Being SMART with technology

   One thing that we were asked to think about how we would use the applications we have been introduced to over the last year.  Specifically, we were asked to consider the following:

Specific - what exactly will you do?
Measurable - how will you be able to prove it was done?
Attainable - Will you have the resources and time, what might you have to do to make it occur?
Realistic - Make sure it is doable, you certainly can add something to a lesson plan or work item, you caanot get to the moon?
Timely - Assign a timeline - when will this be done by?

Overall, each of these considerations is important to be able to help students be successful in their learning even if you are not using modern technologies to deliver your content.  It is always important for the educator to plan for student activities and learning experiences with the learning expectations in mind.  A salesman that had tried to train me as a salesman once told me, "You only can plan to succeed, if you succeed to plan."  This is as true for education as it is for sales.  If you do not plan with the outcomes you want in mind, there is no way that you will be able to reach them.  This is especially important when attempting to integrate technology into the presentation of information in a classroom.  When attempting to get students to use a new technology, the educator needs to be able teach the students the appropriate way to use the technology.  There is also the fact that the educator needs to be able have enough time to be able to learn the technologies and have enough time to teach the appropriate use of the technologies to the students.  If the teacher fails to plan appropriately, they are doomed to fail in their attempt to integrate the technologies appropriately.

CEdO 535 Week 5

This has been an interesting week.  We have been looking at many different ways to spark our students interest using technology.  Looking through the Web 2.0 sites made me realize just how many applications there are out there that I don't know about and have no clue how to use.  I have always thought that I was technologically savvy, but seeing all of this stuff out on the web, I just know that I am still a babe exploring this new world. 

Google sites are pretty nice.  I have created my own websites before using an html editor, as well as WYSIWYG sites such as GeoCities (before they were taken over by Yahoo).  I am realizing that I have much less time than I have ever had previously in my life to do fun things such as creating a website.  So the WYSIWYG format is pretty nice to be able to create a site quickly.  Here is my site as it is so far.

Eyejot.  The program seems to have uses to be able to enhance learning for students.  For me, there is only one problem.  I have a small phobia about creating videos of myself.  Maybe it is due to the experiences I have had in the past, but I would rather not publish a video that I feel would be ridiculed.  Even though I can think rationally about the fact that not many would ever bother to look it up, there is a small niggling voice in the back of my head that says that if I create a digital video, it will end up (somehow) with either a student or co-worker that has an axe to grind.

Weed 4 of CeDO 535

This week we turned our attention to several different things.  Social Bookmarking, Podcasts and Screencasting, Social Networks and Micro-blogging in the classroom all were discussed.

This is not the first time in this MEIT Cohort progression that we have talked about social bookmarking.  Digg, Diigo, Deli.cio.us and Stumbleupon are all relatively nice ways to be able to share your favorite sites with others. One of the nice things about Digg, Diigo and Stumbleupon is that you are able to login to each and share information with your facebook account.  This way you are able to easily use social networking in conjunction to the social functions of the social bookmarking sites.  Deli.cio.us has just restarted as a social bookmarking site.  There is a blog that details the status of the restart.

Speaking about social networking, I found this picture posted by one of my facebook friends.

Not only can Facebook be used as a way to keep in touch with friends and family, but it can be used specifically to focus on current events or the topics that a classroom is discussing.  The problem with sites such as Facebook, is that many districts block access to sites such as this.  If students do not have access to sites such as this, then educators are not easily able to show them how to use it for not only a social media, but also as a learning tool.  The good/bad thing about districts blocking social media sites is that while it is more difficult for students to misuse these sites during a school day, it is more likely that students will not use them as anything other than a site to connect socially or cause drama that then spills back into the schools.  The other issue is that in many cases, students are still checking their social media sites on their smart phones during the school day even though the use of such phones might also be banned during the school day.  This causes more issue for classroom management for the educators.

Podcasts and Screencasts would be very useful in many situations for education.  In MPS the only problem that I would have with trying to use these media to get messages to my students outside of class is that the population that is able to use a computer outside of school is only about 80% of the students I teach.  There are also students who have internet connected computers at home, but they are locked away in a parents room, inaccessible to the student.  The main way I might be able to use a podcast or screencast as a part of my class is to use them for students who missed classes so that they do not fall behind.  In many cases, students who miss class, not only miss the work for the day, but also the explanation of the work.  For most students, this explanation is the more important of the two components that they missed.  

Micro-blogging is a great way to send out quick information to the students who follow your Twitter account.  For students who follow, they would be reminded of due dates, assessments and other important classroom happenings.  But again, this is only for students who are able to 1) have access to the internet outside of school, and 2) have access to Twitter.

RSS Feeds, Flickr, Creative Commons

    This week we were looking at several different topics.   One of these topics was RSS readers.  The link to my shared items can be seen here. I have a feeling that with tools like RSS readers, teachers will truly be able to move toward being the facilitators of knowledge rather than the "font of knowledge".  For many educators this will be a total paradigm shift where educators will need to be able to modify what they use to teach almost as quickly as new information becomes available.

    We also used learned about Creative Commons licensing.  We were to use what we learned about these licenses to put a usage license on the images we displayed on Flickr.  The pictures that I shared can be found here.