Reflection of ED 529 Curriculum Technology Integration

Benefits of ED 529 Curriculum Technology Integration

Blogging

                The idea of blogging was very new to me until this course at the University of Montevallo. Blogging has become a helpful tool for my students to analyze history and improve their writing skills. I have created a blog address for my class through Google (http://fladdhistory10.blogspot.com). The students are required to complete the following: video links, PowerPoint presentations, document based questions, and or movie clips. Students are required to complete the questions posted to the blog and present their blog comments during class. Students are becoming mindful of their comments as they read aloud or share with the class. The students find it as an easy assignment and one of my questions ask “Mrs. Ladd, why we haven’t blogged before now?”

Delicious/Social Bookmarking

                The social bookmarking activity was a useful and convenient tool for educators. As I created this account, I knew this would be a tool that would allow teachers to refer back to my teaching sites at any time.  The social bookmarking account can be edited and accessed at any time; therefore, teachers do not have to locate web addresses during or outside of class. I share my account with my department and allowed them full access to it. This was a strategy share through best practices in our professional development training as well.

Twitter List
                Creating the Twitter List was okay; however, I’m not a fan of Twitter so I really did not use my account until this class. I did enjoy reading some new technology tools that could be used in my classroom by some of the people or sites I followed.

Alex Lesson Plan

               The lesson plan created for ALEX was new to me as well. I had a hard time figuring out whether the lesson should cover a unit, a project, or just simply an assignment. In the beginning, I believe I was making the assignment to broad and it was not conducive to learning technology. However, I revised my lesson plan and I was truly satisfied with my finished product. I am currently using the lesson plan on the final project in my class. My students are creating a photo journal of related historical topics and are preparing to present them next week.  

Integrating Technology in “MY” Classroom

                First, I must admit that I am the teacher that usually shy away from technology because I am afraid to use new things. Although, I can handle the basics I still need some hands-on training with new technology. I thought the online class was not going to be as beneficial but it was. I learned a host of new things to use in my classroom and most importantly a lot of the tools I had to learn how to use on my own. I really enjoyed the class and I know a great deal of technology learned in this class will be incorporated in my instructional lessons next year. (Technology actually makes our lives much easier!!!)

Have a Great Summer Brooklyn and Beth!!!

Wikis in Education

Wikis

Wikis are a Web 2.0 tool that allows individuals to collaborate and create web pages that are hearty with content.  Wikis can be accessed by anyone who has a web browser using the internet. This actually means that the content information can be modified at any given time. Overall, groups who use wikis are researching or accessing information on a similar topic or common project. Schools and higher education institutions are using wikis to document meeting notes and agendas. Some schools are using wikis to create eportfolios and collaborate on research projects. Textbook and article critiques are being accessed through wikis.

Educational Apps: Google Education Edition

Educational Apps

Students are using educational apps on smart phones and tablets as an emerging technology tool. These apps are assisting student’s academic performance in schools. There are many benefits of educational apps sponsored by Google apps' Education Edition. This is a free widespread IT solution that can be used by schools and other educational facilities. Google Educational Apps bring collaboration and communication tools to the classroom and manages your data so you can focus all your energy and time on teaching students.

Google Educational apps allow teachers, students, and other employees to effectively share their ideas through powerful sharing and communication tools. The Education Edition provides email, as well as sharable instant messaging tools, online calendars, and a dedicated website which everyone can use for free. There is no need to install any software or hardware because everything comes from a web browser.

Google Education Edition includes a set of tools that can be customized to enable everyone to work together. The entire school can be connected with powerful search, massive storage, and mobile access. There is no cost involved at all, no advertising required, and no costly maintenance of hardware. Gmail offers 7 gigs of storage and has protection against viruses and spam. It's also got video and voice chat, a built-in IM, POP and IMAP message access, and much more. Teachers will find the online calendar a great feature. They can simply access other teachers' calendars to check that no double-bookings for events are scheduled. You can even access the calendar with your cell phone.

You can easily build shared websites that include documents, gadgets, images, and videos. The video function enables you to share videos which people can rate, tag, and comment on. Every domain gets 10 gigs of video space for free. The talk feature facilitates instant free messaging, file transfers, and voicemail.

