Family Monthly Budget (FMB) College & Major Day

Today you will create a Journal Entry (Weebly Journal) after reading the following article:

https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/explore-careers/college-majors/the-college-major-what-it-is-and-how-to-choose-one

Please describe what major you are interested in and why you chose it at this point in your life.  I realize college is a few years away, and I am sure your interests might change between now and when you are going to go to school, but you will use the information you develop today to research future careers tomorrow.  Eventually, you will be responsible for choosing a College, Career, and your first Job after college to complete the FAMILY MONTHLY BUDGET PROJECT (FMB) over the next few weeks!

After your Journal Entry is complete, please go to CollegeBoard.Org and create an account. (CLICK HERE).  You will use this site to research your College and Major and use the information tomorrow to decide what your first career might be.  You must complete the COLLEGE SEARCH and MAJOR AND CAREER SEARCH sections of the CollegeBoard.Org website prior to completing the survey below.

When you have completed today's research, please add the name of your college and the major you have chosen to the Google Spreadsheet by answering the following questions on this link: 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1a1yKllyW3DBgE_-H6U3P2dLHR_n-PKDvP6ZDcKNFviM/viewform?usp=send_form


Tomorrow we will discuss Financial Literacy and Financial Planning.  Later this week you will see a list of entry-level positions that people could choose based on a variety of decisions.  You will be entering your college and major and choosing a career with this site.  Your choices will determine where you will live and what career you will start with.  We will also be discussing financial planning and investing later this week.

When you have completed the Journal Entry and the College & Major Survey above, you are free to finish your Yearbook Pages that are due by the end of today!

Good Luck!

Mr. S

Technology and Its Functions for Us

Are you playing video games on your personal computer right now? Are using the email in order to stay in touch with your family or friends? Those questions could give us something to talk about, right? Most of you already familiar with term of technology and since technology is part of the human culture, the existence of technology becomes really vital because it changes the way we do something in our life. As we all know, technology affects our society and its surroundings in a number of ways. Sometimes it brings bad effects like environmental issues, but somehow people create just to make everything's easier and try to avoid any kind of bad effects of the technology itself. Initially, we all know that the main function of the creation of technology is to make our life easier as we've mentioned examples above.

Basically, technology is the practice and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or serve some purpose. People create the technology in order to get its function and we all know that it's not that easy to make one invention since you need more than just a good brain. In order to make an invention, a lot of people have to do anything, including spend their times in the front of the tool they want to create just to know the tool they create is working good. They need to spend a lot of money and not to mention anything else like the times with their family, but when they know that the tool they create is working and brings so many benefits to other people, I think they get what we call as a payout.

There are so many kinds of technology you can find on the entire world right now and the one that becomes really popular since it's really useful is the internet. People use the internet when they need almost everything in this life. Internet provides a lot of benefits for us and we can always rely on this kind of technology. Internet and technology are things that can be separated since internet itself provides the researcher a lot of information that could be really useful for the development of technology.

So, as underline of this discussion about technology, people need technology because all we want is to get an easier life and even though there are also so many bad effects of technology, they just hope that there is something they can do to make it minimized.

How Can Instructional Technology Make Teaching and Learning More Effective in the Schools?

In the past few years of research on instructional technology has resulted in a clearer vision of how technology can affect teaching and learning. Today, almost every school in the United States of America uses technology as a part of teaching and learning and with each state having its own customized technology program. In most of those schools, teachers use the technology through integrated activities that are a part of their daily school curriculum. For instance, instructional technology creates an active environment in which students not only inquire, but also define problems of interest to them. Such an activity would integrate the subjects of technology, social studies, math, science, and language arts with the opportunity to create student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology should be integrated, not as a separate subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as a tool to promote and extend student learning on a daily basis.

Today, classroom teachers may lack personal experience with technology and present an additional challenge. In order to incorporate technology-based activities and projects into their curriculum, those teachers first must find the time to learn to use the tools and understand the terminology necessary for participation in projects or activities. They must have the ability to employ technology to improve student learning as well as to further personal professional development.

Instructional technology empowers students by improving skills and concepts through multiple representations and enhanced visualization. Its benefits include increased accuracy and speed in data collection and graphing, real-time visualization, the ability to collect and analyze large volumes of data and collaboration of data collection and interpretation, and more varied presentation of results. Technology also engages students in higher-order thinking, builds strong problem-solving skills, and develops deep understanding of concepts and procedures when used appropriately.

