Wow, what an adventure! I have pretty much finished up my first semester in graduate school and it has been a roller coaster of emotions! Some times I was so excited or happy, some times I was angry, sometimes I was sad, sometimes I was proud of myself and other times I was frustrated. That is a general statement for all of my classes. EDTS523 I think has been a HUGE challenge for me. Not so much with the projects due but trying to keep an open mind about all the information learned. When I started EDTS523, the first thought that ran through me head was, “Oh great, another technology class where I will learn the basics of programs and never use them again afterwards.” But it is not what I got from the class. (I guess that teaches me not to judge a book by its cover!) I learned from EDTS523 that technology can be an awesome tool if used the right way in a classroom. It is not just another inconvenience added into the teachers schedule. There are some programs that we learned about that I will admit, I will probably not use much in my classroom. For example, I do not see myself using PowerPoint or Dream weaver. I do see myself using programs such as podcasts, blogs, and web quests. I might not get a chance to bring them all into my classroom right away but it will be something that I add in as I get more comfortable with my strategies of teaching. Also, I feel that when this class is over I am going to make sure I try to use as much of these programs in my sample lessons as possible that I make the next few semesters so that I can keep my mind open to new ideas and not forget what I learned in EDTS523. The big idea of this blog is that yes, it is the end of my first semester, but it is the beginning of a whole new world of technology for me. I am so excited that soon I will be able to use technology in my classroom and I have lots of resources that Dr. Ransom gave me to look back at. If I did not have this class, that I was not too sure about taking in the first place, I would be completely ignorant of most of these resources for the rest of my life. It is important to keep up with these things because as I have written in a previous blog and witnessed in my field work, students in grades as low as fourth grade know a lot more about somethings in technology than I even know as a graduate student. Therefore, I feel it is my responsiblity to not make this the end of my education about technology because otherwise I will not be able to be the best teacher I can be if I am ignorant of this growing world of technology!
Webquest November 25, 2009
Last week in class we were introduced to WebQuests. When I was watching the online lecture I was still not too sure if I really understood completely what a Webquest was. Then we did a little exploring in class and I have done some exploring on my own on Webquest.org. I have come to the conclusion that it is not a bad idea for a classroom project. Our professor told us that Webquests was not his favorite thing to do and that there were better ways of making websites. Since I am not familiar with them I have nothing to compare it to but I do like this idea of a Webquest. I am doing mine as part of a 4th grade Social Studies lesson so that the students can find out information about NY. I think it would be a fun way for them to learn about the state they live in. I am observing in a fourth grade class at Harris Hill this semester and learning about NY is part of their curriculum. The teacher in that particular class, has the children write a paragraph on NY every week but I think that children would find a Webquest more engaging and fun. I think it is a very useful technology tool for a classroom and I can see myself actually using Webquests or maybe another type of website based activity resource. Does any one have any other website tools you think are better then Webquest to use in a classroom?
Social Network Bullying November 18, 2009
I am very interested in the topic of cyber bullying, therefore, I am always keeping my eye out for articles published about it. I recently stumbled across an article on cnn.com called Social Networking Sites Criticized on Bullying. This article was about how to try to solve issues about being bullied on social networking sites in an instant. There is a panic button on a Britian social networking site called Bebo. If someone feels like they are being threatened on a social networking site they push this button and the site is immediately informed about online abuse, bullying, or illegal activity. A spokesperson for facebook said that they will not use it because they feel that they have a good reporting system already and that the use of the button can take away from some of their advertising spaces. I am not too sure which one is better statically but I personally feel like the panic button would be better. I think this because if a child or adolescent is getting cyber bullied they can press it and immediate actions will take place. Otherwise they need to fill out a report on what had happened. Children or adolescents might not be willing to do this. In reference to it taking up space where they have advertisements, thats just ridiculous. I think that safety should come first and then advertisements. Besides, they have so much junk on there thats not advertisements that they can get rid of to replace with the panic button. What do you think is more effective and why?
