D/B 9

• Previous assignments (R/D9*): As a kind of check in, I would like to hear a somewhat summative reflection on your experience in the course so far, particularly related to the technology-related tasks you have tackled.

I have found that some of the tasks could be very beneficial in my classroom.  Podcasting was new for me and I have already thought of some great activities that I could do with it that I have posted before in my blog.  Social bookmarking has some interesting uses in education.  I have heard of mapping and creating maps but did not really look into it that much.  With this activity I found some great uses as well.

• How challenging have you found them?

I would say that they are of appropriate difficultly.  I never felt overwhelmed or that any of them where a waste of time.

• What support you did not get that you would have appreciated (or what support did you get that you did appreciate)?

The support portions of each website, forum on Blackboard, and Google have helped for each assignment.

• Are excited, frustrated, both? Do you think you will find ways to incorporate some of what we have done in your professional work?

Excited.  See above comments.

D/B 6

What are some ways the ideas/concepts/principles discussed in this chapter could be applied in your professional work? Do you see opportunities where these ideas could help you or your students?

I use visual media a lot in my classes.  Drawings, pictures, and directions dominate my classes.

I see YouTube as well as United Streaming a hybrid between TV and Film mentioned in Chapter 3.  I use both a lot in my classes.

Since text and the teacher are not considered Instructional Media I will be brief.  I use text sparingly in my classes and use it to guide my curriculum.  I am luck in that I teach in a lab with 30 computers and I use mostly the internet to get students involved in the subject matter.  Exploring websites, videos, images, and other points of view make it more interesting the reading from a text.

As described above under Option 1, profile the podcast(s) you chose to subscribe and listen to (you do not have to do this if you choose Option 2. Link to the podcast's site and profile (describe) this podcast so your classmates can learn about it and see if it might one they would want to check out.

I subscribed to http://edtechtalk.com/ . I found it in iTunes.  EdTechTalk is a community of educators interested in discussing and learning about the uses of educational technology. They have several different types of shows including 21st Century Learning, K-12, Elementary, Parents, Teachers Teaching Teachers.

What added value might podcasting have in your professional setting (company, school, etc.)?

I never really got into podcasting  and this activity has really ot me interested.  I found some of the information very helpful.  I really like the on about the oil spill and if our students will find it compelling.  I tied in an assignment to my engineering class asking students to find how technology and engineering are helping or hurting the cleanup in the Gulf.  It received mixed results from students some more interested then others.  But I fell if I would have incorporated the podcast with teachers from Louisiana and others who are there I think it would have make a bigger impact.  The video the reference is heartbreaking!

Reiser, Robert A and Dempsey, John V (2007) 2nd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

D/B 5

How will the Internet and the World Wide Web make a  major impact on:

A) K-12

According to Chapter 3 Instructional Technology has had little success in affecting public schools.  Each moment (Visual,Film, TV, Computers) prior to having computers hooked up to the Internet and the World Wide Web showed great interest/promise and experts made very outlandish predictions about how each would change the face of education.  However after a few years each type of technology lost ground and reports indicated that these technologies had little affect on learning.

I agree with the author at the end of the chapter that recent data is showing that more and more teachers are using computers and the Internet for meaningful lessons.  However, I disagree with the author when he says that the growth will be slow and steady.  Although his prediction is based on data collected from studies conducted from  2001-2003 I see this trend declining. The main reason I see this trend declining is lack of money in the schools (equipment and training teachers) and teacher reluctantcy to use technology.

I feel that it can be helped by a couple things.  Schools need to train teachers on how to incorporate technology and how to lesson plan using these technologies.  I see too many times technology being put in the classroom and no training being given in how to use it!  Also schools need to look for grants that support technology integration and training.  I feel that parents can be more involved in this process and help school look for the dollars to be successful instead of reling on the State for funds.

