Social Bookmarks

While I was cruising along the world wide web I found a pretty neat idea that I haven’t heard that has been mentioned before and it’s called social bookmarking. This is a completely free tool that would allow students to help one another find, record, share, and re-locate again. Most people are very familiar with bookmarks or favorites, even I know about those! Whatever terminology you use it is basically the same thing. The social bookmark also experiences some limitations. Social bookmarks have limited access, organizational features, sharing, and discovery options. They do have exceptional possibilities for Discovery and Location. These kinds of attributes could definitely help the students to conduct their research there again. This article also describes how the e-Book is a 2.0 program but uses tools like del.icio.us. This could be a great way to make sure all the students contribute to group project evening with research.

http://www.wtvi.com/teks/07_08_articles/socialbookmarking101.html

e-Book

Recently in class we talked about the new e-Books. At first glance I was shocked it wasn’t an i-Book. However, using these little guys in education has many benefits. The e-Book isn’t perfect though and needs to be upgraded until it is completely education ready. The article, Are e-Books Ready for the Classroom, by Eric J. Simon addresses many of these advantages and disadvantages. Some of the positive aspects of the e-Book is that not only is the text more affordable and manageable but it is portable. Students apparently used the e-Books in many more places than they would a normal textbook. One of the disadvantages is that it is only in black and white. The students that participated in the study discussed in the article complained that the e-Book needed better graphics. It is mentioned that an e-Book could successfully save a whole library of books on it. The only down fall to that that I could see is technology, while extremely useful, can be destroyed and rebuilt. I would personally like to try out the e-Book but I’m definitely not rushing out to get one.

http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2001/08/Are-eBooks-Ready-for-the-Classroom.aspx?Page=1

VoiceThreaders :)

          We are all familiar with VoiceThread by now but I wanted to take another, deeper look at the program. The article that I found was written by Denise Dierolf and Molly Frazier. Since today’s students are becoming more visual learners then this outlet could create a convenient, interactive, and effective space where pictures can really come to life. VoiceThread can be used as a storytelling tool, research, communication, critical thinking, and an assessment venue. VoiceThread is collaborative, which will allow students to see what other classmates are doing in order to inspire and motivate their own creativity. The comment feature not only allows students to receive feedback from fellow classmates but they can get feedback from other individuals as well. (If they are comfortable with others viewing their material and so are you.) As we are all aware of there is a section on the VoiceThread website specifically for educational purposes. Students that do not feel as comfortable participating in class discussion could find relief in using VoiceThread because it allows them to share their views and aspects without being in front of the entire class. VoiceThread allows you to use pictures along with your name; however, students should not use their own picture. The article also provides a couple of tips for teachers and examples of projects that have been done with links to them.

Link:

http://cnx.org/content/m18419/latest/

Novels and Film

          Let’s face it; our students would rather watch a film any day of the week then to sit down and read a novel. No matter how great it is that’s the world that we live in. So after we discussed comparing film with writing today in class I began to search for uses of integrating the two together into our classrooms. In the article that I read by Gilliam Lazar she explains her use of incorporating a film that was adapted from a novel and the text itself. She seems to believe that not only would it provide the students with an opportunity to take a closer look at the filmmaker’s own interpretation of the novelist’s craft but they could evaluate how the filmmaker portrayed the same character.

          Lazar breaks it down for us suggesting that teachers should choose one part of the text and allow students to compare the same part of the movie to one another. However, it is the teacher’s job to direct the students’ attention to detail, linguistic features, and the messages it conveys. The students shouldn’t just be comparing and contrasting the two but looking deeper into the why the filmmaker or novelist choose the elements that they did. Lazar also provides us with examples of questions to ask the students to guide their thinking and analysis. Not only will this incorporate media into the class setting but students will gain confidence with making their own understanding concerning literary texts.