Podcasts in Classrooms November 12, 2009
Honestly, about 4 weeks ago, I could not even tell you what a Podcast is. Call me technologically ignorant, I know! After listening to the lectures on Podcast’s, I thought to myself, “ehhh..Podcasts are alright but I do not want to hear my voice recorded.” After doing the Chicken Little exercise in class I am so excited to do a Podcast! Not that I have got over hearing my voice recorded but I do not think I ever will, so what is the point of being embarassed about it? For my Podcast project, I am going to try making a Podcast of me reading a story book. The chicken little story that Dr. Ransom did was so fun I would like to try it myself using another story. Every week this semester, my INCL501 class had a library activity for a specific elementary class in the Rochester 36 school. We would read the class a story, have a short activity, and then interview the children we were assigned to. If I had known about Podcasting a little earlier, I would have liked to make one with my group presenting the story book using a podcast instead of reading it out loud that day. The teacher was always looking for us to think of creative ways to present our story to the children. I think that Podcasting would be so much fun with storybooks. When I become familiar with it, I would use it in my classroom as well. I would have my students read the parts instead of myself. Then I could put the podcast together. When we had reading time students could listen and watch the podcast or they could listen to the podcast and follow along in the book. I think students would really enjoy this! This is only one way out of probably hundreds of ways Podcasts could be used in a classroom but to me this one is just a lot of fun! Anyone else have any other fun ideas they have thought of and would like to use in their classroom?
Report Cards online November 5, 2009
In this new world of technology, schools are finding many ways to use resources to make school materials accessible for parents and students at home. This past weekend I went home to my moms house in Pennsylvania. I have a 13 year old brother that lives there. One night my mom was looking at my brothers grades on the computer. Out of curiosity, I asked my mom if this was something the teachers do all the time or if it was just for a certain class. Apparently, his school has made it mandatory that every teacher posts grades of tests/quizzes/assignments online and at the end of the marking period they have to put the students final grade online. I thought this was a brilliant idea because I know plenty of kids when I went to school that would change their grades before showing the grade to their parents. A classic example of this was on an episode of Full House, DJ changed her grade from an F to an A just so that she could go out with her friend that evening. I am not too sure if other people saw this happen but I saw it a lot, especially when I was in high school. Putting grades online makes it almost impossible for students to change their grades. This is example of how technology can be a great tool if used properly! Using online report cards and grades not only cuts down on students trying to lie to their parents but it also helps the environment. A big thing now is to “go green” to help with global warming. Therefore, having online report cards can stir up a conversation with students and teachers about “going green” and recycling. There is one down fall that I can think of for online report cards and grading, that is not every family has access to the internet from their home. Maybe a solution to this problem can be to have a few computers dedicated in the school for parents to come see their children’s grades as they please. I think online grading is wonderful and I hope to see it used in more schools because I am not sure how many other schools use it. Has anyone else heard of it being used in schools around here? What is your opinion about online grading?
Power Point October 30, 2009
This past week, we started to learn about using Power Points’s in the classroom. As students, we are used to having linear Power Points presented to us by our teachers. We are not learning how to make linear Power Points because most of us can already do that. We are learning how to make a non- linear Power Point’s. I found this very interesting. One example that we were shown in class was the use of Jeopardy to review content material. When I was in grade school, we used to play Jeopardy but never on a Powerpoint. We would play it on the blackboard with chalk. In this case, Power Point would have been very handy because playing Jeopardy on the blackboard was very time-consuming. My point is that Power Point can be a very useful tool when used in the right way. I am glad that it is one of the programs that we will be learning how to use more effectively in this course. Otherwise, I would not use Power Point in my classroom because I am not going to put on linear presentations for elementary students. I do not want you to think Jeopardy is the only way to use it either, there are many effective ways to use Power Point using non linear ideas. It will be exciting and interesting to do our group project on Power Point to investigate the pros and cons of working with Power Point because right now it seems great but we might get frustrated once we start our project. Does anyone have any suggestions that might make my construction of a non linear Power Point a little smoother?
Julie and Julia October 19, 2009
This does not have to deal with technology in the classroom but it has to deal with teachnology via blogging. We have been talking in class about the positives to getting our name out on the internet. Not just on a something like Facebook but through a lot of different ways. This past weekend I went to see the movie Julie and Julia. It is about a lady that made a cook book in the early 1900′s and then a girl, who was a fan of this older woman, in 2002 read the book and blogged about the recipies. She had to do i think 524 recipies in a year. In the beginning she was complaining because no one but her mom read the blog. After word got out the blog really grew. This was a perfect example of what we have been talking about in class. Even though our blogs will not be big right from the beginning it is good to get them out there. They will probably eventually expand and that will look great for future employers of ours. Just think about the list that Mrs. Cassidy and her class got from their blogs. It is amazing!! I would definitlely recommend you to see the movie Julie and Julia. Not only is it a very good movie but its kind of interesting how it connects to our technology class too!!!
