Course Reflection and Plan for the future! 04/30/2011
 This course has been very educational for me. I have always struggled with technology and how to implement it correctly into the classroom. I remember on the first day of class, hearing that this class is hands on and used the constructionist approach to teaching. Throughout the semester, I felt frustrated and confused when it came to putting together an assignment for working on my blog. When I sat down to work on my final piece (Wiki lesson plan) I was amazed at all I had learned. Other times, with technology, I would learn a concept and after leaving class, it would be lost. It has been many weeks since I have learned how to complete some of these technological tasks (skype, google docs, voki, delicious, create links on a document) and as I worked to create my Wiki lesson plan, I remembered everything. This was quite a learning experience for me. I not only learned technology, but learned the strength of teaching using the constructionist approach. Technology is everywhere in our society. It is changing at a rate faster than anyone could imagine. I watch my two and four year old boys as they manipulate a mouse, search through my cell phone, and play video games on WII with ease. I am amazed to see how at such young age, kids are in full understanding of how technology works and how to manipulate it. Taking this class has shapes a future, for me, with the use of technology. I had some trouble with skype but feel with a bit of practice, I could gain an understanding of how it works. I really enjoyed creating a Wiki lesson plan and intend on incorporating this into my future teaching experiences. I learned a great deal 2 Comments Wiki and lesson plan 04/30/2011
Wiki is a great website that educators can manipulate in order to create lessons and embed links allowing students to manipulate technology in the classroom. I really enjoyed creating a Wiki lesson plan because it gave me the ability to make the site my own and align the activities to my expected audience's ability. It did take a long time for me to create the lesson. I especially had a difficult time placing a youtube video onto my webpage. In my lesson, I created links to several different Math practice websites. The Wiki tutorial videos at the beginning of creating your Wiki creation were especially helpful. I focused my lesson on Math facts which is a very important lesson in Math. All other Math standards and lessons build from fact knowledge. I focused on facts related to addition and subtraction and will continue to add several other links relating to multiplication and division. I really enjoyed working on the wiki website. This is one technology tool that I will implement in my class in the future.  Emerging Technology and Equity 04/16/2011
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.  Emerging technology has been growing in leaps in bounds. With the implementation of senate bills and school developed technological curriculum that helps to create technology tools that are accessible to all students (even those with disabilities) students and adults have found it easier to access technology. The divide in SES has also shown an increase in the use of technology by 25%. With this ever-changing technology based society, it is important to implement technology whenever possible. One article that I had read stated that in Maine, they are working on providing a laptop for each student. It has been implemented to all 7th grader, 8th graders, and most high schoolers. With this implementation, classroom attendance and personalizing instruction to all students has increased. It would be nice to see this implementation in most schools. Teaching students to use technology, on a daily basis, only helps to prepare them for a future of wide use technology. When actions are taken on a daily basis, it becomes second nature and easy to manipulate. Having students use technology in all they do, helps with emerging technology and therefore makes it second nature. I also found ECOT online school to be quite interesting. I never had the opportunity to actually research an online school. Learning that these schools help students who are being bullied, have a difficult time adjusting to school, or even teen pregnancy was interesting to read about. I was also shocked to see how online schools are growing in leaps and bounds. This is just one example showing that technology continues to grow. Another site I found exciting was the rateyourteacher site. I was not familiar with this site. When I visited it, I had fun entering different schools that I have worked or attended and saw the school ranking along with the teacher rankings. It was a great site for me to observe and work with. Emerging technology is growing so quick that in order to stay current, teachers must make sure that they create equal access to it in their classroom. For example, provided software that has audio for those who are blind or visuals for those who are deaf. Giving technology access to those who are in lower income situations give them the opportunity to access technology at school and become familiar with the new and emerging technology. Jing and Voki 04/02/2011
 Jing and Voki are great technology tools that allow students to record their voice and present their recording in an interesting and fun way. Jing is a great tool to capture video of a site to play during instruction. The video will coincide with what is being said by the recorded voice. Voki is a tool that allows the person to manipulate a character and use that character to teach what it is you type in for them to say. Both technological pieces are great ways to get your students highly active within the classroom experience. Skype 04/02/2011
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.  Skype is a software that allows people to talk and video one another while on the computer. It is quite interesting to see how advanced technology has become. While working with skype, my partner and I had some difficulties with the audio part of skype. We were able to see each other on the computer and communicate through text conversation but our audio microphone was not working. Even with the technological difficulties, I still thought skype was interesting. I enjoyed having the advantage to see who I was conversing with through online texts. Podcasting 04/01/2011
This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. 
