The Wonders of Technology

Before taking my ED609 Instructional Technology class I was completely unaware of all the wonderful technology tools that are available via the internet. This class has opened my eyes to just a smidgen of some of these tools and I would like to share my thoughts and ratings on 8 of them...

Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
Even though I have been using Firefox for a few years as my internet browser I have never looked into the add-ons that it provides. There are so many that I still have not been able to browse through or try out each one. However, I do like the toolbar add-ons. You are able to pick and choose which ones you would like to add on and customize your browser to fit your needs. I have since started to add some tools to my toolbar and have been enjoying using them. Firefox is great for use inside of a classroom that has access to the internet because it is much faster than Internet Explorer and it doesn’t have all the security features that Safari has. There are so many different add-ons to choose from that I find it hard to think that there isn’t something on here for everyone. Many of the add-ons are great for students to use. There is even an add-on for a dictionary. You can choose which language you would like to download. It even breaks down Spanish between Argentina, Mexico, and Spain. This could be a great tool for a foreign language class or even just a language arts class. I think this is a great site and has much to offer to new and experienced technology users.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

Moodle
http://campus.uogdistance.com/
This is a site that I was introduced to eight months ago when I started in the MAT (Master's of Arts in Teaching) program. This is a wonderful site for teachers to use with their students. This site allows the teachers to put up links allowing the students to turn in their assignments online and to be able to access resources that the teachers have made available to the students. It also allows for interaction between the teacher and the students through the forums. This site allows the students to know what are assignments are due and when. There are a few downfalls to this site however. One downfall is that the site would need to be purchased by the school. So this doesn’t allow for one person to purchase it and use it on their own for their classes. Another downfall is that each teacher will set up their site a little different from another teacher. This could possible confuse the students if they are used to looking at it a different way. However, this is usually solved quickly when the teacher goes over the site and shows the students how it is set up. All in all, I think this would be a great site for all teachers to have access to.
Rating = **** (4 out of 5 stars)

Delicious
http://delicious.com/
As someone who likes to bookmark pages frequently, I have been very happy with this site. This site allows you to bookmark pages into a website so they are not being stored into your computer. If I had known about this site a few months ago when my computer crashed, I would still have all my bookmarks. As it is, now I only have a few. This site is great for students who are doing a research paper or presentation. When doing a research paper, most students look at so many sites, that they can’t remember which ones had the information they needed or even just what sites they had looked at. If they had a delicious account they would be able to bookmark each site they went to and then organize their bookmarks by the tags they give them. This is very useful for anyone, students and teachers. I think this site has a lot to offer and not much to look down upon.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

Google Apps
http://www.google.com/apps/
I have used a gmail account for many years, but have rarely used any of the Google Apps that come with it. I have used the calendar a few times but not enough to give an opinion on it. Until my ED609 Instructional Technology class, I had never used Google Docs. I was a little intimidated by it. I was introduced to it when one of my group members used it to send everyone in our group a document that she had been working on to so we could add in our own research. I found this to be amazing. This is a great tool for any class to use. This allows everyone in a group to work on one document at the same time so you can see what everyone else is adding for information so you don’t add it also. I think this is a great tool and I just wish I had known how to use it a few classes ago. The only downfall to this interactive tool is that everyone must have internet access to be able to access the document. Google Apps has so much more to offer than just email, a calendar and Google Docs. It offers a translator, a blogger, a site to help you build your own website, and much more. I still haven’t taken the time to try out more of the apps that are available but I will soon. However, I think that this site has plenty to offer for anyone who is willing to take the time to look through the site and find the apps that work best for them.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

Diigo
http://www.diigo.com/
I am usually someone who prints everything out to read, so that I can highlight the text and make notes as I go along. This site allows you to do just that and much more without having to waste paper and a highlighter. Diigo is a site that allows you to bookmark a page or document and then make highlights directly onto the page and even add sticky notes to your page. Once you are done, you can organize all your bookmarks and even archive them. I have not spent a tremendous amount of time on this site yet, but I think that it will be a wonderful tool for anyone to add to their arsenal of technology tools. The one main downfall to this site is that you would have to be online to access your bookmarks. But all in all, it is a great site for anyone to use who likes to bookmark and make notes on their papers.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

