My website

The website address for my eportfolio is judyeportfolio.weebly.com

Technology's Importance in the Classroom

      I think it is important to incorporate technology in the classroom. One reason is that the students are growing up with technology, and are therefore used to it and may even be expecting it. It adds another dimension to the learning process, especially with subjects that can use a little livening up.
     I can see how subjects like science can benefit from technology. It may be impossible to take your students out to space, but they can experience it by way of the internet on a Smartboard! This gives visual reinforcement that would be difficult any other way. The interactive capabilities are great for assessment, especially when it is fun, as in the games that are available. Another benefit for the educator is that learning becomes more engaging and interesting for the students--there is nothing worse than a sleepy, bored classroom!
    One challenge is to equip each classroom with the technology. The way budgets are being challenged and cut in school districts, it is difficult to add enough computers and Smartboards. The way technology has been, each new addition only is current for a couple of years. The computers and Smartboards also need to be maintained, as problems will come up. Also, with children involved, they get pretty hard use (I'm thinking of keyboards and especially headphones in computer labs).
     Another challenge is to keep administrators and teachers in the loop and up with the latest technology. This takes good communication between the two groups, and even adding school boards into the mix, there can be many differing opinions. The resistance that is felt may well lessen as time goes on, and as technology becomes more commonplace. Educators need to have the opportunity to learn new technologies for use in the classroom.
     I will take many lessons from this course. One is that I can still learn new things. Technology isn't so scary when there is familiarity. It isn't all difficult, either. Some programs really are user friendly! I appreciated the interactive whiteboard lessons the most, and hope that wherever I teach there is one available. I also enjoyed having the generational differences quantified so that I had better understanding of that issue by the end of the course. I hope to retain and keep using what I have learned!

A good and bad example of electronic portfolios

http://durak.org/kathy/portfolio/   is the url of an elementary teacher looking for a job in California. it seemed like a good example because it as easy to navigate, she had pictures of achievements and her teaching showed a diverse experience.

I didn't find an example of a bad portfolio.

The Presentations

I loved the presentations--I didn't get to all of them, but will make a point of doing so--the Glogster posters were impressive. I'd never seen one before, so they were very interesting. I saw a couple of them and they were informative --and fun to do. I liked the quizes on the video game glogster. Paula's youtube about voice blogs for language class was great--what a good idea! And Paula made her point well in just a few minutes. I watched Ryan's youtube about cyberbullying and thought that was a great subject, and timely. (though I hope I watched the right thing and that wasn't the PSA instead!  Great job, everybody, and I can't wait to get to all the rest!!

my article presentation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zjzF5_GWsc

Here is the link to my presentation. 

Interactive Whiteboards

I think that interactive whiteboards are a great tool for teaching. I enjoyed learning how to use one, and though I needed help in the mechanics of creating one, I enjoyed that,too. In fact, I created a lesson for another class after the one for this class and was able to make improvements based one the critique of the first one. I would love to have one in my classroom, because it appeals to the visual learners as well as those who are kinesthetic and tactile learners. They can play learning games on it that require them to get up and move and touch the screen. The visuals are more interesting than the chalkboard, and therefore more engaging.
I think that the interactive whiteboard is a big improvement over the traditional chalkboard because of the games that can be included, as well as the posting of pictures and videos. Also, the screen can be saved, which is a neat feature. Another advantage is that the lesson can be saved and used again the next year, as well as the ability to edit it for future classes.

