Reflections

Have your opinions about technology integration in education changed since the beginning of the term? Why or why not?

Yes, I do believe they have.  Before the start of the term, I was hesitant on the reliability of technology in the classroom, and if the pros really did out-weight the cons.  Now I see that as we are rapidly becoming even more technologically dependent, it is critical to have technology in a class.

Identify one or more programs/web apps introduced this term you believe you'll use in your future classroom. Why will you use these programs/apps?

I have been using blogger now for nearly two years.  It is a quick and easy way to put work together and edit with ease.  I will continue using it.  As well as blogger, I find that I love neatchat.  I have started using it already now for group projects in other classes.

Wordle: Enable Education

A Website for a Classroom?

In so many classrooms across America, it seems like getting students involved and active while using technology is becoming a more daunting challenge with every technological leap.  There is one website though that aims to teach and involve students at the same time.

aslpro.com is a website dedicated to teaching sign language.  It allows teachers to post quizzes, as well at allows students to access an array of new words, phrases and activities.  This free site is a great way to let students actually view the language they are learning in action, and is a great visual resource.

ASL is a visual language, so reading and looking at all of the words and phrases in a book is nearly pointless.  In action,  the signs look much different then they would on paper. 

This site allows students to look up almost any word they could need, as well as how to properly phrase the language.  Not only that, but it can be utilized in the home, and accessed anywhere.

PBL - A Lesson in Health

The "My Healthy Self Project" that was conducted by a classroom of first graders was absolutely ingenious!  The project itself posed the question of "what makes us sick?" to a group of young learners.  Children are some of the most likely to catch the common cold or bug, and are often the culprit of their own misfortunes, due to a lack of understanding in how to properly care for their bodies so early on in life.  With this project, kids were able to get a better understanding of not only what they need to do to keep themselves healthy, but what measures combined lead to good health.  They looked a nutritional labels, analyzed good health habits versus the bad, and noticed the benefits of being active in life.

The class utilized the most umportatn of upper level thinking skills from Bloom's taxonomy - evaluation.  This is the most upper division of thinking skills.  When evaluating, a student is looking at how something works as a whole, not only on one level, but with everything it can be combined with.  They learned how to judge good health habits, and how best to initiate them, by even creating a class health center.  

The only way that this project might be improved would be to integrate ideas relating to it in their future education.  Yes, they did continue to have good, enduring health habits through the year, but keeping a focus on it, if not even just a thought in the back of the mind about it, would help to keep them healthy all their lives, as well as pass on vital knowledge to those around them, for a healthier community.

Telecollaboration - Evaluate!

In educating a classroom, there is so much that students need to know.  When it is taken into consideration exactly what students need to be able to do, the two most important things it came down to were synthesis and evaluation.  When a student is able to work with others in their class, they can together further their learning process.  If they are able to complete a task together with a combined effort, all involved can benefit - not only in their grades, but in how they can also further develop their cognitive skills.

In Bloom's taxonomy of the Cognitive domain, one of the two most important things for a student to be able to do is evaluate.  Technology today can be one of the most beneficial resources available to students.  Different programs allow them to work with classmates to bring together all of their elements of their projects.  Putting the pieces together with ease and seeing how everything fits together can simply show a student the ways in which a puzzle of a project can come together.  "Students writing collaboratively provide feedback on each others writing using Common Space, a communication and feedback software. Because the students' comments appear in separate columns set up for each writer, this software facilitates collaborative writing by bringing together feedback from each group member onto one draft, without losing track of the source of each response" ("Commonly Asked Questions about Teaching Collaborative Activities").  With programs like this available, students can critique their groupmates work, and get constructive feedback on their own, allowing their work to improve as a whole, and allow them to understand what to avoid the next time around.

Response 1 - Tech: Past, Present, Future

Computers have been a part of my life since childhood.  They were woven into my life from an early age, and I grew up using them in conjunction with my world, where as most children learned them as a separate aspect entirely.  My mother was a computer programmer for PGE and had often been charged with the task of breaking down complex firewalls.  I don't actually remember a time that there wasn't a computer available to me.  In early primary school, while everyone else was working with learning the keyboards on a typing game, I had already completed all of the levels, and was happily playing with Kid Pix.  It was just expected in my home that I was able to type quickly and accurately.  By middle school, I was helping to reset programming on the schools system, and in high school, I spent my required computer classes checking email after completing tasks in fifteen minutes that should have taken all of the period.

When I begin teaching, I would like to not only integrate technology into my classroom full of beginning primary student's classroom, but make it a seamless part of their days.  To do this, I will most likely use smartboards (or whatever the equivalent to them at the time is) to get students involved in the classwork.  Allowing them to work with their hands creatively and collaboratively will make the information not only more interesting to them, but will give them to opportunity to learn it at their own level and rate.

The most daunting task that faces teachers in the future filled with technologically based classrooms will be keeping students on task.  They may find the assignments unappealing, and with direct access to other applications, they may find themselves off task, and behind on projects.  Even more so then staying on task though, will be staying up to date with current technological resources.  With so many things becoming accessible in the technological world, things become outdated frequently, and teachers need to stay current on what is available to them.

Avatars and Education?

Avatars can be entertaining in giving a greeting, or sending a quick message to a friend.  But could they really be useful in a classroom setting?  In school, students are expected to absorb information at such a rapid rate, the Avatar is extremely useful in emphasizing key points.  A student may record their own voice and use it as a learning tool to repeat back to them what they have already learned.  In over crowded schools (like most today) a busy educator may prerecord short sections of a lesson with an Avatar, and play it during class, allowing them to work one on one with students who need more guidance.  The Avatar, while seemingly basic, can introduce key concepts to students, and expedite learning the learning process in the classroom.