When I was much younger, my parents were thinking about doing some remodeling in our house. We went to the office of an architect and met with an interior designer who used a CAD program to show us some ideas he had. It was at that moment I knew I was interested in architecture and would be an architect who worked with CAD programs. Of course, things change and that never worked out. But just seeing someone use that CAD program got me interested - at least for a while - in something I never would have been otherwise exposed to. Using programs like SketchUp or Pro/DESKTOP incorporate the core subjects like science and math, and help a student by increasing his or her spatial reasoning skills. But they also can help turn a student onto a new hobby, interest, or even career path. Too often in schools we push nothing but the core subjects, leaving students with a lack of hobbies or extracurricular interests. Programs like these can help foster a new interest while also addressing academic points.
Similarly, programs like Scratch can help develop a student's interest in programming. Years ago, I used to love programming. Over the summer after 4th grade I took a robotics class in which we programmed sequences for robots to act out. I taught myself HTML and built websites with raw HTML. But with the advent of WYSIWYG editors and once school cut into my extracurricular time, I no longer had the time to learn the new languages or keep up with anything programming-related. Just from the simple Scratch projects we've been doing in class, I have remembered how much I loved programming.
I checked out the iStopMotion site, as I had never heard of it. The producers of the site understand that their product is very useful for education, and as such they include a list of curriculum ideas for their product. Sadly, the product is not free, so I had to rely on examples to see what it was capable of.
In the past, I have designed music with programs such as Finale Notepad and Sibelius Music, neither of which are listed here. Musical background is required for both, however. I thought that the Musical Sketch Pad was a really cool lsite that could be used with most any grade level and any level of musical ability. I'm glad that tools like this exist in order to get kids interested in and thinking about music at a young age. Budget cuts often take away from music programs, so any help is tremendous.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Chapter 7 Log
Communicating comprises a vast majority of what I do personally with most of the technology I use. I feel connected, and as such I have a hard time separating from my phone or laptop when I'm in class or at a meeting or with friends. This chapter covers a lot of the different things that I do with technology as a way of communicating.
The book first discusses discussion boards. I use several online forums - I even run one. I use them for my two biggest passions: sports and politics. The forum I run is a Florida Marlins discussion board. The beauty of using this forum is that it connects many people with similar passions but different ideas and provides a way for these ideas to be communicated. The book mentions that discussion boards are asynchronous; however, this is not always the case. On our forum we added a feature called "Live Topic." Live Topic automatically refreshes the thread you are reading whenever a new post is made, essentially making it synchronous, almost like a chat room. This comes in handy for our purpose when we are discussing the real-time events of a baseball game. I think that forums could be used for its strengths in education. Employing a forum in my classroom, for instance, would allow those people who are too shy to speak in class to share their thoughts. Additionally, it could allow those people who need time to gather their thoughts to formulate what they want to say, then type it and have the ability to edit it. It can also allow everyone to see everyone else's ideas, which in turn could trigger some new ideas in some students. Like the book mentions, online forums could be good for second-language learners, as it provides time to think about what will be said and doesn't require them to speak aloud.
I am always connected to AOL Instant Messenger, Google Chat, and Facebook Chat. For me, it makes communication much easier because I can double-check what I write and think it over before I say it. I use chat rooms less frequently, but do it as a matter of convenience when I need to talk to multiple people about the same subject. My most frequent use of chat rooms is for drafts in my fantasy sports leagues. As an educator, I could set up a chat room with chat hours once or twice a week. This would allow students who may be too shy or nervous to talk to me face to face a place where they could think about what they are going to say and not me embarrassed to ask anything.
As I said in class one week, I also have experience with internet radio and podcasts. I used to run an internet radio politics show with my best friend. The show would then be archived and turned into a podcast. I loved doing this, as it would connect me to people I'd never met who just found our show. Using student-generated podcasts in the classroom would be a lot of fun and extremely engaging. Students could be broken apart into groups in order to produce podcasts about certain topics in order to share them with the class. Making the podcasts available for everyone to download would provide an easy study tool for students. Creating the podcast would help those students who are shy in front of the class to participate, and because nothing would have to be "presented" in front of the class, creating a podcast would allow students to focus more on the facts and information as opposed to the delivery of the information.
The book first discusses discussion boards. I use several online forums - I even run one. I use them for my two biggest passions: sports and politics. The forum I run is a Florida Marlins discussion board. The beauty of using this forum is that it connects many people with similar passions but different ideas and provides a way for these ideas to be communicated. The book mentions that discussion boards are asynchronous; however, this is not always the case. On our forum we added a feature called "Live Topic." Live Topic automatically refreshes the thread you are reading whenever a new post is made, essentially making it synchronous, almost like a chat room. This comes in handy for our purpose when we are discussing the real-time events of a baseball game. I think that forums could be used for its strengths in education. Employing a forum in my classroom, for instance, would allow those people who are too shy to speak in class to share their thoughts. Additionally, it could allow those people who need time to gather their thoughts to formulate what they want to say, then type it and have the ability to edit it. It can also allow everyone to see everyone else's ideas, which in turn could trigger some new ideas in some students. Like the book mentions, online forums could be good for second-language learners, as it provides time to think about what will be said and doesn't require them to speak aloud.
