Weller, Travis. J. (2010). Playing with Skype. International Society for Technology in Education, 37(6), 1-2. Retrieved March 25, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=March_April_No_6_1&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4516&ContentID=25508&DirectListComboInd=
Summary: In this article, the author Travis J. Weller relates his experience of bringing Skype into his music classroom. He brought three noted composers: Scott Watson, Brian Balmages and Andrew Boysen Jr. into the classroom to provide their insights about music composition and the music industry. All three of the interviewees agreed to appear live at the concert via Skype and make the introduction for their pieces before the student ensembles performed them. After the performance, a lively discussion ensued where students asked the experts questions and received relevant and informed answers.
Question 1: Why would teachers want to use Skype in the classroom? Well first of all, using this technology in the classroom makes for a richer educational experience. It keeps the students interested and engaged in the material because it is a different activity then traditional lecture format. Second, specifically using Skype technology in the classroom decenters the teacher as the only authority on a given subject. How so? Well, Skype opens up the classroom to have more experts speak on different subjects and share their viewpoints, research and advice. By having different experts share their insights on various topics, students are taught to be good listeners with an open-minded view of the world. Lastly, Skype should be used in the classroom because it is so easy to do so. Weller brings out that "what 10 years ago would have taken a satellite and a television truck can now be accomplished using two laptops and a couple of webcams". Since this technology is available, teachers should make use of it!
Question 2: Could I see myself as a future educator using Skype in the classroom? Definitely! Since I want to become a high school English teacher, I could see myself bringing in contemporary writers and poets into the classroom to be interviewed and discuss literature with the students. This would allow students to communicate with individuals who really value literature, have expertise in writing and have made writing their career and life pursuit. Also, I could use Skype to connect students with other student writers at local or out-of-state schools. This would allow students to gain constructive feedback and guidance on their writing from an outside student with a different perspective.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Journal 8: Navigate the Digital Rapids- NETS 4 and 5
Lindsay, Julie, & Davis, Vicki. (2010). Navigate the Digital Rapids. International Society for Technology in Education, 37(6), 1-5. Retrieved March 23, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume3720092010/MarchAprilNo6/Navigate_the_Digital_Rapids.htm
Summary: In this article, the two authors discuss how teachers and students can become good digital citizens. First, the article relates seven different ways that teachers can be good digital citizens, namely by: customization, monitoring students and being engaged, having a plan, overcoming the fear factor of technology, dealing with technological objections, allowing for tangents in discussions and putting the learning into the hands of the students. Second, the article defines what flat classroom projects are and how they can be successfully implemented into classrooms. Basically, the idea of a flat classroom project is that teachers use Web 2.0 tools, such as to "flatten," or lower, the classroom walls so that instead of each class working alone, two or more classes join virtually to become one large classroom. These flat classroom activities allow for cross cultural collaboration and communication. Lastly, the article provides various resources that give examples of flat classroom projects, and give information for teachers, parents and students about digital projects for the classroom.
Question 1: According to this article, what is the difference between educational networking and social networking, and how can teachers help establish this difference? The article explains that an educational network is professional group of people coming together for the purpose of sharing experiences in a focused and monitored environment. On the other hand, a social network is comprised of family members, friends, neighbors, etc. The purpose of social networking sites are usually for communication about other matters than academic affairs. This article stated that teachers need to establish this distinction between educational and social networking in their classrooms because students will feel inclined to use text speak or other inappropriate behavior online if they are not told to do otherwise. So teachers need to lead by example and make sure that all of their students are engaging in proper cyber etiquette.
Question 2: What have I learned from this article that I will take away with me and apply while teaching? I learned that it is so important for teachers to help students have a positive digital footprint with academic material included. These e-portfolios could be used in future job interviews or as supplements to college applications. Thus helping students establish a positive online presence will help them in achieving their future academic goals. I also learned the importance of getting students involved in student-centered, globally connected projects. These projects will be meaningful to students because each student's learning experience will be markedly different.
