C. 8 Podcasting, video and screencasting and live streaming

From YouTube, to Podcasts to Google there are many great forms of media on the internet.  It is weird to remember back to the days where your internet connection was so loud when you logged on you needed ear plugs, and when it took hours to download your favorite song. Now nearly anything is able to download in seconds or stream right though your TV, like Netflix and blockbuster are doing now.

Podcasts are a fantastic invention, Many people who we normally wouldn’t hear from, have voices than can be heard by millions. This is such a fantastic way to implement in a classroom.  My favorite podcast is CNN’s AC360,because on an everyday basics I don’t have 2 hour time slot to watch my favorite newscasters news, so its great I can watch it on the go on my iPod for a mere 20 minutes, and watch it anywhere I please.

For schools to contain radio stations at school for students to listen to would cost hundreds of dollars,  but now because of Podcasts that is no longer an issue, students can form their own “talk radio” on a podcast it, upload it and hundreds of students can listen to it in minutes.

Podcasts would be an excellent tool to incorporate into a classroom, and liven up an activity, rather than have students write paper after paper or give a speech orally, students now can do an audio podcast. 

YouTube has created a huge phenomenon with video publishing.  Its mind boggling that over 20 hours of video are being loaded to YouTube every minute.  Although the content  may or may not be appropriate, the sharing of videos is a huge advantage to the education system, because more sources are available.

Screencasting has been a new term I learned recently, I always knew what it was but never the word for it.  It’s great to be able to watch a tutorial and see the step by step process.  Creating screencasts could be great in a classroom to be able to teach younger students the tools they are using.  Although I don’t know how many things you could really screencast and what elementary students could do with it, which means there may have to be more research done on this form of media.

Live Streaming is an absolute excellent idea for classrooms, because the possibilities, like most of these tools, are endless.  I feel that using this would be great for students who are home sick, and can watch at home.

Ch. 7 – What may be lost and what may be gained?

In this chapter, a lot is discussed about the effects of increasing technology in the realm of education.  By dividing these effects into two categories, what could be lost and what could be gained, the chapter discusses the positive and negative effects of technology.  To begin, it talks about some things that we may lose by focusing more on technology in the classroom.  I definitely feel that some of these things are an issue, such as dividing social groups and isolating the individual.  Within the students in the classroom, a division could take place between those who have access to computers and technology and those who may not have access to these things.  This may cause a separation between white and non-white or rich and poor, which in turn would cause conflict.  In order to avoid this, I feel it would be necessary to only use technology that I would be sure everyone would have access to and readily be able to use.  Also, I would avoid technologies such as private education systems or programs that must be purchased and I would only use technology that doesn’t force the students to contribute financially.  Another problem that arises from technology in the classroom is that it isolates individual students when forced to work on their own on a computer.  Traditional classroom procedure is a teacher talking to the students while having them be engaged and involved in the lesson.  With some of the new technology, it deviates from that tradition and moves towards a curriculum of individual projects, computer lessons, and communicating online.  Though this problem is of concern, I think it can be avoided by using group projects and other group assignments to engage students.

                Though there are many losses associated with the introduction of technology in the classroom, there are many things to be gained as well.  From the many programs we have discussed in class as well as read about, it is easy to see the variety of tools as teachers we have at our disposal. By using these multiple tools, education has the ability to become more engaging and customizable.  Many different technologies can be employed during a single lesson, and most of these that engage students can be modified to fit their skill and comfort levels.  Also, students who use new technology will feel more connected to the material when compared to traditional methods.  This is important because it will help improve retention and comprehension.  In all, technology I feel is more beneficial because the tools and the way they are used to customize lessons to fit the needs of situation that you are using them for.     

C.9 Social Network

Social Networking is getting more popular as we speak. Facebook, Facebook, and Facebook is all I hear about. I remember when I thought my mom was ridiculous because she wanted to create her own profile, but to my surprise she is more addicted than a regular high school student.
Not surprisingly Facebook is growing by 700,000 accounts per day, but the surprising part is that a huge chunk of them are 55 years old.  Now even my mom has her problems with the internet and she's years away from this age mark.
Personally, not being an extreme advocate of Facebook, as an elementary teacher I don't feel I would use it in my classroom although, I am still not fully decided on this issue.  There are some major benefits to utilizing these networks in your class but there are many cons that nearly outweigh the pros.  The main reason why I wouldn't use my own personal account for this reason is the question of where is my separation between my personal life and work life. Something that I would consider though is creating a "teacher" account, separate from my personal account to allow the students to contact me there. Creating a group on Facebook would also be a great use, to have the students post questions if needed and contact other classmates. This would open a lot of doors that I don't believe the school websites allow for.  Many students that are quiet in the classroom would be able to speak up and be heard.

