What I took from class week 12

I leanred that when you do a set strategy like the "jigsaw" grouping you should let the class know what it is called so that students can remember what it is and know exactly what they are doing because it is named.  After giving directions on what to do, it is always good to ask the class if they understand your directions so that everyone is on the same page.  I also learned that there is a barrier between the way students use technology outside of school and they way they use it in school.  We could break these barriers and help students learn with technology they are already using.  I also learned that it is very easy to find media on the web and we should use it and share it with others.  That is one way that we can help education by working together.

My thoughts on Chapter 10

I like this chapter because it brought everything that this book discussed previously all together.  This chapter calls for us to rethink many ideas that we have about our current education system and how technology is affecting them and causing them to change.  I think that it is very important to consider new ways to teach our future students and to help them learn with the help of technology.  Technology can be very useful.  It can change the way teachers teach, where students can learn, and what they are learning to help them in the future.  This entire book has talked about the effect new technologies are having on our students and why we should change some of our practices as teachers to better benefit our students.  With the help of technology we can better prepare our students for the future because when they get out of school they will be using a lot of technology in their every day jobs.  This will better prepare them to succeed in their own job.  Students are also more likely to be motivated if they are not doing the same boring lecture type structure everyday.  Students are constantly getting bombarded with technology all the time so they will be more motivated to learn with this new technology because they are so used to it and they won't feel like they are learning new things.  With the help of technology we can get students motivate to learn because they are going new things in different ways.  I think that as a future teacher they will be many changes in the future that will affect education and what we teach.  We have to think about how things will change and what we will do to adapt these new ideas to they way we teach.  This was a very interesting book and it filled me with different ideas that I never thought about before I read this.  Education is very likely to change because the world is changing.  It is our jobs as educators to adapt to the changes and help out our students the best way we can.

Podcast Reflection

For this podcast I used a Mac computer which I am not very familiar with.  It took me a pretty good amount of time to figure out how to use grarageband and make it sound professional.  It is difficult to get the timing down and make it all come together.  I also searched the Internet a Little while to find an article that would be interesting and that applied to what we are talking about in class.  I liked this article because we have been talking about how distance learning can help students learn from far away.  I thought that it was very relevant to what we were discussing in class.  I have also never made a podcast before so it was new to me.  I think that this will be beneficial for me as a future teacher because it is another tool that I can put in my toolbox to facilitate learning in my future classroom.  Being a science teacher I can use podcasts to give directions for labs.  This is one way for audio learners to learn.  It is great for students who are sick because they can just download a podcast at home and hear what I personally have to say to them about class.  It is great for distance learning because with many students having mp3 players they can download podcasts very easily.  I think that it a a very useful tool and it is a great thing that I know how to create one now.

Here is the link to article that I used for information:

https://email.uwsp.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=b6f49cc7418448de9233484ee6dab24a&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.eschoolnews.com%2f2010%2f11%2f11%2fnew-report-highlights-barriers-to-online-learning%2f

What I took from class week 11

It is always good to have a back up plan when you are teaching, especially if you are using technology.  There are advantages of using different tools in a classroom setting because it helps different learners understand.  Plus if they have to use that tool somewhere else it will help them in the future to practice now.  It is good to have students summarize their main answer so that in a discussion you can get right to the main point and understand what other students should learn.  As future educators we should consider whether we want to fit inside the current mold or change the way things are being done right now.  It is a pretty interesting time to become a teacher because of the current economy and the scrutiny teachers are constantly under.  I also learned it is also nice to have a breather day where students can catch up. 

