"The Kids Are All Right" -John K. Waters
Waters, John K. (March 2009). The Kids Are All Right. T-H-E Journal, Retrieved March 30, 2009, from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/24104
This article is basically about how educators can take advantage of the fact that children are very skilled at using new digital tools such as the internet for self-directed learning. It all started with the study "Kids' Informal Learning With Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures", funded by John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur. This was a study conducted on over 800 young people over a period of three years. Data was collected on how these young people use digital media tools and how they developed social skills through online websites such as FaceBook and MySpace. This study can be very beneficial to educators who wish to lessen the gap between them and their students in regards to using new digital tools. It was suggested that educators should participate in these social websites such as FaceBook and MySpace so that they can get a feel for how their students are learning and what their students use on a daily basis to continue communication with others.
The study identified three genres of participation with new digital media tools. The first genre is "hanging out," which is basically when students are communicating with their friends and keeping in touch with their friends through the websites like MySpace since public space for children to hang out now are more restricted than they were in the past. Through this, children are learning the social skills through they online interactions with one another. The second genre is "messing around." This is when the kids are just exploring on their own. They might jump from website to website, checking things out along the way, or browsing for information that are of interest to them. This is an example of self-directed learning. The children are seeking out the information and absorbing in what they discover. The third genre is "geeking out." This is when the children are seriously interested in the new digital tool. They are taking their time to investigate the new tool and to learn more about it. It is here that they develop expertise in their topic of interest. Through this research, it is founded that "the internet is empowering a tech-savvy generation to pursue a central element of 21st century education-- self-directed learning, performed on kids' own terms and time schedules. It's a finding that compels educators to disregard any lingering notions that the internet is strictly unproductive playtime" (Waters, 2009).
This article has really changed my perspective on kids and the internet world. I think that it is a great idea for educators to use the children's passion and skills for computers and bring it into the classroom as a way to facilitate their learning and creativity. It is very true that technology today is totally different from that from 5 years ago. I realize that the environment in which I learned will be totally different from the way in which my future students will learn. As an eduator, I believe that you have to utilize what is out there so that your students will have the best tools possible when they leave your classroom. I also believe that an educator must never stop learning, whether it be from their own peers, the news, or their students; the yearning and willingness to learn new things is an important quality for educators to possess.
Question 1: What are some ways that educators can reduce the technology gap between themselves and their students?
One way to reduce the technology gap would be to learn about the new technologies yourself. There are a lot of resources out there and a lot of different social networks that you can join to get updated information on how to utilize the new digital tools in your own classroom. Another way would be for educators to allow their students to teach them a few things about these new digital tools. Students are a lot more tech-savvy now-a-days than most educators and most of them easily pick up on how to navigate through these new digital tools like nothing. This would definitely make the students feel like they are contributing something valuable to the classroom.
Question 2: Name one of the participation genre and describe it.
One of the genre of participation is labled "geeking out." This is when the students are extremely interested in the digital tool. They invest a lot of their time investigating and learning about the new tool. They participate in self-directed learning. They learn to eventually become experts at the new digital tool.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Journal 8: Internet Telephony -NETS V
Internet Telephony: "A category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls. For users who have free, or fixed-price Internet access, Internet telephony software essentially provides free telephone calls anywhere in the world. To date, however, Internet telephony does not offer the same quality of telephone service as direct telephone connections.
There are many Internet telephony applications available. Some, like CoolTalk and NetMeeting, come bundled with popular Web browsers. Others are stand-alone products. Internet telephony products are sometimes called IP telephony, Voice over the Internet (VOI) or Voice over IP (VOIP) products." (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/Internet_telephony.html)
Internet telephony is basically telephone calls through the internet. There are different web programs like Skype that provides the medium to make telephone calls through the internet. These phone calls are usually free of charge and can be used worldwide. There are some programs that even allows you to make a video phone call if you have a web cam connected to your computer.
I followed a discussion about internet telephony but it barely provided any information about how internet telephony works, instead I learned that there are a lot of different ways that you could use a web cam in your classroom. I saw some really extremely cool stop-motion animation movies that students made with the web cam. The videos portray specific vocabulary words used in literature like foreshadowing, personification, and morphing. You can have students make their own short story film in almost any subject. One of the educators filmed a science experiment that his students were conducting.
