Last EDU 7267 Class Blog:
This class has taught me a lot about technology and has challenged me to push myself and my abilities with technology.I really liked the idea of having the students make their own videos or interviews. I hope that the next school I work in has the technological ability and funding for this, it would be great to see my high school students interact this way. I really plan to start to incorporate more technology in my classroom and expand my "techie" ways more. : )
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Assisted Learning & Group Videos:
Last weeks class focused on assisted learning technologies. I never thought of the work assisted technology as being anything. I always thought of it as being just computer based. I learned that it is anything that helps a person to learn or function better. It can be a wheel chair, or a cane, or a hearing aid, etc. I found this a little mind opening because I never thought of technology like this before.
This week my group presented and we got a lot of GREAT feedback. It was very nice to hear all the enthusiasm from the class on our topic and on our video. We worked hard on the video and really got the feedback we wanted. One group presented on texting while driving and the other spoke about obesity. It was great to see how the other groups put their video's together and spoke about their topics.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Chapter 10: Promoting Success for All Students Through Technology
1. The chapter starts off by saying something very powerful that teachers deal with on a daily basis, there is not enough time in a day or in a school year to help every single individual student. Many classrooms are filled with students who need individual help, but one teacher a lone cannot provide this for them. The text states, "teacher must make difficult choices about which students to help and for how long before moving onto the next student or the next topic" (pg 276). This is something I go through everyday as a high school teacher, because I alone have 140 students that I see every single day in all of my 6 classes. I cannot possibly help them all. That's where technology comes in. There are so many programs out there that individualize themselves to meet the needs of each students. In my old school where I taught we used READ 140. It was a program that helped students become better reader. The program began with giving the students a reading test that was followed by questions, as they moved on through the test it became easier or harder based on their abilities. The students would go to the computer lab and work on the program during their free time, their lunch, or after school, some even worked on it at home. As they became stronger readers, the levels moved up. I would try and take them to the computer lab once a week to work on the program. Overall, technology can be helpful in many cases when one teacher cannot help all students. Do you believe it is a good idea to use technology alone to help some students learn skills they need? What programs does your school implement?
2. The chapter gave some very shocking statistics, that when I stopped and thought about it were evident in all classroom, especially in urban schools like the one I work in. Spanish is the language most frequently spoken in the USA, even when you call a 1800 number they tell you to press ONE for Spanish and TWO for English. I always get confused when I hear this. Since 1979-2004, the number of children speaking English with difficulty increased 114%. The sad part is that many of these students are born in the USA but grow up with parents who do not speak English properly (or at all) and in neighborhoods where they communicate in their L1. How can schools help all of these ESL students? Is there some sort of technology that can be implemented? What are some ways your school is helping the ESL students?
3. I found the debate on calculators interesting in the chapter. I always actually had this debate with myself, are calculators more harmful or helpful to students? Calculators are great to solve problems that cannot be physically solved by hand, but, they can also cause a person to be lazy. Yesterday, in my college class, the teacher put up a math problem that included multiplying fractions. Everyone reached for their calculators, and it was sad because the problem was not even difficult (nor did he say to solve it, he asked which one do we think is larger). It made me think, is all this technology helping students in some cases or harming them and preventing them from using their own intelligence?
1. The chapter starts off by saying something very powerful that teachers deal with on a daily basis, there is not enough time in a day or in a school year to help every single individual student. Many classrooms are filled with students who need individual help, but one teacher a lone cannot provide this for them. The text states, "teacher must make difficult choices about which students to help and for how long before moving onto the next student or the next topic" (pg 276). This is something I go through everyday as a high school teacher, because I alone have 140 students that I see every single day in all of my 6 classes. I cannot possibly help them all. That's where technology comes in. There are so many programs out there that individualize themselves to meet the needs of each students. In my old school where I taught we used READ 140. It was a program that helped students become better reader. The program began with giving the students a reading test that was followed by questions, as they moved on through the test it became easier or harder based on their abilities. The students would go to the computer lab and work on the program during their free time, their lunch, or after school, some even worked on it at home. As they became stronger readers, the levels moved up. I would try and take them to the computer lab once a week to work on the program. Overall, technology can be helpful in many cases when one teacher cannot help all students. Do you believe it is a good idea to use technology alone to help some students learn skills they need? What programs does your school implement?
2. The chapter gave some very shocking statistics, that when I stopped and thought about it were evident in all classroom, especially in urban schools like the one I work in. Spanish is the language most frequently spoken in the USA, even when you call a 1800 number they tell you to press ONE for Spanish and TWO for English. I always get confused when I hear this. Since 1979-2004, the number of children speaking English with difficulty increased 114%. The sad part is that many of these students are born in the USA but grow up with parents who do not speak English properly (or at all) and in neighborhoods where they communicate in their L1. How can schools help all of these ESL students? Is there some sort of technology that can be implemented? What are some ways your school is helping the ESL students?
