Have you ever had one of those group projects where you meet at the Library, don't finish the paper that is due the next day, and agree to work on individual parts with one person deligated as the "copy/paster" who puts everything together? Well, I have.
Last semester for my TE 301 class I was in a group of 4 who created a unit lesson plan on Michigan Geography and we needed a 10 page document that went along with our spreadsheet of the actual activities/lessons we were going to use each day for a 4 week period. The day before the assignment was due we had at least 25 e-mails floating around with small changes on each attachment and as the group facilitator I found it OVERWHELMING!
Thankfully, others have had the same problems and today there are different kinds of collaborative technologies available at no cost! Vyew is one that we learned about today, as well as Google Docs and Spreadsheets.
I'm excited to build my own knowledge of these tools as I may incorporate them into my future career in Special Education.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Monday, June 4, 2007
PoDcAsTiNg????
We started the day today with a video that explained how to add a feed for podcasts in our blogs but I was left with one small question...What the heck is a podcast? After a second tutorial video I now know that a podcast is a way to access media files through an RSS feed. Basically, we use Google Alerts to let us know when the text from any page we've subcribed to has changed or been updated. Likewise, we will use iTunes as an aggregator to let us know when any podcastable site has changed or updated any media files.
Learning about podcasting was very overwhelming at first so I tried to think of an example of how I could use a podcast to better comprehend the purpose.
For some special education students, a disability is shared between themselves and mom or dad. Disabilities with a clear, biological basis, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has no cure and could potentially impact things that we too often take for granted-like asking mom or dad for help with your homework. If you were a child with Autism who could not read and your teacher assigned you an assignment based on a story that you didn't get to finish listening to in class for some reason how would you go about getting that story read to you at home?
If your teacher had recorded the story from earlier that day then you could get on the computer and be a few clicks away from listening to the story again and finishing your homework.
To hear more idea's about how to use podcasts and other new technologies in your classroom click here
Learning about podcasting was very overwhelming at first so I tried to think of an example of how I could use a podcast to better comprehend the purpose.
For some special education students, a disability is shared between themselves and mom or dad. Disabilities with a clear, biological basis, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has no cure and could potentially impact things that we too often take for granted-like asking mom or dad for help with your homework. If you were a child with Autism who could not read and your teacher assigned you an assignment based on a story that you didn't get to finish listening to in class for some reason how would you go about getting that story read to you at home?
If your teacher had recorded the story from earlier that day then you could get on the computer and be a few clicks away from listening to the story again and finishing your homework.
To hear more idea's about how to use podcasts and other new technologies in your classroom click here
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Original image: 'Old Woman Cactus'www.flickr.com/photos/98083017@N00/114424211
by: Lindley Ashline
Released under an Attribution-NonCommercial License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
ORGANIZATION is the Key!
"So, now I've got the information I was looking for on the Internet, but how do I organize it?"
My task for the day was to 1) Set up a web-based calendar that can be shared and 2) Create a social bookmarking account and post links to information of interest.
As someone who often times micro-organizes I am really excited about the google calendar that I set up. However, many times I like to write my to-do lists in my planner just so I can make a check next to it when it's done. I'm a little apprehensive to shifting entirely to an online calendar because of that reason. Thinking further ahead though, to a day when I will have my own classroom, I would like to be able to incorporate these new technologies with my students and their parents. One feature that I really like about the google calendar is the option of subscribing to others' calendars. I can see many benefits of posting an online, web-based calendar of assignments, tests, and even field trips for parents to link to and cut down on the amount of paper copies that have to be sent home each week as reminders. As an elementary educator I feel that the use of this linking of calendars could potentially provide my students with a stronger reinforcement to get their work done at home, as their parents will be able to see exactly what I expect them to complete. Having this online calendar is also a great tool for students who are absent in that they can see exactly what they missed. While this type of techonology has many advantages, it's by no means the best. The most obvious hinderance of relying on technology so much is that it is not an even playing field. Not everyone has the same technological opportunities at home. Coming from a very small farming community I know the difficulties of growing up without a computer to use for schoolwork. I never had the Internet at home and my siblings (who are still in school) are still at a disadvantage because of the lack of technology in my household and community.