My thoughts on Chapter 9

In this chapter of the book it shows the age gap between different thoughts on technology.  Kids are learning from knew technology whether we notice it or not.  Even when they are playing their video games they are learning many different things in ways that we may not notice.  One game can have kids learning about math, writing, science, and problem solving.  This just shows that technology can help us as future teachers help students learn in different ways that we wouldn't have previously thought of.  This chapter calls for parents to try to bridge this age gap by using this technology themselves to understand how kids can learn and to help them learn with this new technology.  I think with the assistance of parents helping kids with this new technology will help facilitate learning even greater.  If parents are there to question their kids on what is going on and give it deeper thought it will help them learn even more.  It will also help the parents understand where the student is coming from and see for themselves how these technologies can help in their own different way.  This section also talked about how parents don't see how being online can help because they are not reading a book.  Just because students are not reading a book doesn't mean that they are not learning anything.  Students can constantly be reading new information when they are online which helps them with their literacy and writing.  It also can be beneficial because they are probably more motivated to do it because they are reading and writing about things that they are actually interested in which then creates motivation to do it.  I don't see how that is too bad of a thing because at least they are learning.  Students can also learn from pop culture because they are using technology to watch TV shows that have complicated plot lines which help in reasoning and comprehension.  Just because something looks fun doesn't mean that a student isn't learning from it.  This chapter shows us that technology is having students learn in different ways.  As a future educator I have to adapt with changing social lives and where students get their information from.  Noticing major fads that are going on with students can help me reach out to them and connect with them to help them want to learn.  If I can relate with students and see what they are interested in it will allow me to teach them better.  I can use this new technology that students are using and like to help them learn in ways that they might not even think they are learning because it is fun and they do it on a daily basis.  This can be very useful and beneficial to my future students.

Cool Tool Screencast

My Screencast

Throughout creating this screen cast I felt that I put a pretty good amount of effort into it.  This is something that I have never done before and it was very new to me.  I am not very great with new technology but I felt that I did a pretty good job.  I went on my specific cool tool website and experimented on it for a while before I attempted the create my screencast.  I also created a SWOT analysis and a script on what I was going to say.  I felt that it helped me know the direction I was going in.  I also had to start the podcast over probably five or six times so I didn't screw up too many times on the finished product.

I think that this will impact my future teaching because if I ever want to create a screencast for my students I will have the knowledge to do so.  If I am teaching students how to do labs a screencast can be useful because students will be able to hear and see what I am doing which is very helpful.  I also did like this cite because I could use it to create a time line for a visual for my class.  I could create an evolutionary time scale to help students remember when major things in life history happened.  That, if feel, will be very useful in my future teaching.

My thoughts on Chapter 10 and Epilogue

I really liked this chapter because it put everything into context on what we are supposed to do with this new read/write web to best help our students.  It gave us ten big shifts that this new Internet is going to cause and as teachers we should help push for these big shifts and use them to help our students learn for the future.  I feel that his section had many good points to look at.  With technology the way it is today, students are not going to be learning the same ways that they have been for hundreds of years.  One difference that this book says is happening is that the curriculum and content is going to change to things that students want to learn.  This is a great idea but it can be scary to think about as a future teacher.  As you go though school people are always talking about standard based curriculum and what you need to know before you pass this grade.  It will be a lot different if students are able to learn what the want.  As a future teacher I will have to be there to make sure they learn the right things to help them in the future.  Another thing to consider is with new technology students are able to not only write in words.  They can also express what they are thinking in visual and in audio ways.  This is a great thing because it helps out all different types of learners.  Technology makes this possible for students to do.  I think this makes it easier on the teachers because it gives them more options for assignments and you don't have to make students who hate writing all the time write all the time.  I liked that we are now able to do that and technology makes it possible. Another shift that I liked and I hope happens more often is that teaching is not just lecture it is a conversation.  I feel that students can learn a lot better if they are just not only listening to the teacher but adding to the conversation as well.  This also gets them involved and helps them stay focused.  This can stop classroom management problems as well because they will be motivated to learn.  I liked many of these shifts and I am excited to see how this new technology will effect the mold of teaching as it is today.  As a future educator I will have to work with these shifts and use them to help it learning.  This will not happen over night but I think that it is already starting now.  I know that I am learning in many different ways because of technology now, then I did when I was in grade school.  We have to embrace this read/write web because this is how people are learning and communicating today. The story of the future classroom in the epilogue is a lot different then the visions that I had as being a teacher before I took this class.  I can see how it is possible but I think it will take me a little bit to get to that point.  These shifts are not going to be night and day but I feel that they are happening and it is exciting.

