Journal 5

Focus question:

What are search engines and how do they work?

Search engines are online databases, or Internet resources, in which allows students and teachers to find information. Using online search engines creates a faster and more efficient way to retrieve information about any given topic. There are countless webpages that are linked to databases that initially provide information on the search criteria. Databases are all similar in the way you are able to plug in key words or topics in the search bar and you will then be given a wide variety of documents, articles, blog posts, and video to accommodate your search. A specific benefit from search engines is that it allows teachers to search a topic and then narrow down the results to more educationally based articles.

Photo credit to Lance Padgett on Google Images on 

Tech tool:

5.1 Photo and Audio Resources on the Web

“Pictures and sounds are valuable resources for creative teaching.” This sentence from the text says it all. Getting children motivated to learn is a teacher’s job; pictures and audio sequences help to intrigue them with new information. Flicker is a great website filled with pictures to illustrate something you are teaching. The public can go onto the website and input a key work in the search box and pictures with be retrieved that are associated with that description. There are many different website that you can search pictures and get great physical attributes for your lessons. Another site that is mentioned in the tech tool is LibriVax, which is an audio website. LibriVax is a website that you can use to listen to a story on audio or you may record someone reading and let then later play it for the class. This website helps teachers with their hands on material. Instead of each student actually reading a book they can just follow along with LibriVax and the story is read aloud. These sites are great for motivating students to be involved in the classroom!

Chapter summary:

Chapter five is a very busy and informative chapter. The chapter goes over what online databases and search engines are and then into detail on how to go about using the sites correctly to get corresponding information with the topic input in the search engine. Online search engines are loaded with endless information about different topics, you can simply input a topic in the search bar and the site will then retrieve a variety of informational articles, blog posts, sites, pictures, and videos relating to the search. This chapter also specifies what copyright is and how to avoid all aspects of copyrighting information. Since students are required to now use search engines and engage in articles and media it is important for students understand the steps to take to avoid illegally using information in a school activity. Technology is a great thing for students and teachers inside and outside the classroom. There are websites that allow students to find pictures and videos, or articles on a specified topic. There are also websites that help intrigue students in the learning material by audio features, like LibriVax. Since technology is forever transforming there is very little that it cannot provide for students and teachers inside and outside the classroom

Journal 4

Focus question: How can teachers integrate technology into their work as educators?

With technologies rapid advancements in materials and sources teachers have many options on how to implement it into their classroom curriculum. As we have all scene before teachers can go over instructions and guidelines to a project, assignment, or essay using PowerPoint which we are all familiar with. There are now new techniques teachers can use in the classroom to get information across to students. Teachers can use videos implemented in their PowerPoint to grab student’s attention with screen media. This can properly display the step-by-step process on how it is to be done. When students are outside of the classroom they can be assigned homework in which is done over the internet or perhaps in an APP on your phone or ipad. There are so many websites that help assess students and what they have learned. For example the APP I have used in the classroom, socrative, in which a teacher can put together a little quiz and as the students finish answering she receives answers and can assess each child individually. Activities can be done outside the classroom as in presentation work or online text books . In school my favorite assignments were those that I could get on the computer and use my imagination to illustrate what I was learning. Making your own presentations on the computer or in some available APPs would help get kids interested in doing work outside the classroom/homework. Technology is what this day and age loves so we must fulfill their needs and get them excited to learn, even if that means we are technology crazed.

Tech tool: Online Technology Integration Resources

The internet has come such a long way with resources and information. We used to be limited with information now there are so many online databases you can research just about any topic and get the most informative feedback. Eutopia, National Educational Technology Standards, NCTE Inbox and NCTE Inbox Blog are all helpful online resources. Eutopia is by far my favorite data base to search when I am researching a specific topic. They have a wide variety of articles you can choose from on whatever your subject matter is. The website is very simple and easy to use, you don’t get lost on how to work the system like other search engines. NETS-T has two different resources; digital edge learning exchange and rubric forms. The digital edge learning exchange is a bunch of video case studies of prior teachers whom have integrated technology into the classroom. The rubrics posted are there for teacher to use to easily assess how effectively they have implemented it into their own teaching.  

 

Photo Credit to Auburn University's digital citizenship on SDSU Library

Summary:

This chapter to me is all about how to properly integrate technology into your own teaching programs and classroom. Technology is a great thing but must be used correctly in order to benefit from it. There are many ways teachers can use technology to excite kids and start progressing in a positive thought about school and learning. There are APPs being created every day to help simplify teachers work in assessing students in what they know as well as actually teaching material. PowerPoint. eBooks, databases, and APPs create a wide variety of ways to implement technology in and outside the classroom. Kids love using technology so we should let them. Assign homework assignments online, math, readings, writing, or science. It not only gets the kid involved and hands on in the work but it is easier in the long wrong to be graded/assessed by teachers. The internet is not at all an inconvenience it creates ease for teachers, parents, and students. Teachers will work with their different techniques and fin what works for them and how they can use technology to properly teach students so that they are effectively learning new material and stay excited about new findings.

