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.