A suggestion from one of the educators was to have students create a tutorial using the web cam. This is both fun and educational for the students. Another educator films himself replaying the day's activities and assignments. He then uploads these videos onto a class website for students who missed class. This was a way for him to motivate his students to keep up with class work and to continue participating in classroom activities even if they are absent for the day. Another educator used the web cam to connect with another classroom from a different country. This allowed for his students to collaborate with students from a different culture within the classroom. Overall, I learned that there are a zillion different ways to use the web cam in your classroom to motivate student learning and create an environment for creativity.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Inspiration - NETS I, II, & III
This is a graphic organizer made through the Inspiration 8 program. The main idea is the NETS standards for teachers. Under each standard are two sub-standards with assignments listed that illustrates each sub-standard.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
PowerPoint Presentation - NETS I, II, III, & IV
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
This is a slide show presentation created on PowerPoint displaying different activities that can be done in the classroom that will meet the NETS for students.
This is a slide show presentation created on PowerPoint displaying different activities that can be done in the classroom that will meet the NETS for students.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Journal 7 - NETS I & III
"Mining for Gold" - Chris Bigenho
Bigenho, Chris (March 2009). Mining for Gold. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved March 9, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/
This article is about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and how educators can use this new technology in the classroom. RSS is a new technology that enables information on the web to come to you instead of you going to different websites to see if there is an update of information on the website. The way that RSS works is through two tools called feeds and aggregators. Feeds contain channel tags and have specific information for each individual item on a website. Aggregators read these feeds, track updated information, and allows you to see any available updated information. Aggregators are basically a webpage where all these websites that you like to use can be displayed in. There are two types of aggregators. One is internet hosted, which are basically readers on the web such as Bloglines, iGoogle, and Net Vibe. The other is client-based which are incorported into browsers and operating systems such as Safari for Macs and Vista for PCs. With internet hosted aggregators, you can access your feeds from any computer. Client-based aggregators limits you to your personal computer only.
Bigenho suggests several ways for educators to use RSS in the classroom. One way would be to subscribe to student blogs. RSS makes it extremely easy to track new postings on individual student's blogs. Instead of having to go to each student's blog to check if they had posted anything new, RSS brings all the blogs to you on one website such as Blogline or iGoogle. Blogline is especially made to subscribe to a number of blogs and there is a notifier which notifies you whenever a new posting on any of the blogs have been updated. This is a great way to bring technology into the classroom without being overwhelmed with keeping tract of everyone's blogs. Another way to use RSS in your classroom would be to subscribe to social bookmarks. One social bookmarking website is Delicious.com. Delicious allows you to "bookmark" your favorite websites under more than just one tag or topic name. You can even create a tag name specifically for your class. You can then subscribe to the tag and feed it to an aggregator that will allow all the students to view the resources that you are collecting for them. I think that RSS is a great tool to know how to use. It can make following information so easy because everything is being brought to you.
Question 1: What are the two different types of aggregators?
One type of aggregator is internet hosted. These are web-based readers such as Bloglines, iGoogle, and Net Vibe. These are hosts that can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the internet. The other type of aggregator is client-based. These are aggregators incorported into browers and operating systems. For example, Safari is an aggregator for Macs and Vista and Windows Live are aggregators for PCs.
Question 2: How can educators incoporate the use of RSS into their classroom?
Blogs are a great technology to have students create. Blogs are a great tool to get students to be creative and to communicate their thoughts in a different way. There are usually around 20 to 25 students in a classroom. To try to keep up with all the student's blogs can be overwhelming and difficult. RSS can turn keeping up with student's blogs from stressful to extremely easy. You can create a feed from each student's blogs into one aggregator such as Blogline. Everytime a student creates a new post, you are notified of this. RSS can save you a lot of time because you do not have to check on each student's blog to see if they have a new posting or not, the updates come to you.
