Week Five

So I was thinking about each individual readings/videos and below are some of my comments:
Tools for the TEKS:
this article was reflecting on the benefits of having podcasting in the classroom. In it's more narrow definition podcasting refers to audio files being placed on the web, but as the article points out they can be created with video files as well. Podcasting is a good tool for the classroom, as the author points out, because it targets the digital natives and it's FREE. It is important to have these free tools in the classroom because school funding isn't always plentiful. Podcasting takes a microphone, a free online program, and some willing participants. This article said a lot of the same things that others have about how intergrating technology in the classroom is needed for these students but there were two concepts addressed in this article that I liked in particular. (1) was that of communicating to the global audience and not just the teacher. By podcasting students find that they are performing for more than just one person (their teacher) but rather the world. By putting a bigger audience to a project students are more likely to be more concerned with the quality of their work. (2) I really liked the idea of podcasting creating a "window" into the classroom. Often times parents are curious as to what their children are up to when they are in the classroom and podcasts would afford them the opportunity to take a look... or a listen. Once a podcast is posted parents could listen to them at home so they can hear the content that their child is being taught and also get a glimpse into a new technology.
4 Generations:
this movie really got me interested in the story being told. It's amazing to me to see what a video can do to send a message to the public. The story behind this was a touching one, a violin player living in China caught wind of a man's post which stated: Donate $250 and give a family in China a Water buffalo. Although there really was no buffalo to be given the violinist contacted that man. Since he was living in China he was able to find out the importance a water buffalo has for a family in China and how to get one. The mission of the movie was to broadcast the funding, finding and delivery of this precious gift to a family in need. To be able to watch the family of 4 generations, a great-grandmother, grandmother, son and his daughter all receive this immense gift was fascinating. The circumstances of this family was tragic and the worst part is that they aren't the only family in that region that would benefit from getting a water buffalo. For a little over $200 U.S. a water buffalo can be bought in China, which can turn the soil (working for up to 15 years) or be butchered and feed a family for 6 months. I really enjoyed watching this flash film and seeing how it told a powerful story.
Top News:
to me this article was closely linked, in my thoughts on videos, to 4 generations. Although neither one dealing with the same topic they both to me showed the importance of video. This article discussed that having video in the classroom is important. I completely agree. Video is something this generation can completely relate to and therefore can both learn from and enjoy. Many schools are incorporating different means of video usage in the classroom: streaming off line, using video cameras, standard VHS or DVD, etc. Each of these methods give the students the opportunity to be engaged and informed. A well made video clip on the computer can be just as effective as a DVD sent by the textbook company. By branching out from just the standard VHS and DVDs students get to work with more technologies and that is important.
YouTube: Smartboard Basics
Personally, I have never used a smartboard so I found this demonstration to be really interesting. The possibilities that a smartboard gives to a classroom is immense. All of the articles we have read, as well as the pedagogical methods we are learning, all stress student involvement and interaction. This piece of equipment does just that! Students and teacher become involved in the lesson through the smartboard. I think it's really cool that a teacher, or student, can pull up clip art and write on the board for a more interactive lesson. Although this was just a brief introduction into the smartboard I'm excited to learn more!
And that's what I was thinking....

Week Four- Update

So I was thinking about my last entry in regards to Social bookmarking. I decided to try out a new site because I wasn't too happy with my first attempt. I made my second bookmarking site on blinklist.com. I really like this site! It was so easy to use and as soon as I made an account I was able to start "blinking" sites that I was interested in. Blinking is just like bookmarking but it's sent to my bookmarking site! There was no strange language or terms to deal with. All the user has to do is start blinking. The other feature I like is that the user can put tags (keywords) to each of their blinks so that all different people can access these sites using different keywords. As soon as I put up blinks there was a button next to my posted link that told me how many other people blinked that page as well as the notes they made about those sites. I felt like this site was more personal than Mockatoo. Also there is the option of putting blinklist on your toolbar which makes blinking really easy! My new site to check out is: http://www.blinklist.com/vcc/
Hope you find these links useful... I thought they were!

Week Four

So I was thinking about our reading for this week and I really like the concept of RSS, really simple syndication. Instead of having to search for blogs or information I'm interested in, it comes to me. Again I really enjoyed the "In plain English" video because it makes it so easy to understand these technological concepts. I agree with the author of the ProBlogger article though that the best way to understand RSS is to partake in it. I personally am not a RSS user but now that I know how easy it is to create one I think I will. This is a great way to keep up-to-date with information in the classroom. Maybe an educator subscribes to a news feed and therefore can answer students questions on current events. If students have questions, this would be a good way to stay on top of them. Also if the students are writing a blog for class an educator can use RSS to be notified every time a student updates his or her blog. This way if a student does their blog earlier than the due-date, per se, the educator can read it at his or her leisure rather than being bogged down by multiple things to read when they are due. Also it would be a good way to know which students were on time with their entries and which ones weren't; all this convenience without having to go searching from page to page to read each of their particular blogs.