Prezi
http://prezi.com/my/
Up until a week ago, if I had a presentation to do I would use power point to do it with. Then I was introduced to Prezi. This is a wonderful presentation tool. At first it seems a little scary but once you get started it isn’t so bad. However, I don’t agree with the site that you can learn Prezi in just three minutes. My group members and I used Prezi in our last presentation and it was very rough. It was great fun to start learning the program though. And once you get the program down and understood, the presentations that can be made are gorgeous. They simply blow power point presentations out of the water. This is something that I think every teacher needs to get used to using and then be able to teach to their students. Because of the difference in the look and the presentation style of Prezi compared to power point, it will capture the student’s attention much better and quicker. The only drawback to this tool is that it was a little difficult to figure out at first, but with the help of the tutorials, it gets easier.
Rating = **** (4 out of 5 stars)

Doodlekit
http://www.doodlekit.com/home
As a requirement for my ED609 Instructional Technology class, I had to create my own website. That is not as easy as it sounds. I went to many different sites that help you create a site but to no avail. They were all hard and confusing to me and discouraged me from wanting to make my own site. Then I met Doodlekit. This site was so user friendly that it had me almost jumping for joy t having found it. I think this is a great site for beginner technology users to use when creating a new site. If a teacher were to require her students to create a website, this would be the site that I would recommend. This site does not deter you in any way and makes you feel like a professional in no time at all. And best of all, it is free. What more can you ask for.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

Dogpile
http://www.dogpile.com/
I am usually a stay in the box type of person. So when I need to search for something on the internet, I use Google. Then I was introduced to dogpile. This is a great search engine. This site looks everywhere. And then it tells you where it found the information at, whether it was on Google, Ask.com, Bing, etc. This site also narrows the down the information that it finds for you so as not to overwhelm you with 30 pages of information to rifle through. This is a great search engine for students to use because they won’t feel intimidated with too much information being thrown at them and it is given in such a way as to make them feel relaxed about looking at it. This is a great search engine and should be introduced to all students, young and old.
Rating = ***** (5 out of 5 stars)

These are just a few of the many tools that educators can access for use inside their classrooms. Now that every student in middle and high school will be receiving a netbook that is equipped with internet access, I think that it is even more important for us as teachers to be able to use and implement technology into our lesson plans. This will help the students to become more involved in the lesson and allowing them to work with what they already know and love... technology.

References:
http://www.ncaea.appstate.edu/images/techtips.jpg

Blue 42

This was a very difficult assignment for me. It was not easy for me to come up with an assignment for a math class that would allow the students to get data to use in an Excel spreadsheet. So I settled on using a science experiment from Schneider, J. that I found on HOTCHALK.com so the students could gather the data to put into their Excel spreadsheets and then use what they learned from my previous math lesson to incorporate their data into graphs and charts.

It was very hard for me to come up with a lesson plan and activities for a science project because I teach math, not science. I had a hard time with the procedures and the science lingo. So, after staying up many late nights and utilizing many of the new search engines that have been recently introduced to me, I was very excited and proud of my lesson plan. And after many hours of painstakingly planning the activities the students would do in class, I think that my lesson plan applies quite nicely to the NETS*T Standard #1: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity.

So, you can imagine my frustration when after spending many hours creating my lesson plan on Microsoft word, I was having having such a ridiculously hard time finding a website to create my own webpage on. After many hours of grueling work and trying to find a website that I could understand how to create my webpage on, I had gotten very discouraged. I was running into countless problems.... couldn't get the graphs to load, couldn't figure out how to get the pictures where I wanted them, etc.

