Week # 8 - Where do we go from here?

          This semester I have learned many things that I will actually put in to practice when teaching!  What has made the biggest impact on me is the vast amount of free technology available that before this course, I didn’t know anything about!  Websites like wordle, igoogle, screencast, delicious and free online portfolios.  I realized how much I was stuck in a rut using the same technology and the same websites.    



         Because of this I will continue to pursue new online technology websites that I can use in my personal and professional life.  Another “aha” moment I experienced was, I can actually use this technology, fairly easily!  I tend to get frustrated when trying something new and give up easily because it’s not user friendly.  I found so much of this new technology to be very user friendly.  I will continue to use my blog.  I plan to create a new blog dedicated to Christian working women who are balancing work and home life.  Once I begin teaching, I plan to have a blog that will help my co-workers stay abreast of new technology they can use in their classrooms

Week #7 Blog Reflection - iGoogle, do you?

This week I created a lesson plan that required students to act as a start up entrepreneur with the opportunity to travel to London and meet a potential investor.  The student has limited funds $2,500 and must travel on specified dates and cannot exceed the budget.  The lesson plan required that the students use the following tools and websites:

-         Google calendar with trip feed                                                                                                   

-         Google Earth

-         AA.com

-         Expedia.com

-         Google Docs

-         Google Map

This lesson was fun to plan because I love planning trips almost as much as I enjoy going on them.  (I know I’m a weird.)  I enjoyed learning to use google Earth and found its capability to be incredible.  See below for a screen shot of the hotel I stayed in London last year!  I also really liked google calendar and was able to sync it with my iphone calendar and share with my husband’s google calendar. 

            The videos I watched this week really spoke to my heart.  As someone who wants to teach business technology courses to high school students, I realize how necessary it is we incorporate technology into all courses.  I hope that as a new teacher I am able to show my co-workers technologies they can incorporate in their lesson plans.  One way I can do this as a teacher is to have a blog that my co-workers follow.  I feel that in order to improve student learning all schools need workshops for its teachers so they can stay abreast of ever changing technology.  When I become a teacher, I will be open to students teaching me new technology and sharing it with the rest of the class because let's face it -they are learning faster at an earlier age than I EVER did.

Blog Reflection #6 - Can you hear me now?

          The purpose of my podcast was to give interview tips for students who are preparing to enter the work force.  I have a background in Human Resource, a minor in Human Resources and am interested in helping prepare students for interviews.  To add a second voice to the podcast I had my husband, Ben Crites, ask me a series of interview questions that are commonly asked in an interview.  Click here , to listen to my podcast.

             I do see ways that podcasts can enhance learning both in the classroom and in life.  I love music and would also enjoy creating a podcast that teaches vocal training techniques.  Podcast research could be useful in the classroom in that it would enable a student to research a topic and get info not just from the teacher or peers and then report back to the classroom on the information that was learned.  Podcasts could also be used in elementary schools for teachers to make announcements to parents.

            The technology I used was screencast.com .  I found it to be fairly simple and very user friendly.  I used the recorder on my laptop, saved the file, uploaded the file to screencast.com and embedded it into this blog.    I definitely see using podcasts in the future, both in my personal and professional life.

Blog Reflection #5 - Week 5

            After completing the MAPping information activity I was not surprised at many of the results.  I have been reasonably aware of how I must be very deliberate in choosing information to read and study on the web.  I did really like the easywhoisit.com website and was unaware until now that you could find out who created a website and the additional details that were included.  I will use this when researching information for school.  I was surprised at how low my score was when I took the online quiz.  There were many extensions of which I was not aware of there meanings.

            There are endless negative implications if students do not learn to properly research the validity of website information they read.   They will have false assumptions and a foundation of misguidance that will be hard to overcome.  They may become completely distrustful of internet news/education if they do not understand how to determine the soundness of it. 

My delicious account is http://delicious.com/dochlp .  I am so happy that I learned about this tool.  I have favorites saved on my personal laptop, iphone, and work computer.  It is very obnoxious to have a favorite on one and not the other and this is the perfect solution for me.  For example, if I am working on a project at home and want to finish it while I’m on lunch at work I will have the information at my fingertips rather than racking my brain wasting time trying to remember what websites I should go to.  I would like to use this tool in the future by connecting with people of like interests in nutrition, fitness, home keeping and spirituality.  Here is a handy youtube video that demonstrates how to maneuver through delicious.com

Reflective Blog Positing # 4

       When I read the article Electronic Portfolios as Digital Stories of Deep Learning, I most related to the  “AFL learning should focus on how students learn”.  I connected to this the most because it concerns me that as much progress as education has made, many teachers still focus on one type of learning and do not take the time to individualize teaching/learning as much possible.  Students learn in different ways, visually, hands on, auditory etch.  Teachers who ONLY teach by lecturing are doing a disservice to some students.  I think that one should consider determining the different personality types of  students because personality types can correlate with how  students learn. While searching for information coorelationg personality types and types of learning, I found the article located here  to be quite interesting.  I was a SEVERLY shy student.  Just the thought of having to speak up in class made my stomach sink and my heart race.  If my teacher had been more aware of my introverted, melancholy personality perhaps some teaching methods could have be tailored to help me overcome the fear of speaking in front of others.  Since I never got over that fear, I still have problems speaking in front of others.  I completely understand that there are 25-30 student’s in a classroom and only one teacher but I do believe progress can be made to evaluate how students learn on an individual basis.

