Exist Slip Week 5

This week I took away from the class the teaching strategy of tell the students, tell them again, and tell them once more.  This is an effective way to teach because it helps the students stay on task and help them remember the big ideas.  I gained a new excitment about using smartboards after viewing the math lesson.  It was really a great way for the kids to get involved and gives them a different approach of learning.

RSS

This chapter got me thinking about the difference between RSS and Social Bookmarking.  I’m not totally familiar with what RSS is and how it works, but my impression was that it was the same as social bookmarking.  The only slight difference I noticed was that it would warn you of when the site updated.  From this perspective, I thought that maybe it was more of a site that you put current event articles on because those continuously are changing.  If this is the case, it would be a great way to keep up on current events, which is particularly important in education.  It would be a lot easier and faster to have all the newspaper articles and other sites that I like all in one place to be able to read.  With this said, I also feel, in a way, that it only adds more information to keep track.  Since the sites are all at one place, one could keep track of more sites, adding more reading.  This is overwhelming because there is so much out there already the way it is that I feel like I could spend my whole life reading and still not even be close to keeping up with everything there is to know.   

                As a future teacher, I think it will be important to incorporate RSS or social bookmarking into class because that is how kids will find the majority of the information they need.  By adding sites that they know are reliable to their RSS they won’t have to worry as much about the reliability of the articles.  This would also be a good resource for students to learn about because they have to learn which information is most beneficial to them.   As technology is paving the way for digital reading, kids will have to learn how to skim through information to determine which articles aren’t valid and which ones are worth taking the time to read through more thoroughly.  Another idea that I think would be very beneficial for the students is to have them put our class website or blog onto their RSS.  This way they will know immediately of when there is a new assignment or class project due.  It would also be a good way to interact with the students.  Each student could take turns posting something we didn’t know about them or something new each day so we can relate to and become friendlier with one another.  This would be great for me as a teacher too because then I can know how the students are feeling and understand their thinking process at a deeper level. 

Wikis

This chapter on wikis made me aware of different resources available and how it relates to others.  With a new understanding of what blogs are like from the previous chapter, I got a little confused on what the difference was between the two.  Blogs are more so used for stating feelings, reflections, and allows interactive between people.  Wikis try to avoid people’s reflections and biases and have more content information.   With such an easy way of obtaining information that students use for research, I am a little weary of whether the students realize how the information gets on wiki and its validity.  I felt more assured though when the book stated that everyone is smarter than anyone alone and I do believe that together people can achieve more.  I would, however, suggest to students to just use wiki as a starting point for their research and make sure they back it up with more educated knowledge.  By allowing students to use wiki in school, it allows them to take on more responsibility when editing their page or other pages and gives them more pride and motivation to make sure their information is accurate.   

I learned that wikis could be very beneficial in the classroom setting.  They can be used for an array of different tasks, but the one I thought could be the most useful was performing activities, like we are in this technology course.  Students could each be assigned a different chapter in science, for example, and post a summary along with any other resources they may have found that could be useful.  Once all the chapters are compiled, they can use them for reviewing for test and future references.  In doing this activity, I think that the students will learn more because they really have to delve into a topic and will learn it in depth because of the extra research and having to explain it to the class.  The other task that I thought was interesting was having students become interactive on the site and post information they learned.  They can experience what it is truly like to publish something on the web and watch to see if their post gets edited or not.  This could also be a great way to check the validity of the Wikipedia.

The Technology Skeptics' Argument

This chapter really got me thinking outside the box when thinking about how the educational system may change over the next couple of years.  As technology continues to develop, it may be possible, as mentioned throughout a couple of chapters, that computers will be able to provide feedback, assessment, and curriculum to children.   Teachers won’t be needed anymore to actually teach students information.  Expanding on this idea is that in the past, kids sat the whole day at school and when they went home played outside, nowadays, they go to school and when they get home just sit on the computer some more.  A far stretched idea, is that what if when they went home, they learned information that would have been taught in school and when they go to school teachers make sure that kids are kids and organize playful activities that gets them exercising and socializing.  We would be able to implement healthy lifestyles that they will need to continue for the rest of their lives.  I know this is a way out there idea, but if schools can’t accept technological advances then this could be a possible solution. 

