I integrate into my classes needs to educationally appropriate and useful to the students.

The way I was educated and learned to educate was with the lecture learn method. The teacher stood in front of the class and lectured, students took notes, read the textbook, and took a test at the end of the unit. This class has shown me a new way to teach and keep the students engaged. While there is still a place for the teacher lecture, some students learn that way, different techniques need to be imployed to improve learning for all students. The TPACK system we learned about has the teacher use their pedegogy, content knowledge and technology together to help the students learn and advance in a technically advanced socitey. Also, the integration of different technologies will allow different learning styles to be accomendated. Teaching one way only restricts the learning enviornment. Allowing the students to do research, create different types of projects like Prezis, Glogsters, Podcasts and Screencasts, will give the students a sense of ownership in the class and material and allow them to do some of the teaching in class.

The Internet has become a very powerful tool in education. I have used it in my class for research purposes and not much else. I know the students probably have a wider range of knowledge of the type of tools and games available on the Internet. My knowledge of what is available on the Internet has increased with this class and has helped to ease some of the fears I had about it's use in the classroom. Using the Internet in the classroom requires the use of expensive machines, and I believe that the more I use them, the more at ease I will feel letting the students use them. Technology and the Internet are here to stay and I am planning ways to integrate both into my teaching and making sure the students are being productive in a safe environment. One of the main advantages and disadvantages of the Internet is the available information for research. It is very plentiful, but provides opportunities for people to steal materials and use them as their own. The digital citizenship is a very important aspect to teach to the students.

In my personal growth plan and my technology plan, I want to learn how to use the new technologies available to me, along with some that are not currently available to me due to funding. In the course of this class, I have become familiar with cloud computing, social bookmarking, digital citizenship, blogging, and wikis. I feel confident in my abilities to use these technologies and to integrate them into my teaching. I do not know everything yet, but I am going to keep learning. The SIG group project help me to see how a collaborative assignment can work and allowed me to explore how to make physical education and health more relevant and engaging for the students. I was able to explore the topics of active gaming and heart rate monitors that will play a huge role in physical education in the future. This type of group project is what I envision for possibly both physical education and health.

My goals will remain the same as outlined in the personal growth plan and technology plan. I want to keep exploring ways to integrate technology into my classes, which means I have to keep using them to learn their capabilities. Also, my personal learning network has grown with the advent of the social networks and RSS feeds. What a great resource for learning and sharing ideas. The main goal I want to add is to become better at teaching digital citizenship. It is too easy for students to take someone else's work and claim it for their own. I plan on teaching that topic at the beginning of classes to help solve this problem.

I want to keep learning and evolving as a teacher. This will involve me learning and integrating technologies, following my PLN, and finding ways to fund new programs for technology. This course has enlightened me to the future of education and I just want to keep learning.

Personal Learning Style

I believe I am a visual and kinesthetic learner. The attributes of these two groups help me to learn. Physical activity is my life, I am a physical education teacher. So, moving and learning are two of the way that help me to learn. The strategy that works best for me as a learner is a process we call tell, show, do. First, tell what to do, then show what to do, then have the students do it. This process allows me to practice what the correct technique is and correct the errors. I also like to figure out how to do things on my own. However, I need to have some type of guidance to get me started. I have enjoyed figuring out how to use all of the new tools in this class, but for me, it would not have happened without the guidance of the class. Tell me, show me examples, and let me do it is how I learn best.
The strategy that has had the least amount of success is the lecture-recall. I have a hard time focusing on a lecture. For me to understand the lecture and stay with it, it needs something more. The PowerPoint's are helpful, they add some technology that spruces up the presentation, but it still needs more. That is the big question though. How to educators get across the information to students who all like to take in the information in different ways?
The conclusion I have come to is to have a range of strategies and use them at various times. this may sound simple and the idea of it is. However, it requires more effort, organization and focus on those strategies and what the preferred outcome of the lessons are. I will become comfortable with the strategies so  that the transition between their uses is smooth and unnoticeable. This is when the organization skill comes into the preparation effort. Next, I need to keep track of how many times I use each technique, making sure that I do not primarily use the one I favor. And, I need to focus on the manner in which I use them so that i am using them correctly and the most beneficial to as many students as possible. additionally, this will prevent me from being predictably boring.

