Blog Post #I- Chapter 4

          In chapter four it really opened up my perspective on educators and just really demonstrated to me how much more complex teaching really is. For this reason, I truly applaud teachers not only for the patience of dealing with children on a Monday through Friday basis but also for doing the planning out of every day. Personally I knew it took some sort of time and thought but this chapter really explained in depth what is necessary to plan a lesson and really demonstrated to me ways to better it as in comparison to when I was taught.

         First things first, in this chapter it emphasizes how important for a teacher to first decide on a topic to teach and what concept will be taught on the subject.  With modern technology teachers now have the availability to browse through hundreds and hundreds of curriculums to assist them in planning out a lesson. It is also important for an educator to keep in mind the importance of keeping up with the state standard and core curriculum, so an educator has a lot of factors to keep up with. In the end once a topic is decided is also essential to do assessments to children on the topic not only before and after but also during the lesson. This way the educator gets a glimpse of how much knowledge a child has on the subject and knows how to start off the subject. Also during to see if indeed the children are gaining knowledge or if the subject needs to review and in the end to see if the topic was indeed learned.

        Another great concept that was introduced in this chapter that I really found useful was introducing the lesson to students. The best approach I found for me was the Understanding by Design or as many may know as the backward design.  In this approach, there are three main stages to this design which are Stage 1: Identifying desired results, Stage 2: Determine acceptable evidence, and finally Stage 3: Plan learning experience and instruction.  In the first stage, it is basically identifying the topic and what questions shall be answered. The second one is deciding with evidence will be shown to the students to articulate with the topic that will allow them to gain more knowledge as well as continue to gain their attention.  Finally in the last stage is actually setting out a lesson plan complete with activities and time frame for the lesson.

      To sum it all up, once the lesson is successfully completes the only thing left to do is assess the students on the subject to see if the lesson was effective and if children learned the subject.  The most effective way to see if a child has indeed learned the subject is by having the children explain the topic to on another. For instance, have the students collaborate in a group and create a presentation using technology such as PowerPoint on a certain portion and teach to the rest of the class. This way the educator will have the ability to determine if the subject was indeed understood. Aside from this there should still be a test assessment for each child.  With technology though assessing children is easier because educators can use rubrics to help children and makes grading easier with electronic grading.                                                                                                                                                      

     

Resources: 

 Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. 

Rios Moreno, P. (October 28, 2015) Technology created with Voki http://www.voki.com/mywebsite.php

Digital Blog Post- #H Chapter 9

The use of PowerPoint has become more and more popular. It helps one organize their ideas and visually show their thoughts. With PowerPoint, one can add 3-D effects, narration, sound, pictures, diagrams and so much more. It is a wonderful software that facilitates the lesson for a teacher because once done it’s just a click away from changing the subject. PowerPoint it extremely beneficial to visual learning that have difficulty focusing on a topic because as mentioned before PowerPoint has more of a video effect rather than reading straight out of a book or using a regular whiteboard.

One great tool that I learned in this chapter was Digital storytelling. Digital storytelling is a tool that can be used in school from K-12, it’s a way to use written text and create a story presentation with audio, video, and realistic text. “Digital storytelling connects directly to the history/social studies and language arts curricula” (Transforming, 2013). For instance in a language arts class it can be used to allow students to use their imagination to created stories but in the end actually bring these characters to life with digital storytelling and, not only does it have to stay in text but students can actually narrate the story as well to and more excitement to the story.

Photo taking and Movie Making is something that I personally as a future educator would love to implement in the classroom. My last high school year one of my classes was a video tech class in which we would learn how to use cameras, microphones, windows movie maker and so much more. From first-hand experience, I can personally tell you it is a great way for students to work in groups and learn from one another. Using movie making allows students to express themselves and be creative when creating these videos. Once completed each group would then be able to show the final completion and this way learn about a different topic from each one.

 

 

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Blog Post #G- Chapter 10

Resources
Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.  