Video in the Classroom

     I think that video has a place in the classroom. By this I mean videos that others mean, and videos that could be made in the classroom by students. I would like to teach both special education and music, and I could see uses in both of those areas.
     One way video was used in a special ed. lesson plan was where the teachers made up a virtual supermarket that was interactive that students could use to practice shopping for a list of groceries before heading out to the real store. That was a great idea. Another idea would be to teach a student how to ride a city bus, before actually leaving the classroom.The teacher could video the inside of the bus and explain how to pay the fare and how to request a stop at the end of their journey. Knowing these things could really help allay any fears students might have. These two examples show how students could be taught community living skills, which they will need in order to be more independent after they graduate high school.
     For music classes, videos of groups playing, such as jazz trios or symphony orchestras would be very educational. Listening to music is great all by itself, but adding video to the experience adds more dimensions and would help the visual learner to focus on the music better. Making a video of their groups playing or singing would be great, too, so they could see their spring concert performance.Performing groups would probably really enjoy seeing how they looked to the audience. And if anything remarkable happened during the performance, like the conductor falling off the potium, or a student disappearing from the back riser only to reappear seconds later, uninjured, the students would enjoy that,too. (I've seen both of those things at Reading High School concerts!).
     One thing is, I would need more practice if I were the one producing the video of either scenario!

Group Video Project

    At first, I was unwilling to participate in the project of making a video. I didn't understand how to use the movie maker program. I felt like every time I was looking at my keyboard to click on something, I should have been looking up at the Smartboard, and vice versa. The media lab is not a good classroom in terms of a facility to teach and learn in---the Smartboard is not easily viewed by all students, it is noisy and crowded and uncomfortable. So, there were a lot of negatives and I felt totally overwhelmed by the time we were supposed to pick groups. That is something I really dislike having to do. Everybody immediately turned to somebody else and I would have to insinuate myself into someone else's group. The whole situation led to a huge menopausal meltdown of rather embarrassing proportions.
      Fortunately for me, Deanna and Julie invited me into their group. By this time, being overwhelmed and exhausted and exasperated in every way, I was not prepared to sit down and figure out the project from start to finish in a specific way. We did leave the media lab and go into the library to discuss the project. That really was a good thing--to get away from the noise of the other groups. I found that I had a role to play in the video, that is, acquisition of the music ( I was able to use music that my son Tim had written), and being the actor, and supplying a few props. Julie and Deanna had different roles. Deanna was the director and storyboard maker, and Julie did the actual filming and understood  the editing program pretty well.
      The day of the making of the video went well--the taping of the video went as planned and Julie and Deanna did an excellent job of finding different camera angles and making sure they got all the shots necessary according to the storyboard layout. We then went back to the media lab and set about editing the video and adding the music to the finished video. I thought that the editing was difficult in spots. I did help a little bit with that task, but needed guidance in order to help! By the end, we were all very tired, and couldn't get the music to go onto the video. Julie finished it the next day with Ms. Mislevy's help, which was great. Deanna and I were very relieved tohear that all was well, and the project was completed.
    There were two very nice outcomes to the project. The first was that we were successful in our quest--a one-minute video that worked well! The other was finding out, to our delight, that our group worked very well together. We each played our part and complemented each other. I personally was very relieved not to have to be responsible for the technological part of it. To use the movie maker program, I would need a lot more practice with a "cheat sheet" next to me to remind me what to do next and how to fix mistakes, and how to save everything.

Caffeine Awareness

I am aware of caffeine, especially since participating in a group project to make a short movie about it. I am happy with the way it turned out, and happy to have worked with my two intrepid classmates, Deanna and Julie. And thanks to Michelle Mislevy for all of the technical assistance,too!

Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZegmu4ppYg

Copyrights and such

    The copyrights topic was interesting and the game in class was fun. The most interesting topic within copyrights was the lawsuits over fair use and how arbitrary the decisions seemed to be. A couple of them had outcomes that were difficult to predict!
     The only copyright violations I have witnessed were in the music department the year I subbed for an instrumental teacher long term. There was a lot of photocopying being done for ensemble groups. I actually made my own arrangements for smaller group ensembles to avoid buying music and to avoid copyright issues. Other than that, I have seen the occasional copy of a music cd floating around. But, there is a question whether that was a violation or not, since it could have been a single use copy of a cd they own.
     Outside of school, I haven't seen much in the way of copyright infringement, since we have discussed the issue in our home and are particular about the question. It was part of the training of the children in morality--just because you CAN do something wrong and get away with it, does that mean you SHOULD? And now that my youngest son is in music school as a composer, I'm sure he pays attention to the issue! Not to mention, he will be impacted by others decisions in that regard should he be blessed with success in his field.
     Other than in our home and substitute teaching, and being a student , I don't have occasion to come across copyright issues. I don't know other people's standards or how they behave in their own homes. I've heard about being able to buy bootleg movies, but haven't seen that for myself.
     I do think it is important to teach students to respect copyrights. It goes along with teaching about computers and their use, so can be naturally incorporated into lessons. I would teach about the issue when it comes up in the lessons, and talk about the reasons behind the laws. Most students do have empathy for others, and if they understand how bootlegging affects people, they may choose to do the right thing. In school, though, I would enforce the copyright laws and also model them for the students by being careful myself to abide by the laws. The issue of ignorance of the law not being an excuse for breaking the law is another one that is a valuable lesson, since that goes for all laws.
    Specifically, I would, in music class, model giving original copies to students. We would discuss the issue in a lesson where students compose their own piece. We woud talk about how they can copyright their songs and how they would feel if someone just took their music and used it without permission.
    These lessons go along with the first ISTE standard letter b: create original works as a means of personal or group expression. Also, the second Standard, Communication and Collaboration, would go along with that. The third Standard letter b mentions ethically using information. Standard five talks about practicing legal and ethical behavior. It turns out that the ISTE Standards are in tune with the copyright issue!
     As far as the text about technology use is concerned, I thought the conclusions made perfect sense and were predictable. Even down to the difference in the sexes and how men and women view and use technology, it all made sense. Men are more about playing games, and women are the communicators. Just like in the old and oldest days, that tends to be how men and women are different from each other. The fact that it is taking more time than many people thought to really incorporate technology in the learning process is interesting. So far, when this was written, technology was used in higher education more for communication and administrative duties and less for actual learning in the classroom. In fact, students do not prefer online courses by a long shot! It would be interesting to see whether there has been any progress in the past 6 years; one would hope it doesn't take hundreds of years!
    In fact, if I were going to give a survey now, I would ask some of the same questions to see the progression. I would also ask if students do more with mobile devices than they did even six years ago. I would also want to know how many students feel a compulsion to keep up with the latest gadgets, out of adademic necessity.

How Excel could be incorporated into the curriculum....

Wow, that title is a mouthfull! Using Excel spreadsheets in the classroom for special needs is the issue at hand. I know that teachers of special needs have a lot of paperwork to keep track of.
  1.  When IEPs are due, other appoinrments the students have while at school, such as therapists, are calendar items that could benefit from spreadsheets. This would definitely help with organization in the classroom!
 2.   Another use is keeping track of behaviors for behavior programs. How often does a particular student refuse to do work, or twitch in that certain way??
3. A third use for the teachers is to keep track of data such as how accurate the skills of their students are in a certain area. When an objective is for the student to perform a task 4 out of 5 times, a spreadsheet could help put that all together. I think that an administrator would be impressed that doecmentation could be achieved efficiently, giving the teacher more time to actually spend with the students!
4. The students could use Excel in their learning, by making easy to interpret visual graphs of data that interests them. For instance, how many of their classmates like the same movie as them, or song? These questions could be matched to content areas like science, social studies, math, and even music class.
5. The students could be taught how to be organized with their data and this might help them the rest of their lives. If only I had learned to be organized, and put assignments on a spreadsheet, maybe I wouldn't be up past a reasonable bedtime finishing this assignment!
I do hope that this illustrates how Excel could  be helpful and useful in the curriculum, helping teachers and students in their tasks!

As far as the other question goes, about whether I vote for Microsoft Word and Excel or Googledocs, I think that for my purposes as a special educator, Googledocs gets my vote. For one thing, Google spreadsheets seemed like a simpler tool to use. It is more the "point and shoot" approach than the more compicated Excel program. So many choices aren't necessarily a good thing to a beginner! "You can do this, and that, and this and that, if you go here and click on that.......blah blah blah" It all blends into a gibberish and the eyes glaze over......
    I like the idea of sharing with Googledocs and also the editing possibilities, in a structured and measured way. The students would enjoy getting feedback and the more concrete everything is, the better off they are!

