Reflection on the class

First and for most, I would like to say that this class has been great. I have actually learned quite a bit from this class and am going to apply the skills I learned throughout my teaching career. The class may have been slow at times but everything fell into place. It was a pleasure being part of this class.

This class has made me open my eyes to the use of technology in the classroom and how it can help and also hamper you. I have learned how to play around with programs like Photoshop and Inspiration which I feel will be very important later on. I learned about the copyright issues schools face continuously. It actually made me feel bad that my class in high school would try to convince the teachers to let us watch movies.

I have also felt firsthand how technology could in fact be overwhelming. There are so many choices for teachers out there that it's hard to choose one program and run with it. It's all about getting a feel for the programs and getting comfortable with them. I guess this is why I love programs like Microsoft Office on the PCs over Mac (I hope I don't get points off for this). Making a digital story was also a new and yet pleasant experience. This is something I will do later on as well. I have learned alot in this class and am grateful to have been part of it.

The Computer Delusion

I am going to have to agree with the article in saying that computers are not everything in teaching. Computers may help students by keeping them engaged in school but they are no substitute for the real thing. The article states that Tom Henning, a physics teacher at Thurgood Marshall worries that when students use the computer, they are not applying themselves fully in the process of thought and that the computers only stimulate the senses of sight and hearing. So much money gets put into getting computers and programs to help out the students, but do they really work?

In short, the article says that they don't. Computer programs don't really offer much in terms of learning. They do however offer excitement for the students as they love to play games on them. Education comes second when they are on the computer. Test scores have not gone up in districts that acquire computers and teaching programs are being cut in order to keep this computer delusion going. It is also interesting to say that this article, although quite old in terms of technological advance, shows that technology in the classroom has been an issue in schools for at least a decade already and is still debated today.

Thoughts on the Class

I believe that this class has been pretty good so far. I have always been pretty good with computers and this class has taught me a couple of new things. It is very interesting that we are making our own websites and have to regularly write something on our blogs. Making our websites and writing in our blogs don't really seem like work and is a really cool aspect of the class. I have also found Photoshop to be pretty interesting and it is a program I intend to use once I start teaching. The last time I worked with Photoshop was in high school and it wasn't that great of an experience. This class has in a way re-introduced me into Photoshop and I have been tinkering with it since the image manipulation assignment.

Another program that has peaked my interest was Inspiration. I find that this is another program that I will be using for a long time. I like how you can organize your thoughts on it with just a few clicks of the mouse. I am currently using this program for my other summer class to organize my lessons and it is working like a charm. All in all, this class has been quite informative. I don't feel like the instructor can do anything else to make the class better. The pacing is good and the assignments are actually fun to do.

Copyright Issues

Copyright infringements are committed everyday, most without even knowing. By just showing a movie in class, you may be committing a pretty serious crime. Educators however are one of the few who may get a slight exemption to copyright laws. Teachers have the opportunity to use copyrighted works without the permission of authors by making certain that they follow four guidelines to using the material:

1. The copyrighted material must be used for non-profit educational purposes.

2. It depends on the nature of the material being used. ( some material just cannot be used)

3. The amount of the material being used. ( some material cannot be fully utilized... I.E a 250 word limit on poems.

4. The effect it will have on the market or value of the material.

As you can see, the guidelines aren't exactly specific and quite open to interpretation. What constitutes fair use? The answer is not that simple and has not been for some time. Teachers just have to be very careful with what they use in their classrooms and try to follow the guidelines as much as possible even though they are vague.

Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning provides all learners with equal opportunities to learn. It provides very flexible ways for students to learn material and also offers teachers alternatives in their teaching. UDL keeps students engaged by providing the students with different types of media to compliment what they are learning. It can create a very fun atmosphere that is secretly teaching the students. Teachers benefit greatly from UDL for their lesson planning and execution. They are able to captivate all students in one way or another by using most of the intelligences discussed in educational methods classes. The students are then able to learn how to use new tools from the lesson and gain even more insight from the prepared assignments than they normally would.

