Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Prezi

http://prezi.com/meq5v46wnxov/education-368-transition-through-instruction/

Thursday, December 16, 2010

My Blog

As this semester comes to an end I am completing my last REQUIRED blog post. I am very happy that I was taught all about blogging, and I am proud of my blog. Also, I am glad that I learned the value of making a blog, and how it can have huge benefits in my future classroom.I spent a lot of time this semester making blogs! wow 2 500 word posts a week was quite the assignment. However, I am happy that I was given the practice of working with blogs, and I can see how they are very beneficial.

As an exceptional education teacher I am not quite sure on how I will incorporate blogging into my classroom. One idea that I have is to write a blog on the classroom activities and enable the parents of my students to access the blog and have a better idea of what the daily events are. I have some time to think about it but I do know that this class taught me many things about technology such as blogging. I am very happy I was given this knowledge and I look forward to using my new technology skills in the future. THANK YOU DR. BOYER

Ch. 10 Blogs Wikis and Pod Casts.

The beginning of this chapter asked the question “Now that we have talked all about these tools, what is going to be the impact on education” The author’s state that there will be two unstoppable trends in the use of technology in the Read/Web classroom. The first trend is that more and more content both new and old will continue to come online. The second trend is that more and more the creation of that content is collaborative.

The next paragraph of the chapter talked about new illiteracies. In the olden days we defined being “literate” as someone who can read and write. Now a day’s people need to be able to produce thing online and decipher them. To consume information (The authors say) people need to be editors as well as readers. It will be our job as future educators to teach our students to be able to create, sustain and participate in these networks in safe, ethical, and effective ways.

The next section of this chapter talked about the big shifts in education in how best to teach students. The first big shift talks about the material that the teachers will be teaching. Back in the day teachers owned the material that they were teaching their students. Now with everything online the students can access the material at any time. The second big shift talks about how the students can access other teachers through the aid of social networks. No longer is the teacher the single educator of a room.

The Third Big shift talks about how with these social networks and collaborative assignments the idea that students need to work independently for the majority of the time is over. With the use of the internet a lot of the assignments are collaborative. The fourth big shift talks about how lectures are recombining a thin of the past. In most classrooms it’s all conversations. The Fifth big shift talks about how no longer will it be essential to memorize fact, but instead with the use of the internet the challenge will lie in where to find it.

The sixth big shift talks about how the information posted on the internet is no longer as accurate as most text books. Readers will have to be editors as well. The seventh big shift talks about the web will be the new notebook for our students. The eighth big shift talks about how writing is no longer limited to text, instead we can write in different fonts, sizes, and genres.

Shift 9 and 10 seemed to go hand in hand. They talk about how mastery is the product that you can produce, no longer are tests the deciding factor, and the contribution, not completion is the ultimate goal for students to be successful in a project.

The epilogue of this book talks about the enormous amount of work that you can produce in just a few minutes with the aid of the internet.
I agree with the shifts talked about in this chapter. It is apparent to me that the authors can see the writing on the wall that technology is here to stay and is transforming our classroom. I believe what they have to say and I am trying to take their advice.

As a future educator I will try my hardest to introduce helpful technology into my classroom. I believe that it does have a valid purpose in my room, and I am excited to help my student proceed to the future.

Technology Inquiry

It's Done! Finally done!

In this section of my blog post I'm supposed to write all about how much effort I put into this assignment. I have a two word answer for this question: a lot! From finding all my resources and making an annotated bibliography, to organizing me wiki and uploading all my pictures, to finally making a script and producing a screen cast I spent A LOT of time on this project. The result I am proud to say is a very good wiki that I believe shows some great ways to introduce technology into the cognitively disabled classroom. Following professor Boyer's guidelines I believe I have met all the expectations for this assignment and hopefully I will get a good grade on it.

I learned a lot from this assignment. As a exceptional education major it will be my job one day to find technology that will benefit my students, and this assignment opened the door to where I can look. Also, I now know how to make a wiki and I also have to knowledge to make a pretty one.