There are good reasons, though, that make it difficult for schools and teachers to allow technological advancements in education.  One reason that would affect me as a teacher the most would be keeping authority and classroom management.  If we are going to sit kids in front of computers all day and listen to whatever it says, why would they even care about listening to me?  It’s not so much this, which makes me feel reluctant to bring technology full swing into a classroom, but also because my passion for teaching would diminish.  All of my creative, fun activities that one day I hope to bring to students won’t be needed.  I would rather be attending college for a different profession if I’m just going to be computer monitor all day.  This chapter also mentions that students need to have the teacher there because computers can’t provide encouragement, motivation, or other forms of communication.  At first I thought that by the time I become a teacher, computers will be able to do this, but then I also thought that how much would this really mean to have a simulation tell you that you did a good job?  As a future teacher I will still create lessons that I can become involved and interact with the students.  Teachers need to get to know each individual so that they can understand their learning style and so that they feel comfortable expressing their ideas in class.  I want to have them discuss solutions to problems and work together with or without the use of technology.

Exist Slip Week 4

I'm so grateful for the site with interactive whiteboard activities on it.  This will be very useful in the future for not only finding lessons, but also for supplementing me with great ideas to incorporate technology and other fun activities for the students.  I was again reminded this week about how I need to become more professional in my language.  I was also reminded about becoming more concise of ways to involve students in the classroom, such as wait time.

Rethinking Ch2

From reading chapter 2, one of the biggest concepts I came away with was stated in this quote, “Enthusiasts argue that trying to prepare students for the 21^st century with 19^th-century technology is like teaching people to fly a rocket ship by having them ride bicycles.”  Although I still have many uncertainties about integrating technology into the educational system, we need to keep in mind that we are going through the Knowledge Revolution and life will be different for students in the future.  With this said, I contemplate what material should be taught in schools.  I said before that I think as educators, we need to teach students different skills that can enhance their creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving, so that they can adapt to new technologies and way of life in the future.  The book calls this just-in-time learning and I think this will be crucial.  If we teach students facts that they won’t need to know for everyday life they aren’t going to remember it and they will get into the tendency to just look information up online when they may need.  This could also free up space to teach more about technology in the classrooms.  There would be many benefits to including this during or for lessons because it would engage the students more, allows everyone to interact, provides feedback and scaffolding.  I think it would be great if students could get constructive feedback and scaffolding because the teacher can’t help every single student at once.  If this would become an efficient way of providing different teaching styles to students and accurately assess them, I begin to wonder if there will even be a need for teaching in the future.  All parents would have to do is set their child in front of a computer and let them learn.

                As a future teacher, I don’t think setting students in front of a screen is the way for them to learn.  They miss out on so many other social and hands-on interactions.  I think that we should avoid having students memorize facts and implement technology more, but it should be done in a correct manner.  How great would it be if we allowed students to complete community service projects through the use of technology to better their surrounding environment, such as planning and constructing bike paths, as the book stated?  This would insure they are still using advanced learning, but at the same time allowing them to develop a healthy relationship with community members and friends.  Going back to the idea of teaching traditional subjects or not, I feel that along with completing engaging projects with technology, students still need to be taught proper writing techniques and reading.  If we are going to blogging and etc. all the time, we need to ensure that students can express their ideas in way that others can understand.  It will be important to use a little bit of both the traditional and advanced approaches to teaching.

What is Technology

1.  Technology is any electronic device that can create a shortcut or make it easier to accomplish a task.

2.  Technology integration is when someone uses any of these devices in accordance with another purpose in mind.  For example, a teacher is completing a history lesson, but to make it more worthwhile, she uses sites from the internet to help the students relate with how ancient people may have felt during that time period.

Exist Slip Week 3

Today's class made me look at different perspectives or ways of teaching.  Not only did we as a class interact in a new way, but we also discussed various ways of what learning could and should be like.  Mainly, how much technology should be involved.  It made me look at both sides of things and helped me to realize that we do need to embrace it somewhat.  Class today also reminded me that now is the real deal and that I definitely need to start thinking like a teacher.  It still seems so far away when I will be teaching my own classroom, but I need to start talking how a teacher would now so by then it will just be natural.

