11th Blog – Lessons from Class

It is important to incorporate technology into the classroom.  Technology is a part of everyday life, and students are very comfortable using technology.  Even young students can work on math lessons using an Excel spreadsheet.  Technology allows students to explore the world on the Internet.  Technology also allows the students to express themselves by creating videos and glogs as part of projects.  It allows the students to experience and engage instead of just listening to a lecture. 

The students benefit because technology reaches all learning styles.  Students become active participants in learning.  If a student has difficulty expressing his thoughts and understanding in writing, the student could videotape himself explaining a topic.  With technology, teachers take on the role of advisor and share the learning process with the students. 

Teachers must keep up with technology in order to incorporate it into their classrooms.  The teachers must make sure they know and understand the technology before asking the students to work on projects and lessons using the technology. 

I was amazed when collecting the artifacts for my digital portfolio by how many different projects and different forms of technology we have used and learned during this class.  We did everything from the spreadsheet labs for young children to creating our own YouTube videos.  These projects were fun and challenging.  Perhaps that is the most important reason to incorporate technology into the classroom – to make learning fun and challenging to the students.  The Smartboard lesson truly challenged me and took me beyond my comfort zone.  I enjoyed reflecting each week on our assignments in our blog.  The glogster was fun; I didn’t know that existed.  I liked doing the video and want to try to create one using my two cats as the stars.  The digital portfolio was the first time I ever created a Web site.  That is something I would like to continue to explore. 

Thank you to our instructor and my fellow classmates for an enjoyable class! 

10th Blog – New Concepts from Presentations

1. Lisa’s video on Video Modeling.  Lisa’s video was extremely well done and informative.  I never thought of doing a video presentation of a research paper, but it is an excellent, creative alternative to writing a paper.  Video monitoring was new to me.  I agreed with her assessment that one student for a study was not broad enough; however, having students watch videos of desired behaviors in the classroom seems like a good idea.  Using an iPod Touch is a great device for students to watch the videos in the classroom without disruption to the class. 

2. Gina’s Glogster poster on Preschooler Technology.  This Glogster presentation visually demonstrated how much preschoolers are exposed to technology today from Nintendo, Leap Frog, Sesame Street, and Sprout.  I had no idea that Sesame Street had a Web site with videos and interactive games for children.  They didn’t have that when I was growing up.  Today’s preschoolers are definitely digital natives.  Another example of why it is important to incorporate technology into the classroom.

3. Matt’s iPhone video Web-based Labs.  Matt’s presentation using the iPhone to capture his video presentation and then sending it directly to YouTube was great. By using his iPhone, it really showcased how students can use technology for learning.  He talked about how 75% of the elementary students in the study preferred using a web-based lab for science.  Matt discussed that the Web-based labs helped students with different learning styles understand the teaching assignment, and the students showed improvement over the course of their lesson.

Portfolio Worksheet - Good Example/Bad Example

Good Example:

http://jahnnahall.com/index.html

The above link is a digital resume and portfolio.  I liked the portfolio because I thought it was pleasing to the eye.  The individual introduced herself via a video and gave links to her work on blogs and press releases to name a few.  The portfolio also listed relevant classes she took in the field of public relations and her social media skills.  She hopes to find work in public relations.  The portfolio seemed very thorough and nicely done.

Bad Example:

http://www.kreativekorp.com/personal/portfolio/?page=about

The above link is a digital portfolio for someone who is a computer programmer.  The reason I picked this link as a bad example is because I did not like the ‘Tell Me About Yourself’ page, which was the first page of the digital portfolio.  This page did have links where the person does showcase her coding projects; however, the page was crowded with words and did nothing to draw the viewer into the site.  It was basically just lots of text.

9th Blog – Copyright

Last week’s copyright Jeopardy really demonstrated how confusing and complicated copyright law can be.  It is often easy to forget that materials are copyrighted and that there are laws to protect distribution of protected items.  With the Internet, copying only takes a few clicks of the mouse.  It is often difficult to determine what would be considered fair use.  Something I never thought about was showing a movie in school.  I had no idea that schools had to obtain a license in order to show a movie.  I have been in a class where photocopies of material from a book were distributed to students.  Outside of schools, copyright seems to be violated all the time.  CDs and DVDs are being illegally copied and sold.  It is certainly the job of the teacher to teach copyright respect.  The classroom is probably the only place where copyright law is ever really mentioned and addressed.  It is good to discuss copyright laws with students at an early age, explain what it is and give examples of what is fair use and what is not.  Copyright law is something everyone needs to be aware of.

8b Blog – Video in the Classroom

Video in the classroom definitely has value.  It is an effective teaching tool because it is so engaging for students raised in the digital video age.  It can provide a positive experience for students and foster creativity.  It appeals to different learning styles.  Filmmaking teaches students to analyze information, decide how to illustrate that information, and then decide how to present it.  It helps students understand what goes into making a video by doing it themselves.

Students could be asked to read a short story or poem and then illustrate its meaning in a video they create themselves.  They would have to analyze the reading and then figure out how to illustrate their interpretation of the meaning of the story or poem.  The students would then use a video camera to capture the images followed by using a computer to produce the video.  The students could then watch the other videos created by other students in the class.  This would teach the students how to work in groups to complete a project.

The video cameras would need to be available for the students to use and the software for editing and creating the videos would need to be installed on computers.  The instructor would need to be familiar with creating and editing video to be able to teach it to the class.  What we found in creating our videos is that each group needed assistance from our instructor. 

8a Blog – Reflect on Group Video Project

The group video project was something that I had been looking forward to doing.  I was excited about the prospect of learning how to edit video and add sound to a movie that I created.  When the video project was explained, it then seemed like a lot of work.  The most daunting task was identifying the story we wanted to capture on film.  Creating the storyboard helped with mapping the movie and the shots needed to tell the story.  Once that had been decided, the filming of the movie went rather well. 

MovieMaker was a simple application to learn.  It was very easy to edit the video and put the pieces of the movie together.  The most difficult part we found was adding the audio to the movie.  We struggled a bit with using Audacity.  The next time I create a movie I would spend some time learning how to use Audacity to better incorporate music into the video. 

In retrospect, the video project was not too difficult to accomplish.  As with anything, I am sure that my filming abilities would improve the more I filmed and used the software to edit.  It was amazing how long 30-90 seconds could actually be when trying to fill the time with a story captured on film. 

7th Blog – Smartboard Lessons

A Smartboard is basically a large touch screen that allows interaction with a computer video output.  The screen is large so the whole class can see it and interact with the computer directly on the large screen.  A Smartboard lesson can be extremely interactive with the students touching the board to move objects on the screen and writing their answers directly on the screen.  The instructor using the Smartboard can quickly jump from the Smartboard lesson to the Internet to show a video or display a map while using the Smartboard and then go back to their lesson.  The Smartboard is definitely an incredible tool to use to enhance teaching and learning. 

The technology to use the Smartboard was extremely easy to use.  The hardest part for me was to develop the lesson.  Once the lesson was developed, it was simple to incorporate the lesson into the Smartboard software. 

There are some pros and cons to installing the Smartboard in a classroom.  One pro for the Smartboard is that it allows the instructor and the students to interact with a computer in front of the whole class instead of behind a computer.  Another great feature of the Smartboard is that it allows one to write on the board and then convert the handwriting into text and save it to the file.  One con to the Smartboard would be the price of installing this application in all classrooms. 

I have not written lesson plans in the past; however, it appears that many lesson plans could incorporate the Smartboard into the teaching.  Many examples of Smartboard lessons were given on the Internet.  They were quite interactive and appeared to boost the learning experience.