Journal 3

Focus question 1: What is "lesson development using technology"?

Lesson development is a curtail part to teaching. Lesson development is the central station of every teachers work. There are three main parts of lesson development: academic content (what to teach), teaching goals, methods, and procedures (how to teach), and learning assessments (how to know what students have learned). Information is increasing with the rapid updates in technology and knowledge. Technology has become an important part in lesson planning. The internet holds an abundant amount of information attaining to lesson plans in the schools curriculum. Technology in lesson development help strategize what teachers are going to teach and what resources are going to supply information and gains projected for the students to learn. Technology is ever changing making it easier for teachers and students to find information and answers on all subjects in school, which in earlier years we were on a limited information. When a teacher is creating a lesson plan she may use the internet to look up information on what and how to teach. Technology is a great source in how to communicate with students and get information in front of them so that they are hands on processing it. If a teacher hands out a research assignment, information is not just given to them they must use their resources to obtain information and explain what they know and their understanding of the information at hand. Technology also help teachers evaluate what the students have learned and processed through the lesson by testing their knowledge either through; presentation via power points, written tests (multiple choice and short response answers), interactive software on the computer checking responses and how in depth a child understands the material. Technology is a great tool in lesson planning, and a convenient way to double check your work on what to teach your students, how to get across to them, and how to be reassured they are understanding the material. 

Tech tool: 3.3 Online Rubrics and Quizzes

I chose this tech tool for online rubrics and quizzes because I think that it is very helpful for first year teachers to know about and have access to because they are so busy with work and might be overwhelmed with the classroom demands. Projects and quizzes are a requirement in each classroom therefor having an easy accessible website, like Rubistar, to help set a standard templet for creating a rubric for a project cuts time in half for the teacher. They can easily place their standards and rubric with in the structure given in the template. Quizstar is also a very helpful website for teachers that provides software to teachers for all types of tests ranging from; multiple choice, true and false, or short response answers. These website are just an easy go to for teachers to set rubric sheets for projects and assignments as well as quiz formats in a fast pace, rather than creating their own from scratch which can be very time consuming. 

photo credit to ps101mediacenter.com on Google

Summary:

This chapter, 3, is focused how to access students learning stems. It talks about lesson planning and the three major parts of it which are;  what to teach, how to teach it, and how to know what your students have learned about the content. The chapter also gets into detail about how the newest technology are upgrading and making the lesson planning process easier, in all 3 steps, as well as setting rubrics for projects and setting the outline for quizzes. Lesson planning is the center of the classroom it sets the curriculum. Technology is helping teachers get supplies needed ready faster with templates already created as online testing centers that help determined where each child stand independently on different topics. Another way to determine what a child is learning and how much has been processed and recorded mentally is the UBD (understanding by design), which ultimately points out and emphasizes on different tasks and skill the child will know and be able to use. Lesson plans revolve around the teachers goals of what their students are suppose to learn and be able to use by the end of the lesson. Technology is a big part in helping teachers with their lesson plans and cutting their plan time in half with pre-made templates for lesson plans, rubrics of projects, and quizzes. Teachers now a days are getting to know what level each individual of the classroom is on with new technologies. Technology helps teachers understand what level children are on by testing them on the computer about certain topics to be taught. Some tests are placement tests to see where a student stand before entering a grade or subject area. The internet, new technologies, holds such a variety of information whether it be for children using the internet to search databases for answers or teachers quizzing what their students know. Teachers main source in assessing their students present day in technology and the internet. Because technology offers multiple ways to conduct tests and performance assessments its a more hands on technique. Now students are given standardized testing on the computer to see what they know on a nationally based scale. Teachers can then use all of the assessments and generate a teaching plan that best suits the children they are catering to.  