What I took from class week 10

Today I learned that it is possible to integrate the three ideas from the chapter together because of the school article that Dr. Boyer showed us in class which is really interesting because many people think that it is not possible.  I also leanred that you should give direction to your studented before they move to their group and start chatting.  After they move the students kind of tune out and not listen to your direction.  You should give instruction before the separation so everyone understands.  Group size is a major thing you have to consider to facilitate a good discussion so people can get in depth and discuss things they are talking about.  I also learned that technology is something that can reduce cognitive load which helps students learn.

Chapter 8 Rethinking education

This was an interesting chapter in the fact that it was bringing together three big ideas that technology is going to bring about in education.  Those three big ideas were performance-based assessment, New curriculum design, and new approaches to equity in the digital world.  These new aspects are going to bring about change in the way we think of education.  With performance-based assessment the whole idea is to assess the student in specific areas academic, generic, or technical.  They want to assess students and then give them certain credentials in each specific category.  This is a lot different then education now because we judge on an overall status with GPA and bringing all the areas of learning together.  With technology the way it is I think it would be easier to assess like this but I feel that students need to be well rounded.  The book also talked about how students are able to learn what they are interested in and want to learn.  I feel that this could be a good idea but what if students only want to learn about one thing like dinosaurs and not anything else.  All little kids love dinosaurs, does this mean that we will have a bunch of 1st graders only learning about dinosaurs.  I am all for specialization but for specialization to happen I think the students need to be well rounded.  I also think that it is a good idea for students to have many credentials that they can use which would be easier for jobs to find what they are looking for.  These credentials just have to be considered legitimate and I feel that it could be a good idea.  I do agree that the curriculum needs to be changed but maybe not too drastic.  I feel that students are expected to just scrape the surface because they are learning so much but nothing in depth.  This is where specialization would help because they students could learn very in depth aspects of what they are studying.  Like I said before though is you can't have so much specialization that the students arn't learning what they need to get through life.  The part about new approaches to equity in a digital world talks a lot about technology being used to help students learn in multiple ways.  The idea that students are able to learn when they are not even near a school is a great thing in my opinion.  Some students don't have the benefit of this.  With more and more technology coming I think it is great that more resources are going into helping students learn.  As a future teacher I have to be able to integrate these new ideas and be optimistic to help faciliate learning. 

Chapter 9: Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts

This chapter was interesting because it sort of talked about a the controversial discussion of whether social networks like Facebook and Ning should be used in the classroom to help facilitate learning.  This technology is huge among not only students but people of all ages now.  Facebook is a social network that is very popular for people to stay in touch and look at pictures of their friends and family.  I bet that most students check their facebook accounts more then any other website that they would go too.  This just shows that if students were able to use facebook to help them learn it would be a very powerful tool.  I think that this wouldn't be a bad idea if you could create a private group just for you class that they could work on going at their own pace and on their own time.  It would have to be something that all of your students would agree too becuase to them facebook might be a very private place for them even though it is a social network.  They might not want to have it deal with their school at all.  If students were excited and did like it then I feel that it could be a very powerful tool to help students learn.  I think Ning could be a very useful site because it seems like its design is more geered toward education.  I am not very familiar with this website at all so I would have to go on it to understand it more but from the reading it seems like it could be used to help education.  I think if facebook could work it would be a better site to use because it is more popular and common which would be easier for students to use because they know how to use it and they already have accounts.
As a future teacher I will maybe talk to the administration and see what they think about useing these social network sites.  It is kind of a controversial discussion because many people think that this technology should never be used in education.  It is an interesting thing to talk about.  I feel that it could work if the students are motivated and excited to do it.  I feel that this could be easy for them and since it is on facebook they may feel that they are not doing boring homework.  Plus many students do homework with facebook already on so this way they would have to multitask all the time.  It could be a great place to facilitate a discussion and help the students learn in a different and creative way.