The second organization tool that we looked at today was social bookmarking. I set up an account with www.ikeepbookmarks.com and made several different folders ranging from Deaf Education to State of MI Curriculum and linked to different sites with information that I found of interest. As I continue to find credible, noteworthy websites it is my goal to add them to my account in different folders. The best part about the social bookmarking tool is that I can bookmark pages and not be limited to the specific computer that I bookmarked them to. On my desktop comuter in my room I have a huge list of bookmarks of various sites that I often refer back to. The disadvantage for me with my bookmarks is that those websites don't show up on the bookmark list of any other computer I use. With www.ikeepbookmarks.com I am able to store my bookmards on the web and have access from any computer I am using. I can see myself integrating this kind of social bookmarking tool into my classroom in many ways, to benefit myself, my students, and their parents. For myself, I can bookmark pages both at home and at school so I am not limited to the resources I find depending on where I am working. For my students, assigning research projects with the endless opportunities of surfing the web can be intimidating. I could use a social bookmarking account to limit what they view, making our computer time more time efficient and protecting them from stumbling upon unwanted information. Parents can also benefit from a social bookmarking account that has resources for them, both in the community and on the web. Resources such as different ways to help your student study to links to community programs could be incorporated into this account.
My task for the day was to 1) Set up a web-based calendar that can be shared and 2) Create a social bookmarking account and post links to information of interest.
As someone who often times micro-organizes I am really excited about the google calendar that I set up. However, many times I like to write my to-do lists in my planner just so I can make a check next to it when it's done. I'm a little apprehensive to shifting entirely to an online calendar because of that reason. Thinking further ahead though, to a day when I will have my own classroom, I would like to be able to incorporate these new technologies with my students and their parents. One feature that I really like about the google calendar is the option of subscribing to others' calendars. I can see many benefits of posting an online, web-based calendar of assignments, tests, and even field trips for parents to link to and cut down on the amount of paper copies that have to be sent home each week as reminders. As an elementary educator I feel that the use of this linking of calendars could potentially provide my students with a stronger reinforcement to get their work done at home, as their parents will be able to see exactly what I expect them to complete. Having this online calendar is also a great tool for students who are absent in that they can see exactly what they missed. While this type of techonology has many advantages, it's by no means the best. The most obvious hinderance of relying on technology so much is that it is not an even playing field. Not everyone has the same technological opportunities at home. Coming from a very small farming community I know the difficulties of growing up without a computer to use for schoolwork. I never had the Internet at home and my siblings (who are still in school) are still at a disadvantage because of the lack of technology in my household and community.
The second organization tool that we looked at today was social bookmarking. I set up an account with www.ikeepbookmarks.com and made several different folders ranging from Deaf Education to State of MI Curriculum and linked to different sites with information that I found of interest. As I continue to find credible, noteworthy websites it is my goal to add them to my account in different folders. The best part about the social bookmarking tool is that I can bookmark pages and not be limited to the specific computer that I bookmarked them to. On my desktop comuter in my room I have a huge list of bookmarks of various sites that I often refer back to. The disadvantage for me with my bookmarks is that those websites don't show up on the bookmark list of any other computer I use. With www.ikeepbookmarks.com I am able to store my bookmards on the web and have access from any computer I am using. I can see myself integrating this kind of social bookmarking tool into my classroom in many ways, to benefit myself, my students, and their parents. For myself, I can bookmark pages both at home and at school so I am not limited to the resources I find depending on where I am working. For my students, assigning research projects with the endless opportunities of surfing the web can be intimidating. I could use a social bookmarking account to limit what they view, making our computer time more time efficient and protecting them from stumbling upon unwanted information. Parents can also benefit from a social bookmarking account that has resources for them, both in the community and on the web. Resources such as different ways to help your student study to links to community programs could be incorporated into this account.