I am very happy that I have successfully completed this assignment. Technology has not always been one of my favorite things to work with but assignments like these make me a believer. Thank you

Friday, December 10, 2010

Chapter 10 Rethinking Education

This chapter started out with the title of the book, “Rethinking Education in a Technological World.” I thought this was an excellent way to close out the book! The chapter summed up everything that we talked about throughout the chapter.
Currently there is a strong association between schooling learning. As learning moves out of school, our conception of learning will begin to broaden, and we will see more hybrid experiences that begin in the classroom and move into other contexts. Basically what the chapter is saying is that schooling outside of an institution is a great thing and can have many benefits.

There was a short but interesting comment about Rethinking motivation that I thought was very true. The chapter gave a statistic that said many students are very bored with school. Technology can fix this problem! If students can learn from video games, using the internet, and watching movies and shows, not only will it
interest them but it will motivate them to learn.

The next big part of the chapter talked about the transitions between learning and work. The chapter said that with technology there will be a much easier transition between work and schooling. Even today many students in colleges across the nation are finding that with the help of technology they not only are being aided in finding jobs, but with their technology skills they are more suited and prepared for the jobs.

This chapter ended by talking about the author’s vision of the future. They state that we use education to work toward our national ideals of equality, opportunity, and democracy. The future leaders of our nation will need to understand the affordances of new resources to everyone. Technology is here to stay and the benefits are obvious and numerous. Now comes the proper transition into conforming technology to meet our needs.

The book is done! I was very happy I was able to read this book and find more about how technology is changing our world, and can be extremely beneficial to our classrooms. When I first took this class I did not believe that technology was all that necessary. I loved my hardcover books, multiple handouts, and lots of writing. However after reading this chapter and completing education 331 I am now a believer in technology. There are so many good uses that can help our students I cannot understand why anyone would want to stick with our original methods of technology.

As a future teacher I will do my best to implement the proper technology into my classroom. I am an exceptional education major and I plan on working with cognitively disabled students. There are many example of technology that I can use in my room. I will use this technology and hopefully it will help me be a good teacher.

Chapter 9 Rethinking Education.

This was a relatively short chapter! (Only 6 pages) The chapter started out asking the question “what does it all mean? The first paragraph had a great argument about why technology in the classroom is a good thing. A man named Don Tapscott argues “for the first time in history, children are more comfortable, knowledgeable, and literate than tier parents about an innovation central to society; they are a force for social transformation.

The first part of the chapter talked about what are kids learning form technology? They state that children learn ousted of school and home with the help of technology. Video games are an excellent example of this. Children who play video games develop sophisticated problem- solving and communication skills in virtual worlds beyond the idea of reading with your children to playing with your children. Also when players participate in a larger gaming community, games can accelerate opportunities for children to develop new sources of vocabulary in meaningful contexts.

This chapter ended talking about how the media also has an effect on our students. Shows are becoming very elaborate and drawing many viewers. These viewers sometime create websites and blogs that students can follow and communicate with the outside world. Finally where does this leave us? The chapter ended talking about how there is now even more pressure from inside the classroom and out to include technology in the classroom. Now we need initiative people to initiate the movement.

This short chapter really did not change my thinking about technology to much. I appreciate the video game argument, and I realize that this may be true. However, I believe that this chapter could have found more examples or proven its point in another chapter. After reading this chapter I now am convinced that technology in the classroom is a good thing, now it’s time to learn about how I can successfully implement it and keep the peace with the classroom and parents of my students.

As a future teacher I will encourage my students to participate outside of class in educational uses of technology. Though I do not believe that video games are super educational There are multiple ways on the internet, computer, and media that my students can learn. As a result of this chapter I will maybe investigate into video games a little more and see if there are really some educational ones.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

How has my thinking about technology's role in teaching and learning changed over the semester?

Over the semester my thoughts have changed a lot! I really did not like using computers that much. I knew that they were good tools but i hated using them! Not I really believe using technology can help students and I am excited to use it.