Technology is here and it doesn't appear to be going backward anytime soon. Gliding forward into the great unknown, technology is moving and growing into an cool, interesting, inviting, invigorating, scary monster. I know; how can I call it a monster? Let me start at the beginning. Technology is many things. In this blog I will call technology all the electronic, digital and cloud based ideas. Cool stuff, right? I mean, where else can you talk to and see, a friend while looking at your own respective computers, 20 miles apart? Where else can multiple people work on the same project, on the same document, at the same time in their own town, country, school or home? I like knowing that I can skype my fiance while he is at work and we can instantly IM each other. I like using google drive to work on a project with classmates where we all access the document from our own computer, wherever we are located. It is attractive. It is addictive. Once you see it you want to be a part of it and it makes you want to see what else can be done. Ok. So where does my monster come in? The future of technology is scary. There is no imagination of privacy. All of my information is easily accessible to work for my good... but is there more? Who has access to my life? The Corning youtube that we watched http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qmwdbhsbVs was frightening. It's like we have unleashed a mighty force that may never be able to be contained again. Is that good? I don't know. I have mixed feelings.
Things that are coming with this emerging technology? Digital access for all students. I like this. I wonder at the likeliness of it though. How can all students be given a laptop? Who is going to pay for it? Where will they get the wireless connection? Who will pay to maintain the laptop? Are students taught proper use of their laptop? How can it be guaranteed that caregivers will allow the students to use the laptop at home? How can we ensure that the students receiving the laptops are also receiving food to nourish their bodies?
Virtual classrooms. Students would be able to take classes when it worked in their day. They could meet up with others taking the same learning journey. They would not be "graded" as we know grades, but would work to the next level almost like video games (see Socialstructing Higher Education youtube below). This is interesting to me. Will I see it? Will it be necessary for me to be a teacher if this is something that is popular or even the norm? How does this affect public education as we now know it? How do we keep students active with other humans so that they know interpersonal skills and how to function in the LIVE world? Will the LIVE world be changing too? Are we trying to eliminate person 2 person contact? This scares me. People need people. Real people. Not just the networking we can do through social media and skype for educator. This is a really cool interface, with real life people. It allows educators to get their students interested in things and people from all over the world because they can actually connect with them. However, if we have (futuristically speaking) gotten to the point of not physically attending school, how will students know that this is available and do it?
Technology is having a huge impact. I believe it is positive and negative. What can we do to increase the positive and decrease the negative? While technology is sucking energy from our power sources, it is making parts of our daily lives easier. It is getting information relayed faster. Lives are being saved that otherwise would have expired. People are meeting from the opposite ends of the earth with just a click. Technology is opening up the world to possibilities. I also believe that technology is disconnecting people in day to day living. We are living our lives constantly "on", or "powered up". It gives new meaning to "down time" or being "unplugged". I think technology is great. I also think that if we aren't careful it will control us and drain the life out of us.
So as an educator, what will I do? I like some of the apps that are available. I like the idea of taking virtual field trips, especially when many school districts do not have the money for them. Those same district make me wonder if they will have digital access for all of their students? I want to use skype for educators. I love the idea of connecting with individuals from around the world. This would be fun to see used in my Social Studies class.I want to keep being aware of new things. I think using games to interact with historical figures would be fun for Social Studies. This could help students to actually feel like they are learning from the person themselves instead of reading from a text. The near future isn't nearly as scary as the just beyond near future. I look forward to seeing what can come during my teaching career!
Things that are coming with this emerging technology? Digital access for all students. I like this. I wonder at the likeliness of it though. How can all students be given a laptop? Who is going to pay for it? Where will they get the wireless connection? Who will pay to maintain the laptop? Are students taught proper use of their laptop? How can it be guaranteed that caregivers will allow the students to use the laptop at home? How can we ensure that the students receiving the laptops are also receiving food to nourish their bodies?