I am always connected to AOL Instant Messenger, Google Chat, and Facebook Chat. For me, it makes communication much easier because I can double-check what I write and think it over before I say it. I use chat rooms less frequently, but do it as a matter of convenience when I need to talk to multiple people about the same subject. My most frequent use of chat rooms is for drafts in my fantasy sports leagues. As an educator, I could set up a chat room with chat hours once or twice a week. This would allow students who may be too shy or nervous to talk to me face to face a place where they could think about what they are going to say and not me embarrassed to ask anything.
As I said in class one week, I also have experience with internet radio and podcasts. I used to run an internet radio politics show with my best friend. The show would then be archived and turned into a podcast. I loved doing this, as it would connect me to people I'd never met who just found our show. Using student-generated podcasts in the classroom would be a lot of fun and extremely engaging. Students could be broken apart into groups in order to produce podcasts about certain topics in order to share them with the class. Making the podcasts available for everyone to download would provide an easy study tool for students. Creating the podcast would help those students who are shy in front of the class to participate, and because nothing would have to be "presented" in front of the class, creating a podcast would allow students to focus more on the facts and information as opposed to the delivery of the information.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Chapter 6 Log
I'm very interested in Web 2.0 technologies and how they can affect education, so I was immediately drawn into this chapter when these technologies were introduced on the second page.
I had never heard of Knowledge Forum, so I set off to check it out. (Interesting note: going to knowledgeforum.com redirects you to motion.com, the parent company of Knowledge Forum; one must use a www. in front of the URL to access the Knowledge Forum site directly.) The site allows for a demo using the Java platform in order for a user to see what the product is like. Although I found it to be a bit confusing, this may be because the demo does not have the ful functionality that the full version has. It seemed to me to almost combine a wiki and a concept map and a forum. Given that I thought it was a bit confusing, however, it's probably not something I'd use in my classroom.
Wikis, however, definitely are something I would use. It is easy to see the benefit of wikis in education just by looking at the wikis we use in our own classroom. I think wikis are a good way to get kids to work together and to realize that the internet enables them to connect to people who have valuable information on whatever topic they are interested in. Using wikis in the classroom can also provide the right environment to discuss why wikis are not always the most reliable source available on the internet. I would integrate wikis as much as possible, letting students use them for projects and using them for class assignments and other classwide information. I really want to teach secondary history at some point, and I think that wikis would integrate particularly well with history, such as Dan McDowell's Holocaust wiki. For example, a class could have a wiki with different pages for founding fathers.
My inquiry question is about how blogs could be used to further education, so I really enjoyed the section on blogs in the chapter. I don't want to discuss much of it here, since I want to save it for the inquiry assignment. However, one idea I had for my future class, tying into history, would be for students to have a blog as a historical figure of whatever period we are discussing. Students would need to make chronological and historically accurate posts in their blogs. I have also found several blogs specifically for teachers with lesson plans, tips, and research for teachers and by teachers.
The bottom line is that there is a ton of information on the internet and students and teachers should use as much of this information as possible, assuming it is reliable. Gaining access to this information can be very valuable and can increase learning and networking abilities.
I had never heard of Knowledge Forum, so I set off to check it out. (Interesting note: going to knowledgeforum.com redirects you to motion.com, the parent company of Knowledge Forum; one must use a www. in front of the URL to access the Knowledge Forum site directly.) The site allows for a demo using the Java platform in order for a user to see what the product is like. Although I found it to be a bit confusing, this may be because the demo does not have the ful functionality that the full version has. It seemed to me to almost combine a wiki and a concept map and a forum. Given that I thought it was a bit confusing, however, it's probably not something I'd use in my classroom.
Wikis, however, definitely are something I would use. It is easy to see the benefit of wikis in education just by looking at the wikis we use in our own classroom. I think wikis are a good way to get kids to work together and to realize that the internet enables them to connect to people who have valuable information on whatever topic they are interested in. Using wikis in the classroom can also provide the right environment to discuss why wikis are not always the most reliable source available on the internet. I would integrate wikis as much as possible, letting students use them for projects and using them for class assignments and other classwide information. I really want to teach secondary history at some point, and I think that wikis would integrate particularly well with history, such as Dan McDowell's Holocaust wiki. For example, a class could have a wiki with different pages for founding fathers.
My inquiry question is about how blogs could be used to further education, so I really enjoyed the section on blogs in the chapter. I don't want to discuss much of it here, since I want to save it for the inquiry assignment. However, one idea I had for my future class, tying into history, would be for students to have a blog as a historical figure of whatever period we are discussing. Students would need to make chronological and historically accurate posts in their blogs. I have also found several blogs specifically for teachers with lesson plans, tips, and research for teachers and by teachers.
The bottom line is that there is a ton of information on the internet and students and teachers should use as much of this information as possible, assuming it is reliable. Gaining access to this information can be very valuable and can increase learning and networking abilities.
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