Maryland Teacher Technology Standards

There are specific standards that teachers must follow in the state of Maryland in order to be considered a teacher who allows students to perform to the best of their ability. There are many ways to meet these standards, but there are a few websites that I would choose in order to meet these standards. One such activity is utilizing WebQuests. WebQuests meet the first standard (information access, evaluation, processing, and application) and the fifth standard (integrating technology into the curriculum and instruction) and can meet the third standard (legal, social, and ethical issues). WebQuests have different parts to it that send the students down the road to learning more about different topics of science (this could include ethics). Students can learn through reading, visuals, or clips and movies, while having to perform some type of activity that can be graded.

Another activity that can meet the standards are concept-mapping applications. These applications let students to organize vocabulary and content into different sections, so that students can understand the information that connects to these words or concepts. This meets the second standard (communication). Students can share their concept maps in small groups to get feedback, as well as connect information to their own maps that they might have missed. These applications can also meet the seventh standard (professional growth). These applications can be used as students continue to advance in their educational and professional careers. Concept maps are great ways to organize thoughts in order to learn.

Both of these ideas also meet the fourth (assessment for administration and instruction) and sixth standards (assistive technology). By using these applications, teachers can monitor the progress of students and they can determine what works best in order for their students to succeed.

These applications also require students to have literacy skills. These skills include digital literacy, computer literacy, media literacy, information literacy, technology literacy, scientific literacy, and visual literacy. Mathematical literacy may also be needed.

Webquest

The webquest site I chose to look at can be found here: https://www.msu.edu/~kommkris/webquest-index.html

There are a few problems with this website. A lot of the sites that the webquest links to are not working any longer, as well as the author chose Wikipedia as a source. This arises to problems since the students no longer have as many choices and it does not look as professional when the site isn't working correctly.

However, if I could fashion my own site for my students, I would base it off of this site. There are four different parts to this webquest. The webqest is informative about osmosis. It starts off with having the students choose three websites to get introduced to osmosis. Students are to write down notes for further use of the information later. The second step is to watch three videos on osmosis. After the videos, students are to answer a few questions. The third step has the students work on three activities, which they are required to complete and turn into the teacher. Lastly, the students are to work with a group of three and create a cartoon about osmosis.

I like this activity for many reasons. I like that there are different ways to teach students about osmosis. Not only does it help visual learning students, it helps those who are auditory learners as well. After learning about osmosis, students then get to do activities to ensure they understand the material. This step allows for students to practice what they have learned. Lastly, I like the final project. This allows students to not only have fun, but to also be creative. Creativity is a great skill for students to have, so by doing a creative project students are gaining more than one skill.