One more thing...

I also realize how time consuming technology can be even when you know what you're doing and you're doing it right. I think that's one of the best lessons to take into the classroom when working with technology. Though I better know how to use technology now, I'm still lost when it comes to things like writing code and my mind is still about boggled about where all of the information on the internet actually exists and is held and how it works. That being said, I have a deep, deep respect for those who understand all of the intricacies of the internet and technology in general. These things remind me why I want to teach and not create new technology. Besides the fact that I love the kids, of course!

Week 14: Or I think it's about that time...

As I sit here and finish up my technology portfolio, I think about all the things we've completed over the course of the semester. For a two hour class that meets once a week, I'm amazed at the amount of information we've covered and the number of things I've learned how to do. This is knowledge that I'll be able to use in my classroom, but it's also knowledge that I'll be able to use in the rest of my life as well. I'm very excited to continue my exploration of technology and the projects/lessons/assignments/fun things I can complete with it.
I will, of course, remember the frustrations and heed fair warning on trying anything too ambitious too soon, especially with my students. I also sincerely hope that the class wiki and toolkit pages are never removed from the internet as I have a feeling I will be lost without them. There's a lot of information to synthesize in one semester, and while I feel much more adept at using technology, I will need a reminder and helping hand every once in a while.
Thanks, Curby, for doing what you do! I'll most likely be in touch from Africa next year asking how to do something new (or even something you taught us that I can't remember how to do!) I look forward to taking all of the practices and ideas you've given us and using them with my students. Teaching has never looked better! (or loomed closer!)

Week 13: Educational Software

With all the technology available for use in the classroom, I'm somewhat weary of buying educational programming for use by my students. It seems that most of the programs out there are simply put out to appeal to teachers and students, but we don't seem to have any information about how effective they actually are and if they provide any real teaching or lesson learning to students. I suppose the best way to choose a program would be by word of mouth--talking to other teachers, administrators, etc., to see what they've used in the past and what seems to have been a successful tool for their students. There are so many programs for everything you could want a program for that I fear I don't even know where to start looking. I enjoyed going through the websites last class and looking at the products that are available, though it just reinforced that fact that they are numerous. I think the idea of free trials was very pertinent to our discussion and I believe it's definitely worth looking for software that allows a free trial use before purchasing just to get a feel for it and explore the product more in-depth. Reviewing the return policy is also very important. I'm glad that this is a topic we covered in class simply because I feel better prepared to address it as a teacher in my own classroom later.

Working through the assistive technology diagram has also been helpful. I'm a special ed teacher and there are still certain devices that I don't know much, if anything, about. Just be aware of everything that is available is an important aspect of teaching. The school I was in for student teaching didn't have a lot of money, so we didn't have a lot of extra technology. Will's demonstration with the SmartBoard was actually my first introduction to it. It's exciting and I want one already! I just hope I can stay on top of all of the information out there for students with special needs.

Week 12: Using Technology in the classroom

Since we're creating a lesson plan this week and last week we continued to talk about virtual schooling and introduced assistive technology, I figured this week I would blog about using technology in the classroom in general. I feel somewhat overwhelmed at times when I think about all of the uses of technology in the classroom. At the same time, it's great to think about all of the resources I have at my fingertips because of the available technology in the classroom. I think the hardest part of using technology in the classroom is picking and choosing what technology to use and when to use it. I think it's also important to not overuse technology in the classroom. While students love using new and different things, I think it can become overwhelming to have too many projects using technology at once for students. I also think that the novelty may wear off very quickly if teachers don't plan the use of technology in their classrooms very carefully and explicitly. One of my biggest fears in using technology as a teacher is technology failure. I would hate for my students to lose any work that they may be doing because technology fails or for them to not be able to access their work or use if for the designated purposes because of broken equipment or loss of information. Teachers have been teaching without technology for many, many years. It is important to remember this and balance out lessons and learning with all the other various methods and resources we have to teach our students.
As for assistive technology, I'm impressed by what is available for students with disabilities. The one thing I worry about at this point with assistive technology is learning how to use it as a teacher and working with it and the student. Once again, if this type of technology stops working, it could be very detrimental to the student. I recognize that their are back-ups available and that this type of technology can be fixed, I think I'm just thinking about how much of a pain it would be at the time and the amount of frustration that can be caused by technology.

