Exit slip: 2/22

Today in class we began by sharing some digital autobiographies. We talked about how what the precentors thought of each program. Jeff provided us with a tutorial about how to create pod casts through the programs such as audacity and garage band.

We discussed different contemporary issues such as web cameras in school, virtual schooling and virtual field trips. I believe that web-cameras in schools are only a recipe for disaster. Unless the children are extremely supervised they are bound to record things that are inappropriate. On the contrary, I hold the opinion that virtual field trips are a good resource. It is difficult for some schools to travel and afford trips for classrooms to engage in different thematic units. I believe that it is better to visit somewhere online rather than not at all. It is a strategy that can help children to understand a learn about a certain topic.

In between these two topics is where my opinion on virtual schools lays. I believe that online classes are great in some ways but negative in others. For some people, their schedules are hectic and random weekly therefore, to work and take classes online schooling is the best answer. The negative aspect of this that I see is the laziness that may occur. The copy and pasting along with the slacking and procrastinating that occurs can be a negative aspect that may occur.

We also began introducing our cool tool webpages. My favorite on was the national geographic webpage. It introduces an animal of the day, shows videos, stories, and lots of games. It integrates math, science, reading, and social studies all into one in an engaging way. We also talked about many other sites such as twitter and dropbox.

We discussed examples of our inquiry questions and how they can be enhanced. I learned that they should not be yes/no questions and how to make it narrowed down and not too broad. Jeff also showed us the web page where we are to post our questions. Im glad we went over this because I was very unsure about where to begin.

Ch. 4

Reading chapter 4 gave me a great insight to how school and education began and has progressed. I found it to be quite remarkable how we are able to compare the shift from apprenticeship to universal schooling and the transformation that schools are undertaking today. After reading this chapter I have created the opinion that the shift between the two situations are slightly different. I believe that the shift from education being the parent’s responsibility to being a formal school environment is a much greater as well as gradual shift in society rather that the technology integration, which has been seen to be much faster and discrete. While others believe that technology is interrupting the classrooms environment I suggest that it is only helping. I cannot comprehend how the switch of a smart board from a chalkboard interrupts the curriculum. I believe that it only makes teaching and learning come at a greater ease. The problems that I see with it are centralized in the controversy that has been developed by skeptics. Educators and policymakers have begun a separation as they take different sides of this debate. This controversy has only created a sense of competition between schools and is resulting in certain school districts who are behind in education standards of where they could be.
The ultimate purpose of education is to teach students and prepare them for the future in a most beneficial way. The future of these students is centralized more now than ever around technology. Since children today live in a technology based society that it is only continuing to grow, and the goal of educators is to prepare them for this world, it only makes sense that technology would be a major part of their schooling. As a teacher I intend to do my best to help my students have the most beneficial learning atmosphere. This will include as much technology that will be developmentally appropriate and beneficial yet still appropriate to their learning experiences.

Ch. 3

How does the technology skeptic's argument impact your thinking about technology's role in teaching and learning?
What will you do differently as a future teacher as a direct result of this new thinking?

Before reading chapter 3, regarding the skeptic’s argument, my ideas about technology in the classroom were opposed to the opinion of less technology in the classroom. Even after reading chapter three, because I have been introduced to the new ideas and similar opinions of my classmates, I still possess the same beliefs. The main points that have come up for which I disagree involve, classroom management as well as the idea that relying on computers will put students at a disadvantage.
The skeptics mention in chapter 3 that classroom management will ultimately become an issue when placed in the classroom. I disagree. Classroom management is controlled by the teacher’s strategies and relationship with her students. Computers may be seen as an extra distraction but children in reality are capable of making anything a distraction, therefore they are not different than say a book sitting on a desk.
The second disagreement that I hold is computers will benefit classrooms not hold them back from learning. The skeptics say that computers cannot teach everything. Well of course this is true, it is not intended that computers shall replace the teacher.
Integrating computers in our classrooms will not teach everything to our students but rather it will be used as a tool to enhance student's learning.
I believe that by reading this chapter my opinion of technology in the classroom has changed very little. I still feel strongly that technology is a beneficiary that can only help our education systems. As I do consider this to be true, this chapter has provided me with other beliefs to consider as I become a teacher and begin to witness the usage of technology in the classroom. I deem that I may have a certain opinion now regarding the usage but when I enter the classroom I shall try to hold an open mind to any let downs that technology may conduct or develop as being intrusive and non beneficiary.

