Wiki-tastic

Setting up a wiki account was very easy and surprisingly fun. I have heard people talk about Wiki accounts but had no idea the templates were so easy to manage. I like the idea of creating pages that link to other pages. I could see myself either creating a scavenger hunt for students or having students link to different websites and learn about a concept being taught in my class. I teach math and would like to include links to definitions, tutorial videos,and different websites that might provide practice.
Collaboration would be ideal with Wiki pages but i'm not sure on how long students will take in making a wiki page. I think it would be cool to talk with a computers teacher and have students learn about wiki pages during related arts so they come into my class with background knowledge. If this were the case then I would have my students create a Wiki page as a project/final assessment. The students can each edit and add information on a research topic in Math. Each group would research a different topic and students would have to review everyones Wiki page. Students would be highly engaged if they had to write critiques and share what they learned on everyones Wiki pages. I am not sure on the time frame of the project or if our school has the technology to support the hours students would need to be on the computer but the end result would be very successful.

I don't think many of my friends use Wiki but I will definitely find out and maybe get them to create an account. Wiki's are great places to share websites and knowledge attained.  I really wish that more teachers assigned projects using Wiki. I am sure in the future several professors/teachers will have students using Wiki. I know that my wheels are turning on how to implement a Wiki project with my students. Students today are so plugged in and would love the opportunity to create something on the web. I hope as educators we can find ways to allow students to use technology in the classroom for every subject.

Wiki Hot Link! Cooler than a polar bears toe nails!

Here is my wiki link! http://jtotheotothee.pbworks.com/w/page/35502271/FrontPage

I have written a summary of the O'Reilly article. Thanks

Just Blog It!

Create a blog! My first impressions were very negative and I probably would not have signed up for this class if I knew we were required to set one up. I first created a blog in college and found it not to be very exciting. However, I wanted to be in this class and wanted to give blogs another go so decided to start fresh in my mind about blogs. After this second assignment I am very impressed with how RSS reader organizes your blogs and gives you feeds that you can read in a matter of minutes. The reason I didn’t like blogs before was the information moved to slow and everybody’s blog started to look the same. I would read one blog after another with no breaks or different forms of information given to the reader. Now you can subscribe to several different forms of media and see what people are into. I enjoy the pictures, videos, and links in the news feeds. I am so glad that my negative thoughts didn’t cause me to stop taking this class. This blogging thing is pretty cool.
I really enjoyed the Cone of Experience article and will often think about modes of learning with the analogy of tying a shoe. Creating a blog first had a huge impact on my learning and understanding of why people set up a blog. I would not have appreciated RSS reading without creating a blog first. By getting the direct experience of a blog I was more motivated to subscribe to others blogs and professional blogs. I did not realize there was such a large social network of bloggers with several different forms of information to share.  I had a hard time deciding which facets of the Cone lend itself better to blogging or RSS reader because both complement each other so well. However you can organize and exhibit everything better from your RSS reader. The RSS reader is a richer experience with the user able to find media in writing, recordings, radio and still pictures. By using RSS reader the user is able to demonstrate a more abstract view on their interests. You can make the RSS reader into anything you want. (Basically you are like an artist and starting on a clean canvas) Students would learn so much more about themselves and about others as learners from using a RSS reader. The article talked a lot about different style learners and I think visual learners would be able to learn better from the RSS reader. I am more of a visual learner and the RSS reader is way more appealing than just reading a blog.
An educational use for a blog would be a pen pal program to learn from people with a variety of background knowledge. Students can learn from experiences from other students and can even start a pen pal program with students from other countries. I think by talking to someone living in another country would be a rich experience to learn about similarities and differences between cultures. Rss reader would be a good place for students to compile sources to write a paper. The teacher could easily check how the student compiled there information. Rss reader would be a rich way to use a variety of sources. Checking sources and using firsthand knowledge from pen pals would help solve the problem of text books being biased or misrepresented a group of people. I have seen at our school who is 98% African American our students have a low perception of the country of Africa. One student told me he never wants to visit Africa because everyone is poor and lives in a village. Maybe blogs could help widen his knowledge on the different countries in Africa that are not shown in books or on commercials. I think blogs and the Rss reader can help student’s maybe hone in and narrow there search because like the article talked about there is so much information out there. Rss reader like Amazon helps students get reviews on different countries and students can save the important information in an easy format.

The role technology has on our students..... Good vs. Evil

                Reading both articles (Beyond Technology Integration:The Case for technology transformation by Roberto Joseph and Of Luddites, Learning and Life by Neil Postman) has really made me think about technology and the role it plays in education. I believe when technology is used for the right reasons students can take control of their learning and teachers can get more engagement out of their class. However, we need the right programs in our school systems that promote student's to learn at an individualized learning rate. As a classroom teacher I have witnessed several programs that have been extremely boring and the knowledge displayed is very confusing with little guidance for students. Programs that don’t have any substance (meaning the program just asks multiple choice questions and doesn’t give any instruction are useless in schools) seem to slow up student learning and create students to give up. My 7^th grade Math students love a program called compass learning. This program allows teachers to create lessons on an individualized basis. I usually pick the standards that go along with the books I’m teaching so students are using technology in coordination with the classroom learning. This program works very well with students who have been absent or are not getting a standard and need re-teaching. The program goes at the pace of the students learning and gives various ways of instructions and different modules of practice problems in a student friendly way.  Technology if used for instructional purposes and to counter the different rates of student learning along with the different needs in a classroom can be very useful to teaching to all students needs.

                I agree with Postman’s article that states “problems of education are social and of moral nature and have nothing to do with dazzling technologies.” I think teachers fear a day where we might plug every student on a computer and have the student’s just work at their own pace to accomplish a checklist of standards. The reason this idea is scary is because people need one another and should have the opportunity to work in a community. I am not sure being on a computer allows for enough time to learn how to work with one another. I have seen some students do well on group projects using computers but I don’t think you can only teach a student to use a computer. Our goal as educators is to teach students how to be problem solvers and I believe that learning without technology is good for our brains. I am very worried about students in their home life and the things they watch on TV or on the internet. I think our society has a huge problem with our youth losing the age of innocence. I hear about more and more of my students going and seeing “R” rated films or getting bootlegged copies of movies. Everything of filth is so easily obtained through the internet. We have a severe problem with cursing in the hallways during passing periods and sexual comments in our school. I am worried about students not being independent thinkers and instead listening to singers/artists or playing video games with no imagination needed.  I think there should be a limit on how long students are using electronic devices at home and students should be encouraged to play outside. I wonder how much technology has taking away from our student’s problem solving ability and their creative side. With that being said, I do want to say that I am more optimistic about technology than Postman because there are several creative Nintendo DS games, Wii games, websites, and educational programs on the computer that do promote students to be creative however are students picking those types of games, websites or programs? Some technology helps educators and some hinders are students and the realities of life. We must chose wisely what technology our students use to learn.