Week 11: Creating a Digital Story

Creating a digital story has been fun and exciting. I feel like digital stories can be very valuable teaching tools. I feel like they can be used to introduce lessons, recap lessons, or as one-on-one teaching tools. You can fit a lot of information into a 3 minute clip!
The actual making of the digital story was tough, but not too bad...at least in the beginning. It's been a great experience and teaching tool for me on my new computer. Once I was able to figure out the basics, it was easy and smooth sailing. When I tried to up the ante and add music, it didn't go quite as well. I wasn't able to figure out how to fade the music in or out, though I was able to cut the length and change the volume. I also had trouble burning it to cd. In fact, I haven't yet been able to figure it out, and I've tried many times. I was able to export the file using Quicktime onto my hard drive, but I'm not able to get it off of my hard drive. I'm happy to be taking this class while simultaneously learning how to use my computer because I feel like I'm discovering programs and the aspects of my computer that I wouldn't find so soon without this class.

Week 10: Virtual Schooling/Distance Education

Virtual school and distance education I think are tricky subjects to tackle.  I speak from personal experience when I say I know the pros and cons of both.  I took two online distance learning courses to fulfill general college requirements at UVA.  While we're looking at VS/DE for younger students, I will briefly tell about some of my own experiences.  

I took these courses because they were general classes that just needed to be fulfilled.  They were much cheaper than taking summer courses at UVA and as they came off the pre-approved list, there was no worry about the credits transferring and the grades would not be factored into my overall gpa either.  They were also convenient as all I needed was a computer and some time to complete my assignments.  I was able to work full time and take these courses at the same time without a problem.  If you take a summer course at UVA, four hours straight in the middle of the day everyday of the week is taken up by that class.  

Those are some of the benefits of VS/DE at the college level.  I'm sure some of those are similar for certain options of VS/DE in primary and secondary school as well.  There were some cons, though.  I missed having the information presented to me via lecture or (dare I say?) powerpoint.  There's something nice about being to hear the information from someone else rather than only reading it to yourself out of a book.  It was also difficult to communicate with the teachers at times.  Technology has a wonderful way of failing me, so posting to discussion boards did not always happen when it should have happened.  At last (for now), I'm a huge procrastinator, so I'd be faced with the dilemma of having to teach myself a chapter and completing the work on it all within one evening.  Needless to say I stressed myself out more than usual.  At least when you attend a lecture you're able to absorb some of the information without needing to do the reading.  Overall, I did fine and fulfilled the necessary requirements, but sometimes the frustration was so high that I wondered if it was worth it.

With other forms of VS/DE I really like the aspect of working with schools in other places directly or helping keep kids on track in their studies when they are unable to attend school.  In some cases where homeschooling may have been necessary, I think VS can take some stress off parents who aren't sure how to teach their homebound kids or don't have the ability to not work so that they can.  Also, with VS, students are able to work when they have the time and still receive feedback from their teachers.  Their grades are logged so if they are able to, they can join right back in at the school when the time comes.  

Working with schools in other locations has so many possibilities it's hard to name them all.  Basically, the value in learning about a place from the people who live there and experience it on a daily basis is incredible.  Students also relate well to other students and want to make friends with new people in new places, so the novelty and excitement is there in these types of projects.  Also, I believe that these projects can really allow kids to take ownership of their work and what they are doing which is also important in teaching.  Kids can connect with other schools in different places or if you have students from around the world, they can head up the project on a specific country and feel proud of from where they come.  The benefits really are there if technology is used appropriately and consistently.  

Week 6: Podcasting

• Implementing projects like this can be a real challenge for teachers. Based on your experience creating a group podcast, what do you perceive are the greatest challenges to successfully completing a project like this with students?
• What are some things a teacher could do ahead of time, during the project and after the students have recorded to make this process more efficient in class?
• If doing a podcast in class is not an option, what are some other ways you could give interested students the experience of making a podcast in school?

I think there could possibly be many challenges to creating a podcast with a group of students. Student organization is always tricky. If students are doing it in a similar manner to ours, being assured that all students will create their script at home and not let down their teammates is a big one. If this does happen, what does the rest of the team do to ensure their grades are not extremely diminished? These kinds of things must be planned for in advance.
I think that just working with technology in general can be very confusing, so making sure that students are very familiar with the program before they begin to put the podcast together is very important.

