Over the past 10 weeks I have learned so much about how to integrate technology into my future classroom. I think that the main point I got out of this class is that technology use in a classroom does take work for a teacher but in the long run it is truly beneficial to the students. Technology use in a classroom seems to engage the students and get them really excited to learn. After taking this class and learning of all the technological tools like glogster, photostory, voicethread, and quizlet I feel it will be my duty to share this information with other teachers when I am working as a teacher in a school system.
Before taking this class I didn't realize how important integrating technology into the classroom really is. Technology use in the classroom is essential because it's all students know these days. Children would thrive if they were able to use technology in their classrooms because they'd be stimulated to learn.
Another huge benefit to technology in the classroom is a way of communication between teacher and parents. Podcasts and blogs are a great way for teachers to post info on what it is students are doing in the calssroom so parents feel in the loop on their children's education. With a blog parents are allowed to comment and this allows for a back and forth conversation to occur between teacher and parent.
I'm so glad I got the opportunity to take this class and to learn about all the technological tools that I had no idea existed!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Lit Review 2: The Interactive White Board
I just read an article called Interactive Whiteboards: Creating Higher-level, Technological Thinkers written by Jan Lacina and published in the Childhood Education Journal in the summer of 2009. This article discussed how to properly use interactive whiteboards. The article started off with a short vignette about a teacher in Texas who had an IWB but was not being used, instead she continued to use the overhead projector. She explained that this was the case because her classroom computer was not compatible with her IWB. This may be the issue or it may be because she does not know how to properly integrate the IWB into her lessons.
A major issue of using technology such as the IWB as stated in this article is that most teachers don't have the training that is needed to use these tools in the classroom. Jan stated in this article that school districts are realizing that teacher's need professional development on how to use technology like the IWB. There are youtube videos and blogs that were created to help teacher's understand how to use technology to make the classroom student-centered rather than teacher-centered.
Some of the benefits of IWB's that they listed in this article are: it is engaging, it meets the needs of visual learners, and it uses a variety of multimedia such as video, pictures, diagrams, and websites. Some of the drawbacks of IWB's listed in this article include: the cost of the IWB's is very expensive, the IWB requires a LCD projector, compatible computer, new software, and you need technological support. I feel that the benefits would out way the drawbacks if the teacher uses the IWB correctly.
Jan discussed how she observed many classrooms such as the ESL (English as a Second Language) rooms use the IWB for whole-class lessons. One class used the IWB to have student's correct sentences and she observed that the student's really seemed engaged in the activity and seemed to really enjoy using the IWB. She did however mention that the classrooms she observed had small class sizes so the wait time between students interacting with the IWB was minimal. I believe that if the wait time was longer the student's would not be as engaged in using the IWB. Student's want to be interacting and participating all the time during class instruction and with a large class size the interaction with the IWB would be lessened.
This article gave the pro's and con's of IWB's. After reading this article I feel that the IWB could be very beneficial if the teacher has the right training on it and uses it in a small class size setting.
You can read this article as well! Here is the link: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1705200601&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=49311&RQT=309&VName=PQD
Friday, May 13, 2011
Class Websites
I just watched a great K12 Online Conference video by the presenter Cyndi Danner-Kuhn. It was all about the importance of teachers making class websites. Cyndi gave many benefits of a teacher class website. One plus of a teacher webs page is that it can help gain teaching time. Class websites can also be a great resource for students and their families. By having a class website the communication channel between teachers and parents is opened. If a child is out sick a class website with all the assignments posted can keep the students caught up on their school work.
Cyndi mentioned a few website creation sites you can use to create a class website. These include sites like wix.com. Google, or kompozer.net. Cyndi said that the site needs to be user friendly and everything on it needs to be easily located. She also said that a menu should be found on each page of your website.
Cyndi showed examples of various teachers class websites. Many of these teachers used the sites to post newsletters, blogs, week by week assignments and lessons, students work, students projects, class rules, grading policies, and homework. Cyndi made it very clear that all teachers can and should create class websites because they are easy, cheap, and very beneficial.
I believe strongly in class websites and that they can really help students and also keep parents in the loop as to what their child is doing in school. I want to someday use a website in my class to keep in contact with my students families and to show them the various projects and assignments that the students are partaking in.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A Digital Nation
I just finished watching a Frontline special on PBS entitled Digital Nation. It really got me thinking about if technology is a good thing or bad thing for today's society.
One of the first things that really caught my attention was when an older woman said she went on her honeymoon years ago for 2 weeks and had no connection to the outside world. She said that does not happen now a days because people are so connected by technology. What a true statement. People always have some type of phone or internet source with them at all times to stay connected even on vacations, which once were a time to "get away". This was a great transition into talking about schools and how they deal with student's desire and need to multi-task using technology. There was a study conducted in this video and the results showed that students who multitasked and did a few assignments at one time were slower at getting those accomplished than those who did one assignment consecutively. I think that student's multitasking is just going to get worse with the more technology that will become available. Although I believe that the school from the Bronx is trying to engage their students with the use of laptops you could see from the Assistant Principal's interview that the students spent quite a bit of time misusing them by going on websites they shouldn't or taking pictures of themselves.