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is an interesting phenomenon--I've been thinking how it could be useful in education. For teachers, it could be very useful in culminating materials that they want their students to read. Students could use it as another means of searching the web. It could serve as a means of finding out what is trendy or popular, just to keep up with topics. I think that students could become curious about subjects that interest them, and learn and expand their knowledge---always a good thing. And they could tag items that interest them and share them with others.
     In short, social bookmarking is yet another tool in the techbag of tricks.

technospeak and googledocs

     Those two words in the title of this posting remnd me of other words, such as psychobabble and friending. They are made up to fit what is needed to communicate ideas in our current world. I'm sure many other terms will be thought up as quickly as new concepts come about. This is what is so fascinating about language and its evolution! I think that every generation has its own idioms and that to keep up with the times, the older generation has to learn what the new lingo is. (tee-hee) This is to prevent feeling lost and detached, even left behind!
     I think it is a better idea to straddle both mindsets-to learn technology tools well enough for them to be matter-of-fact and a part of everyday life, and to be able to take time and patience with things. The one thing I will note is that it is frustrating how really difficult the mechanics can be of learning the technology.
    This brings me to the googledocs project. I thought it was a great idea to make up a document and learn how to use it. The only problem is that I had problems with it! In other words, my knowledge and use of the technology was inadequate in some ways. My son has a thorough understanding of and ease of using the cmoputer technology. I would love to aquire his skills. (especially before he graduates and gets a job and moves out!)
     One document copied and pasted into the doc with repeated sentences all through it. So I backspaced through each repeat before sharing and printing it. That was a maddening waste of time. Another document went into a rediculous format, with the text going down one skiinny little column. What a waste of paper! 
    So, to my way of thinking, I didn't have a totally successful time. My son Daniel had to teach me how to copy and paste. Then, when I was adding notes later on, he took the googledoc from Internet Explorer to Mozilla so that it would type better. When this document was in this terrible format, I didn't want to bug him again about revising the format.
    Now my brain is tired. Time to take a break before class. My last observation is this: to some, this class is a breeze. To me, it is challenging and I love it. But it is no walk in the park! :)

The 21st Century Learner

     I didn't comment on a couple of the points in the syllabus and so decided to post another posting. hmmm.... I definitely sound like a digital immigrant there! I loved the articles about the involving the students and agreed with the points therein. After all, they do learn differently--and should! With the new tools at hand, students should be allowed to use them. And if school was always boring, that was always wrong! If it doesn't need to be, it shouldn't be!
   It makes sense for schools to have their own social networking sites and blogs--this way, students would feel more involved and like they know their fellow students. Cyber-bullying and other security probems could be addressed by the school, I would think, if it were their site.
    All of this discussion in these articles and in the textbook were very interesting to me, because of raising Net Gen/Digital Natives, and the feeling that gaps in my understanding are beginning to be filled with new knowledge and ideas.
  
 

Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants

When reading this article, it is a little difficult to get beyond the rather insulting tone the author takes with his generalizing statements about what digital immigrants will or won't do or learn. The statement about how difficult it is going to be for the digital learner to cope with the digital immigrant professors is surprisingly and unnecessarily negative. However, I did eventually get beyond his style of commentary and appreciate what he had to say about how digital immigrants need to change the way they educate digital natives so that maximum learning can take place. Teaching subjects by making them fun, interactive, and in game form is a great idea--but I think, based on the textbook, that students expect more than that from their classes. On the college level, students want their professors to have knowledge and passion about their subjects, teamwork, and social interaction. Therefore, the games would be part of, but not the whole, educational experience. I think that digital immigrants can certainly learn to meet the expectations of the digital native, but that natives can learn to be patient as change is taking place. And that is true even if their brains do work differently! (brains are adaptable also!)

Week One

Practicing posting is a little like learning to read a map, or a set of directions for cooking. Once you are familiar with the subject area, it becomes easier to do the task! I am sure that on this adventure I'll be charting new territory...