I think the most important thing that a teacher can do ahead of time is prepare students for this project by fully explaining the technology being used and the expectations for this project. Give an in-depth tutorial and provide students with a rubric so that they know and understand the expectations explicitly. If a student becomes confused during this project with the technology or what they should be doing, it may take the teacher away from the rest of the class because one on one help would be necessary. During the project there will of course by small problems. The teacher needs to be prepared to be actively involved while students are working on the project. After the project, the teacher may want to take the time to post the podcasts rather than having the students do this. S/he may also want to convert them. Unless it's a class like ours, the content will most likely be more important than the small technical issues and with younger students, it may be too much.

Students can most likely create a podcast in school with a little extra help from the teacher. If they have the topic and the information, the teacher can facilitate the project without taking class time to do it. The student can use a digital voice recorder that is not the computer and complete the audio portion at home. Once transferred to the computer, the student can do the majority of the work on his/her own after school or during freetime. I think as long as the teacher is there to act as a facilitator and the student is taking ownership of the project, it is completely plausible to complete a podcast. The student can even create one for a project by downloading all the programs to his/her home computer.

Week 5: Podcasts

I am excited to be creating a Podcast tonight in class. I feel kind of like a huge dork saying this, but I'm realizing more and more how important it is for me to have these skills both for inside that classroom and outside of it. I recently stopped by the summer camp I work at and they were talking about creating podcasts with the campers this summer. These podcasts can then be accessed by the campers from home and they can share with their parents some of the happenings around camp. As they know that I am currently taking a class on technology (this one!), they have asked me to help with this activity or to just give them a basic tutorial of how to create a podcast. Podcasts are fun because they can be created by children at almost any age. For example, at camp they have talked about doing specific ones for specific age groups where the group can choose the topic for their podcast as it relates to what they're doing at camp. More and more the skills from this class are coming in handy!

In other news, while being quite excited about learning more about technology, I'm also a bit bitter towards it at the moment. My computer stopped working on Sunday and has not decided to start since. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that I have no money to buy a new computer, I am already in debt, and it looks like I'll have to take out a loan to purchase a new one. I knew I was going to have to buy a new laptop before I started my new job as my current one was not going to make the trip to Liberia, but I was hoping I'd be working for part of the summer beforehand so I'd have some money to put towards it. On this note, I believe that technology is not always what it is cracked up to be as it still fails sometimes. Also, technology can be quite expensive which just makes me realize that it really isn't accessible for everyone, further enhancing the inequalities among students.

Technoogy

I have not been thinking about technology in regards to teaching too much lately. I have been preoccupied with a job fair I attended in Cambridge, MA, Wednesday through Sunday. At this job fair, I accepted an offer to work at the American International School of Monrovia in Liberia. This school is just starting back up after twelve years of civil war in the country which ended around 2003. This year was it's first year reopened. Enrollment is still very small as the country has not yet been reopened to State Department workers and their dependents, but will be very soon. Thinking about a small, reopened school makes me think about technology in my classroom. I get the feeling that the school is still gaining new materials as it increases in size. It does have a small computer lab which I am very excited about and wireless internet is available if I bring my laptop to class. As a school which is still acquiring materials and is overseas, I realize that technology will be very important. I have a feeling I will be using many resources from the internet in my teaching as they are easily required and often inexpensive. As the school is in Liberia, I want to integrate technology so that my students can communicate with students from other countries. I realize that Skype, Podcasts, digital audio and video, and other things may come in very handy and add an interesting and exciting element to my classroom. I once was only semi-concerned with technology in my classroom, mainly wanting to make sure I could access it to enhance my teaching and to be sure that my students could keep current with it. Now, I realize that it opens many doors and there are incredible possibilities when using it. Technology is now an essential and exciting element to my classroom.

Week 2: Creating my lesson plan pages.

So I have realized in the process of attempting to create the beginnings of the Lesson Plan Project that I am definitely not very competent in using technology. I am easily confused as to how to create all of my pages on the web and link them together. I am also unsure of how to create organizers or different ways to present my work on the actual webpage. For example, the matrix it was necessary to create in order to complete this project. I feel like it is taking a very long time and there has to be an easier way. It is very multi-stepped and complicated. I feel like when we go over these things in class I understand what is going on, but as soon as I start to do it on my own at home I cannot remember how to do it or I patch something together that seems to work.

On a seperate note:
As we briefly talked about video games last class, it made me remember something I recently read in Outside magazine. It stated that research showed that those who played video games were less likely to be distracted during competitions by outside things. It was interesting because I've never been someone who has used videogames and I've never thought they were a good way to spend large amounts of time, but it seems they do have their benefits.

Testing Woo!

Woo! Test!!