I had tried to use Google Sites, MoonFruit, Webspawner, and Weebly. I stuck with Weebly the longest, but finally just couldn't get what I wanted on my page to happen. By about midnight on the day before the assignment is due, with no set web page, I sat at my computer and was ready to cry. My husband came over, rubbed my shoulders and said it will all be over soon and worth it in the end, so suck it up, man up and keep on trying until you find a site you can use.

After that I went into the Doodlekit site. There I was able to start working on a page that was allowing me to put in the elements I wanted. I was hooked. I stayed up until three o'clock that morning just trying to get everything into the site and tweak it to look good. The next day, I got up and of course went right back to my site. I finally figured out how to change the colors and background to fit my lesson plan. This was very fun to do. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about how to set up this webpage and personalize it to meet my tastes and personality.

When I came to class that afternoon, most of my classmates were talking about their webpages. The main website they were using was Weebly and they were also having problems. I was so proud to show them my site and what I had done. After that, one of my classmates actually opened a Doodlekit account and started a new web page for himself because of what I had shown him could be done there. Then he asked why my webpage was named Blue 42. I told him that in my household Blue 42 means "man up". When I was ready to cry and give up, I didn't. I manned up, found a good site and got it all done. So I named my site to represent all the hard work and frustration that I had overcome and that went into building it and to show that in the end, no matter what, the task can always be bone....Blue 42.

NETS for Teachers 2008. (2008). Retrieved June 11, 2010, from International Society for Technology in Education: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standard/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm

Schneider, J. (n.d.). GROWING SEASON. RetrievedJune 11, 2010, from HOTCHALK: http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ScienceExTempGravityAffectSeedGerminationMO68.htm

http://www.miocean.org/uploads/assets/blue42/blue42-2010.png

Adapting to the Unexpected

Until I watched the video, Enabling Dreams, I had never thought about how to incorporate assistive technology into a classroom. However, now that I have seen what wonderful things students can do with the help of technology, I am trying to figure out how to incorporate it into my classroom if needed.

As I think about it, I think that some of the important features that would need to be included in a lesson plan would be that we need to make sure we are equipped with the necessary technology. I had a student who was in the 7th grade this year that was autistic but able to work out math problems at about a 5th grade level if he used a calculator. I was always able to modify the lesson that the other students were learning to allow him to work on problems of the same sort, but with a calculator. It made him feel good to be able to do it on his own. The lesson I made for him compared with the lesson for the other students because if they were dividing with decimals he was able to do that also and on his own.

I think that it is great to start working with the students at such an early age with assistive technology. This helps them to learn and understand it in their primary years so that once they hit middle school and on they will be proficient at how to use it. One thing that I think would be useful to the child and to the teacher as well would be for the parents to be involved in the learning of how to use the technology. I think that some classes should be offered where the parents are the ones to use the technology and interact with it. This would help them to understand just what their child needs to do on a daily basis.

I think that to include a disabled student the lesson would of course have to be modified based on what the student can and cannot do. This is something that all teachers need to be aware of. I think that it also depends on the student, on how much the student wants to push himself. If that student wants to be treated like everyone else and do the lesson the same way even if they struggle then I would modify it to fit their needs while still allowing them to do it like the other students. I think this is something that will take some time to be able to do and I would have to know the assistive technology that the student needed, but it is something that I would be up to try to figure out.

The assessment that I would use would be to see what the student can do and how much he has learned. I would give summative assessments along with the other students just allowing more time or modifications if necessary. I would also give formative assessments to make sure that the student is understanding the lesson and able to finish it on his own. Of course, I would be there to help and guide as needed.

All in all, I haven't had to work with any students that needed any assistive technology other than a calculator so I haven't had to learn how to incorporate it into the classroom quite yet. But I look forward to seeing just how much a student can progress when given the chance to use assistive technology.


References:
Assistive-Technology: Enabling Dreams. (n.d.). Retrieved June 8, 2010, from Edutopia.org: http://www.edutopia.org/assistive-technology-enabling-dreams-video

http://www.spotlightonlearning.com/images/assistive_technology.gif

Name

My name is Vonnie. I am a student at UOG. I love to spend time with my family and reading books.