Smartboard remotes October 16, 2009
I am writing about another field experience I had this week that involved technology. I was observing at Harris Hill in Penfield. The students were at gym class so the teachers in two of the clusters were having a meeting. The meeting was about one of the teachers showing the other ones how to use the Smartboard remotes with their students. The teacher showing was a recent masters student from Nazareth. I found it interesting that she was trying to get teahers in Harris Hill to use them. We used them once in this class at the beginning of the semester and I used something similar to them a lot at my undergrad studies at Penn State. I think it is a very useful tool when trying to get direct feedback from the students about if they understood a lesson. There are a few technological issues that might come up but all together I think they are great and I would probably want to use them in my classroom. Would you?
Cyberbullying October 15, 2009
In this post, I am going to talk about my opinion about my research paper on Cyber bullying. Bullying has always been a topic that is of much interest to me. It is probably because I really feel for the students who are victims of bullying or do the bullying. When the Columbine shooting happened, I was in seventh grade. I still remember that day as if it was yesterday because it really frightened me as a middle school student. I was so frightened about it as soon as the book about Columbine came out I read it in two days to find out what exactly happened and why they think the two students went on this killing rampage. When I found out it was because they were bullied a lot it really got me thinking about bullying. Now because of technology bullying is not only done at school but it is also done at home. It can be done to kids anytime 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week. That is even scarier!!! So i mean the big question is, how can this be controlled. I found many suggestions to educators, parents, and children in my research but I really do not think that they are enough. Maybe people are just not exposed to these suggestions enough or maybe they are ignoring them. It scares me because technology is growing so rapidly and if people are so uneducated about consequences that can happen from cyber bullyinh, technology can really become a scary piece of equipment. The day I started working on my research paper it was a coincidence that a news article was published on AOL news that day about Dylan (one of the Columbine shooters) mother speaking out to the public about her son. She said that she had “no inkling of her son’s inner turmoil and her son’s participation in the massacre was impossible for her to accept until she read his journals and desire to kill himself.” This article was a real eye opener for me. Parents do not know that bullying or cyber bullying is going on with children unless children are willing to tell their parents about it. Most children/adolescents wont tell in fear that something will be done about it and then they will be bullied more. As a potential teacher, this worries me. I know that I am going to do all I can to help these young people be able to grow up without or with little bullying/cyber bullying as possible but it will be an issue that I will and many teachers do struggle with. It needs to become part of the curriculum because it can really ruin a person’s life!
Skype Interview October 8, 2009
Hello All!
This past Tuesday in class, we skyped Mrs. Cassidy. Before class even began, I was wondering what this skype thing was all about. I had never heard of Skype so I did not know what it was or even how it worked. All I know is that when we had to go the survey on Google, I picked Mrs. Cassidy’s blog before I even knew she was the person we were interviewing on skype. I enjoyed how she set up her blog. She had videos of the children as the main blog posts. The few that I watched were about the children learning patterns. It seemed like they had such a fun time learning in Mrs. Cassidy’s classroom. Also, she had a section where each child can write their own blog entry. She did not have them type it perfectly. She had them type and then it was edited. I like how this was done because it allowed the children to write whatever they wanted on the blog. As I was looking at this blog, all I can think of was how does she find the time to do this with her students? Our professor explained to the class how Skype works on tuesday and it was of a lot of interest to me. I enjoyed listening to Mrs. Cassidy about how she keeps up with the blog she has for her classroom. She gave a lot of helpful hints such as; keeping the kids confidential (do not match pictures and faces), take blogging one step at a time, and only do what you can. I found this very helpful because I think this whole idea of blogging is great but I think it is something that will have to come in time. New teachers are probably overwhelmed with things to do the first year or so. But I think that I would definitely want to create my own blog for my students once I get settled into things. The students would love it because they get to see their own work on the internet and how many people looked at it. The parents would love it because they get to see how their children’s work is progressing through out the year in the comfort of their own home. I, as a teacher, would enjoy it because I get to share with the rest of the world what my students are learning about and how fun it is to learn what I am teaching.
Have a great weekend!