Here is the link to the article:

http://www.wilstapley.com/LCS/articles/gz.htm

“Life on the Screen: Visual Literacy in Education”

          I absolutely LOVED this article by James Daly! George Lucas gave an interview, (yes, he has provided us with hit films such as Star Wars, American Graffiti, and Raiders of the Lost Ark) where he conveyed his desire that students should be taught a new way of learning. In a highly connected and visual world students need to learn a “new language of expression”. Lucas says, “The way we are educating is based on nineteenth-century ideas and methods. Here we are, entering the twenty-first century, and you look at our schools and ask, ‘Why are we doing things in this ancient way?’ Our system of education is locked in a time capsule. You want to say to the people in charge, ‘You’re not using today’s tools! Wake up!” Teachers must learn to use these tools in order to connect with the world that our students are growing up in. Our technology today is rapidly changing and always coming out with something newer, faster, and better. In this visual world we must become proficient at using all the different types of communication instead of just writing comprehension. I mean isn’t that what this class is about? Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that the “classics” should still hold a place in education but we do need to understand the importance of all this new technology because it can be a powerful way to connect with our students. Graphics, music, and cinema have such a powerful influence on today’s young culture.

          This article tackles some of our hardest questions and tasks that we have discussed about integrating technology into the classroom setting. Lucas says, “If students aren’t taught the language of sound and images, shouldn’t they be considered as illiterate as if they left college without being able to read or write?” But it is so true! However, our biggest concern has always been how to manage these tech tools so that students don’t get off track or how to measure a student’s progress. What Lucas says we should really be doing is taking art and music and putting them into the English class. He argues that understanding what type of music and graphics to use in order to successfully link a specific emotion is a crucial part of communication. This type of instruction could really aid those students that are visual learners. Lucas also states, “Unfortunately, we’ve moved away from teaching the emotional forms of communication. But if you want to get along in this world, you need to have a heightened sense of emotional intelligence, which is the equal of your intellectual intelligence”. If we learn to treat grammar on screen the same way we critique writing we could see much improvement with student precision. The point is that our business world is constantly changing, it thrives on it. For our students to become productive citizens and successful we must teach them to use the tools we have. Like Lucas says, “Nothing is accomplished through conquest. Everything is accomplished through education”.

This article can be found at:

http://www.edutopia.org/life-screen

Audio Books

           Recently I read an article about using audio books within class reading. I personally have never been a fan of the recorded books because I would fall asleep to some other voice reading to me. However, this article provides different teacher’s accounts of using audio books within their classrooms. One fifth grade teacher at Brookside Elementary School used recorded books and saw a tremendous improvement from her readers. They repeated the same exercise of listening to the tape and following along on paper until they could read it on their own. My only concern with this is that yes, the students are learning to read and comprehend better with these audio books. However, how do you know if they are truly reading the text or just committing the story to memory?

          Another teacher said that she used upper leveled audio reading tools to increase her students’ vocabulary. A professor at the College of William stated that this use of technology can introduce children to new genres and cultivate critical listening. She argues that if students can understand the message being conveyed and learn to think critically about the text through making connections then kids will learn to love to read. We discussed audio books in class earlier in the semester and some said that it was a waste, that kids were falling asleep and not paying attention. So are there more creative ways to use technology to help our students learn to read better?

Here’s where I found the article:

http://www.edutopia.org/listening-literature

Classroom Blogging

            So after discussion today I decided to see if there were any extra tid-bits that I could find on using blogs in the classroom and possible examples of teachers that have already used them. In the article by David Huffaker titled The Educated Blogger: Using Weblogs to Promote Literacy in the Classroom he makes some outstanding points including that blogs are both individualistic and collaborative. In a student’s own personal blog they can write freely and create an outlet for self expression. However, blogs can also connect an individual with an online community. Huffaker provides ideas for blog purpose and topics such as a student’s take on a non-fictional/fictional story/novel, global blogs that connect them to international culture, or a creative writing space to express their own interests.

            Huffaker also discusses Will Richardson’s information on using weblogs in the classroom. He used weblogs for a journalism and literature class where students could edit, comment, and become more aware of writing for a different audience rather than their teacher. I definitely think that I will try to use ideas similar to these for my classroom so that students can have that interaction with one another but at the same time exercise their reading and writing skills.

I found this article at:

http://131.193.153.231/www/issues/issue9_6/huffaker/index.html#h4

(Under Contents click Blogs in the Classroom)

PowerPoint: Useful or Not?