Reiser, Robert A and Dempsey, John V (2007) 2nd edition, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

B) Higher Education

I see continued use of online classes and degree's.  I feel that it a real money maker for the colleges and they have already been using it for awhile now.


C) Adult Education

I see my friends and siblings having to do training more and more online.  Most of which is self paced and their is no facilitator.   I see more and more companies using this technology to save money and train more people at a time.  The mention of human performance as a branch of instructional design and technology has me very curious about the subject.

Google Map Post

Here is a map of Grand Island off Munising, MI.  My wife and I biked about half the island on your visit last year.  Lots to do and a great place to visit.

Again EDUblogs will not let me embed code since I am a free user. Again they blame spammers!

HERE is a link to my map.

Static Image

Here is my static image.

Reflections: Bringing it All Together

• What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

The learning strategies session was very helpful in laying out instruction.   Varying instructional strategies, using scaffolding, and collaboration.

• How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology

I found that working with technology is a love/hate relationship.  Some types are easy to use and others can be frustrating and time consuming.  By experiencing these technologies in this class, it saves me time investigating its use in my classes.

• How have you met your own personal goals for learning about technology integration?

I took this class to see if instructional technology was something I would want to pursue.  I enjoyed this class a lot.  I found that I would be interested in pursuing this as a masters degree.  Also being a Technology Education teacher I wanted to expand on my knowledge of what types of technology is out there.  I definitely learned some strategies, curriculum ideas and even some class ideas.

• Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

I  want to use what I have learned  in my classroom.  I also would like to take what I learned and share it with my department.  We have a mixed department of myself, two business education teachers and a food a and a consumer science teachers.  We try to incorporate technology in our classes.  I would share this knowledge with my colleges in our PLCs.  We have also been asked to incorporate the online requirement of the Michigan Merit Curriculum in our classes or design a class that students could take to meet this requirement.

I also want to try and incorporate a CMS for my computer applications class.  The other computer applications teacher and I wanted to try this for awhile now.  I went to a presentation at MACUL about a district that uses Moodle for all their courses.  Students turned in and teachers corrected all  assignments with in Moodle.  The district had a laptop program where each student received a laptop their freshmen year and  it followed them all four years.  This also saved the district money in paper.

I would like to try a similar thing with my computer applications class.  Since class takes place in a computer lab students would have a computer to turn in and receive back assignments.  Advanced students could also go ahead and learn on their own.  I could structure the class for differentiated learning.

My ideas will only change and expand as I take more classes.  All in all, I want to be a digital native chief teaching and showing younger digital natives about using this technology in a useful and meaningful way.

Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience

Talk about how you could use one of the technologies that qualify as an online experience with your students.

• What content could this help you teach?

Computer Applications: Wikis, Electronic Portfolio, Learning Management System, RSS, Pod Cast/Video Cast, Webquest

CAD: Electronic Portfolio, Online Research, Learning Management System, RSS

Engineering: Electronic Portfolio, Online Research, RSS, Pod Cast/Video Cast, Webquest

• What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students?

Inductive: Explain to students the assignment they are going do with the technology (problem). Have students get into groups and think of some other ways this technology is similar to other things they have experienced.  In these groups, students would learn the technology on their own using a tutorial provided by the teacher on a website or PowerPoint. Exploring and having them document what worked and what didn’t work.  We could then have a group discussion on how we could effectively use these technologies in class and write guidelines that we could follow while doing the assignment.

Deductive: Introduction of technology. I would introduce each technology related to things that students are failure with. Show some of the videos we watched about a blog or wiki. Then show students examples of the technology being used effectively and if so ineffectively.  Have a class discussion on why some are effective and others not.  Then have students get in groups and work collaboratively on learning the program.

• What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why?

Online Research and Resource Validation. Because I feel that these are my weakest area.  I would not feel comfortable teaching it right now.  I would definitely like to improve and look into improvement in this area.

Exploring Web-based Applications: Zoho Sheet

• Describe your experience as a user of the application. What functions did you like and what functions did you find frustrating? Why?