Bigenho, Chris (March 2009). Mining for Gold. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved March 9, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/
This article is about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and how educators can use this new technology in the classroom. RSS is a new technology that enables information on the web to come to you instead of you going to different websites to see if there is an update of information on the website. The way that RSS works is through two tools called feeds and aggregators. Feeds contain channel tags and have specific information for each individual item on a website. Aggregators read these feeds, track updated information, and allows you to see any available updated information. Aggregators are basically a webpage where all these websites that you like to use can be displayed in. There are two types of aggregators. One is internet hosted, which are basically readers on the web such as Bloglines, iGoogle, and Net Vibe. The other is client-based which are incorported into browsers and operating systems such as Safari for Macs and Vista for PCs. With internet hosted aggregators, you can access your feeds from any computer. Client-based aggregators limits you to your personal computer only.
Bigenho suggests several ways for educators to use RSS in the classroom. One way would be to subscribe to student blogs. RSS makes it extremely easy to track new postings on individual student's blogs. Instead of having to go to each student's blog to check if they had posted anything new, RSS brings all the blogs to you on one website such as Blogline or iGoogle. Blogline is especially made to subscribe to a number of blogs and there is a notifier which notifies you whenever a new posting on any of the blogs have been updated. This is a great way to bring technology into the classroom without being overwhelmed with keeping tract of everyone's blogs. Another way to use RSS in your classroom would be to subscribe to social bookmarks. One social bookmarking website is Delicious.com. Delicious allows you to "bookmark" your favorite websites under more than just one tag or topic name. You can even create a tag name specifically for your class. You can then subscribe to the tag and feed it to an aggregator that will allow all the students to view the resources that you are collecting for them. I think that RSS is a great tool to know how to use. It can make following information so easy because everything is being brought to you.
Question 1: What are the two different types of aggregators?
One type of aggregator is internet hosted. These are web-based readers such as Bloglines, iGoogle, and Net Vibe. These are hosts that can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the internet. The other type of aggregator is client-based. These are aggregators incorported into browers and operating systems. For example, Safari is an aggregator for Macs and Vista and Windows Live are aggregators for PCs.
Question 2: How can educators incoporate the use of RSS into their classroom?
Blogs are a great technology to have students create. Blogs are a great tool to get students to be creative and to communicate their thoughts in a different way. There are usually around 20 to 25 students in a classroom. To try to keep up with all the student's blogs can be overwhelming and difficult. RSS can turn keeping up with student's blogs from stressful to extremely easy. You can create a feed from each student's blogs into one aggregator such as Blogline. Everytime a student creates a new post, you are notified of this. RSS can save you a lot of time because you do not have to check on each student's blog to see if they have a new posting or not, the updates come to you.
Journal 6 - NETS III & V
"Grow Your Personal Learning Network" -David Warlick
Warlick, David (March 2009). Grow Your Own Personal Learning Network . Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved March 5, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/
Personal learning networks (PLNs) are tools to help you stay connected with people and new information. There are three main different types of PLNs. The first is the "personally maintained synchronous connections," which is how you would traditionally keep in touch with people and get new information. New tools such as chat, instant and text messaging, and teleconferencing websites are a more sofisicated way of keeping in contact and staying up-to-date on this type of PLN. The second type of PLN is the "personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections." This type of PLN is more broad than the first. Questions that you have are posted by you onto tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and other networking tools. Not only can people who are in your community answer your question but also people from all over the world who sees your post can answer your question. There are not limitations to who can answer your questions. People who answer your posted questions are usually those who are interested in the same topic.
The third type of PLN is the "dynamically maintained asynchronous connections". This type of PLN is different from the others in that it connects you with the information that you are interested in. The main tool used to gather up all these information and to bring it to you is the aggregator RSS. RSS is also known as really simple syndication. Syndication is a process in which a part of a website is brought to you through another network such as Google, Blogline, or Yahoo. Many websites now have the RSS icon. To get updates from these websites brought to you instead of you going to the website, you simply click on the RSS icon and connect the web page to another webpage such as Google. So now when you are on your Google account, all the websites that you are interested in are loaded and ready for you to check for updates.