 This week in class, we learned about Podcasts. They are great tools to use within any classroom. Podcasts allow others to hear (auditorily) what it is that the teacher is intending to introduce. The attached Podcast is a short lesson about inquiry based learned which is a student centered approach. I really enjoyed working with my partner on Podcasts and will try to incorporate them into my classroom.  During last weeks class, we learned about different approaches to teaching. Two approaches I found to be helpful and educational are problem based learning and the constructionist approach to learning. Both techniques are used to give the students more access to their learning through problem solving, hands on, group work that involves collaboration. Constructionist approach to learning is an approach that allows the students to learn through collaboration and hands on group work. It gives the students the ability to become the facilitators and to use information that they have learned in the past and link it to newly gained information. With this approach, the teacher is there to guide each learning group. The students become the investigators of information, as well as the teachers. It is said that students will acquire a great deal of knowledge from this approach that will give them the opportunity to manipulate what they learned and use it where they see fit. Problem based learning is a way of learning that builds on information that students already have acquired about a topic. They use whatever tools they have access to in order to research and build on knowledge that they already have about a topic. The students work in collaborative groups and are responsible for their group set up, jobs given within each group setting, and where and how they gain further knowledge about their topic. Students are to focus on what they already know about a topic, what they further need to learn, and how they will find more information about their topic. As one could see, both approaches to learning are quite similar. They both involve hands on group collaboration for learning. They also give the students more ability over their learning and what they learn. In my opinion, both approaches are a fantastic way to help students acquire knowledge about a given topic in their own way. Google Docs 03/12/2011
 Google Docs is a great site that allows a person to post a created technological piece and share it with other people. It is helpful when two or more people are working together on a project or are collaborating (working together) in a class. This site gives each individual within the group access to that one particular document to edit, view, or makes comments on. I have used Google Docs many times and find it to be a great addition to any working environment. I work in collaboration with many other teachers who have posted assignments on google docs and gave me access to edit or add any further information to the assignment before handing it out to the students. It is a great way to incorporate communication and collaboration without actually being side by side within the classroom. Google Docs is just another example of our continued advancement with technology. Visual Technology 02/18/2011
As stated earlier in one of my previous blogs, students learn in a variety of ways. Visual learning is just one of the ways that is quite important to incorporate within the classroom To give the students the opportunity to see exactly what the end product may be visually, gives the students an idea of where to start and what is expected from them during the learning process and outcome. I learned about several different great visuals to incorporate within the classroom (technologically speaking). In my several years of teaching, I have always taught kids about inspiration as well as kidspiration. The students really enjoy creating graphs and incorporating or relating those graphs to a lesson or activity taught during the class period. In the many years of using these two technology programs, I did not know that the user had the ability to include pictures (visuals) from the web as well as links. I was extremely excited to learn how to include these two advances as well as learn how to teach others how to do so as well. On the first page of my blog blog site, I included one graph that I had made which includes several downloaded pictures from the web. I really enjoyed learning these two new concepts. I also enjoyed learning how to made word visuals from my delicious sight. I had a great time rearranging the words and adding different colors as well as texts to the visual. Using visuals daily in lessons is a great tool to help those students grasp a concept by seeing what it is they are expected to learn. In my opinion, when teachers incorporate visuals, hands on (kinesthetic), and verbal (auditory) methods into the classroom, they are helping to teach all types of learners. I have learned that with the use of technolog, all three methods to teaching and learning are possible. Ethics, Standards, and Copyright 02/11/2011
What are Ethics? Ethics are directive expectations that a group of individuals follow. According to the website Code of Ethics for Online Learners and Teachers, Ethics follows the five minds such as: The Disciplinary Mind, The Synthesizing Mind, The Creating Mind, The Respectful Mind, and The Ethical Mind. Each of the five minds help to establish expectations of an online community of learners, as well as the teacher, in order to have all participants understand and support the group expectations. I learned a great deal from the website www.slideshare.net/.../code-of-ethics-for-online-learners-and-teachers because it broke down each of the five minds and explained ethical grounds for a group of online learners and teachers. It was shown in a slideshow format and was a great explanation for what ethics are. Technology standards are higher expectations that expect educators to change the way they teach in order to keep students current within a digital society. According to the website www.iste.org/standards.aspx, teachers need to take the students further from the classroom and into a virtual world. This is possible with advancing technology so that the students could see visual representations of what the world is like around us. One example I would find useful would be google maps. This website is a great tool to use within the classroom in order for students to take virtual field trips around the world. I also bookmarked many hands on websites to my delicious account because I feel students learn best in a classroom that uses hands on technology in order to enrich their classroom instruction. Having ceiling expectations of the students when it comes to technology will prepare the students for future technology that is changing rapidly. After researching information pertaining to copyright and technology, I still feel slightly confused. I do understand that as an educator I am allowed "fair use" of digital content. Having the ability to show many sites and technological media to my students. According to the website: www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/teachact.htm the Teach Act allows teachers to use any technology or copies that are pertinent to the lesson. The Act also states that teachers need to modify the material in which they are showing to their students. I found this website to be helpful and educational as an educator. I feel that it helps me to understand the technology copyright laws that an educator needs to follow. I do feel their is much more to learn about when it comes to copyright and technology but I feel this website gave me a good head start.  | AuthorKeri Rusinko Teaching is my passion and watching students achieve success should be the goal of any educator.
ArchivesMarch 2011 Categories | ||
RSS Feed