Exit slip

Today we talked about Animoto. Some other student's besides myself used this to create their online autobiographies. It thought it was interesting to see how other people created theirs. . We went over our delicious accounts and talk about how they need to have more sites added to them. I realized that I can no longer enter my delicious account. I tried to reset it but I am having trouble. We were presented a presentation about our class readings was done through Glogster. This is a site that they used to present, which is slightly like an online scrap book. I thought it was very interesting to see how it works and all of the different ways it enables people to present. Jeff talked about the presentation and it's "looks". He showed us how some things can be distracting and wordy. He also reminded them to introduce themselves. We discussed in groups the skeptic views of technology vs the enthusiast opinion. My group concentrated on the idea of cost and access of technology in schools. We concluded that there may be alternatives that schools are not considering when it comes to purchasing technology. In the end, the conclusion was slightly not concrete. Jeff suggested that a closing should more obviously presented and a wrap up of the content information. Also we need to be careful of "likes and ums" as well as reading verbatim from the screen.

Exit slip 3

This week we talked all about a lot of things. We discussed our autobiographies and were able to view a few of them. The presenters explained the program that they used and the pros and cons of it. We also talked about our book talks and what will become of them. We discussed a lot about credibility of web pages and visited many that are not. I learned about comparing web pages and how it can help you to discover which sites are most credible. We discussed our course web page and learned a little about cool technology tools wiki. Jeff introduced scratch to the class and showed us an example of the similation.

Chapter 2

In chapter 2 the argument of the technology enthusiasts is that the traditional school systems are not working to our full advantage. They argue that is it actually the opposite, and is in fact to our disadvantage because it essentially instills a dislike for school with in the children of today. It turns them away from wanting to learn. After reading this article I believe that I do not entirely agree with the enthusiasts. I consider that children in no matter the circumstance will always find something to not like about learning. The bottom line is, learning, doing math, and reading, is not playing out side. It’s not playing Barbies or video games. Children do not see it as fun and I believe that by making schools a “technology-rich workplace” will only disguise the school work temporarily. Eventually children will become spoiled with it and come across the same feeling of dislike towards school. Another argument that the enthusiasts hold is that children are not growing up in schools learning the technology skills that will be required of them as they enter the workforce in their futures. With this point I do agree. Children need to be prepared for their futures outside of school and technology holds a giant role in that future. Overall I feel that there is room for improvement in our schools use of technology. In the future when I have my own classroom, I intend to make sure each student has several chances to become familiar with the different types of technology in my classroom. I will encourage children to use the internet to research and discover, dictate their writing on Microsoft word, and even help to do simple things such as turn on the projector.

Website Credibility

Teaching students how to verify website credibility is a very important task. This may not be a job that we can expect young children to be able to master but children of the ages 1st grade and up are fully capable of being introduced to this skill. When teaching children how to check for credibility the first thing that you should introduce is the suffix of the website, (ex. edu, com, org). Explaining to the students the meaning of each of these suffixes will help a lot in itself. Edu means education, which typically means it is research based and often created by a University. Org means organization. This could mean nonprofit or funded. Organizations can be created for almost any reason. And finally it is important to inform the students that anyone can create a com website, therefore, they are most likely to not be credible. The second step that I would teach my students is to verify the credibility of the author. Who is he? Is it even a real name? By simply researching the name of the author a person can discover whether or not they are credible to learning about their history. As a final step in teaching children to check credibility I would encourage my students to use their common sense when reading over the content of each website they visit. If something doesn’t make sense or is literally impossible, such as an octopus living outside of water in a tree, than more so than likely the website is based on false information and should be discarded when collecting research.

Booktalk

My book talk took a lot of time to make. It was difficult to discover and learn how to use the program imovie all on my own. I spent a lot of time working to decide how I would portray my book and I finally decided to use pictures instead of embarrassing myself with film. It took me a long time to find out how everything works. It was especially difficult for me to figure out how to use the voice over application. Even though I didn’t want to embarrass myself through film I still feel weird about listening to my voice. I believe that this assignment is very valuable to our teaching skills. Not only can I now make book talks for my children but also I can even redo my students’ favorite books. As a class I could have my children act out the book on film or even publish their own work in a book talk. In the future I can use my newly learned skills to make my classroom more exciting and reach towards meeting the children’s’ interests and wants.