So, why am I blogging about a terrible technology experience? Doesn’t that seem to defeat the purpose? Well, I’m blogging about this because I actually learned a lot about technology by having it screw up so much. (Thanks to Ro who helped me to turn this experience into a teachable moment for myself!) I also realized how patient my husband is and I truly appreciate that. Not many men could listen to their wives curse a computer and stick around to help. Not to mention, the computer really couldn’t have cared less about my yelling at it; it was not going to do what I wanted it to. And, even though my experience these last two days has been hellacious, I am not turning my back on technology. Technology works more often than not and when it does, great things happen. I learned that as a teacher, when students have technological issues (which they will if you use any form of technology what-so-ever) you have to be flexible. I also learned that my students are mostly not making things up when they have issues with technology (although with high schoolers it’s probably good to be a little weary). Things happen and you have to (yes, I’m going to say it) adapt! I am hoping that over the next few months, I will be able to learn more about the technologies that caused me so much trouble and learn how to better overcome that (slamming a mouse down on the desk does not work-trust me-I tried it!) not only for myself but for my students as well. When I am teaching and my students have issues I will have to keep my cool and help them through it. This will not be done so easily if I can’t figure it out myself. That being said, I will quote Mr. Paddock to the best of my ability, “There are so many things out there you can’t know it all.” That’s pretty close to what he told me today about the massive amounts of technology. I guess I should rejoice that I finally got the assignment completed and my laptop is still in one piece.

By the way, if you want to see my wonderful video that I put over thirty-six hours into visit YouTube and search for mrssteeleenglish or copy and paste this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE1iv2XgupA

I definately know that I want my students to use wikis. Each student will have their own wiki page, much like the setup for my EDRD 651 class, where the student pages are linked in to the class wiki. The class wiki “front page” will most likely only be edited by me so that I can ensure the assignments and any other important information is appropriately available. Students may use their wikis to collaborate with one another on projects and assignments. Wikis will definately aide in the peer editing arena, too! I am looking forward to learning more about technology throughout life, because things change so rapidly!

From Class date: 6-29-09

Windows Movie Maker seemed really easy to use as well, although it takes a little longer than Photostory, but there are a lot more features. I enjoyed learning how to edit a video and add sound. These are things that I have never done before. I would have enjoyed it more if our group video would have loaded on the computer so that we could have had more interaction with the program. However, it was also nice to see that sometimes technology doesn’t always work and you have to be flexible. I would love to use this type of technology in my classroom. Ro gave me a lot of ideas of how to use Movie Maker in the high school classroom. I really enjoyed seeing her student’s interpretations of different texts/themes. It looked like the students had a lot of fun and collaborated well together. I believe most students would be more interested in completing this type of project than a standard poster or essay project-especially once they learned how to use this technology.

I loved using Audacity because it was easy to use and quick to edit the material. I think that I can really implement this into my classroom in several ways. I would like to have a podcast that my students can access on their own time that contains supplemental materials and refreshers from the class. Having students create their own podcasts instead of keeping journals would be great, too!

I was so glad that we were able to go to Spring Valley and see an actual classroom. Seeing the classroom and the technology within that classroom made it easier to visualize having a classroom of my own. I am excited to use technology in the classroom with all of the advances since I was in high school. Most of my teachers used overhead projectors and some had projectors they used for the boring, dry Powerpoint presentations. I had great teachers, but I am grateful to have more tools than they did. I am hoping to take all of my recent experiences and find ways to integrate technology into my future classroom so that my students are more engaged in the learning process.

Not only did I create a document in Google Docs, but I also created a quiz for Janet Evanovich’s book, Fearless Fourteen just for learning how to use the application. I liked the fact that I could easily create a quiz, post it online for my students to take, and even choose the different formats of each question individually. However, I still feel as though the quiz limited me in the types of questions I was able to ask. Check boxes, Choose from a list, and Multiple choice (which is essentially the same as Choose from a list) are three main types of questions you can create. The problem is that these  question formats only lend themselves to certain types of questions, none of which require a higher level of thinking. By higher level of thinking, I am referring to questions that ask students to describe, analyze, compare/contrast, etc. The only format for these questions that you can find in Google Docs is the paragraph question. I am not sure that this is necessarily a bad thing, it’s only an observation. I guess that it is one of the only options in a traditional assessment as well. I think that creating a poll and using the scale question formats would be an interesting way to receive student feedback regarding different activities, opinions, etc.

My students could easily use this to gather resources for projects, papers, and other assignments. They could then share these with one another. I also think that using Diigo to teach students how to find appropriate resources would be very helpful. Students could search for resources to use on an assignment and then share them with a partner through Diigo. The partner could serve as a double checker for the resources and leave comments regarding the usefulness and/or reliability. Through this, the students would be learning how to find appropriate sources within context as well as learning how to use Social Bookmarking within context, too.

I think that it is important to incorporate technology into the classroom, but it has to be meaningful. If you teach students how a resource, like Diigo, works, but they do not actually use it within the classroom for anything regarding the curriculum, they will not have learned how to use that resource to its full advantage.

I hope that teachers take the initiative to learn more about incorporating technology into their classrooms, but more importantly, how to make that technology pertinent to their education.

In the technological world in which we live, cheating and plagiarizing has become much easier to do. Fortunately, it can be easier to catch as well, thanks to the help of search engines. I agree with Mr. Paddock that students need to be taught about intellectual property. Once students understand that plagiarism is serious, you should show students how to effectively choose and cite sources. This would make a great mini-lesson.

One of the things I found pretty scary in class was how easy it is for a teacher to get fired, even for good intentions. While there are some people out there that need to be fired and not allowed to work with students in the classrooms, some teachers are getting fired for being “friends” with their students on Facebook. Teachers may not be hired for a job if they have a picture on their Facebook page of themselves partying. I find this to be a little unfair because in any corporate job, co-workers can get together and go out for drinks without any repercussions. I do think that teachers need to be tasteful and mindful that they are working with children and they need to set a good example. One possibility is to make a separate profile for student use that still allows the teacher to interact with his/her students. To add to this idea, it would be a great idea to have the administrators of the school split up and participate as well with these groups so that activity could be monitored. These are just ideas. Sometimes I worry that being a teacher will be a lot more difficult now, because if a student decides to accuse an innocent teacher of anything, their career will be over before they can blink.

I think that this article is very interesting. It is going to cost them a lot of money in order to get the technology in every classroom and to train the teachers how to effectively use it, as it mentions in the article. Any assignments or projects would have to be completed in class for those students that did not have access after school. This should be something that is carefully thought over and implemented over several years, not all at once in only a few months time.

Any thoughts?

I love podcasts. I download them from iTunes regularly. I would love to learn how to create a podcast to use with my students as a way of passing on additional information on topics that may interest them. It would also be great if they could create their own podcasts as part of assignments or projects-possibly keeping a class log by podcast?

The idea that you can create a class blog or wiki is also very interesting to me. These are two pieces of technology that I am not as familiar with, but I am excited to learn how to use them.

It is awesome to think that students do not have to turn in hard copies of every assignment anymore. There are other options now, such as uploading them to Blackboard or a class discussion board, blog, etc. I think that this would help to alleviate some of the excuses students have about turning in work. There are just too many options now.

While technology is great and offers many new ways to produce, present, gather, research, share, and submit information, it is also important to make sure students know how and when to use the basics (ie: word processors and printers, paper and pen).