Monday, May 21, 2007
iGoogle
Today I personalized my own iGoogle page! But what does that really mean??? Instead of going to www.google.com and seeing the boring white backdrop with the little search box I now see a beautiful beach setting background and have live bookmarks to pages that I visit often (Facebook, MSU Webmail, etc). I also have a calendar that I can add events/assignments to-once again eliminating the need for a paper-pencil trail, and I have my own weather updates to give me current weather conditions for East Lansing. Once I finished my homepage for iGoogle I set up 3 more tabs, or different windows. Two of the tabs are for the classes that I am taking this summer session (CEP 416 and CEP 240) and the last tab is a Games tab! I found my favorites-Packman and Hangman-and I can play them anytime I want without having to go through Yahoo! and finding the games link and searching through a list until I find what I want to play :)
For my CEP 416 tab I found it most convenient to pull Google Reader onto the page so that I can get a daily updated post of the changes to my classmates' blogs, rather than go through the process of locating each one individually. Now I get the latest updates from everyone sent directly to me in a nice, condensed format that allows me to only view the most recently added material, as opposed to me teasing out the updates :)
Lastly, I set up a Google Alert for daily added material for anything related to Michigan History for Kids (MHK). MHK is a magazine produced along with Michigan History Magazine right out of Lansing, MI. The magazine itself is a great resource for teachers as it is similar to TIME for Kids in a Michigan focused layout.
For my CEP 416 tab I found it most convenient to pull Google Reader onto the page so that I can get a daily updated post of the changes to my classmates' blogs, rather than go through the process of locating each one individually. Now I get the latest updates from everyone sent directly to me in a nice, condensed format that allows me to only view the most recently added material, as opposed to me teasing out the updates :)
Lastly, I set up a Google Alert for daily added material for anything related to Michigan History for Kids (MHK). MHK is a magazine produced along with Michigan History Magazine right out of Lansing, MI. The magazine itself is a great resource for teachers as it is similar to TIME for Kids in a Michigan focused layout.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Creating a web page
Before:
The task for today is to create a web page that will be the beginning of a web based portfolio that I will continue to tweak and add information to over the course of this semester and the rest of my undergraduate career at Michigan State to be used when I am job searching. Monday's task, which was to create a blog account, was new and different for me but this task seems overwhelming. I have looked into using the online space that MSU provides each student with several times over the last year but I've never known how to get started. I am really excited about the fact that in a few hours I will have my own web page, but I'm also nervous for what is to come of it. Right now I am going to map out, on paper, what I kind of want my web page to look like so that when I do get started with it I have an idea of how I want to format all of links that I add to it.
After:
I did it! Creating a web page was a lot easier than I expected it to be, especially because google pages is so easy to use. Never before have I used any kind of web page creating software-so I really had no idea what I was doing-but it was so easy to figure out. I currently have one active link on my web page with several more to come! Check it out here.
The task for today is to create a web page that will be the beginning of a web based portfolio that I will continue to tweak and add information to over the course of this semester and the rest of my undergraduate career at Michigan State to be used when I am job searching. Monday's task, which was to create a blog account, was new and different for me but this task seems overwhelming. I have looked into using the online space that MSU provides each student with several times over the last year but I've never known how to get started. I am really excited about the fact that in a few hours I will have my own web page, but I'm also nervous for what is to come of it. Right now I am going to map out, on paper, what I kind of want my web page to look like so that when I do get started with it I have an idea of how I want to format all of links that I add to it.
After:
I did it! Creating a web page was a lot easier than I expected it to be, especially because google pages is so easy to use. Never before have I used any kind of web page creating software-so I really had no idea what I was doing-but it was so easy to figure out. I currently have one active link on my web page with several more to come! Check it out here.
Monday, May 14, 2007
First Blog!
Today is the first day of summer session 1 classes and I'm taking CEP 416, Learning with Technology. The assignment for today was to create a blog-something I was not familiar with. Once I created a gmail account I set up this lovely blog which I will continue to use for the rest of this semester. The purpose of this blog, aside from the fact that it's required, for me will be for reflection purposes. Each week I want to be able to look back at my thoughts from class or new technologies that I am learning about and be able to read my own words and see the progress that I'm making as I become a more technological savvy teacher candidate.
There are several advantages of maintaining this blog. First, it will eliminate the need to keep a paper-and-pen reflection of my learning which I often misplace anyways. Second, I will be able to go back at any time and look at my blogs in reverse chronological order. Third, by using this blog as a personal tool I hope to gain knowledge of how I can one day incorporate new technologies into my own classroom. Lastly, I hope to use this blog as the foundation of a professional series of online materials that I will use in the near future when applying for a job.
For more information about CEP 416 please check out the class syllabus
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