The one thing that surprised me the most about this video was when the Korean student whose mother felt was addicted to video games and his grades dropped significantly as a result of the gaming had to go to a rehab program for 2 weeks. I was shocked that they even had such programs for people addicted to the computer and computer gaming.
I think the lady from MIT said it best when she said "Technology isn't good or bad, it's powerful." When I finished watching this video I came away from it pondering whether technology still should be incorporated into the classroom? I think there's a lot great educational technological tools that could be utilized effectively in a classroom but as a teacher you need to find those tools that won't overshadow the child's learning goals.
Here is a link to the Digital Nation video if you care to check it out! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/#roundtable
One of the first things that really caught my attention was when an older woman said she went on her honeymoon years ago for 2 weeks and had no connection to the outside world. She said that does not happen now a days because people are so connected by technology. What a true statement. People always have some type of phone or internet source with them at all times to stay connected even on vacations, which once were a time to "get away". This was a great transition into talking about schools and how they deal with student's desire and need to multi-task using technology. There was a study conducted in this video and the results showed that students who multitasked and did a few assignments at one time were slower at getting those accomplished than those who did one assignment consecutively. I think that student's multitasking is just going to get worse with the more technology that will become available. Although I believe that the school from the Bronx is trying to engage their students with the use of laptops you could see from the Assistant Principal's interview that the students spent quite a bit of time misusing them by going on websites they shouldn't or taking pictures of themselves.
The one thing that surprised me the most about this video was when the Korean student whose mother felt was addicted to video games and his grades dropped significantly as a result of the gaming had to go to a rehab program for 2 weeks. I was shocked that they even had such programs for people addicted to the computer and computer gaming.
I think the lady from MIT said it best when she said "Technology isn't good or bad, it's powerful." When I finished watching this video I came away from it pondering whether technology still should be incorporated into the classroom? I think there's a lot great educational technological tools that could be utilized effectively in a classroom but as a teacher you need to find those tools that won't overshadow the child's learning goals.
Here is a link to the Digital Nation video if you care to check it out! http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/view/#roundtable
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Literature Review
The article I chose for my literature review was called How New Technologies Have (and Have Not) Changed Teaching and learning in Schools and it was from The Journal of Computing in Teacher Education. There were two authors and their names were Richard Halverson and Annette Smith. This document was written in 2010.
One of the first things they discussed in this article was how in K-12 schools, teachers and other members of the school community have reacted to technology in two ways: banning the disruptive technology and using the technology to reinforce existing practices. I see how teachers wouldn't want to encourage and allow students to text all the time on their phones or play around with their Ipods all class but since technology is very much a part of the students lives it should be embraced and tried to be utilized as a learning tool. If technology is just being used to reinforce existing practices then it's not being integrated into the curriculum properly. I personally believe that if you as a teacher are going to use technology it needs to be a more modernized approach to teaching, it can't just be a way to build off the old teaching methods like using a computer to show videos, using overhead projectors, etc which make the class teacher-centered instead of student-centered.
I found it very interesting when they discussed that the percentage of internet in public schools jumped from 35% in 1994 to 97% in 2000. That is incredible. In 6 years almost all public schools in the US got access to the internet. This shows the importance of technology and the internet in schools.
This article talks about how teachers are more focused on test preparation than ever before. This allows for little use of technology because the teachers feel pressured to drill information into the children to gain better test results than allowing them to use their creativity by using technological tools. I see how hard it must be for a teacher to integrate technology into the classroom when they have the pressures to get their students ready for big state tests.
It is amazing to me to read how many students are enrolled in Virtual Charter Schools. The enrollment has grown from 31,000 in 2004 to more than 100,000 in 18 states in 2007-2008. I have mixed feelings about schools that are all online. I think it's great that the students are using technology to better themselves and to gain more knowledge but I think cheating may arise and its hard for a teacher to pick up on that when you don't even know what a student looks like or acts like in real life.
I had never thought of fantasy sports being a learning tool before I read this article. Students can really benefit from playing these fantasy sports. When you play a fantasy sport you become the managers and are in control of the teams. The person playing the fantasy sport tests hypotheses and really get to know the players in order to determine who they will put on their roster. The fantasy sport player will collaborate with others in order to be successful. It's crazy to me to have heard about fantasy sports for a long time but never really have thought of how much learning can come out of such a fun experience.