Google's Groups allow students and staff to create their own forums. The Apps for Education component provides other tools that enable you to easily open APIs (application programming interfaces) so that you can integrate with other IT systems. Teachers and administration staff can create and share documents like reports and spreadsheets which can be accessed through their computers or mobile phones.

In conclusion, one of the major benefits of Google apps is the ability to connect an entire educational environment easily and effectively. Importantly, all the information and communications are private, secure, and safe. Some apps are ideal for classroom settings while others make for great tutors and educational supplements at home.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a system for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Tagging is also a tool for social bookmarking and it is a significant feature of social bookmarking. It enables users to organize their bookmarks in flexible ways and develop shared vocabularies. Activities like social bookmarking give users the opportunity to express different views on resources that are available online websites that are open to the public. Social bookmarking allows common users to view and create communities. Individuals are able to use folksonomy and tags to identify related topics that were previously researched or used by others. Social bookmarking also allows users to alter their bookmarks due to the ever-changing information that is available online.

Tagging information resources with keywords can lead to changes in the way we research and store information. Flash drives and personal computers can be overloaded with information and the social bookmarking sites allow an individual to retrieve needed information quickly. It may become less important to know and remember where information was found and more important to know how to recover it using a site online that is designed and shared with peers and colleagues. Social bookmarking shortens the allocation of reference lists, bibliographies, papers, and other resources among peers or students. Most social bookmarking sites allow you to browse through the items based on most popular, recently added, or belonging to a certain category like shopping, technology, politics, blogging, news, sports, etc.

Social news is a related tool used for social bookmarking. Social news sites are different from standard social bookmarking sites by focusing on specific articles and blog posts rather than websites. Websites like Digg, Reddit and Propeller focus on social bookmarking of news-related items such as politics, sports, technology, etc. These websites will often feature breaking headlines and bloggers discussing the current news items. They can be a great source of news, and they also offer the ability to participate in the discussion by leaving comments on popular news items.

The social bookmarking site used for this project was Delicious. Delicious is a popular site used by many online users in common social communities. The bookmark stack was created to display a plethora of resources related to technology, education and content information in social studies. The sites are related to teaching materials in American History Part I and II. Some of the online sites provide information to assist students with the AHSGE. Teachers can also access sites related to research, writing, and citing information. This was a great resource project for the class and my personal use. It allowed me to organize the web addresses that I often use in my class instruction and I plan to share the web address with colleagues and department members. I also plan to create a social bookmarking site for my students to access online sites that will assist them in the class materials, assignments, and projects. This assignment is strongly related to my blog address, EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: PREPARING THE 21^ST CENTURY LEARNER.

Access my social bookmark EDL 529 at http://delicious.com/stacks/view/IMIQN6

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

The Benefits of Educational Gaming

As you may know, gaming can spark the attention of any age group; however, educational gaming is a creative tool to use to persuade students into learning. Educators who utilize gaming in their instruction know that students are learning and it is enjoyable. Recent findings from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), nearly two-thirds of households in the USA play video games, and since 1999, the percentage of gamers older than 50 has more than tripled. Researchers have stated that games use new technologies to incorporate principles crucial to human cognitive learning. Games can assist students in using their working memory, improving their abstract reasoning and problem-solving skills, and being creative in cognitive skills.

Educational gaming is also beneficial because it allows students to be interactive in their learning rather than the traditional classroom structure and lecture. Students like competitive learning because everyone wants to be a winner. Educational gaming allows students to be actively engaged and it promotes student involvement in learning. Students who participate in gaming have an essential desire to win; therefore, the students are learning to master the skills needed to succeed. Students are able to interact with gaming material in a practical fashion, instead of simply being presented with the information and asked to retain it.

Gaming promotes teamwork in students and that is a vital tool needed for success in postsecondary education and in the workforce. This method helps students to reach a central goal or solve a problem as a team. In the real world, we often have to work with people we don't like, just like in classroom games, where we are not always teamed with our friends. As students engage in game play through their education, they develop the skills necessary to be a good sportsman. Win or lose, students are still receiving the knowledge or skills to become successful while participating in educational gaming.

