Technology in the Classroom

As technology advances, it is difficult to keep up to the advancements in both our personal and professional lives. Teachers have an especially important role to play in technological advancements, as incorporating technology in the classroom can be both a learning tool for students and a teaching tool for the teacher. Kids seem to be adapting to the advancements in technology better than many adults, and they actually embrace it. For this reason, incorporating technology in the classroom is a great way to increase a child’s interest in learning.
My experience of the Technology course have been an amazing one, I’ve learned so much. There were so many useful applications that I was introduced to and am extremely appreciative to Michelle because she actually made my life easier. I love Google Docs and will introduce this application to students as a word processing, PowerPoint or spreadsheet option regardless of the class I happen to teach. Social bookmaking is another great educational and personal tool. Social bookmarking can help students to find ways to search for information other than through Google. Students who use social bookmarking will also be less likely to lose links that they have found important. If social bookmarking is used in the classroom, students and teachers can move from one computer to another and still have full access to their bookmarks. Students and teachers would less likely forget the location of the sites they have used. Students will be able to share their bookmarks with their classmates. Both students and teachers can also share collections of bookmarks they have found to be worthwhile. Social bookmarking can also help students to quickly find links to important current events and historical events or as a matter of fact any topic of interest. I love my Diigo Page and use it both personally and academically ever since it was introduced to me. The Video project was yet another great experience for me in my technology class. I now edit all of my home videos which look professional.
The Interactive Smartboard is a one of the best technological advances that I’ve seen in a while and I do embrace the idea of having one in my classroom someday. It brings the information alive to the students, each lesson can become an interactive one and it can help students to be very motivated to learn. The smartboard is very useful to demonstrate and teach any subject. Although I was faced with a few challenges while creating my own Smartboard lesson; I was at ease because I now know that there are thousands of lesson plans online that can be downloaded if problems arise. Which brings me to another point of having technology in the classroom, there are so many free resources that teachers can use, whether it be lesson plans that they need, videos, maps, puzzles or educational games, the list goes on and on. There is a plethora of free information available in the palm of our hands that are readily available.
Incorporating that technology in the classroom and daily lesson plans can be a challenge for many teachers, as they must choose the most efficient way of delivering a lesson and the assignments that reinforce it while staying on target. However, I think that once teachers incorporate technology in the classroom, it would benefit their students by engaging them in ways the students are familiar and actually enjoy, which will as a result make teachers jobs easier.

Technology article presentation

In the past week my fellow classmates and I had to select a journal article and present it any way we chose electronically. There were so many different types of presentations that were unique and informative in their own way (YouTube Videos, Song, Gloster Posters, Prezi Poster, and PowerPoint presentation) . It was such an interesting and fun opportunity given by the professor to enable us to relate our newfound knowledge any which way we chose. After viewing / listening to class presentations, I could tell that everyone enjoyed the freedom they had to present their views- because it projected in their voices / work. The entire class did a fantastic job and I learned a lot.
I thought that Paula‘s, Ryan‘s, Mandy’s, Judy’s and Dave’s YouTube videos were great, and I could tell they put a lot of time and effort into posting a flawless final production. They were all very informative and some funny while educational. Paula’s voice blog on the article about Oral Communication course- on using voice blog as addon activity for oral practice, to improve listening and speaking skills for foreign language teachers was interesting. Mandy’s production on ESL and Technology was great and very educational. It is true that teachers who use computers to facilitate learning will become learners themselves; and technology is the key for preparing English language learns for the 21st century. Ryan did a good job for the article on the Internet opening up new opportunities for socializing. It is interesting that 30% of students reported being involved directly with bullying, 13% perpetrators, 11% victims and the rest both. I do agree that it certainly is very important to educate students and parents about cyber bullying. Judy and Dave’s videos were very funny and informative.
Sarah used Prezi and created a poster about skype and how it is an effective way for teachers to update their teaching techniques and improve their technology literacy at their own pace, building confidence and skills. I didn’t know that skype can be used to provide a variety of authentic learning experiences to students who speak a second language. I think the prezi presentation was very interesting, it is very similar to Glogster posters although it was a bit difficult to navigate.
The Glogster posters created by Mike, Sarah, and Julie G and Ashley were stimulating. Josh’s MP3 was very original and catchy yet educational.
I have a class of very talented creative individuals who I am very proud to be a part of I learned so much !
GREAT JOB EVERYONE!!!


http://www.cesa8.k12.wi.us/teares/math/it/samplePort/ANN%20K/index.htm - good easy to navigate

Smartboard

The Smartboard is a wonderful tool for the classroom. It is essentially a large, touch-sensitive screen. The board is connected, via a standard USB plug, to a computer and a digital projector, which displays the computer's screen image onto the whiteboard. Work done on the board can be saved on the computer and emailed later if the need be.
I like the idea of the smartboard in the classroom. It brings the information alive to the students, each lesson can become an interactive one and it can help students to be very motivated to learn. The smartboard is very useful to demonstrate and teach any subject. The teachers can go to websites that have great interactive materials, they can annotate and highlight text that students can see from the back of the room, they can shape paragraphs to show main ideas, cause-and-effect, students can see writing in bright colors, move pieces of puzzles, play Jeopardy with review questions, write with digital ink and so many other things. The interactive white board is a excellent tool to enhance teaching and can be so much more interesting and make learning cool beyond words.
Although the Smartboard is amazing, I noticed a few disadvantages while lessons were being taught. It was a bit time consuming when students went up to the board to participate; I noticed while some students were walking up to the smartboard, other students were having their own conversations which was a little distracting. While practicing my own lesson, I noticed that the interactive white board was not so easy to touch and is not as "smart" (I guess it would take a little getting used to). The smartboard is very expensive, as a result, it would be difficult to have in every classroom.
My overall impression of the Smartboard is definitely a positive one and I would embrace the idea of having one in my classroom someday.