All these PLNs are really helpful in keeping you connected with not only people who you do not get to see on a daily basis but also new information of interest to you. I think that PLNs are extremely helpful for educators since the world is continuously developing new technologies and there are always new tools that can help you do a certain job better than before. As educators, you need to be in the network with all the new tools because you are teaching the next generations tools that they can use to be successful in life. It would not be fair to your students if you are not up-to-date with the new tools. You would be doing them a disservice by not being connected with the new tools available out there.
Question 1: What is one of main types of PLN?
One of the main type of PLNs is called the "dynamically maintained asynchronous
connections." This type of PLN connects you with information of interest to you through a tool called RSS feeds. RSS feeds take parts of a website and make the information on that website available onto another website such as Blogline and Google. Through websites such as Google, you can have access to any updates on the websites that you choose to place an RSS feed through to Google. Without having to go through a list of websites to check for new information, the information is being brought to you.
Question 2: What are some useful PLN tools?
One really useful PLN tool is social bookmarking websites such as Delicious. Delicious is a tool used to help you organize all your resources, research resources that others have found useful for a specific topic, and keep you connected with new information through networking with other people's bookmarks. Delicious helps you to get the most useful resources available instead of having to sift through handfuls of websites. Another useful PLN tool is the RSS aggregator. This tool allows for information to be brought to you instead of the other way around. Facebook is also another useful tool to keep in contact with people that you do not see on a daily basis. It allows for you to keep in touch with distant friends without running up your phone bill.
Warlick, David (March 2009). Grow Your Own Personal Learning Network . Learning and Leading with Technology, 37, Retrieved March 5, 2009, from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/200904/
Personal learning networks (PLNs) are tools to help you stay connected with people and new information. There are three main different types of PLNs. The first is the "personally maintained synchronous connections," which is how you would traditionally keep in touch with people and get new information. New tools such as chat, instant and text messaging, and teleconferencing websites are a more sofisicated way of keeping in contact and staying up-to-date on this type of PLN. The second type of PLN is the "personally and socially maintained semisynchronous connections." This type of PLN is more broad than the first. Questions that you have are posted by you onto tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and other networking tools. Not only can people who are in your community answer your question but also people from all over the world who sees your post can answer your question. There are not limitations to who can answer your questions. People who answer your posted questions are usually those who are interested in the same topic.
The third type of PLN is the "dynamically maintained asynchronous connections". This type of PLN is different from the others in that it connects you with the information that you are interested in. The main tool used to gather up all these information and to bring it to you is the aggregator RSS. RSS is also known as really simple syndication. Syndication is a process in which a part of a website is brought to you through another network such as Google, Blogline, or Yahoo. Many websites now have the RSS icon. To get updates from these websites brought to you instead of you going to the website, you simply click on the RSS icon and connect the web page to another webpage such as Google. So now when you are on your Google account, all the websites that you are interested in are loaded and ready for you to check for updates.
All these PLNs are really helpful in keeping you connected with not only people who you do not get to see on a daily basis but also new information of interest to you. I think that PLNs are extremely helpful for educators since the world is continuously developing new technologies and there are always new tools that can help you do a certain job better than before. As educators, you need to be in the network with all the new tools because you are teaching the next generations tools that they can use to be successful in life. It would not be fair to your students if you are not up-to-date with the new tools. You would be doing them a disservice by not being connected with the new tools available out there.
Question 1: What is one of main types of PLN?
One of the main type of PLNs is called the "dynamically maintained asynchronous
connections." This type of PLN connects you with information of interest to you through a tool called RSS feeds. RSS feeds take parts of a website and make the information on that website available onto another website such as Blogline and Google. Through websites such as Google, you can have access to any updates on the websites that you choose to place an RSS feed through to Google. Without having to go through a list of websites to check for new information, the information is being brought to you.
Question 2: What are some useful PLN tools?
One really useful PLN tool is social bookmarking websites such as Delicious. Delicious is a tool used to help you organize all your resources, research resources that others have found useful for a specific topic, and keep you connected with new information through networking with other people's bookmarks. Delicious helps you to get the most useful resources available instead of having to sift through handfuls of websites. Another useful PLN tool is the RSS aggregator. This tool allows for information to be brought to you instead of the other way around. Facebook is also another useful tool to keep in contact with people that you do not see on a daily basis. It allows for you to keep in touch with distant friends without running up your phone bill.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
