A Final Reflection

Having been apart of this class for the past four weeks, I have discovered that there are many new technologies that I have am unaware of. I thought that I was computer literate, but was wrong. There is too much new information developing each and everyday, to be up to date with all of it. This class has opened my eyes to some of these new technologies, and I hope to keep up with the new and developing technology.

Another piece of information that I have taken away from this class is just how important it is to incorporate technologies into the classroom for the students. Students are different then they were ten or twenty years ago. They thrive on technology and are better equip to use and develop the technology.


This class has overall been an awakening as to how technology can be used to better one's class and classroom. I am grateful that I have been exposed to these technologies, and hope to keep up with the new technologies as they come out.

Engrade

Exploring Engrade was fantastic! I found all the same features that a regular grade book would have plus extra features that could be very useful to any and all teachers. Being able to put the grades online would allow more people, such as the teacher, student, and student's parents. Having the grades for all to see would alleviate the questions that usually arouse towards the end of marking periods. The only real downside to this program, or having a grade book online would be for those who do not have access to computers. Granted the students would be able to see the grades at the school library and whatnot, but some parents would not necessarily have access to the computer.

An improvement that Engrade could work on would be making the access to the students grade easier for the parents. Being able to set up a parent account was an option, but one that I could not explore because I set up a different type of account. The possibility for this is present, and I will later go back to see how the parent accounts also work.

This software would be extremely helpful for teachers. Not having to ever buy another grade book, is a cost saving reason. Yet there are other reasons as well, such as the fact that the computer will average all the grades for each individual as well as the class. The software also makes referring to prior assignments very easy. This program seems like a major win! The teacher even has the choice to print out the grades, to have a paper copy or to post in the classroom.

Parents, teachers, and students would all like this software. All can see assignments and grades without having to wait till the end of the semester. They can also see what work was not handed in or what must be done over, before it is too late! This is the ultimate reason why this software would be detrimental to any classroom. Parents can also look at the missing work , and talk to their children directly. without having to use the teacher as a middle man.

Oh week 3

After reading about the different Instructional Systems Design Models, I like that most are some modification of the ADDIE model. The ADDIE model is rather straight forward, and easy to follow. It has also be modified in the past to be more flexible for different teachers, subjects, and students needs. Having them all follow the basic idea, is good though because it keeps the structure. Teachers should always somehow implement their creativity or "spin" into their lessons and class so by using ADDIE and their own creativity it is a win win situation for the students and teacher.

Class this week also took us to explore different technologies for different teaching styles:

Behavioral-
Those who learn best under a Behavioral teaching style, achieve more with a direct strategy of teaching. This type of style includes; mastery learning, and direct computer assisted instruction. Power points, cd-roms and webquests seem like they would be best for students under this strategy.

Information-Processing-
Those who learn best under an Information Processing aching style, are able to achieve more under an indirect teaching strategy. This strategy includes inquiry learning and synectics. For this strategy, Students who fall on this strategy, would benefit most from technologies such as twitter, web blogs, and wikis.


Social Interactive-
The social interactive learning style is an indirect strategy for teaching. This style includes cooperative learning, peer tutoring and project-based learning. Students under this learning style would benefit most from web chats, wikis, blogs, and just group work online.

Personal-
A personal learning style is non directive teaching. It also focuses on individualized instruction. This teaching style would incorporate several different styles, that the student would have found to be more helpful to them.


When looking at the different types of lesson plans in this class, two that come up are the MSMC lesson plan and the 5 E Model. The two are similar, yet the 5 E Model focuses on collaboration and constructivism. I also feel that the 5E Model focuses more on the students learning to work with others in more of a social atmosphere. If I were a principle, I would absolutely make sure that the 5E model was used in the school. I would also use lesson plans like that of MSMC, for those students that are not social learners.

Week 3 reflection

This week, has brought a compilation of new ideas and technologies to my attention. I have always liked the idea of a webquest, and having the chance to make one was great! Especially with the help of my group, because to be honest, i did not really know the subject or appropriate grade level that the content was to cover. The end product was fantastic, and I appreciate the chance to make a webquest, and can definitely see myself making more of these in the future.
Getting the entire group together was probably the hardest part of the week. Everyone has a different schedule, which makes group work so tricky. But between aim, and webex we were able to meet and get the projects done.
The lesson plan and toolkit were also projects that were due this week, and they were both also enriching, and again tricky because of the group aspect. But ultimately the entire group was able to get together and get the work done, so this was great!!

My own personal iGoogle

So as apart of this weeks assignment, we were instructed to create an iGoogle homepage. I had attempted this before with my old yahoo account, but was never able to really personalize it like I could with google. So my page looks like this...



I picked all the information that I found most important, and put it along the top of my page. The secondary important information was put in the next layer, and then I stopped. Only two layers were put on my page, because I didn't want it to become too busy. Overall I liked this, and thought that everyone could put their own spin on it by picking from a multitude of boarders for the homepage.

Oh the new Technology...

This week, came with three new web technologies to try out and use. Te sites were Twitter, Diigo, and del.icio.us.

Having used Twitter, for at least a year I really found nothing terribly new when watching the videos on other people getting the, started. Twitter is a super easy way to get short messages out to a large number of people. I use this as a social site, as opposed to using it for an educational purpose, but this site has lots of potential for use within the classroom. The only real downside, is that there is a limited number of letters that are allowed per tweet.