Anti Smoking PSA Medium

Video Project

My video project experience was unforgettable. Although there were technical difficulties before the project started, the end result was quite rewarding. I would like to thank my teammates Mike and Dave for being the best partners anyone can have; and Michele for providing us with the opportunity to work on a project like this. We had an amazing time from beginning to end. It all started in class where we had a few ideas that weren’t accepted because they were not really social issues. Then we put our heads together and came up with Anti-Smoking. Shortly thereafter we planned out the storyline, scenes and got statistics using google docs. A few days later we shot about 7 minutes of video, edited and added sound. The finished project looks and sounds so professional with a powerful message.
I enjoyed creating video in the classroom and I can see how much pride a student could feel over developing a video project. I don’t know many students who don’t enjoy seeing themselves on camera and hearing their own voices. Even students who normally don’t like to express themselves (like me) in front of other people would enjoy the projects.
I’ve seen videos that tend to be more about social issues, but I could see students in a science class for example using them to talk more about environmental issues. There could be a lesson where students learn about the environment and how changes in the environment, whether by humans or other organisms, can drastically alter the ecosystems as a whole. I can imagine students creating a video about a particular ecosystem showing the different organisms living within it and how humans have affected it, or how humans can help restore the ecosystem to its original state.

Week 6: Copyright

I personally feel that some of the copyright laws are a little ridiculous. For example, if I want to make a copy of a CD I bought onto a recordable CD I bought and give it to a friend, that is a violation of copyright law. If I decide to upload the contents of that CD I bought to the Internet onto a web server I paid for and make it freely available to anyone who wishes to download it, that is also in violation of copyright law. Showing a copyrighted video / movie in the classroom is also a violation of the copyright law. We all copy and distribute information that is copyrighted without permission whether it is via email or handing out relevant information in classrooms to enhance knowledge; those are copyright infringement and are technically violations unless permission was granted by the author / creator. With technology today, there are so many ways in which people actually download music, movies, software etc. for free whether they are aware of copyright infringement laws or not. I was in class the other day and when the professor distributed handouts, I chuckled and couldn’t help but think that she was stealing someone else’s information.
I know that copyright is to help promote arts and science and help people create their own ideas- but it all boils down to making the dollars and cents. There is a gray area of what is allowed and not allowed to be copied. As an educator, I don’t that I would be teach copyright laws because it is too complex and there is much information on the legal side. However, I think I would have a lawyer come in to educate my students- after all they need to know the rights of copyright.

There were some interesting statistical analysis in chapter 7 of Educause. It is no surprise that there is a trend among college students who own (93.4%) some kind of technology and have access to technology. Females tend to own cell phones (84.7%) than males (7.7%). It was fascinating that the Net Generation students actually had mixed feelings about the use of technology in teaching and learning in the classroom. I think that technology in the classroom depends on the individual’s needs and personal experience. Some students may like just taking classes online, while others prefer going to class and having face to face interaction with peers and teachers; and then there are those students would rather have both interaction and technology. I personally prefer going to class and having face to face interaction along with using technology as a tool for better understanding. Since I’ve been out of school for over 10 years, everything is new and exciting to me. I love the fact that we can incorporate technology in every facet of life including language.
If I were giving a similar survey, I would ask the following questions:
Would you like technology to be incorporated in every subject area of the classroom?
What subject would benefit you most if you were to use technology?
How do you benefit from the use of technology in the classroom?
On a scale of one to five, with one being the least important and five being the most important, how would you rate teachers who use technology in the classroom?
Teachers who use technology all the time -
Teachers who use technology periodically-
Teachers who do not use technology at all-

Week 4: Excel in the Classroom

Excel spreadsheets have such a wide variety of uses in the classroom, from a math graph, to a science weather log, to a social studies timeline. Five ways Excel could be incorporated into that classroom are:

1: Students can use Excel to explore order of operations and the effect of parentheses. They can input a mathematical expression, and alter it with parentheses to see how many different answers can be generated. Students can begin by entering an expression into the cell. They can then copy and paste that expression into the cell below. Then they can modify the expression in the formular bar by adding or removing parentheses. Students can later see how many different results they get from the original expression.

2: Students can gather information from their homes as to the number of pieces of technology their family owns - for example telephones, televisions, computers, etc. They can then plot this information into an Excel spreadsheet.

3: Students can use collected data to distinguish what pets they have or would like to have. They can correlate findings with Excel. At the end of the lesson they can tabulate a bar chart and present their findings to the class.

4: Students, working in pairs, can gather information about the cars in their teachers' parking lot. They can determine the total number of cars and the number of each different make/model of car. The students can then use this data to create a graph on Excel.

5: Students cab create a timeline of President Obama's life on Microsoft Excel. In this history lesson, students can research President Obama's life and sequence the important events of his life on a timeline. Students can use Microsoft Excel to create a spreadsheet of information.