Growing Up Online

This video made me feel even more indifferent about the role technology plays in the lives of young learners.  I still think that even though I may not agree with using so much technology, it is still a topic that needs to be taught in schools.  We need to teach students how to be safe and smart ways of communicating online.  The earlier we inform kids of this and the dangers online the better they will be at knowing what to avoid in the future.  It would also be important, especially at a young age, to try and involve the parents with any online activity that their child is participating in.  I feel that if we can accomplish this, students maybe somewhat more willing to let their parents know about their internet usage in the future.  If we can create a safe environment for kids, the internet is a great place for them to explore their world and life.  On the video, it mentions how many students use the internet to test different identities they may like to have for themselves.  This is a great opportunity, if we knew that everyone would respect their values and somehow we control who could access it.  This goes for the same topic about how many students post information on the internet because it is always there and someone out there feels the same way or is listening.  It would be a great way to help a student’s emotional wellbeing if only we had a little more control.  

As a future teacher, I will integrate technology in my classroom, but I’m still indifferent to what extent I will do so.  There are many pros, some of which are stated above, but there are also many cons, such as safety.  Part of me agrees with the English teacher in the video, who stated that she tends to avoid using technology.  She mentions how students have a hard time concentrating in class because their minds are so use to going at hundred miles per hour.  It is a shame that students can’t just sit down and discuss problems in class or read a book.  How are they supposed to learn and make connections if students continually just read spark notes?  I also feel that kids aren’t being kids anymore and aren’t living their lives.  I think that kids can learn a lot by going outside and experiencing the world around them, instead of sitting in front of a computer screen almost 24/7. Another negative effect I think will happen in schools is that students are going to struggle even more than before because their expectations are so different for each class.  Some teachers embrace the new technology and others don’t so how are students going to adjust from one way of teaching to the other.  In either case, teachers are going to have to sway a student’s attention from their personal lives in order to teach.  I like how one teacher in the video stated that teachers aren’t educators anymore, but entertainers.   We will be spending more time thinking of creativity and attention grabbing techniques to teach, instead of focusing on the quality of the content or how students learn best.

Weblogs

This reading impacts my thinking about technology’s role in teaching and learning because it made me aware of all the different avenues weblogs alone could provide.  They would not only be great for allowing students to analyze and write about certain topics, it would also be an effective way to help them and their parents know what we did in class or upcoming events.  It keeps everyone on the same page, while removing the hassle of printing off so much paper.  Weblog’s goal of interacting with others is a new approach to teaching in itself. Our education system and society has a very individualistic approach, but the way in which we are using weblogs is the most beneficial when we work together and communicate our ideas.  To me it seems like we are slowly moving towards a more community environment where we can work together to further advance our knowledge and accomplish more tasks than we could by ourselves.  I also feel that by having others play a part in sharing their thoughts about topics that a student may have wrote about gives them an additional source of motivation to continue their homework.  They will take pride in having their own webpage that they are the creators of and when someone gives them a positive response to it, they will want to continue blogging.  It is great that kids can keep in touch with others and stay on top of current events happening by talking about or viewing links they can interact with.  Kids will use technology regardless if they learn it in school or not so it is up to the adults to teach them safe and beneficial ways of using it. 

                As a future teacher, I need to embrace new changes in technology and not just learn how to use it, but to continue to do so all the time.  Students need a role model when learning the technology because if I don’t feel it is necessary to continually update my blog then they are also going to share the same feelings of worthlessness towards it.  It will also be essential to always keep in mind what I want to accomplish as a teacher.  Just because there are new ways of teaching doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all beneficial and I have to decipher what tasks I feel will most help the students.  One activity with blogs that I anticipate the most is being able to communicate with different people.  In the reading, there was an example of how they invited the author of a book they were reading to join in on their responses.  I think this would be an awesome way to learn and it would get the students more excited.  I think it would be a great experience to integrate weblogs into a history class, for example, by communicating with a fellow student in another country and compare it to their own lives.

