BLOGGING 107

I am starting to get the hang of this meteor we call technology and why we need change. I guess at the beginning it seemed that technology was being pushed on us, as well as into the classroom. As a teacher we need to be able to focus on the curriculum when it comes to process, content and product. What may be a good teaching strategy for one class my be the complete opposite for another class. One class may learn better by fusing Inspiration into it while another class may get more out of watching a video or a movie. It just seemed that at the beginning of class that technology was literally being force fed to us and me, for one, looks at change very seriously. I grew up on the theory “if its not broken, don’t fix it.” As a teacher you need to remember that you have control, in your hands, of the product that comes out of i and getting kids ready for the “REAL WORLD” is part of that job title. For me, it’s like having each student on a rope and allow them to test the waters and make some mistakes in order to learn what it is going to be like when they get older. The most important thing is both administration and parents need to be on board with these testing the waters theory. As both a parent and a teacher, my wife and I try to let our son gradually get introduced to computers and technology. We still need to remember that what our kids learn is the most important, not how they learn it. If a child can’t learn the way we teach, we must teach the way they will learn.

BLOGGING 106

Don’t get me wrong, I really do love intervention and better technology, but I continually ask peers and colleagues and I’m not the only skeptic. They all say too much technology in the classroom gives the kids a lot of down time. There is also quite a few that have never heard of or used some of this stuff in the classroom. It may seem that I am being extremely negative and getting negative feedback from colleagues, but I continually go back to them with information that I receive and read from every assignment with joy and excitement. I go to the librarian on a weekly basis and discuss with her the great topic that we discussed or covered in class the prior week. There is the old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” does this have anything to do with computers and what you can do on them? Stay tuned…

Sometimes I find it too easy for a student to find the answer on the computer. There are too many sites that don’t help the child think, or should I say think for himself. Last Friday we celebrated Black History Month so I made up a scavenger hunt to find Black Scientists and Inventors in the library, pulling my information from newspaper articles, books, encyclopedias and yes even the web. After giving this to my students I didn’t find them reading about these famous people, I found them in a race putting “key words” into Google to see who could find the answers the fastest. When we go back to school I Monday I’m going to give them a pop quiz on what they did last Friday. We will see if my theory is proven. Will the students remember what they did 10 days ago or was it just a race to see who could get done the fastest. Stay tuned…

BLOGGING 105

When I think of children in the classroom using the internet, I think of Halloween.  Both parents and teachers must see what the kids are using before they allow the children to go out there to explore.  Just as a house or street may look like there aren’t any problems, so to do the sites that I child might enter.  Before I child starts devouring their candy following a great night of trick-or-treating it is a parents responsibility to take a glance at the candy  making sure there are no problems with it.  Before students use the internet for class projects, teachers must look at the sites that students will possibly use.  Questions that teachers must be able to answer are (1) can you verify the source, (2) does the site have a biased opinion, (3) is the information on the site current enough to answer the questions that the student needs to answer, (4) who is the information on the site intended for, is it appropriate for the grade level of students that are currently working on it and finally (5) what are possible links that a student can get to from the original site they are doing the work on.  The first site may be very usable and user friendly, but a possible link may get a student or teacher in hot water.  I think it is extremely important for a teacher to be able to use the internet in the classroom, they just need to be able to find a “happy” medium between using it effectively and efficiently.  A teacher must be willing to set boundaries knowing that a child will have the possibility of getting “off-task.”

BLOGGING 104

Following this weeks lesson on spreadsheets in Excel, I was starting to feel more familiar with the “technology” because it was something that I was familiar with. Or at least I thought I did until I saw everything you could do besides a simple spreadsheet. It was awesome. I will try to use that lesson plan immediately with my 9th grade algebra class. I saw the same lesson plan back at Brockport about 5 years ago and as the technology changed so too did the lesson plan. More color, more graphs, and more input were a few things that changed between the two plans. It was a fun lesson to get the kids involved and taking about how many M and M’s and what colors they had. The more and more that I think, I start to see that you can definitely involve that program into other subjects instead of Math. As a parent you could have your child help with the grocery list at home, breaking the list up into where the products go in your house possibly. You could also use the information about the recent Super Tuesday event for Social Studies as well as Math. Just a couple of ideas that I will present the the teachers that I work with. It is truly amazing that you think you might have a grasp on a topic and you have actually just scratched the surface. See ya next week with another topic!

BLOGGING 103

After starting to get the hang of blogging and thinking I was pretty knowledgeable about Microsoft word, my head was sent into a tailspin when we worked on that classroom project.  I learned a lot more than I thought there was to learn, hopefully it will stick.  I could never fathom that was even possible 5 years ago.  I can’t imagine what that will have the possibility of looking like  within the next 5 years.  The basic information that I have learned in the first 3 weeks is mind-boggling and to know that is only the tip of the iceberg for this class and for future possibilities absolutely amazes me.  Having the ability to draw and/or color on a computer, drawing arrows and showing depth on a computer screen is awesome.  That is something that I didn’t realize that you could do when this class started.  I can’t wait to embark on future endeavors both in the classroom and on personal project that I can now attempt since learning this new information.

BLOGGING 102

When the word technology comes up in conversation, I am still reminded of the commercial where all you see is the cars lights racing on the screen. There are 100’s of cars and all you see is the headlights and taillights. After the first two classes I still have that deer in headlights look, but at least I am starting to see some blinkers and the roads where these cars are turning off. The school where I currently work uses many of the ideas and products that we discussed in class. Two that I have grown fond of are Kurzweil, a reading technology for people with learning disabilities and Dragon, a device that helps individuals put words into product on the computer without typing. Kurzweil allows a student to read at his/her own pace or follow a highlighted word as the program reads for them. One advantage of Dragon, is that it allows a student to put the words in their head into hard copy quickly before they forget what they were thinking about.As a teacher these products are extremely helpful, they allow a class to work at there own individual pace and a task or project can be completed in a timely fashion. Students that I have, however, aren’t particularly fond of Kurzweil. Any time we say that you can find the reading assignment of Kurzweil, the older kids pronounce their displeasure with it. I am still trying to find out why. That will be a later entry, as will the topic of Scholastic Keys. That was the first time that I heard about it and I will bring it up to our administration.

BLOGGING 101

When the topic of technology comes up, I feel like a deer in headlights. After watching the video for the second time in two days, you remember many more of the topics that were discussed the second time through. Even though change in the world is great as well as in society, when we graduate from this program there is a great chance that the technology that we learn during the program will be outdated. We have become a society that sits in front of a screen or on a cell phone and types away or text messages someone instead of having a conversation with them. Sometimes we are far too busy for our own good. Don’t get me wrong, technology is great, changes are great, but its tough to put personal touch on an email or a text message. As a father of a 4 year old that spend sometime on the computer, I am wondering what my son will be teaching me by the time he graduates from elementary school. There is something about a hand drawn card that sits on the refrigerator that brings back memories of when you used draw them. The hand drawn card doesn’t get rid of the childish mistakes or the name spelled the only way he can do it. It also doesn’t have spell check or a thousand different fonts that he can print it in. It is personal and memorable. As a parent and a teacher, I don’t want our kids to grow up too fast because they will miss alot of the stuff that falls through the cracks.