10/28 Exit Slip

In class today it was interesting to hear that there is a lot of money out there to support educators for objects in their classroom, but only the teachers who take the incentive receive it.

It was amazing to hear Professor Boyer’s story of receiving a smart board because he asked for it.    

These stories bring up many ideas to help receive funding for schools. 

We have a lot of homework to do this coming week, and the homework load is only getting larger.

Exit Slip 10/21

After our group presentation today Professor Boyer explained a great strategy that I feel I will utilize in my classroom some day. The Jigsaw strategies consists of students being part of groups and discussing a single topic per group, then break up those groups and have the students teach/discuss with other groups about their topic.

We discussed the importance of locking items on our interactive whiteboard lesson.  This is great to know how to do because students will accidently move objects that should not be moved if they are not locked in place.  We learned about the infinite cloner which is another great trick to learn with the smart notebook program.

It was interesting that we touched on font and color choice for our lessons; it’s something that you never really think about but it’s extremely important.  Boyer bought up an interesting rule, the 6x6 rule which means no more than 6 lines of text, each line consisting of 6 words per line when looking at a presentation/PowerPoint.

It’s great when we get to learn some of the tricks of smart notebook. I wish that we would spend a lot more time on the different tips and things we can use on this program, because we will be using this program a lot within our career, and a lot of us are brand new to this program.

C. 6 Eras of Education

In chapter 6 of Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology it discusses the different eras that break up the history of education. It's strange to see that years ago children were expected to do the same jobs as their parents. I could never imagine myself doing the exact same thing. It seems like the children were expected to mirror the parents; they were taught to think and do as their parents.
It is interesting to read that early education was to prepare children for the work they would do when they became adults. The subjects that they were taught were basic skills like reading, writing, basic computations, and most importantly, skills like reading the Bible and tasks like buying and selling goods.  It’s strange to me to think that many of the classes we have now were unheard not so long ago. Each subject eventually added on to form a curriculum depending on the type of jobs. History, English and civics were stressed for preparation of children becoming citizens. Then later on it was decided that there should be a set of courses students should take, involving English, math, Latin and Greek, history, science and geography. Most of these are still offered in our general schooling.

In the new age, the responsibility is leaning more towards parents and students rather than the states, as it did in the first era.  Students are given more options for their learning and education has expanded. Now teaching can be done nearly anywhere.

I feel that students should understand how we came about the education system we are using today and what each subject’s origin is within the system.

Smartboard Lesson

I completed a lesson appropriate for first graders on Nouns in SMART Notebook, compatible with SmartBoards. I have never used this program before and found it extremely difficult to work the program. I was up until late hours in the morning working on my project to get it to the standard I wanted it at. In total I spent at least 6 hours on it. I tried to utilize some of the games that were available in the program but had difficulty figuring out how to alter them to the grade level I intended it for. I wish we were given more instruction on how to use this program. After working on it for quite some time I did get the hang of it and feel it would be a great program to use with any Smartboard. If I am privileged enough to get a teaching job, yet alone a job with a smart board included in the classroom, I will utilize this program to its potential because it is an excellent source to get students involved in the lesson.

I got an itch for Scratch

I have just finished my Scratch project and am really excited about it. Although Scratch was difficult to start and I had many questions along the way I feel it is an excellent teaching approach for many students. My project consisted of Dino-addition with dinosaurs using basic addition facts. This would be so great to individualize different levels in a classroom and have students work at their own pace. I feel that Scratch is a little complicated at first but after you have an idea of what you want it to look like and you get the hang of it, it really isn't so bad. I spend a fair amount of time on my project to get it to how I wanted it to be, and am proud of what it came out to be.

Flicker Fun

Photography is a favorite hobby of many and it is great how many websites encourage this.  Digital cameras are a necessity in many families and photos are essential as well. Great ways to share the captured moment in this time period is by sharing pictures over the internet so many different can view them. Flicker is one of the most well known picture sharing sites and can be a great thing to use to share with family and use in the classroom.  This would be a great resource to be able to share moments with the students with parents and the community to have a visual of what the students are actually doing at school.  I feel that posting pictures online of a classroom helps relatives from a distance know what the child is doing in school and allows people to view what the school is actually doing.

Putting together a photo stream gives many visuals and can even be given to the students at the end of the year to recap of what they have done.  It gives students a yearbook of just their classroom, and all the material and activities they covered.

I thought it would be a great thing to do to have students interact with the pictures as it described in the chapter, to add notes to parts of pictures. This would work fantastic for vocabulary terms, for example, in identifying parts of a plant.

Adding pictures online is similar to adding different projects online as we talked about in previous chapters, but this gives a clear visual, and even with help of video, it can paint a full picture. This allows the community to give positive feedback and even push students to work harder because they realize that others will see their work.