Educational gaming is a great problem solving skill. In my tenth grade history class, I allowed the students to solve cases on the First48 website. The students in my community are already tuned in to this reality series and why should I allow them to use an educational game that interest them. If students become accustom to solving complex problems, it helps them to become critical thinkers.

http://www.ehow.com/list_6158842_benefits-games-education-learning-activities_.html#ixzz1r84jIV1t

http://www.theesa.com/games-improving-what-matters/education.asp

E Readers and Tablets: Tools for the 21st Century Learner

E-Readers offer several advantages for students more than the traditional paper-based textbooks. E-Readers are a way of providing textbooks to students via digital devices. The e-readers can contain many books but weigh several pounds less than a traditional textbook. Also, there may be ecological advantages for using e-readers because the costs of producing paper versus the cost of producing the electricity an e-reader requires. Textbooks are often out-of-date as soon as they hit print in some core curriculum areas. (i.e. The history textbook that we are currently using has President Barack Obama campaigning for Illinois Senator). Digital media makes it possible for content providers, such as textbook publishers, to update textbooks as new information comes to light. While schools must work to ensure that all students have access to texts, e-readers may provide additional accessibility for students with specific types of learning disabilities. For example, in Kentucky, research is moving forward that shows e-readers that also speak math equations while highlighting them on-screen may have benefits for some students (Trotter, 2008). As technology continues to focus on the funding needs of schools, the need for accurate and up-to-date information for teachers and students, and the need for ecologically friendly alternatives to heavy paper-based textbooks, e-readers will likely be seen increasingly in public schools.

While many schools in the U.S. are rushing to embrace iPads, other types of e-readers haven’t been widely adopted. E readers cost less and display digital textbooks but they do not contain the mobile apps that are used by tablets. They all include dictionaries. They often have 3G or Wi-Fi capabilities. They have Web browsers. And they allow for the subscription to other news forms — magazines, newspapers, and newsletters for example. These devices also tend to have extraordinarily good battery life, which is necessary in regions that don’t have reliable electricity. A non-profit organization called Worldreader is demonstrating how e-readers can transform education without apps and videos. The problem school systems will face is the disparity between children in low-income and higher income families and their access to mobile applications.

With the new digital tablets, education can become an interactive learning environment with technology accessibility at all times. The tablets are being used by all ages from preschoolers to college students for educational purposes. When students have their own devices, they can easily meet online to collaborate on classroom blogs, wikis, education-focused social networks and other cloud-based tools like Google Docs. The educational apps that are offered on the tablets are beneficial because they help students to make learning fun and they are useful tutorial device outside of the textbook. The tablets are also current because most students are more capable of using these tablets because they are familiar with smartphones and other touch screen devices. The tablets are also acquainted with student’s everyday lifestyle. The tablets are small, lightweight, and accessible and have long battery life. The tablets are equipped with textbooks, recorders, educational apps, etc. Schools and higher level institutions that are not looking into adopting current technological devices are really doing the students a disservice. The Digital Natives are accustomed to using digital technology daily and we are restricting them from being prepared for 21^st century learning.

Students & Interactive Learning

Student interactive learning makes knowledge easier to understand and relevant. The technologies that are available to most students consist of: working on the internet, creating websites, videos, blogs, and movies, multimedia, and hands-on resources. This allows learning to be student centered and it aids students to learn at their own pace. Some interactive learning strategies would be: interviews, role playing, peer tutoring, oral presentations, cooperative learning, promethean planet (promethean boards), games, etc. The benefits of student interactive learning are retaining information and understand the lesson clearly. Students often learn from bodily kinesthetic (doing) rather than visual or auditory. Student interactive learning allows them to create new ideas that are in relation to subject area and make strong connections to the lesson. As an educator, it is always great to instruct in traditional forms but interactive learning helps teachers support their teaching.

Here is a link that was created by Special English Education report that questions Lecture v. Interactive Learning

http://youtu.be/YKN8tjAgPgY