Emerging Technologies

I have really enjoyed discovering new ideas of how to utilize technology in the classroom environment.  The Wiki page appears to be an excellent way to engage all students while building reading, writing and communication skills.  Whether the student is reserved or outgoing, the wiki provides an outlet for peer communication and collaboration.  It would be neat to run a year long portfolio or diary for the year.  I would also like to see how parents would interact with their children via the wiki.  I’m looking forward to receiving the hardware and software in the classroom in order to support these ideas. 

    I value the time we had today to search all of the compiled wiki resources.  The resources proffered various suggestions for the use of wikis in the content areas.  I am currently using wikispaces for digital portfolios.  I have some ideas about modifying my use of the wiki for a digital portfolio for next year. 
    I never knew Teachertube existed.  It is a valuable resource to meet the needs of multiple intelligence learners.

    In addition to creation of special projects with a wiki, I think I will use a wiki to present information to my classes.  I could keep notes, slide shows, concept maps, etc. in an online depository.  Students would then be able to access the information from home.  Better yet, they could develop it for the class.  Having that modeled for me via the Emerging Tech wiki was thought-provoking.

    I really like the idea of a wiki becoming a public digital space.  I would love to have students be able to take notes electronically during a class.  This would truly require an acceptance of students being able to multi-task.  I know this would be difficult for many teachers to accept.  Silent thinkers would be able to document their big ideas without feeling intimidated by speaking in front of the class.

    The possibilities are endless,  but I NEED more computer access!!

SOO many options! It is a little overwhelming.

I like many of the options that a wiki space provides. There were a lot of great ideas on the links provided. I’d like to explore ways of making note taking more collaborative and ways of building assessments into a wiki. To begin, I think that I will set up a wiki space and post study guides for the upcoming finals. It will be interesting to see how many students access the information this way. Also, I’d like to give the students an opportunity to give me some feedback on the year.

The gliffy.com website was really cool! I look forward to using this in the future and to having students design their own graphic organizers!

Social bookmarking will be a nice tool for me to use myself. At this point, I don’t see including students in this but maybe in the future.

Wikis are a very useful tool for the classroom. I can use the wiki to communicate information to my students such as course requirements, rubrics for projects (in case they loose them), recipes, etc.  Wikis can be used as an electronic notebook, especially for those students who have trouble with organization and misplacing things. In the future, I hope to have students create their own wikis, especially at the 8th grade level. Students can create their cultural brochures on a wiki instead of printing them out and turning them into me, I can view them from the wikispaces.  I can have students use http://www.gliffy.com to create diagrams relating to material that is being discussed. I could also use a wiki for students to reflect on cooking labs. 9th grade students could use gliffy.com to create a floor plan for 2 of their projects.  It is also a great way for students to learn from each other, and comment on their peers work. I hope access becomes less of an issue so that wikis, and other forms of technology can be used regularly.

Social bookmarking is also very interesting, more for my personal use than for student use. I have added many websites to my blinklist that i will be able to use in the future.

Wikis: student-centered learning. Good for making the students the experts. It would be cool to give each students an objective for research which, on its own, is incomplete. Then each student would contribute his expertise to the wiki. The class’s contributions would come together and give the reader the big picture.
“Wiki etiquette” would need to be taught; removing others’ contributions is not acceptable, formal English, positive and constructive comments only, etc.

I read a blog about the use of cellular phones in a classroom. I’d like to see students use their full capabilities to complete their classwork; it is the classwork that needs to changed based on the tools available to them. Our generation of teachers will be the ones to either pioneer our students’ usage of new tools and information streams, or to stick our heads in the sand. If we choose the latter, public schools run the risk of becoming irrelevant. Their jobs and lives when they finish school will be in a connected world; disconnecting them at school does them a disservice.

At what point do we consider removing filtration and teaching students skills to cope with an internet which is filled with things they ought not see? It opens up a huge can of writhing worms and I don’t know how to handle it, but I think eventually we’ve got to find a way to do it. Any ideas? Any research on this topic? Will it ever be possible or even desirable? It would represent a HUGE shift in thinking for our schools and our nation.

This is an excellent way to help stimmulate student thinking and develop communication skills for the 21st century.  It also develops written language. It provides me with a way to communicate with parents and have parents communicate with their children. 

One new skill I think we need to make sure students know is the difference between fiction and factual information. Too often students believe all of the information that they find, and assume that it is factual.  Students need to distinguish between the two.  Students also need to have netiquette reinforcement as to what is acceptable and unacceptable when it comes to blogging. 

answer to question #2   students need to use proper sentence structure when blogging.  it is not instant messaging.

  1.  What are the “affordances” and “constraints” of the technology? In other words, what does the technology allow us to do or prevent us from doing? This fundamental understanding is important to answer the next questions…

Affordances: Expansion of the classroom into the larger world. Input from parents. Input from outside experts. Ability to hop in and guide a student after each comment. Ability to include other websites and media to support your argument. Archived record of classroom discussion.
Constraints: You relinquish total control of the direction the students are going. You can act as a shepherd and guide them, but not as a drill sergeant. It’s possible for a discussion to go completely off topic and enter into a new discussion which does not feed your objective. Students with limited experience with computers will face a steeper learning curve. Students could potentially face ridicule and disrespect from other students as a result of their postings, thus harming the feeling of community/classroom safety.

Students working through interface issues to get a computer to do what they want it to do is a form of problem solving. If a student is confident enough in him or herself, any time spent on a computer is a learning experience. However, students who lack confidence in their ability to work through problems could quickly get frustrated when faced with the additional obstacles using a computer faces, as opposed to pencil and paper.

Blogging allows for flexibility within the curriculum and instruction. Students can express their opinions and personal perspectives. As teachers, this gives us a chance to gain insight into student thoughts that we would not usually have access to. The constraints are time and access. It takes time to teach and guide the students through the expectations. Students need to be aware of the language they use to express their thoughts. Maintaining the blog and guiding the students to proper usage could be time consuming.

Blogging could change the way that I teach my classes in several ways. Instead of being the primary purveyor of information I could instead prompt the students with a general topic or problem and then allow them to explore. In this way, Students would not be limited by a text or set curriculum. They could explore current information, generate their own questions, and analyze each others thoughts. I feel that in this setting I would learn as much if not more than the students.