Google Docs

Google Docs are a great tool for teachers. They allow you to create your documents or presentations online. They can be accessed anytime from any computer, and you can have others collaborate on it or leave comments. They are really useful for group projects, you can just make one and everyone can access and edit it without having to meet somewhere. In the classroom it enables students work to be published, so it isn’t just for the teacher it’s for the rest of the class, parents… Students can edit each others papers easily. They can start a project at school, save it online and open it up at home and work on it some more. Google Docs is also a great tool for teachers to collaborate. Lesson plans can be easily shared and get feedback. Events don’t require meetings anymore you can just make a Google Doc and everyone can log in at anytime and say what they will take care of. Google Docs are a great asset for teachers and a great technology to utilize in the classroom.

Google Docs

ELMO

At my placement my CT has an Elmo projector, and she uses it all the time. An Elmo is a document projector and a step up from the overhead projector that was used when I was in school. It uses a digital camera and that can be projected onto board for all the students to see. This takes out the step of making transparencies for all the documents you need in the classroom. You can also project 3-dimensional objects. I have mainly seen my CT use it to project the text of a book, this is really beneficial in special education because students who may have trouble seeing things it is much easier when the text is so big. The cheapest ones I could find online were around $600, but you also need to have a projector too. I think it is well worth the investment, they are great for reading stories, or showing students work. It is a great technology that can really help advance learning, and I hope that whatever school I end up in I will be able to get one.

Early Explorers

Open Office

In my placement last week I noticed that all the computers in the computer lab (PC's) didn't use Microsoft Word. Instead they used a program called Open Office, and every computer in the school had it, even the teachers. I went to openoffice.org and found out that it is an open-source program. Open-source means that it has a completely open development process and anyone can report bugs, request new features, or enhance the software.

I can definitely see why a school would want to use this software instead of one that they have to pay for like Microsoft Word. This is completely free of any licencing fees and offers pretty much the same thing as other programs.

There are however a few issues with it. My counseling teacher (CT) sent me a file of her class schedule and I was unable to open it on my computer. I feel like issues like this would be likely to come up, but it would be worth working through them when you think about how much money you could save your school. Some sources say that open-sourced software has saved people $60 billion dollars a year (link).

Lesson-Podcast

The content goals and technology I would like to use for my first formal integrated technology lesson plan in CEP 416 is about the American Revolution, and I would like to use podcasting as the technical aspect. The learning goals are going to be centered on the Michigan Department of Education  GLCE’s (Grade Level Content Expectations). For 5^th grade the GLCE’s are…

I would like to split the class into groups and give them each a topic to research (the advantages for both sides, Valley Forge, roles of women, African Americans, American Indians, and France…) For the podcast I would like them to present the material as if they were the ones who were there, go back in time. I think this would make the project much more interesting, and it will hopefully get the students more into it. I want to do this with a podcast because I want each student to be able to access it and share it with their families. With podcasts you can download them on any computer with itunes, or put it directly on an ipod or a class website. 

Digital Storyboard

This week in class we worked on making digital storyboards. Basically it is telling a story by some sort of technology based website or program. There are a ton of different ways to create a digital storyboard. Some programs are slideshows, others are like movies and you can add audio and video. I decided to use www.tikatok.com which is a site for children to create books. i thought that this would be a cool site to use if students were working on a biography or a report of some kind. It is free, and this way kids won't have to print off sheets. Usually schools don't use color printers all too often, with this they can have the vibrant color in the photos that they find, and it would be really easy to share it with their parents and families. I made a little report on Henry Ford.

Using Cell Phones in Education

Lately I have heard a lot about using cell phones in education. I’ve seen it pop up all over, but I just recently started really reading about it. The concept is pretty simple, you have students use their phones which have more computing power than a 10 year old computer. These powerful machines are in the pockets of a lot of kids. They can be used to do research for projects, reading articles or books, polling questions or quizzes, education programs, or even by using the digital or video cameras that are on most phones. Students could take pictures of the board if they can’t get all the information down, they could send notes to a sick friend or email their parents a picture of a group project and get them more involved in what is going on at school. I do think there are definitely some benefits for using cell phones in the school setting, but if a program like this is to be established I think that the school has to provide the devices. Not every student and their family are going to have or be able to afford a cell phone, and you could risk really singling them out. I think that devices that can hook up to wifi would be the best to use, and then it is just the one time cost of buying the device.

In Johannesburg Africa where 10% of the population has internet access and there are very few computers in schools, students use their own money/minutes to use a social networking application that links them with a math or science tutor (all volunteers). I thought this was a really cool program, and it has been running since 2007 (article link).

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPAC) is the type of knowledge that teachers need to know when educating, and we are learning about how to do this in this class. Teachers need to know the content that they are teaching in order to teach it, pretty straight forward. Obviously it is important to be knowledgeable in whatever area you are teaching. It isn’t enough to just know the content, but you also need pedagogical knowledge, a deep understanding of the material, how to manage a classroom, and how students learn. That way you know how to teach and present the information to your students so that they can fully understand it. The technological knowledge is your understanding of the tools in which you present the information. This can be as simple as a pen and paper, or using an application on the computer. When you utilize all of this you can best teach your students.

Cell phones do have a lot of potential to help students learn. I think the main challenge would be making sure kids stay on task when working with them. It is also vital that you have a deep understanding of the applications on the phones that you will use while educating, and how to create lessons that kids can be involved and focused on the task at hand.