Diigo, is a site that I had never heard of before, but instantly fell in love with. One of the major problems with my computer is organization, and this seems to be my tool! With the ability to highlight, sticky note, and bookmark pages to a separate page that can be accessed from anywhere! It is almost too good to be true. This tools seems as though it was made for graduate students who do a lot of research, and even for an online course, it's like another way to organize all of the new information that comes my way!! I am very excited that I was introduced to this site!!

Del.icio.us, is a site that I looked at, and I watched the tutorial, but just took no interest in. It seems that del.icio.us is like Diigo, just that Diigo took it to another level. I think that this is why, I did not have a lot to say.

Creativity is not Forgotten!!!

Creativity and Innovation

This standard is one, that I was glad to see on the NETS-S!! A lot of the time, when it comes to standards and curriculum in schools, I feel that creativity is left out. So to see this as one of the first standards was refreshing. Creativity is ultimately the students taking something that they know or have learned, and putting their own personal spin on it. I wish that within many of my high school classes, and even many of my undergraduate classes had more of this. Instead they were plain and dry, with little creativity.

The other standards, are well explained which is great because that made them easier to understand and follow. The only standard that I would possibly not be completely ready for would be the one that deals with the technological operations and concepts. This is something that could be learned, but I currently do not have this information.

The shift from school/classroom 1.0 to 2.0 is great, in a simple phrase! With new technologies, this is a way for students to become more interested in their work. The new 2.0's allow for the students and teachers creativity to shine, as well as their intellects. The 2.0's are also very interactive, which allows for students to interact with other students, parent, and teachers. 2.0's are common use in today's world, so to allow students to use it for educational purposes is a great way to introduce them to it, especially at an early age.

Tides A Changing for Teachers

The "Net Generation" refers to the students who have grown up with computers. Because these students have grown up with computers and the access to the internet their whole lives, they have adapted differently to their environment then other people. The "Net Generation" is said to learn and process information differently then a student 10 years ago.


Having access to a computer with the internet is a great tool for the students of this generation. Research has been done to explain that these students are more likely to multi-task because of their multi-tasking that they experience on the computer. Students are able to find a vast amount of information, which only takes seconds to be delivered. This is not what our parents had, and because of this, the new generation is faced with teachers who are obsolete in their new ways.


Teachers, who have been teaching for many years are faced with some hard new changes. They, who have probably been teaching successfully for 10 to 15 years, are told that they must change to use this new technology that they themselves have never touched before. Teachers, especially those who have been around, are being told to teach themselves how to use computers efficiently so that they can then teach their students. This puts the teachers in a very hard position. The students probably know more about computers then most teachers, and many teachers are unwilling to learn these new methods, because theirs have been working so well in the past.


Personally, I think incorporating new technologies into a classroom is a great idea. I love learning about new downloads or ways to do things more efficiently. I have always has some kind of computer in my life, and although I really did not get to use them as much as others, I think that by playing around with the different software, one learns how to use it. Most new technologies are user friendly, which is nice when beginning, which is also a big help. Ultimately, I do not think that ones whole curriculum has to change for the technology. But incorporating projects or different types of technology (that students are more used to) in the classroom are a great way to form a bridge in learning with the students. This is ultimately the bottom line of teaching, and whatever helps this is a method that should be incorporated into the class.

New Wave Teaching Technology

After reading and watching the required material, new ideas and terms have been introduced, like
Computer literacy, information literacy, and integration literacy.....

...these terms seem complicated, but the underlying message that I captured from all of them was that this is a new type of research, the encompasses all of the research that was expected of us at one point or another, just with the primary use of the computer and internet. So as opposed to looking in many different areas of the library for primary and secondary sources, now with the use of the internet; newspaper articles, videos, books, and other sources can all be found in the same place.

The basic who what when and where are included within this research, and are encouraged as an outline for good research.

These new methods of literacy are the new 21st century literacy. 21st century literacy's include newspapers and magazines from the internet, as well as the books that can be reached from the computer. New technology is becoming known each and everyday. Literacy has reached a new height with the introduction of the new portable book viewers, like the nook and kindle. These new technologies allow collections of books to be read from it, as well as new books to be purchased and then read from it as well. With new technology like this, it's not even possible to think of what we might see in the next 10 or 20 years!!!

Tuesday June 1st

One thing that I can say the entire class learned, technology as great as it is, still has its kinks!

Hopefully the next online session will work better. I have realized, that technology needs patience, lots and lots of patients!

Week 1

This class started off running!!! First time we all met, was on an online video chat, where my webcam decided to not work...not at all! But the class video chat did well, and even though we could not see each other, we were able to all go over then requirements of the class, and went over the requirements of the class.

As apart of class, examining the different and new ideas and technologies this week was full of new. I set up a blog, which makes sense, because I am using it now. A wiki and personal website were also created, which is great but these two items i feel much weaker on. The wiki is especially new to me, and the use of which is still unclear.

The last piece of new information that was touched upon was LoTi. LoTi, as I have found, stands for levels of technology implemented, and for this class we direct it towards technology implemented into education. When looking at myself on this scale, I find myself at about a 2. This pretty much means, I use technology to get critical information to the students. An example of this was the teachers that stick with powerpoint to get class notes across. I hope to develop further on the LoTi scale, especially with the use of this class.