Standards

My current program is the Secondary Education Program with Initial Certification in Spanish. This categorizes me under standards of the World Languages, grades 9-12. After looking at all of the standards, I have decided that the standard I will focus on this month will be cultures. I feel that the learning of cultures is not only important in understanding the language but a great and interesting tool in proper language acquisition. Cultures provide an inside look to the students that they can work with and draw comparisons to their own cultures.

Visual learning is a must in order to learn whatever cultures are being studied. Resources might not always be on hand, so turning to places like the Internet to obtain pictures and videos is always a plus. Students can take a much deeper look into a culture with the use of visual aids and because they can be interesting, the students are able to take in and be able to recall it later on. I would use a program like inspiration to take all of the ideas that the students come up with and organize it so that I could reshow it to the class in a more simplistic manner. This would again reinforce what the students learned without it seeming like a chunk of tedious vocabulary and grammar lessons.

Inspiration eTIPS

Using the concept mapping program, Inspiration, I was able to make this concept map. The program provides a variety of tools making the task of making a concept map very easy. As soon as I started my map, I was presented with a single marker which I made the title of the entire Diagram. This is the one labled eTIPS. I then used the rapid fire feature to create two main concepts of the article. Then for each of the main ideas, I rapid fired two concepts of which I rapid fired two supporting ideas. Using the program made it very easy and I was able to make this chart in almost no time at all. After I was finished, I decided to modify it a bit in order to make it a little more aesthetically pleasing ( all within the program). I then exported the project file and made it into a .jpg file. This is the finished product.

Photoshop Post

Here we have a before and after pictures of a tableaux taken this past Tuesday during class. What I attempted to do to the first picture was make it seem more like a forest. Using Photoshop, I was able to somewhat do it by using a picture of a tree that I found on the internet. Using Photoshop, I was able to make multiple copies of a tree by making multiple layers on the picture. I did this by first clearing all the other objects out of the original picture I was using. When all that was left was the tree, I added it to the picture. My objective was to at least cover most of Canisius Hall as I wanted it to look at least remotely like a forest. I may have not exactly succeeded but Photoshop is something I will be working with in the future.

Teddy Bears go Blogging

I think blogging is a pretty cool idea. Sometimes you have to express yourself and it is not always a good idea to do it out in the public. I don't have much experience blogging (unless you count facebook), but it feels right. Something that is great about blogging is that you can set up privacy settings so that only some people can access it. Another great figure is that you can moderate not only your posts but also everyone else's if you make a group like Brenda Sherry did for her Second Grade class. My only concerns would be those of possibly getting hacked (like all those Twitter Profiles) and having harmful information being added on my blog. Things like that are rare, but one can never be too sure.

Pictures

This picture is from a beautiful park when I went on my Boston trip

This is a picture of a semi-recent trip to Boston where I saw a Red Sox game. ( I hate the Red Sox) :-P

Technology and How it Affects Me

Technology is a central part of my life. I believe that we live in an information age where many things can be obtained through the use of the internet. No longer do people have to go to the library and take books out, then spend countless hours searching the book for answers. We now have access to find functions and pdfs. It is true that things have gotten easier but technology is always changing and evolving. This becomes an issue for teachers (especially the ones who have been working for many years). Right now, I like to believe that I am using the latest technology. I feel quite comfortable with a computer and have used it in all of my jobs up to now. I am really hoping that this course will help me in accepting new technological advances and how to deal with them no matter the situation.

eTIPS

Technological Integration is very important for not only the students but also the teachers. However this is sometimes not possible due to factors including budget constraints. The article by Sara Dexter shows what schools and teachers can do to not only learn technologies but also include the students. The levels of resources vary depending on the school district but it is possible for teachers to work around any deficiencies by being well prepared and only using technology when it will add to what the students are learning.

Teachers can use technology such as a computer and smart board for many things such as class preparation and presentation. It is not a very good idea to completely base the education of the students on technology alone as a lot of schools do not have the resources to make this a reality. In Dexter's article, a question is posed on what to do if a computer lab teacher works with the students one day a week on a lesson. Would it be plausible to wait the week for the lab teacher to come back or to keep the lesson going without him/her. Technology is a good thing but one does not always have the resources to pull things off. I guess the eTIPS article just helps teachers realize that technology is important but that it should be implemented strategically.

My First Post

This is my first blog post.