Blog Post #F- Chapter 8

As that one saying goes if you can’t beat them join them. As most of us may have noticed technology is constantly expanding and the teacher must play the game in order to adhere the attention of the students. From my perspective teaching has dramatically changed from the time I was in school to the way things are done in and outside of the classroom and yes you read correctly outside of the classroom.

                 When I was in high school the most technology we used to communicate with a teacher was reaching them before or after school. Occasionally a teacher would give the student their email address allowing you to send them an email although most of the time the response would be given the response the next class session or two days later via email.  Till this day, email is considered an asynchronous communication because it takes more time to get ahold of the person whom you are trying to reach. Educators prefer a more efficient way of communication such as wikis, blogs, and so forth because they are synchronous communication or faster efficient ways to communicate with students. This also extends a regular eight-hour school day by allowing the student to do different school related task outside of the school itself.

When I got back to school and entered college I was not all that great with technology and to be truthful hesitated on using it unless I absolutely positively definitely needed to. However, since I plan on becoming a future educator I had to learn and continue to learn to use technology in a positive way. This will essentially will be necessary when communication with the student in the classroom. A teacher now are able to communicate with the student via discussion boards, blogs, and even text messages! Educators, for instance, can create wiki pages in which information is laid out for students to access 24/7 and can also link the sites so this way students can also access accurate information from good websites. This from my perspective is an amazing step because with this child can get information outside of the class at any given moment.

Outside of school student are also granted the opportunity to retrieve information need by the touch of a finger. Teachers can now set up social media such as twitter, in which children can communicate with each other allowing one another to help out with a problem as well as have discussions with them about important topics. With social media teachers can even make assignment out of this and it allows the student to expand their technology knowledge as well. For instance, this class Into to Tech for Educators has opened my eye to so many new technology communications that I hadn’t even heard from.  In this class we too have discussion in which we must communicate with other student and discuss certain topic which is really good because although we might think we understand it fully each person add something new or understands it from a different perspective.

 

 

Resources:
Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Rios Moreno, P. (October 10, 2015) Technology created with bubbl.us

Digital Blog Post #E- Chapter 7

          One very helpful concept I learned while reading through chapter seven was how it explained the difference between types of software. The most important software I learned about were standard software application and open source software. Standard software is mainly the type of software used on a daily basis by many individuals. For instance, it is used by accountants for tax preparation software to teachers for Microsoft office to create PowerPoint for different school subjects.  Open Source software is different from standard software because this software gives public access allowing individuals to modify or change it to their benefit and cannot charge if other people use it. Standard software typically does not allow this and mainly make user agree to their terms and conditions instead which will not allow anyone, but the creator to change or modify the program.       

            Another topic I found really interesting was building, creating and inventing software. From my perspective I believe this is a great way to engage the student in creating new software after all they are the future generation.  Two examples of these software tools are kid pik and google earth, kid pik allows students to create slideshows which, in essence, allows the student to be creative with their own unique slides. Google earth is a software that allows a person to pinpoint a location and allowing them to see a vivid picture of it as well. For instance with google earth if students had a project about Egypt kids would be able to get an image within seconds.

                The last topic that dragged my attention was computer games as a learning resource.  This topic however I believe has a different perspective from other individuals depending on whither one is a digital native or digital immigrant.  Some individuals believe that computer learning games are just a distraction and useless because they believe that regardless it is just a game with no good outcome. They believe these games overall have negative effects such as lower social interactive skill and lower fluent reading, writing and thinking skills.  Other individuals, on the other hand, believe that these games have positive impacts and, in essence, create a more fun engaging way for students to learn.  I personally agree that computer learning games have positive impacts on students because these students are digital natives and are constantly using technology so by not allowing them to use this helpful resource we are giving them a disadvantage that will eventually affect them in a negative way.

 

Resources:

Maloy, R., O'Loughlin, R., Edwards, S., & Woolf, B. (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.

Rios Moreno, P. (October 04, 2015) Technology created with Wordle
www.wordle.com