            While I have used many PowerPoint presentations over the course of my student career to deliver a speech or project that was assigned to me, I have always found them extremely boring. However, I also believe that I may not have been using the product correctly or keeping an open mind whenever it comes to it. In an article, written by Julia Keller that I recently found, titled Killing Me Microsoftly with PowerPoint raised some key points that I have never considered before.

            This excerpt made some strong arguments about the use of PowerPoint within the classroom setting. Some of the negative aspects included that children of a younger age that are just learning how to think and connect ideas may be limited to the only templates that is provided on the program. One of the references that Keller uses name was Sherry Turkle. Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, states, “These technologies are changing the way we think. They change how our kids grow up and how they process information”. So how do we integrate PowerPoint into class for student use so that it effectively helps them to be engaged with the assignment?

            Another argument suggested in this article was that PowerPoint does not teach students to make an argument and support it. It rather teaches them to just make a point which discourages conversation and interaction. We just need to relate to them what a strong presentation is designed to do. Whether or not PowerPoint is good or bad determines how it is used and implemented into the instruction.

            We need to realize the immense effect that technology has on our students. Neil Postman, a professor at New York University, writes, “Technology is ideology. To be unaware that a technology comes equipped with a program for social change, to maintain that technology is neutral, to make the assumption that technology is always a friend to culture is, at this late hour, stupidly plain and simple”.  I think that PowerPoint can be effective for teachers and students as long as it is taught correctly and doesn’t limit the student’s creativity because technology can help support engaged learning through capitalizing on the children’s appeal to it.

Like always I have provided a link to the article that I found below but I also found a funny YouTube video on what not to do with PowerPoint presentations! I’m not sure if I would use it in the classroom because there is one use of profanity and I’m not sure how it would fly in a High School setting but ENJOY!

Article:

http://www.gbuwizards.com/files/chicago-tribune-julia-keller-05-january-2003.htm

YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck

PollEverywhere.com :)

Anyone that had our senior capstone together last semester remembers whenever Dr. Kate Oestreich came to do her first presentation to our class and we absolutely loved her opening cell phone poll that she used. Well I found it! Yay! And I’m not going to lie, I’ll definitely use it to better engage my students and turn those devilish devices into a tool for learning. By using this program we could get the students that don’t typically say much during class to still be involved with discussion. The name of the article that I found in reference to this new excitement that I have uncovered was titled PollEverywhere.com: Turning Cell Phones into a Tool for Student Engagement written by Michelle Freeman and Kent N. Schneider. By using systems and technology, like this audience response system, it could encourage all students to participate in discussion and make it easier to evaluate the overall class comprehension of the subject that they may be covering. One of the disadvantages to using technology like this is that not every student that we may have will own a cell phone. However, I do think it is something worth looking into. I have provided the address to this article below…you are more than welcome to check it out for yourself!

http://www.insidetheschool.com/articles/polleverywhere-com-turning-cell-phones-into-a-tool-for-student-engagement/

Cellphone Use in Class????

I know that I’ve been guilty of it. Using a cell phone during instructional time in order to double task but it got me thinking…what if cell phones could be put to good use? Even though you would always have to be worried about students abusing the privilege of being able to have their cell phones on during class, it’s a worry that comes with most technological uses. I’ll have to say that even I am not completely “won over” on this concept I thought it would be intriguing to look into

I found an article written by a teacher named Mark Geary titled Supporting Cell Phone Use in the Classroom that brought to light a couple of different ideas to incorporate mobile phones into instructional use. Geary mentions a website that his principal uses in order to “write” his own evaluations. He describes it as a voiceblog that changes a voice message into a text format that he can look at later to see his own notes. Geary mentions a service called Mobcast that could be used to create an opportunity for students in different classes to work together on projects, record speeches, dialogues for group projects, communication remains open between teacher and student for questions at all times, and more. He also mentions and draws attention to other websites that can be used with cell phones in order to get the more shy students involved with class discussion. I really encourage all of you to take a look at this because it could be a way to break the resistance and use the demonic mobile phone in a more positive educational light.

http://www.homepages.dsu.edu/mgeary/vita/cell_phones.pdf