The other thing we were asked to do is create a Social Bookmarking site with all of the sites we found for this week. I decided to try out Mockatoo for my project. Mockatoo is a new site that is in it's first stages of social bookmarking. When I read about it it explained that what they have now is basically what they will have in the future but it may be tweaked. So in order to try something new I used this site. I was troubled with the language they used at first but then found that it was not too difficult to use. Of course the first step is to create an account with any e-mail address you choose. Once you have given them your e-mail they will send you a password to use. When you receive that you log in and press "Create a New Collection". It will ask for descriptors for your collection and at the end you have to add in any extra fields that you want to have. It provides the fields of "name" and "description" but anything else you have to add. Once I got passed that it was easy. I just clicked the add a new website (because I added website as a field) and plugged in the information. If you are interested at looking at the sites I found to be good teacher tools the address is as followed: http://www.mockatoo.com/index?collection=Edu-Tech+Sites&uri=%2Fmockatoo%2Fitem%2Foverview
I found this site to be pretty easy but it didn't have the "tagging" feature we discussed in class and read in the articles. Perhaps in a couple of days I'll try another bookmarking site to compare and I'll keep you updated! And that's what I was thinking...

Week Three

So I was thinking about Social Bookmarking, and I really like the idea. I never understood what it was all about but all three of the articles this week explained the concept thoroughly. I personally enjoyed the "Social Bookmarking in Plain English". Each of those mini-videos are informative and make the concept really clear. Social bookmarking is definitely a good tool to have as educators because it is a useful way to connect ideas within the education realm. Even though this process occurs through the Internet there is a sense of community, as the articles pointed out, because it's a means of bridging people together through common interests or necessities. I think that this idea is much the same as a blog. Even though there is not face-to-face interaction, a community of followers is created therefore mimicking a real-life relationship. People can use this tool to help others locate information or just share some really great ideas. I'm interested in creating a social bookmarking site because I know I am one of those people who has an extensive list of saved bookmarks and favorites that I can only access from my computer. Social bookmarking frees users from that obligation of needing his or hers own computer to access information. It also allows a "post" to be saved under various tags allowing more accessibility from different keywords. Another thing I enjoyed about these readings is the podcast of the last article. I have never heard a podcast before so it was interesting to listen to the article being read to me as I read it for myself and that's what I was thinking...

Week Two

So I was thinking about the reading for this week and have divided my thoughts into subcategories corresponding with the articles.
Tools for Teks:
Fryer had some really interesting points in this particular article. I think one of the main components of his article was the concept of using the students as producers rather than gatherers. I really liked this idea. Using technology in the classroom enables educators to have students participate in the learning experience by becoming producers of their education rather than just gathering the information they are assigned. This concept stuck out to me because of the article we read last week about using students as a means to create curriculum -- using their interests in education to benefit their learning. In many ways Fryer is saying the same thing, by making them producers they have a grasp on what they are learning and what ways they are applying that knowledge. The Internet affords students with so many facets for learning. As Fryer mentioned: every reader becomes a writer. Writing skills can be improved upon through blogging because students see blogging as fun, not really as a learning technique. Obviously that isn't a proven fact but it's another way to have technology in the classroom and learn. Also with blogging Fryer points out that students are writing for more then just their teacher so they may take more time and put more thought into each post because it is seen worldwide. Another thing I thought was important was Cyber Safety. That concept is mentioned in conjunction with Internet use but I thought it was interesting to have the classroom be a "Cyber Safety" Zone. Many students go home to parents that may not be computer literate and therefore have no idea what their child is doing on the computer or how to safe guard them. Therefore using the teachers, who know more about computers through their education, as informants on Internet safety can be beneficial. This way students can know how to use the Internet safely from their teachers if their parents don't know about computers or as reinforcement if they do.
Tech Tools for Learning:
This article is one that I really learned from. Before reading this article I was a little fuzzy on what an RSS was or what function it had. But now I understand the usefulness of an RSS. It is a place where everything a person wants to collect or look at can be stored in one place. For example, in the classroom, if students were to blog educators can set up an RSS to have all of their students blog sites in one location. The article talked about using webcams and podcasts in the classroom and all I could think of is how beneficial those could be in a Foreign language classroom. Students could podcast dialogs to listen to their pronunciation or have their teacher listen to them for a grade. Webcams could be used to interact with other students, maybe even native speakers, so that a conversation could be face-to-face without being in the physical classroom. One thing that I thought was really cool in this article was the idea of using podcasts to tape a lesson and after that lesson was done to post that podcast for any student that was absent to access. To me, that is a brilliant idea. This way no student would ever be left behind. They could attend their class online and at their leisure, which seems to be the appeal of online college classes, now for all age groups.
Web 2.0.
This article was interesting to me because it explained the differences between the concepts of Web 1.0. and 2.0. I liked the idea that the author had about more user involvement. I think that was one of the main points that he stressed in order for the Web 2.0. companies to flourish. I thought it was interesting how he pointed out that there are many ways to advertise a site but the most effective way is person-to-person reference. I know I personally rely on my friends and family members to tell me certain places to look to find applications I need to download, so I think this frame of reference is beneficial to sites. I don't think that the idea of letting anyone be able to edit any site is a good one, which is another idea that was brought up in the article. I know that it has been a beneficial aspect to sites like Wikipedia but I don't know how anything could be considered completely reliable if people are able to change things at will. Even though I don't fully agree with this idea I do think the Internet, much like the classroom, should be more user-centered. As we saw with Napster, a community formed through sharing music and I think that is an interesting aspect of the Internet. Having more people on a site automatically enhances the site, as O'Reilly points out. For this reason I think that the user-centered idea is a good one that should be in place in more sites.
Library 2.0.
Much as the last article discussed the concept of Web 2.0. (the new generation of the Web), this article addressed the new generation of the Library. I liked this article because it showed how the Library, instead of fading with the times of the Internet Search Engines, have embraced it as a new tool. The one part I really liked about Library 2.0. is that a Librarian would be online to assist at anytime and would be able to detect if a user was struggling. The comparison that the author gave was that of a Librarian helping a frazzled individual locate a book in the library, but now on a wider scale: the Internet. I think that is a great idea because there are many students who don't have their work done within the confines of some "library hours". With Library 2.0. the individual in need would be able to receive assistance whenever and from wherever. Another feature that I thought was cool was the ability to instant message with a Librarian. Some people who live off campus or commute to school may find services like this very helpful because they can "talk" to a librarian without having to trek back to campus. This article just shows another way that people, places, and things are adapting to a technological world. Many would think that the libraries would cease to exist because of the popularity of Internet research but even the libraries are coming up with new ways to evolve and become user-centered.
And that's what I was thinking....