I chose to review Zoho Sheet more many reasons.  I teach Computer Applications and we teach students Microsoft Office. I wanted to see how similar Zoho was to Office.   I found Zoho Sheet very familiar and easy to use.  If you are familiar with the layout of Microsoft Office Excel 2003 then you will have an easy transition.   The icons are similar to Excel and I had no trouble guessing what icons did what. However there are some drawbacks to using Zoho that Offices uses are used to.

Zoho is Excel at a basic level.  A lot of the advanced functions are not there.  One big thing I noticed missing was the print fuctionallity. Students have a hard time visualizing what their Excel document will look like when it is printed.  I think this comes from using Microsoft Word and what you see is what you get.  In Excel you have lots of options on how you would like the document printed.  I would like the ability to add a header and footer, center horizontaly and verticaly and have the option of printing it in diffrent layouts.  I found this missing and a big drawback. One way around this would be to use this if you were using a computer that did not have Excel.  Sheet has the ability to save as an Excel document.  You could then save it using Zoho as an excel document and them open it with Excel when you get to a computer with Excel to have these printing abilities.

Think about its application in the classroom

• What knowledge or skills would students need to use the software?

Users who have basic Microsoft Office Excel knowledge would not have any trouble using this applications.  Students would need some instruction on how to use this program before they were giving an assignment.

• How can you share the products you create with this application

In Zoho is a share button.  This allows you to invite participants via email address.  You can also communicate in other ways.  You have the ability to email all the users at once to notify them of any changes or important information.  You can also chat with members live inside the document that you are working on. This allows for collaboration outside of school.

• How could you see the application being used to teach a particular subject matter?

I could  see this used in a Computer Applications class as an alternative to Excel.  It could also be used in Math and sciences classes.  The real benefit is the ability to collaborate on documents without having to email the document to everyone and then take everyone's additions and add it to one document.

• What are some things a teacher could do to help students collaborate using this application?

The teacher would have to have the ability to teach them the application and also show them a guided example in class on how to collaborate using Zoho.

• What sort of organization or managerial considerations will a teacher have to take into account?

Teacher would first have to learn how to use the application.  The teacher would then have to decide how to incorporate the application in their class.  This would also determine how to organize students.  Teacher would have to have students sign up for Zoho accounts.

Web 2.0 and the Classroom

• What instructional strategies would fit well with using blogs in the classroom? Why?

At the beginning of the semester we talk about ethics in Engineering. I could assign students a topic (genetic engineering, genetically engineered foods, stem cells). Students could take a pro or against stance on an issue and use a blog to share there thoughts.  Students could also share there thoughts about topics in the news related to ethics and engineering.  Students cpuld then respond to each others topics.

• What instructional strategies would not fit well with using blogs in the classroom? Why?

Brainstorming project ideas. I feel that I could use a wiki more then a blog. A lot of the instruction in my class would benefit from collaboration than one person sharing there and others responding.

• How could you see Blogs being used in your classroom with your subject matter?

I would like to try the ethics in engineering unit.  I would normally do a classroom discussion but I think it would be good to see students use a blog to share their thoughts.  I think the dialog would be much better and it could then extend far after we covered it.  Students could also interact with experts on both sides of a topic.

Wikis

For this assignment we and had an opportunity to explore the use of wikis. I have used wikis in my classrooms in the past.  http://ohs-nemonator-msu.pbworks.com/ was a wiki that I used a couple of years ago in my Engineering I classes.   We worked on a collaborative project with Michigan State University called Nemo.  Nemo was a robotic fish that used a new polymer to propel itself. Our takes were to program, build and design a fish that we could control wirelessly through a computer.  I used the wiki as a means for the classes to communicate as well as to share information about out progress.

Next using  Wikipedia we were  to add on or create a page for the school we taught at. Okemos High School was already on Wikipedia so I added a link to the high school robotics team. I have included a image of my addition.

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