With more knowledge of the subject I feel that posting pictures online and/or on a website similar to flicker would be a fantastic way to help parents and community members visualize what is taking place in my classroom.  I feel this could only benefit my classroom. It’s strange to realize how many resources we have on the web that we are yet unaware of and we don’t utilize to their full potential.

Exit Slip 10/14

I thought today’s discussion went really well and the group did a fantastic job hitting main points that were brought up in the chapter. I found it most interesting when Pam brought up a situation that occurred at her house and computer based learning software.  Pam has a child that plays games and after they switched his game playing to games with more text, his reading level skyrocketed. I thought that it was an interesting thing to incorporate if a child is struggling with reading.

Homeschooling, Distance Education, Learning Centers and Internet Cafes OH MY!

The chapter of new systems in education was fairly interesting. It explained the different approaches for schooling including home schooling, workplace learning, distance education, adult education, learning centers, educational television and videos, computer based learning software, technical certifications and internet cafes.

I was surprised to find out that homeschooling enrollment increased by 29% in the last 4 years, I always thought that in our decade many people would send their children to public school rather than home school.  I myself know very few people who have been home schooled.  This section really opened my eyes; home school students overall score was significantly better on standardized tests in every subject area.  This could be relevant because home school students are use to individual tasks in a less distracted area.  There are many benefits to homeschooling which include the individualization of the coursework and the ability to spend a longer amount of time in certain areas.  Homeschooling also allows parents to not worry about violence at school and the peer pressure that is relevant in public schools.  Homeschooling does allow the students to have much more variety in the subjects that they are being taught and gives extra time for special activities including different classes, homeschooling groups and or additional online courses. This chapter reemphasizes the fact that it is difficult to home school when both parents maintain full time jobs.  I thought it was extremely interesting how most home school students are very active and involved; the girls talked about in the chapter take regular gym classes at the YWCA.

Distance Education definitely has its benefits along with homeschooling; it consists of being in a classroom with a teacher talking to your physical class through a screen or online schooling.  This allows for many more options for students. I personally have taken a distant learning class and really did not enjoy it as much as in classroom learning but still felt the experience was nice. It is great for students who may not feel comfortable in a large lecture hall and would rather do their work at their own pace with a teacher involved.  I found it fascinating how many students are enrolled in distant education courses and I think it’s great that it allows people with 9-5 jobs to be able to go to school.

I feel that learning centers are excellent resources for all students.  This way all students can get specialized help in a particular area. These learning centers can really help students and parents. I remember when I was in school and needed additional help I would ask my parents, and most of the time they wouldn’t know how to explain it to me. At learning centers there are many fantastic resources for parents to take their child to get immediate help on many different topics.  Learning centers seem to be a great learning environment with many resources available.  It allows for a positive learning environment.

Internet cafes are a fantastic idea as well and allow students a use of the internet if their family doesn’t have the funds to maintain it at their house.

This chapter was interesting and gave many different viewpoints that I have never thought about and each of the benefits that these different systems play. Although personally I feel some side effects are possible with a few of them they were all extremely interesting to learn about. I feel that there are more options that students can utilize the resources including the learning centers and distant learning for topics that are not offered at their particular school.

The Social Web c.6

It’s crazy how the internet has connected so many people over the last decade. It has expanded with many useful tools that can possibly be integrated into the classroom in the near future.     

 I thought that the twitter section was really interesting. I have always heard about twitter and I have even recently made an account but have never really got all that into it and understood what benefits it can bring.  The book even calls twitter “a network at my fingertips.” There are many ways twitter can be beneficial, from keeping family updates to posting questions in a classroom.  I felt that using twitter in the classroom would be one of the best ways to keep students active during a lesson, weather this involves discussing or answering questions through tweets. There are many fantastic ways to involve twitter in the classroom; with this tool teachers can gain more resources through other teachers and community members can view what is going on in their local schools. When the community gets involved in what the students are learning, it always is a huge benefit.

 Another main section in the chapter was social bookmarking services. Before I enrolled in this class I had absolutely no idea that there were websites that helped you control and organize your favorite pages.  If you’re like me, then you have over 200 favorite tabs and it takes forever to search for the one you want, but with websites such as delicious it is an easy task to search and locate a specific location that you had previously bookmarked. This is such an excellent tool to use to not only save time and make your online experience more manageable but it also helps you share resources with other professionals in your field.  This helps minimize time that you have may spend researching different websites that could contain average information, and maximizes the excellent resources that other people have already found to be superb.

The best thing about integrating these different online tools in the classroom is that it helps get the students involved in the lesson and keeps them active in the learning. This benefits the students to be able to view different resources and ask questions without having to speak in class.