I see a huge potential in using portfolio assessment.  It allows the student to have a “voice” and “create a story” of what they have learned – not just circle A B C or D on a test.  As a teacher, I will enjoy grading and assessing portfolio’s rather than a standard test.  I feel that most students will love to be creative.  A few years ago, I taught high school students in Botswana Africa for three months and I was amazed at the difficulty of their tests.  All of their tests were essay tests.  I have no doubt that most of the student’s had more of an in depth knowledge of the learning material than they would had they been allowed to take true/false or multiple choice type tests.  If student’s have portfolios they will have to have an in depth knowledge of what they are learning.    

The creation of a portfolio will do a great deal for my learning and will also enable me to have a portfolio for future teaching job interviews.  I absolutely LOVE this type of learning versus text book type learning only.  The portfolio will also give me something to go review what I have learned in the past and how I created a wiki/blog/ in case it has been awhile and I forget what it took to create it.  I am also excited to show this to my husband who owns a contacting business.  This will be a fantastic way for him to show the type of work he has done and can do for his customers.  There is an unlimited use for e-portfolios.

Reflective Blog Positing # 3 - Wiki Week

           First of all, I really enjoyed learning about and creating a wiki! I created a wiki (http://healthyfoodhealthymoveshealthylife.wikispaces.com ) so that my friends and family can post healthy recipes, workouts, and list their weight loss journey progress. I have several close friends and family members who are making lifestyle changes and this will be a very helpful tool for all of us to keep each other motivated. It may even turn into a weight loss competition! I have already posted a few healthy recipes, and started journaling my weight loss journey.
          I see several advantages in using wikis. As the video we were instructed to watch discussed, when you are planning an event with several people emails can be very impractical because so much information is flowing back and forth, people read their emails at different times, and some may forget to “reply to all”. With the use if wikis updates are made instantly. Disadvantages are that once a change is made and saved there is no going back. This could be very bad if the wiki is left open to the public – anyone could change what has been added to the wiki or even go so far as to delete it. People also need to realize that anyone can update a wiki so they should not expect everything that the read on a wiki to be factual and true. As far as “digital natives” I believe giving student’s the ability to use creativity when working with wiki’s will engage the students. For example, rather than requiring each student take notes the entire length of a discussion, they could have they option to take notes for one portion of the class and then post them to wiki and share class notes.
          In exploring the eLearning Tools Wiki, I uncovered the “how to create a podcast” that was very interesting to me. It would be very useful for our church to put our services on a podcast. I also am the music minister at my church and I think it would be very beneficial to get area music ministers together to create a podcast to introduce new worship songs, and explain the chords for each song so folks will be able to learn new worship song lyrics as well as how to play them. It seems like it will not be too difficult to create.

Reflective Blog Positing # 2

An organization I found to be important to me is ATMI.  ATMI is the Association for Technology in Music Instruction formed in 1975.  It currently has around 200 members from the USA and a few members from other countries as well.  ATMI’s website address is here. I selected it because I personally am a lover of music and believe that students who understand music and read music have an easier time learning mathematics.  I also believe that music is an incredible stress reliever and if student’s are able to study music and use emerging technologies to do so they will be able to focus better in other classes.  According to ATMI’s website, the mission of ATMI “is to improve music teaching and learning through the integration of current and emerging technologies into the music learning environment.”  ATMI is dedicated to sharing information and solutions for people interested in music technology in instruction. 

       I also found an organization called ISTE.  ISTE is the International Society for Technology in Education.  More information can be found here.  I chose this organization because I believe it would benefit me as a future US teacher to connect with teachers in foreign countries so that I will learn teaching methods that I may not be taught in the US.  The mission of ISTE, according to it’s website is to “advance excellence in learning and teaching through innovative and effective uses of technology.”  The purpose of ISTE “is to maintain a various membership of world wide educators and professionals.  ISTE allows members to connect, collaborate and share ideas.”

My definition of educational technology is aiding students in the utilization of technological processes so they may improve learning performance and better understand real world application of the material being taught in a classroom setting. 

This aligns with my philosophy in that one of the foremost lessons I want to relay to my future students is that what they are being taught in my classroom applies to the real world and will improve or make easier their future careers and adult life.  If I am able to facilitate their learning with applications such as web based learning, use of computer, blogging etc. and they in turn use those applications in their career/adult life, I will have given them a real world advantage.