Week 1

So I was thinking about the readings from this week and I never realized how much education has changed for students. Being a member of the new, so-called, Digital Natives I found that the articles we read this week were very accurate. The way my generation, and the ones that are to follow, have grown up is very different from that of our parents or for that matter our teachers. Students are walking into classrooms almost knowing more, technologically speaking, than those of their educators. I was personally the most interested in the article regarding using students as a means to modify curriculum. Honestly, what is a better way to educate students then to know what they are truly interested in? Educators have spent so much of their time force feeding information that is "important" for the students to learn without every really knowing if they were interested. Maybe this is the reason there are so many college students that repeatedly change their majors, perhaps they think someone is just going to tell them what to do. If someone had asked me, in Elementary or Middle School, what I was truly interested in learning though I may not have had a Board of Education approved answer. The only downfall I see is that maybe students have no idea what the are really interested in, maybe it takes those years of English, Science, Math, Foreign Language and P.E. for them to find their own paths. But I think it is important to have them in the decision making process. Maybe not to fully base the curriculum around their wants and needs because that would be a Constructivist ideal that I don't think, as a teacher, I would feel comfortable accommodating. Constructivism, in theory, is a great idea - curbing the curriculum to a more "child-centered" approach in order to engage the students with their personal interests. However brilliant that idea it's unlikely to be fully accomplished, in my opinion. If 25 students walked into my classroom with 25 different interests there would be no way to cater to them all. I think that's why differentiation is so important because then educators can at least appeal to different learning styles.
The other information I read about this week was about Blogging, which I have a new found interest in because I'm participating in it! The generation I will be faced with in my future career will have probably already been bloggers and very technologically savvy. I completely agree that there needs to be technology in the classroom because students deal with technology on a daily basis. No longer do students need to go to the actual dictionary to look up words, instead they visit dictionary.com. There seem to be an infinite number of resources that students can access through the web. Being able to control that access is where schools seem to draw the line. I personally plan on using a lot of technology in my classroom. I'm pursuing being a foreign language teacher, and to me, there is no better way to bridge a foreign country with the classroom then through the internet. And some of these articles encouraged me to think about using blogs as another technological aspect to my classroom. I found it interesting that one article said that students are bored in class, not because of the subject, but rather because what they do outside of the classroom, technologically, is more stimulating. That, to me, is really interesting! Simple lecture just doesn't cut it anymore (which even as a continuing college student I can understand!). There needs to be technology in every classroom to keep the students' interest. I guess it's true that as educators we need to "get up to par", so to speak, with the true digital natives so that our subject material doesn't fall upon "deaf ears". So that's what I was thinking....