Virtual classrooms. Students would be able to take classes when it worked in their day. They could meet up with others taking the same learning journey. They would not be "graded" as we know grades, but would work to the next level almost like video games (see Socialstructing Higher Education youtube below). This is interesting to me. Will I see it? Will it be necessary for me to be a teacher if this is something that is popular or even the norm? How does this affect public education as we now know it? How do we keep students active with other humans so that they know interpersonal skills and how to function in the LIVE world? Will the LIVE world be changing too? Are we trying to eliminate person 2 person contact? This scares me. People need people. Real people. Not just the networking we can do through social media and skype for educator. This is a really cool interface, with real life people. It allows educators to get their students interested in things and people from all over the world because they can actually connect with them. However, if we have (futuristically speaking) gotten to the point of not physically attending school, how will students know that this is available and do it?
Technology is having a huge impact. I believe it is positive and negative. What can we do to increase the positive and decrease the negative? While technology is sucking energy from our power sources, it is making parts of our daily lives easier. It is getting information relayed faster. Lives are being saved that otherwise would have expired. People are meeting from the opposite ends of the earth with just a click. Technology is opening up the world to possibilities. I also believe that technology is disconnecting people in day to day living. We are living our lives constantly "on", or "powered up". It gives new meaning to "down time" or being "unplugged". I think technology is great. I also think that if we aren't careful it will control us and drain the life out of us.
So as an educator, what will I do? I like some of the apps that are available. I like the idea of taking virtual field trips, especially when many school districts do not have the money for them. Those same district make me wonder if they will have digital access for all of their students? I want to use skype for educators. I love the idea of connecting with individuals from around the world. This would be fun to see used in my Social Studies class.I want to keep being aware of new things. I think using games to interact with historical figures would be fun for Social Studies. This could help students to actually feel like they are learning from the person themselves instead of reading from a text. The near future isn't nearly as scary as the just beyond near future. I look forward to seeing what can come during my teaching career!
Topic One: Who Owns the Learning?
Topic Two: What Tools are available?
A. One Laptop per. child/Maine laptop program
C. Social learning
- Community involvement helps students desire to learn
- When students own a problem and aim to help solve it, they will do it for no compensation
- Purpose motivates
- Many students want a global voice
- Students like to learn from other students
- Students need to be involved in staff development
- Students work harder at making a contribution when they have ownership
- Students want to leave a legacy
- 1. information processing-students need to be able to handle a flood of information. (organize info, sit-through it, make meaning, add some value, and move on)
- 2. Work globally-students should be able to work with people all over the world (actually teach outsourcing), teach very good global communication.
- 3. Be self-directed-people need to be able to work without having someone tell them what to do. Things move faster and cheaper when the middle management is eliminated by self-directed staff.
- There is a need for people to be highly disciplined and understand life long learning, American school dynamic is not set up to educate students in this manner.
Topic Two: What Tools are available?
A. One Laptop per. child/Maine laptop program
- Helps Students solve their own questions
- For students in poor countries/areas
- Laptop= Education
- Education helps solve problems. It shouldn’t be neglected until other problems are solved
- Low cost, low energy, with over 150 apps, Android, hardy
- Meant for the students to take home
- Whole schools at a time receive them, so no one is left behind
- Students come to class more often since their possession of the laptop
- One Laptop per Student hopes to brighten the future of those who receive the laptop
- Non-profit organization
- The Maine laptop program-every 7th and 8th grade student receive their own Ibook, they are able to take the Ibook home and keep it over school breaks.
- 80% of teachers say it has enabled them to create lessons that are more personal to students. By having the Ibook students are able to study problems from the real world and to dig deeper in regards to some topics.
- Students in the program report that they understand the material better; however, the standardized tests do not measure what you can do on a laptop.
- Students can access up to date information, opposed to information in a text book that may quickly become outdated.
- Student attendance has rose, and detentions have dropped. Laptops seem to better grip the attention of young adolescents.
- Despite closing the economic barrier between students, Maine’s laptop program has faced setbacks, due to budget cuts the program has not been able to be extended to the high school s planned.