Summary: In this article, the two authors discuss how teachers and students can become good digital citizens. First, the article relates seven different ways that teachers can be good digital citizens, namely by: customization, monitoring students and being engaged, having a plan, overcoming the fear factor of technology, dealing with technological objections, allowing for tangents in discussions and putting the learning into the hands of the students. Second, the article defines what flat classroom projects are and how they can be successfully implemented into classrooms. Basically, the idea of a flat classroom project is that teachers use Web 2.0 tools, such as to "flatten," or lower, the classroom walls so that instead of each class working alone, two or more classes join virtually to become one large classroom. These flat classroom activities allow for cross cultural collaboration and communication. Lastly, the article provides various resources that give examples of flat classroom projects, and give information for teachers, parents and students about digital projects for the classroom.
Question 1: According to this article, what is the difference between educational networking and social networking, and how can teachers help establish this difference? The article explains that an educational network is professional group of people coming together for the purpose of sharing experiences in a focused and monitored environment. On the other hand, a social network is comprised of family members, friends, neighbors, etc. The purpose of social networking sites are usually for communication about other matters than academic affairs. This article stated that teachers need to establish this distinction between educational and social networking in their classrooms because students will feel inclined to use text speak or other inappropriate behavior online if they are not told to do otherwise. So teachers need to lead by example and make sure that all of their students are engaging in proper cyber etiquette.
Question 2: What have I learned from this article that I will take away with me and apply while teaching? I learned that it is so important for teachers to help students have a positive digital footprint with academic material included. These e-portfolios could be used in future job interviews or as supplements to college applications. Thus helping students establish a positive online presence will help them in achieving their future academic goals. I also learned the importance of getting students involved in student-centered, globally connected projects. These projects will be meaningful to students because each student's learning experience will be markedly different.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Journal 7: The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips- NETS 2 and 5
Zanetis, Jan. (2010). The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips. International Society for Technology in Education, 37(6), 1-5. Retrieved March 11, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=March_April_No_6_1&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4516&ContentID=25443&DirectListComboInd=D
Summary: This article, by Jan Zanetis, defines what virtual field trips are and how they can be used within the classroom. Zanetis makes the distinction between Asynchronous VFTs (which are not delivered in real time) as compared to Interactive VFTs (which are synchronous, real-time experiences for students). After listing three different websites for Asynchronous VFTs, Zanetis stated that approximately 300 museums, science centers, historical sites, and similar organizations offer interactive VFTs to schools. Zanetis was definitely pushing the usage of interactive VFTs in schools because it provides a nice break for students from traditional classroom lecture structure and enables them to literally interact with the outside world while sitting in their desks.
Question 1: What steps should a teacher take to virtual field trips in their classrooms? First, teachers should find out if their school already has a videoconferencing unit. If it does, that’s great; they can begin using it immediately. If not, there are ways of obtaining them either through videoconferencing equipment vendors that give school demos, or by applying for grants or assistance programs. After the videoconferencing unit equipment is obtained, teachers should access to quality content. The last step is registering for the programs one wishes to use and then display them in the classroom!
Question 2: Could I see myself as a future educator using interactive virtual field trips in my classroom? Yes, I definitely will use these interactive virtual field trips in my classroom. Not only is it engaging and interesting, it saves the school the expenses of getting transportation for each student to travel to a museum or institute. Also, using these virtual field trips shows students that the material they are learning about within the classroom applies to outside contexts. Other professionals use the very same information they are learning for their jobs every day. I think allowing students to see the usefulness and value of the information they are learning will help them to be more interested in learning it. Lastly, I would use these VFT’s in my classrooms because it allows develop positive communication skills in practicing asking questions and discussing different topics with professionals who are in specific fields.
Summary: This article, by Jan Zanetis, defines what virtual field trips are and how they can be used within the classroom. Zanetis makes the distinction between Asynchronous VFTs (which are not delivered in real time) as compared to Interactive VFTs (which are synchronous, real-time experiences for students). After listing three different websites for Asynchronous VFTs, Zanetis stated that approximately 300 museums, science centers, historical sites, and similar organizations offer interactive VFTs to schools. Zanetis was definitely pushing the usage of interactive VFTs in schools because it provides a nice break for students from traditional classroom lecture structure and enables them to literally interact with the outside world while sitting in their desks.
