April 30, 2009

In class we were shown some presentations on three different technologies, Inspiration, Alice and RSS. I found that some were more applicable to the classroom than others.
First being Inspiration. Being in a special education setting, I use graphic organizers almost everyday. Inspiration was a great tool to be able access and see what it offers. There are endless options on how to format the graphic organizers which is a great because I find that I use the same graphic organizers over and over again, just for different information. I like that on Inspiration you can personalize the information and layout to the topic or subject matter that you are on. I also like that Aquinas has a license to Inspiration so I can access at anytime, even if the school I am working at does not have it.
Out of the three, I can rarely see myself using Alice or RSS in the classroom. Alice is useful because it gives you different lesson plans that incorporate art into them. I like the idea of incorporating the arts into the general classroom but it is not that applicable to the resource room when you are teaching the basic concepts. An RSS feed would be useful if a classroom had a group of websites that they checked everyday as a class. I really do not see much other use for it in the classroom.

4-23-09

Tonight in class there was a presentation on Twitter. For a normal, day to day activity, I find that Twitter is a glorified Facebook status, and peoples time could be spent more wisely that updating their status multiple times in an hour. The key bit of knowledge that I walked away with is how to apply it to the classroom.
It is a great tool to use for advantaged students who have unlimited access to computers at home and at school. Each student can create a Twitter account where they can post questions on homework. Through close monitoring of the chats, students can use their resources and other students to help with homework.
Twitter could also be used as a way to keep parents informed during the day. Both students and teachers could update a class Twitter to inform parents that a science project was successful or that everyone in the class got 100% on their spelling tests. Twitter is just another resource that can expand the parent involvement factor.
For those working with disadvantaged students, I am not sure how much of a useful tool it would be. If students are unable to access the Internet at home, how can they use it as a resource for homework or have their parents be informed.
I think that it is a good resource to have no matter what setting you teach in but it may not be applicable to every setting.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 was a great read for how to manage digital images within your classroom. It was helpful that the book layed it out on how to store pictures into different folders, by student or topic, and which format to save pictures in. Since school photos will not need a lot of editing or changing, it is helpful to know that the JPEG format is the best to store photos in. 

The one thing that I took away from this chapter is what I feel was echoed in class last week. All students need to have time to feel comfortable and get acquainted with the camera and how it works. Once a students feels comfortable with the camera the end product will be better. Students come from many different backgrounds so it is important to give students a chance to have those experiences in school that they are not getting at home. 

To apply this to my classroom, I find it beneficial to show students different photos and controls that cameras have. Not all digital cameras work the same so it is beneficial to give students time to experiment with each camera. Just like in class last week, a scavenger hunt is a great way for students to become familiarized with their cameras. If/when I used digital cameras in my teaching, this is the first activity that I will do to let students become familiar with the product.

Overall, I found this chapter to hold a lot of good information and was worth the read. When thinking about bringing technology into the classroom, my first thoughts aren't on how to save the pictures or how to organize photo files but it is good to know when those questions arise, I have a place to find them.

Observation/Application from class (3/26/09)

In class we were given time to explore with our digital cameras.  That was a very valuable time to be able to get more comfortable with features on the digital camera that I do not utilize very often. To be able to try out different features of the camera and to become more familiar in the manner in which the settings are set-up really helps to make me feel more comfortable to start on the PowerPoint project.

As teachers and college students, we like to feel comfortable with materials and tools before we are required to use them in a graded assessment or evaluation. The same thing goes for our students. They have the right to feel comfortable and knowledge with the materials that they are working with. In the classroom, there is wide range of skills. Some students may have never touched a digital camera while other may have digital cameras of their own. This exploration time gives those students with little experience to become comfortable and those students with some experience can develop their understand of the camera at a higher level. 

This is a very valuable lesson to apply to my own classroom when introducing a lesson that requires the use of technology. In the type of settings that I have been teaching in, many students come from homes that do not have access to the Internet or much technology at all. By giving students the time to explore the means in which we are asking them to show us what they know, will help them to produce a better product. 

This idea should be applied not only to technology in the classroom but many other materials and manipulative's that students are working with. If they feel comfortable with what they are working with, then their end product will be more successful.

Chapter 1

Every student has a different learning style. New concepts should be presented to students not only verbally but also visually. In today's classrooms, there is a wealth or resources available instead of using overhead transparencies. Digital images, both still and video, can be used across the curriculum in math, science, social studies, and language arts. 

It is very overwhelming to think about all of the ways in which technology can be incorporated into the classroom. It could be used to teach almost everything and anything. Something that really caught my attention was using digital images with the language arts curriculum. While doing my student teaching and observing different classrooms it is evident that language arts is a main focus in the classroom while science and social studies are barely touched on. It is common to see a teacher using digital images to help students gain knowledge of science or social studies curriculum but very rarely is it used to teach language arts curriculum. 

Incorporating digital imagining into the language arts curriculum is something that could really motivate students. Technology gets students excited about learning and if the majority of their day is spent on language arts curriculum, teachers should be using ideas and concepts that get students excited about language arts. One example that I would like to incorporate into my special education classroom is digital storytelling. Good readers know how to visualize a story to help them make sense of the meaning and details. Visualizing a story and its details is a struggle for struggling readers. By having the students using digital images to story tell or retell a story is so beneficial.

Digital images can be ingrained in the curriculum through all subject areas and phases (acquire, analyze, create, and communicate). If students are already extremely technology savvy, why not continue to use that skill and motivation in the classroom?!