Technology should play a critical role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the appropriate use of technology should be woven into the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. For example, the standards should include expectations for students to compute fluently using paper and pencil, technology-supported and mental methods and to use graphing calculators or computers to graph and analyze mathematical relationships. These expectations should be intended to support a curriculum rich in the use of technology rather than limit the use of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to all students, including those with special needs. Options for assisting students to maximize their strengths and progress in a standards-based curriculum are expanded through the use of technology-based support and interventions. For example, specialized technologies enhance opportunities for students with physical challenges to develop and demonstrate mathematics concepts and skills. Technology influences how we work, how we play and how we live our lives. The influence technology in the classroom should have on math and science teachers' efforts to provide every student with "the opportunity and resources to develop the language skills they need to pursue life's goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society," cannot be overestimated.

Technology provides teachers with the instructional technology tools they need to operate more efficiently and to be more responsive to the individual needs of their students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers an opportunity to build students' conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem found in the world. The technology tools such as Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ a variety of strategies such as inquiry, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual imagery, critical thinking, and hands-on activity.

Benefits of the use of these technology tools include increased accuracy and speed in data collection and graphing, real-time visualization, interactive modeling of invisible science processes and structures, the ability to collect and analyze large volumes of data, collaboration for data collection and interpretation, and more varied presentations of results.

Technology integration strategies for content instructions. Beginning in kindergarten and extending through grade 12, various technologies can be made a part of everyday teaching and learning, where, for example, the use of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes a seamless part of what teachers and students are learning and doing. Contents teachers should use technology in ways that enable students to conduct inquiries and engage in collaborative activities. In traditional or teacher-centered approaches, computer technology is used more for drill, practice and mastery of basic skills.

The instructional strategies employed in such classrooms are teacher centered because of the way they supplement teacher-controlled activities and because the software used to provide the drill and practice is teacher selected and teacher assigned. The relevancy of technology in the lives of young learners and the capacity of technology to enhance teachers' efficiency are helping to raise students' achievement in new and exciting ways.

As students move through grade levels, they can engage in increasingly sophisticated hands-on, inquiry-based, personally relevant activities where they investigate, research, measure, compile and analyze information to reach conclusions, solve problems, make predictions and/or seek alternatives. They can explain how science often advances with the introduction of new technologies and how solving technological problems often results in new scientific knowledge. They should describe how new technologies often extend the current levels of scientific understanding and introduce new areas of research. They should explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology should be a part of active debate about the economics, policies, politics and ethics of various science-related and technology-related challenges.

Students need grade-level appropriate classroom experiences, enabling them to learn and to be able to do science in an active, inquiry-based fashion where technological tools, resources, methods and processes are readily available and extensively used. As students integrate technology into learning about and doing science, emphasis should be placed on how to think through problems and projects, not just what to think.

Technological tools and resources may range from hand lenses and pendulums, to electronic balances and up-to-date online computers (with software), to methods and processes for planning and doing a project. Students can learn by observing, designing, communicating, calculating, researching, building, testing, assessing risks and benefits, and modifying structures, devices and processes - while applying their developing knowledge of science and technology.
Most students in the schools, at all age levels, might have some expertise in the use of technology, however K-12 they should recognize that science and technology are interconnected and that using technology involves assessment of the benefits, risks and costs. Students should build scientific and technological knowledge, as well as the skill required to design and construct devices. In addition, they should develop the processes to solve problems and understand that problems may be solved in several ways.

Rapid developments in the design and uses of technology, particularly in electronic tools, will change how students learn. For example, graphing calculators and computer-based tools provide powerful mechanisms for communicating, applying, and learning mathematics in the workplace, in everyday tasks, and in school mathematics. Technology, such as calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. Rather than replacing the learning of basic concepts and skills, technology can connect skills and procedures to deeper mathematical understanding. For example, geometry software allows experimentation with families of geometric objects, and graphing utilities facilitate learning about the characteristics of classes of functions.

Learning and applying mathematics requires students to become adept in using a variety of techniques and tools for computing, measuring, analyzing data and solving problems. Computers, calculators, physical models, and measuring devices are examples of the wide variety of technologies, or tools, used to teach, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, rather than replace, more traditional ways of doing mathematics, such as using symbols and hand-drawn diagrams.

Technology, used appropriately, helps students learn mathematics. Electronic tools, such as spreadsheets and dynamic geometry software, extend the range of problems and develop understanding of key mathematical relationships. A strong foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is required to use calculators effectively as a tool for solving problems involving computations. Appropriate uses of those and other technologies in the mathematics classroom enhance learning, support effective instruction, and impact the levels of emphasis and ways certain mathematics concepts and skills are learned. For instance, graphing calculators allow students to quickly and easily produce multiple graphs for a set of data, determine appropriate ways to display and interpret the data, and test conjectures about the impact of changes in the data.