3. I found the debate on calculators interesting in the chapter. I always actually had this debate with myself, are calculators more harmful or helpful to students? Calculators are great to solve problems that cannot be physically solved by hand, but, they can also cause a person to be lazy. Yesterday, in my college class, the teacher put up a math problem that included multiplying fractions. Everyone reached for their calculators, and it was sad because the problem was not even difficult (nor did he say to solve it, he asked which one do we think is larger). It made me think, is all this technology helping students in some cases or harming them and preventing them from using their own intelligence?
Thursday, April 4, 2013
4.04.13
Today's class was interesting because the class found out I was Facebook famous. (haha). It was a fun topic to talk about in class, the use of the internet and social media, and how students do not know how to use it correctly. Also, students do not understand that what they are doing outside of school can get them in trouble in school.
Today's class was interesting because the class found out I was Facebook famous. (haha). It was a fun topic to talk about in class, the use of the internet and social media, and how students do not know how to use it correctly. Also, students do not understand that what they are doing outside of school can get them in trouble in school.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Chapter 8: Communicating and Networking with Websites, blogs, Wikis and More
1) The chapter gives a few different ways to communicate with your students, for example blogs, email, teacher websites, online discussions and Wikis. (Wiki comes from the Hawaiian work "quick", I found that a fun fact the textbook stated). The textbook also gives a chart explaining when it is best to use each of these computer-mediated communication forms. I recently gave my students my email address (my school where I work gave me this email to use), though my school does not have my password I found it safer to use the school email and would never use a private one. I work in a high school and the problem with privately communicating with students of this age group is that sometimes they use this private communication for other means. Some of my students even said is this email only to hand in the project? The text states on page 210 that many schools worry about student and teacher communication through online social networks. I learned about the website Ning.com and how you can use it to make your own social network to only invite certain people into it. I went to the website The site was great, however it was $49 for a regular site, and $100 for a business one, etc. As a teacher it is hard to have communication with your students outside of the classroom, in a safe and proper way. How would you implement communication with your students outside of the class, which websites do you believe are safe to use, which communication methods would you use?
2) The text stated that 36% more student success was achieved when parents had internet based communication with teachers and the school. The problem however was that this occurred in areas with higher income, education and parent involvement. Overall, parent involvement was better when the information was found online. I work in the South Bronx, and my students are able to access their grades through a site called Powerschool. They always come in to class saying that they saw their grades, and are either happy or not. I believe that when parents and students have this access, they are more likely to be involved and stay on top of their grades more. How do you implement parent involvement? Do you use the internet?
3) Page 214 of the text really hit home with me. The text states that 4 out of 10 students in high school never write a paper of more than 3 pages and that by the end of high school many students are writing unsophisticated work or immature. In my classroom I assigned my honors class a 3 page, 5 paragraph comparison essay to write over the spring break. All of the students flipped out saying that it was too much writing (double spaced mind you). I found this appaulling because I though the assignment was easy. The text stated that 60% of teens use text, online blogs, Facebook, etc to write daily but do not see that as "real" writing. I tend to agree with this fact because, though they are writing they are not writing properly, therefore this is not helping them. How can you as a teacher improve this problem with students writing? The text stated that many social studies/history teachers never have their students write, how can you as another subject matter teacher beside ELA promote writing in your classroom?
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Sunday, March 17, 2013
CHAPTER 7: Problem Solving & Inquiry Learning With Software & Web Tools
Chapter 7 unfortunately was very boring to read and not very helpful! The chapter spoke mostly about different programs for the teacher and students to use along with some guidelines. One interesting program that I read about was "Inspiration" for high school students. The program is used to help students create something original by using graphs, voice, drawing, writing, etc. Its like a little easel on the computer that can add text and voice. The program lets students talk, draw or write anything that comes to mind when they are given a project. It allows them to avoid writers block because it let's them free think before making their final version. How much creativity do you allow your students in the classroom? Is this a program you would use?
Chapter 7 page 179, the text states that there are are three ways for teachers to decide if the program is a poor soft ware. They are the following: if the program, not the child, controls the activity, if the game promotes violence, stereotyping or competition, if the software favors quick reaction and not long term thinking. I agreed with these three outlines because, it is important for the student to control what is happening and not have the program control what they are doing. Also, the software needs to promote long term thinking instead of having the student just complete the task and forget it. Do you agree with the three guidelines? Are there any you would add to follow?
The chapter gave a whole list of education games for students to play on page 195. I read through the list and thought how every parent should allow their students to play educational games as opposed to stupid shooting games or killing. Some of the game sounded very fun. Personally I have only played Sims game. Do you think parents should limit the type of games students play? Would that effect a students learning in school?
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