I really enjoyed this article and learned many new things about technology in education. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is a link to the article so you may read it too! http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ907118.pdf
One of the first things they discussed in this article was how in K-12 schools, teachers and other members of the school community have reacted to technology in two ways: banning the disruptive technology and using the technology to reinforce existing practices. I see how teachers wouldn't want to encourage and allow students to text all the time on their phones or play around with their Ipods all class but since technology is very much a part of the students lives it should be embraced and tried to be utilized as a learning tool. If technology is just being used to reinforce existing practices then it's not being integrated into the curriculum properly. I personally believe that if you as a teacher are going to use technology it needs to be a more modernized approach to teaching, it can't just be a way to build off the old teaching methods like using a computer to show videos, using overhead projectors, etc which make the class teacher-centered instead of student-centered.
I found it very interesting when they discussed that the percentage of internet in public schools jumped from 35% in 1994 to 97% in 2000. That is incredible. In 6 years almost all public schools in the US got access to the internet. This shows the importance of technology and the internet in schools.
This article talks about how teachers are more focused on test preparation than ever before. This allows for little use of technology because the teachers feel pressured to drill information into the children to gain better test results than allowing them to use their creativity by using technological tools. I see how hard it must be for a teacher to integrate technology into the classroom when they have the pressures to get their students ready for big state tests.
It is amazing to me to read how many students are enrolled in Virtual Charter Schools. The enrollment has grown from 31,000 in 2004 to more than 100,000 in 18 states in 2007-2008. I have mixed feelings about schools that are all online. I think it's great that the students are using technology to better themselves and to gain more knowledge but I think cheating may arise and its hard for a teacher to pick up on that when you don't even know what a student looks like or acts like in real life.
I had never thought of fantasy sports being a learning tool before I read this article. Students can really benefit from playing these fantasy sports. When you play a fantasy sport you become the managers and are in control of the teams. The person playing the fantasy sport tests hypotheses and really get to know the players in order to determine who they will put on their roster. The fantasy sport player will collaborate with others in order to be successful. It's crazy to me to have heard about fantasy sports for a long time but never really have thought of how much learning can come out of such a fun experience.
I really enjoyed this article and learned many new things about technology in education. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is a link to the article so you may read it too! http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ907118.pdf
Thursday, April 14, 2011
All teachers must provide equal access to the digital world to all learners.
Personally I feel that we can provide the students with equal access to the digital world by writing grants, as someone mentioned in class last night. This would give the students the access to the digital world while they are in school but the question that I think arises is, how will you ensure that the student's will have access to the digital world when they are outside of school? You could just give the students homework that would not require the use of technology but I personally feel the purpose of homework is to reinforce what you learned at school so you'd want the students to be using technology at home to complete an assignment if they were using technology in the classroom. Whatever the technology is that the student is using at school and needs to bring home to complete homework maybe could be signed out so the students could then have access to the materials outside of school. I understand that the students could forget to bring the materials back to school or it could possible get broken at the student's home. Some students may have the technology they need to complete their assignments outside of school. Other's may go to a local library to use a computer if that is the technology they are in need of outside of the classroom. All library's are required to have internet access now a days.
This statement was really hard to give a definite yes or no answer to. I had to really think about how I would provide the digital world to all learners equally, which is no easy task.
This statement was really hard to give a definite yes or no answer to. I had to really think about how I would provide the digital world to all learners equally, which is no easy task.
K12OnlineConference
I recently attended the K12OnlineConference. I watched a video from the presenter Ollie Bray. This presentation was called "Using Computer Games as a Context for Learning and Social Interaction" and it was very interesting. Teachers in Scotland used the video game, Guitar Hero, to help ease the transition children go from primary into secondary school. Learning was disguised as a fun game but really they were learning lots, such as math, science, art, and more. The students at the primary school were creating projects about certain rock bands they created to go along with the Guitar Hero game. They were doing math problems to see how much money they would need to start up a band of their own. As a art project the kids created their own musical instruments. It was the video game that really got the students interested in music and ultimately learning. I think this is such a creative way of teaching. Students are learning skills they may really need some day if they choose to be in the musical field. By using a video game as a template for learning the children really got into their education.
The second stage of the project was to gather children from the primary school and secondary school and have the students play Guitar Hero all together. This helped the transition of moving schools for the primary education students. The primary education students got to interact and talk with the secondary students so they would have friendly faces and maybe even develop relationships before they moved up to this new school. I believe it is important for a student to be comfortable when going to a new school and this is a great way to develop that level of comfort for the primary education students.
I really think this is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom and to engage the students. I believe that the students would not have got as much out of this project if they weren't allowed to actually play the video game.
The second stage of the project was to gather children from the primary school and secondary school and have the students play Guitar Hero all together. This helped the transition of moving schools for the primary education students. The primary education students got to interact and talk with the secondary students so they would have friendly faces and maybe even develop relationships before they moved up to this new school. I believe it is important for a student to be comfortable when going to a new school and this is a great way to develop that level of comfort for the primary education students.
I really think this is a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom and to engage the students. I believe that the students would not have got as much out of this project if they weren't allowed to actually play the video game.
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