Question 1: What steps should a teacher take to virtual field trips in their classrooms? First, teachers should find out if their school already has a videoconferencing unit. If it does, that’s great; they can begin using it immediately. If not, there are ways of obtaining them either through videoconferencing equipment vendors that give school demos, or by applying for grants or assistance programs. After the videoconferencing unit equipment is obtained, teachers should access to quality content. The last step is registering for the programs one wishes to use and then display them in the classroom!
Question 2: Could I see myself as a future educator using interactive virtual field trips in my classroom? Yes, I definitely will use these interactive virtual field trips in my classroom. Not only is it engaging and interesting, it saves the school the expenses of getting transportation for each student to travel to a museum or institute. Also, using these virtual field trips shows students that the material they are learning about within the classroom applies to outside contexts. Other professionals use the very same information they are learning for their jobs every day. I think allowing students to see the usefulness and value of the information they are learning will help them to be more interested in learning it. Lastly, I would use these VFT’s in my classrooms because it allows develop positive communication skills in practicing asking questions and discussing different topics with professionals who are in specific fields.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
My NETS PowerPoint Presentation- NETS 1
Intro to NETS for High School Students
For this assignment, I created a PowerPoint Presentation showcasing the NETS Educational Technology Standards for Students. I created a slide for each standard and developed lesson plans and/or classroom activities explaining how this standard could be met in a high school English classroom.
For this assignment, I created a PowerPoint Presentation showcasing the NETS Educational Technology Standards for Students. I created a slide for each standard and developed lesson plans and/or classroom activities explaining how this standard could be met in a high school English classroom.
Collaborative PowerPoint Rubric- NETS 3 and 5
For this assignment, I worked with the entire class and my teacher to create a rubric to use to grade our NETS for Students PowerPoint Presentations. This rubric was created collaboratively on the following website: http://www.rcampus.com/.
Journal 6: Video Sharing: Classroom 2.0- NETS 3 and 5
The technology that I chose to investigate was “video sharing”. Video sharing is when individuals self-create and upload video clips to an Internet website that select parties can access. Then other groups can look at the posted videos and respond by creating their own videos to share and upload. Under this topic, I found a really cool discussion forum entitled “English teachers: Online Debate?” This discussion forum had over 20 responses from English teachers from all around the world talking about how they could share videos in their classrooms. The teacher who started the discussion thread teaches year 8 English (13 and 14 year olds) at a high school in Melbourne, Australia. She wanted to conduct online debates, in which students from her classroom would videotape their side of an issue, post it on YouTube and then have students from another school organize a rebuttal and post their response. The debate would be conducted solely online by looking at the other school’s YouTube videos and responding back. I think that this is a really cool way to encourage cross-cultural collaboration on projects, without having to deal with different time zones and school days. Another forum under the same category of “video sharing” that was interesting was entitled “5th/6th Grade Online Partners Wanted”. In this discussion forum, I learned about http://www.epals.com/, which is a website dedicated to connecting different classrooms from around the world for collaboration. This website includes collaboration project ideas (http://www.epals.com/projects/info.aspx?DivID=index) as well as general information about collaborating across continents. I think this is a great resource for teachers from all around the world to use to encourage collaboration among different classrooms and schools.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Journal 5 Extra Credit: "Grounded Tech Integration: English Language Arts"- NETS 2 and 5
Young, Carl. A., Hofer, Mark, & Harris, Judi. (2010). Grounded Tech Integration: English Language Arts. International Society for Technology in Education, 37(5), 1-5. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=February_No_5_4&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4495&ContentID=25251&DirectListComboInd=D
Summary: This article, written by associate professors from various colleges, discussed how secondary English teachers could incorporate technology in their classroom to meet the variety of ELA activity types. These activity types are: reading, writing, language use, speaking/performing, and active listening/watching. The article provided various resources that teachers could look at to choose the educational technologies that best fit their instructional plans. An example was given about how various technologies could be included in the classroom when teaching the book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First, the article suggested having the students write about theme of guilt and about a time when they experienced guilt. Next, the homework for students was to create their own symbols representing an episode of personal guilt or shame, and wear that symbol to school the next day without divulging to others what the symbols represent. After that, students were supposed to blog about how they felt while wearing the symbols around all day. Then the teacher would share the blog with students from another school, and they would discuss their reactions and feelings with the other students on an online discussion board. Finally, in small groups students would create a digital video that defines and represents the theme of guilt. This lesson plan, made up of five small activities, used different educational technologies to really expand the students’ notion of “guilt” within the context of the novel.