Website Reliability

To help students determine which sites are credible, there are numerous steps they should take. The first step involves checking the authority of the site. They look at who the author or organization of the site is and check what the site ends in such as .com, .org, and etc. By checking this, students should be able to determine right off the bat that the website about explorers is invalid because it was created by teachers to inform kids that not all websites are reliable. The second step would be to check the technical and visual aspects of the site. This step involves students looking at the format of the page and determining if it is well organized, the pictures are meaningful, or if spelling and grammar are correct. This was evident on the websites about dihydrogen monoxide and the tree octopus. The dihydrogen monoxide page was unreliable because it wasn’t very organized and cluttered, along with other factors. One reason the website about the tree octopus wasn’t credible was because it contained fake pictures of stuffed animals. The third step would be to check the content of the site. During this process the students should check if the content is factual, if the content is up-to-date, or if the information is useful towards the site’s purpose. The website about Martin Luther King portrayed this because the links weren’t about what they stated and gave very bias, false information. To help the students remember so many steps and ways to determine the quality of a website, I would give them a check off sheet to follow that they could use throughout the year. This way, they can refer to it until they begin remembering various techniques of their own and hopefully can learn how by the end of the year.

Technology in Schools

This reading impacts my thinking about technology’s role in teaching and learning in many ways. First of all, it makes me contemplate what the most effective way to teach children is and the content that we are teaching them. Since we are in the Knowledge Revolution, part of me feels that we should completely change our way of teaching. I feel that technology is changing so fast that by the time we would teach students how to use any form of technology, it would already be outdated and they would have to learn to use a different version. In order to help students adjust to so many changes, I think that as educators, we should spend more time helping kids learn problem solving skills, creativity, and more general area concepts. In doing so, students can think their way through any challenges about future technologies or jobs that we don’t even know about yet. I also feel that we should deviate from making students memorize facts when they can just look information up online. We should integrate technology into the classroom and begin to teach students more about how to find reliable information, repair computer problems, and various ways of communication. The book also mentions how homeschooling and earning degrees online is becoming more popular. I don’t agree with this and feel that we should keep the traditional classroom setting for young students. There are so many advantages to schools that children need to have, such as learning socialization skills and other values like leadership. Another reason I feel that it is important to maintain the traditional school structure is because what if students or families can’t afford the technology to educate themselves. Schools, however, have this same dilemma and many would have a hard time purchasing and updating all the technology.

In the future, I think it will be essential to integrate technology with the basic subjects. Schools can’t ignore teaching technology to students because it is involved in almost every aspect of life. To teach students such skills, I will teach the basic subjects and work in mini lessons to make sure they learn as much as they can. Not only will their homework involve using computers, but during my lessons I can also work in the Smart board or other online sources. I feel this is how I will incorporate technology because I feel that there simply isn’t enough time to teach kids everything that is being stressed these days, such as healthy lifestyle habits, social skills, emotional well being and many more. By working technology into the lessons, the students will be able to learn more on a continual basis throughout the whole year. As a teacher, this will also require some extra work on my behalf. To keep up-to-date with modern technology, I will most likely attend workshops or look up additional information to keep up with the latest improvements.

Exist Slip Week 2

In today's class I had a lot of questions clarified for me.  I feel more comfortable now with the calendar added to our syllabus and knowing exactly what is due for next week.  I also think the idea of exist slips are handy.  I learned about them in previous classes and think that in the future they could be effective in helping students recall learned information and understanding the big ideas.  Delicious, on the other hand, was a totally new concept to me.  I think that it will be very useful, not only for collaborating with co-workers in the future, but especially since I'm gathering so much information now.

Digital Autobiography

1. This course task was a new experience for me because I have never used or heard of any of those programs before. With that said, it took me awhile to learn how Vuvox worked such as how to edit the pictures, text, and music. Once I got the gist of how all the features worked, it was more fun to experiment and play around with.


2. I think that by completing this lesson, I gained a greater understanding, in general, how to download pictures and music. I usually don’t spend a lot of time on computers and never was certain on how that was done. I learned more than just how to put together a slideshow of pictures and any little activity can help others develop greater technology awareness. I also think it was valuable because one day I may use this or something similar to it in my classroom.

3. This course task will impact my future teaching because I am more aware of other programs on the web, if I ever wanted to put together some type of collage. A couple of ideas of how I could integrate this into school is that I could put up pictures of field trips, recognize good work and post their completed homework, or for the same reason we were assigned it; to get to know everyone.

Link:  http://www.vuvox.com/collage/detail/02cca2bfd0