- Apple applications
- iTunes U- teachers create their own courses for their students for use on the iPad. Available for K-12, college or university
- Khan Academy- 4,200 virtually free videos to help you learn math, science, and humanities- for iPhone and iPad. These are great as tutorials or to begin learning as well
- iTunes U-Museum Education- National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. This app is a virtual field trip in videos. It takes 44 minutes to follow individuals from one family in their quest for freedom
- TeacherKit- an organizer for teachers. One can track students grades, behaviours and attendance for multiple classes. This app is for iPhone or iPad.
- Android market place (apps available for classroom use)
- classting-The first social networking for classrooms. It only takes 1 minute to join the 6,000+ schools from all over the world on Classting! Our class connection, Participative learning, My education portfolio, communication beyond the classroom
- English Conversation Classroom-English Conversation is one of the best apps in its class. This amazing app developed by Dev IT Solutions is very useful & knowledge gaining for kids aged between 3 & 10. English Conversation App for Android also helps adults who wish to improve their hold over the global language English.
- Class Schedule-Keep records of your classroom schedule along with the detail information about each subject like notes, assignments and tests in the managed way.
- Free Note-take notes from a smart phone regarding any subject
- Google search other emerging technologies: 2 new applications per person!
- 3D printing
- Virtual and Remote Laboratories
- Cloud computing
- Wearable Technology- speaking or gestures can send texts, emails, messages on behalf of the user
- Games and Gamification- interaction with historical figures, architectural simulation, nursing real-life situations
C. Social learning
- Schoology-Learning management system, schoology aims to make online education a collective effort and to increase the overall impact of everyone involved in a student's education. There are a variety of sources available, such as: collaboration, learning platforms, integration platform, global learning community and much more.
- Edmodo-This is an educational site that is set up like a social media page (facebook) however students are able to contact teacher and classmates on this site. Teachers are able to post assignment and projects, as well as communicate with teacher (ask homework questions, clarify any misunderstandings)
- PLN (Personal Learning network)-edupln is a learning network for educators. This is a professional area on the web where teachers can pose ideas and questions for other teachers. There is also a sharing of resources, and knowledge from one teacher to another.
- Twitter-twitter can be used as a PLN-teachers can communicate globally swapping ideas, questions, and answers.
- Professional Blogs- professional blogs can act as an ongoing portfolio that shows employers/parents what developments an individual has made or what is going on in the classroom (an ongoing record of what students are participating in or did) This is also a place where other teachers can gather ideas and offer feedback.
- Linked in-Ongoing professional network that allows individual to stay in contact with colleagues/classmates as well as, Discover professional opportunities, business deals, and new venture. Also available latest news, inspiration, and insights you need to be great at what you do.
- Other Social Learning in the Classroom
- Wiki - able to edit live, other users may edit unless settings set to private, collaborative
- Blogs - writing personal stories for the world to see; these can be done on private sites as well as public
- Delicious and Diigo- online bookmarking that allows you to share your bookmarks or highlight parts. These are handy when your computer crashes and your bookmarks from the hard drive are lost because they are in the clouds. I am part of the UAHolman group.
- Skype for educator- collaborate with classes from all over the world, take virtual field trips to places your school doesn’t have the $ to send you, meet and invite guest speakers into your classroom from all over the world. This opens the world to students in ways they never would have experienced. https://education.skype.com/
- class.io - helps teachers easily share course content with students: google apps, Facebook, and web servers
- Campus Pack - Social Assignments, ePortfolios, Personal Development Plans, Social Network and Academic Commons
- Flipped Teaching- when class time is used for higher order thinking, processing, and problem-solving and instruction is given by video for individuals to take in on their own. http://flippedlearning.org/Page/1
- Pre-recorded lectures are to be listened to before class so that class time may be fully utilized for hands on. http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7081.pdf
- Students can take ownership of their learning
- Students can listen/watch at their leisure (before class) at their own speed