photo credit to incredibleart.org on Google

Journal 1

I found this article very informative in that it really digs down into the details of how teaching and learning has become one of the same art. Teachers are not just teacher they are learning as well. One of my favorite points that David Warlick hit base on the article was that teachers learn the topic better as they teach. To teach a topic you are viewing it from different angles to get the attention across to different students. You must change perspective therefore you are learning different angles of learning to the topic rather than just your personal way of engagement. I have learned from myself that i feel very intimidated to ask questions in a room full of students but to learn is to question information given to you. When an article explains things kids tend to question it or google different sides of the point being discussed. Previously people would just take in the information as it came and leave it at that. Learning is a never ending process. To question information I believe really helps you get to the core of the topic and to know the answer and detail inside and out. Validating any information by researching what you have heard helps to fully understand and process information that sticks. Just like DAvid discusses in the article in earlier years you were to assume and trust the information given to you by educators, now a day you are required to research the topic and and its validity. Another interesting topic discussed in the article is that we are on information over load where as before a decade ago we learned basic knowledge on atoms, so he says, not a days we have come across more information, which as an end result books have changed, information has changed, and now are answers have changed. Parents are now relearning topics they learned in school through their children and the new resources we now have in schools. This article helps show that we are all continually learning. Even teachers are learning more and more as resources develop over years and through their teachings. We will always be learning new things the world is ever changing.

K-12 Technology: Benefits and Drawbacks

I would have to say that I agree with the majority of Lynch's outlook on the technology rises in grade schools k-12. The article outlines technologies growth very well and gives its positives up front, but does not fail to mention the underlying down falls of technology based education, especially so young. In my personal opinion I strongly suggest that technology shared through screen media, internet, or e-books is ever changing and growing. It gives great opportunities to learning new material and getting questions answered. I think that in upper grade levels, especially high schools and even starting in middle schools, access to technology in classrooms is a great idea. Students at that age are going through a great learning period and have questions about everything. We have all become so accustomed to our phones, computers, tablets, ect. Screen media has become an addiction. To bring your own device of choice into the classroom at older ages might either intrigue students more with the ease of more hands on information and being able to physically look up a topic and get endless information right to their desks. It could also become a distraction. In younger ages such as elementary ages with statistics showing that children under two have become very adaptive to media screens, it will completely change their outlook on learning. Children and parents are becoming more and more reliant on screen media, TV. It is sometimes used as a soothing method when a child is upset, or it is playing in the background of their activity, or used to nap, or eating, as well as to distract them so that the adult may get work done. When they reach school they will be so far advanced with their technology levels that "old fashioned" books will be so much as frowned upon. Books will no longer keep the interest, the way to entice them with education will be through technology devices. Lynch states educators have argued "It is not about the delivery method but the content that matters…" I have to side with him on the fact that yes technology might be a fun and intriguing way to learn but books have been getting the job done until now, if the teachers keep the students engaged technology wont have too. 

Photo credit to womanworld.org on Google

Another drawback that might come from technologies in the classroom at all ages would be the other applications on the devices that may cause an extreme distraction from not only class and learning but socializing with classmates. Some students keep their heads glued in their devices whether its games or social media sites. We all do it. I for one am lost without my phone and fine myself checking social media way to often through out the day even while other tasks are at hand. My thoughts on students having their own devices in the classroom to "learn" on would be taking the chance that students zone out of school work and zone into the other applications their phone has to offer. I think that is a major drawback. Another drawback would be that kids will socialize with their peers and educators less. If they have an answer on a topic in the classroom they will google it instead of communicate with an educator in the classroom while all the others overhear the question and answer which might better their understanding as well. Technology devices just take away from the bond of a teacher and student and the potential excitement they could have in the class, because they can merely look up an answer on their phones right away instead of group discussions. 

A benefit of the availability of technology in the classroom is that quiet students whom do not wish to ask questions but merely figure it out on their own, they will be able to with ease at the comfort of their desk as the topic is being discussed. Because the internet is changing and information is rapidly expanding it gives kids such an advancement in the learning of new things. When our parents were in school they were limited to what the books told them. Education and resources have been sky rocketing boosting education for students as the years progress. It is an amazing thing to see when you bring your research and answers home to your parents. They had such limited resource the answers to them were what the book said, now you have an endless list of resources through technology to explore and find new and improved answers. 

Photo credit to mastersofmedia.hum on Google

I feel that students definitely love the technology advances but at the same time are most excited about being able to use their phones, tablets, computers in class instead of getting them taken by instructors. Students will appreciate the easy access to information on lessons in class. There are so many different types of students. Those that are more quiet in class, although they might have questions, can really advance with this. There is not need to raise your hand and talk in front of the class, when you have a question about something you can simply type it in the web and search what you are looking for with ease. Parents might be a little stressed. Depending on the age of their child they are worried about the responsibility the student hold bringing their expensive device to school.  Parents might not see the technology advances as positive as educators or students because as they were in school it was always books and teachers with limited internet resource. As for parents I think that it is just one more thing their child will hassle them with. For instance, seeing all the other kids at school with the latest technology advances with acquire a need for them to have it as well.