My Picture

Here if the image of my first MS 150 bike ride with my team.

My Picasa Page


MS 150 Team SRO by Derek Osborne is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Creative Commons

This is a picture I would use in my swimming classes to teach the water safety unit. When we get smartboards or projectors in the future, I will have access to technology to show this type of photo to help ensure the students understand the concept of water safety.

Water Safety Information Sign (Terry Stewart) / CC BY-SA 2.0

I think that adding images to the curriculum I teach can be very helpful. I will be looking to add images to PowerPoint presentation that cover a wide range of topics in my health and pe classes. Images can motivate the learner and get a visual on the topic whether it is sports (pictures of athletes doing the skill being learned), safety (above picture) or health (nutrition, mental illness, drugs, etc.). Images will be a helpful tool in my future teaching.

My Picasa Page

PC Maintenance and Security

There are a lot of issuse concerning pc maintenance and security. I have heard about these topics before, but do not understand what they mean. I have chosen three tutorials to help me learn more about pc maintenance and security.

Tutorial #1 Compare and Contrast Hardware and Software Firewalls
Hardware firewalls are part of the router. Their main purpose is to keep your network private and invisable from hackers. Software firewalls are programs like Norton and McAfee that scan the computer for invasions. People need to know what the firewall is and what it does. The item that suprised me was programs like Norton are firewalls. I just thought it was a program for safety, not a firewall.

Tutorial #2 Using Window's Clean up
Windows clean up program is a quick and free way to free up space on your computer. I have seen costly programs that do the same thing, but this one is free. I will be using this program on my computers to improve performance and clear space. I think this item will also help others clean up their computers. The item that suprised me was the face that it is so quick and it is free.

Tutorial #3 Securing Internet Explorer
Even with firewalls and security software, our computers are at risk. This tutorial showed me how to adjust my settings within Internet Explorer to control Active X. A few clicks of the mouse can be the difference between being attacked by a website and maintaining safety. Sharing this tip can keep a lot of computers safe. What suprised me was that websites can attack your computer and install unwanted and dangerous items just because I did not have properly check my settings.

Getting Things Done!!

Organizing and staying on top of all of my daily duties is a task I definitely need help with. The getting things done program offers a lot of possibilities to get my items in order. I suppose in some way, I already do a lot of the things suggested in the program, problem is I do them in my head and with a lot of different inboxes. Email, phone calendar, desk calendar, home calendar and written lists are how I handled the information. I organized everything with the paper and pencil method with an inbox on my desk at work and home.

I started to try to streamline the process by limiting my inboxes. One for paperwork, one for email and a calender on my phone. As was said in the article, this proved to be the hardest part of the process. I am trying to learn the One Note program and my goal is to make it my inbox for everything. In the meantime I am using the three items listed above.

The processing of the items in my inbox was a little confusing. I read all of my emails soon as I get to a computer. When I get the HP Slate tablet, I will have more access to my emails. Trying to use the two minute idea has helped me get a grasp on all of the items in my inbox. I use a list for paperwork, and it is fairly easy to decide what needs to be done now and what can wait and be classified as a project. Calenders have always been hard for me. I start using one and for one reason or another, I stop using it. The desktop calender has always been the best for me. I am starting to put items on my phone calender and will begin to classify them.

The organization process is started, but needs a lot of work. My paper and pencil lists are the best way for me right now. I can see what needs to be accomplished and when. If I can transfer these lists to my phone or One Note, my organization will be a lot better. As for email, I have started to sort important emails in folders. The folders I have right now save emails that could be important down the road. I also need to spend more time imputing dates into my phone calender and not just the desk calender.

The review is the most helpful part of the process. It allows me to look over all of the items for the day and act upon them appropriately. I need to develop the weekly calender, I am hoping One Note will be the solution.

As for the Do process, I am improving. I have noticed that my lists and inboxes really only contain items relative to my work life. I need to put my home life into my inbox and get those items accomplished as well. I believe I am accomplishing most of what needs to get done, but there is room for improvement.

Going through the process was not easy. It will definitely take some time for me to get a system down that works for me. I can see the value of using the GTD process. It will allow me to see the tasks in my inbox, because I will almost always have access to it, thus making me more organized. I will continue to use this process to help me manage my home and work lives and to ease the stress caused my the many tasks that need to be accomplished.