How could teachers use the ELA activity types and technologies in their classrooms? This article would be perfect for prospective and current high school English teachers to read that are either: completely new to the idea of ELA activity types or teachers who are looking for new and exciting ways to incorporate technology into their already developed curriculum. This article provided a link that states the various ELA activity types: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net. It also then provided a chart for each of the five ELA activity types and how teachers could incorporate various technologies into their classrooms.
Could I see myself as an English teacher incorporating these strategies? Yes, I definitely think I could incorporate some of these technological lesson plan ideas into my classroom. Of course, the amount of activity types I get to use in my classroom depends on how much access to technology the students have. Though it would be a fun activity to get students to create a digital video based on their understanding of a certain literary work, it would be impossible for them to complete if they did not have video cameras. Also, though I really liked the idea of having students collaborate with students from another school to talk about literature, that may be an unrealistic idea. Many teachers may not want to cooperate with teachers from another school, because it would force them to work with other people, and possibly change their lesson plans so that each of the classes would be reading the same text. So though it is a nice idea, I think I could only implement it if I had a friend working as a teacher at another school who would be willing to plan the activity with me way in advance. Yet the other strategies brought out in the article that dealt with free technology, like blogging, skyping and online discussion boards, I would definitely use those technologies in my classroom.
Summary: This article, written by associate professors from various colleges, discussed how secondary English teachers could incorporate technology in their classroom to meet the variety of ELA activity types. These activity types are: reading, writing, language use, speaking/performing, and active listening/watching. The article provided various resources that teachers could look at to choose the educational technologies that best fit their instructional plans. An example was given about how various technologies could be included in the classroom when teaching the book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. First, the article suggested having the students write about theme of guilt and about a time when they experienced guilt. Next, the homework for students was to create their own symbols representing an episode of personal guilt or shame, and wear that symbol to school the next day without divulging to others what the symbols represent. After that, students were supposed to blog about how they felt while wearing the symbols around all day. Then the teacher would share the blog with students from another school, and they would discuss their reactions and feelings with the other students on an online discussion board. Finally, in small groups students would create a digital video that defines and represents the theme of guilt. This lesson plan, made up of five small activities, used different educational technologies to really expand the students’ notion of “guilt” within the context of the novel.
How could teachers use the ELA activity types and technologies in their classrooms? This article would be perfect for prospective and current high school English teachers to read that are either: completely new to the idea of ELA activity types or teachers who are looking for new and exciting ways to incorporate technology into their already developed curriculum. This article provided a link that states the various ELA activity types: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net. It also then provided a chart for each of the five ELA activity types and how teachers could incorporate various technologies into their classrooms.
Could I see myself as an English teacher incorporating these strategies? Yes, I definitely think I could incorporate some of these technological lesson plan ideas into my classroom. Of course, the amount of activity types I get to use in my classroom depends on how much access to technology the students have. Though it would be a fun activity to get students to create a digital video based on their understanding of a certain literary work, it would be impossible for them to complete if they did not have video cameras. Also, though I really liked the idea of having students collaborate with students from another school to talk about literature, that may be an unrealistic idea. Many teachers may not want to cooperate with teachers from another school, because it would force them to work with other people, and possibly change their lesson plans so that each of the classes would be reading the same text. So though it is a nice idea, I think I could only implement it if I had a friend working as a teacher at another school who would be willing to plan the activity with me way in advance. Yet the other strategies brought out in the article that dealt with free technology, like blogging, skyping and online discussion boards, I would definitely use those technologies in my classroom.
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