Sunday, April 19, 2009

Leon M Peterson
Edu 1141-91
Discuss the trends in technology and media that you feel will have the greatest impact on teachers and students?

One thing that I would say has a great impact would be the smart board. You can write on them and the smart board will transfer your writing into a document. You don’t need to make transparencies you can show documents right from your smart board. This will allow teachers to eliminate much of the time that is required for preparation. Students get the benefit of seeing how or what the teacher is doing easier from her/his own desk.

List ways that technology has increased opportunities for students with disabilities, for parent involvement with their child’s education, and for building a global community?

One type of technology that is out there for special needs students is alpha smarts a type of word processor that allows students that have troubles writing pen to paper type out what they want to write and once they have access to the schools computes they simply plug the alpha smarts processor into the computer and they have a document that they can print. There are many different types of these words processors for every type of disability or special needs students. They allow the student to interact with others.

Parents involvement and global community I think fall under one title they both allow everyone to be connected. Parents are capable of emailing the teachers; looking up their child’s progress online from the teacher’s web page, keep in touch with all schools activities through the internet.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Video= Yea or Nea?

Leon M Peterson
EDU 1141-91

For or against using video in the classroom?

I would say that I am for the use of video in the classroom. We need to use a piece of every type of electronic media that we have available to us. Video like many means of electronic media is a secondary source to educate our students. We cannot simply pop in a video and let our students minds roam. Like all media that we use we must make them responsible to what they are watching. Videos should be used in conjunction with other electronic media such as internet searches, audio files, magazines, papers, computer programs, etc. When using video I think that less is more. The less we can use while still getting your point across would be more beneficial because you as the teacher could use other resources to enforce your over all educational goal. We still need to use all the resources available to us and video is still a viable resource and in my eyes I think that is should be used but not as a main source for educational content.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

non projected visuals

Leon M Peterson
Edu 1141-91
Chapter 8
Non Projected Visuals

Learning Centers
Advantages- are more of a one on one learning tool. Students work toward there own goals. Learning centers relieve the stressors’ of classroom environments. They allow for the student to participate in all learning situations, unlike classroom instruction where some students may feel overwhelmed and choose not to interact.
Limitations- of learning centers are the amount of cost and area they take up. Every center has they’re own teachers, area of the school, and supplies which cost money. Learning centers work with the help of the students if the students choose not to do the work they would be a drain on the schools budget. Students must be responsible for their work for a learning center to work.
Integration- from remedial learning centers that work with students on basic skills and additional practice on those skills in a different way. Learning centers can also be for the gifted students that looking for further advancement or interest in school subjects.

Instructional Modules
Advantages- Students are learning at their own speed they can be tested for the content and start a new module. Modules have everything for the student to learn and use not unlike an on line class where the student has all the content right there.
Limitations- Modules are one visual tool and sometimes can be used in the wrong text or at the wrong time. Quality can be an issue when investing in modules. When using modules you have a tendency to loose your flexibility between students learning styles. Also a limitation would be the lack of integration of the module into your curriculum.
Integration- since modules can be a self pace learning tool the teacher has to make sure they follow up on the module. Testing or discussions through out the module makes for certainty that students are learning.

Manipulative
Advantages- Real objects, students can touch them, smell, hear, view, open, disassemble, and reassemble them with all senses of their bodies. These objects keep the attention of the students, there interest in the project maybe stronger with theses manipulators.
Limitations- Cost of the objects, storage of the objects and many have a shelf life in which costs become even higher because we have to supply more of them.
Integration- Students love to use all their senses to learn. It’s finding the right manipulators to use to grasp their interest but not become a distraction.

Printed Materials
Advantages- They are very inexpensive, readily available for any topic. Printed materials are very flexible to use in many different ways. Students can bring them home very easily.
Limitation- Printed materials are set at a specific reading level that some students do not possess. Teachers want students to memorize facts and figures and makes printed materials just a memorization aids. Printed material tends to have one way communication rather than interaction among students and teachers.
Integration- We use printed materials in everything we do, instructions for tests, reading assignments, books, magazines, and papers. One of the most common ways of learning.

Display Surfaces
Advantages- Display surfaces are ways for students to display art work, understand teacher’s thoughts and examples of problems interact with the teacher and other students. Participate in classroom discussions by writing or solving problems. Display surfaces can be instructional, motivational and decorative.
Limitation- There maybe only so much surface to use in the classroom to display art work or use for instruction. Special needs students may not be able to see or interact with others in this learning environment.
Integration- Teachers and students use every available surface to learn and display work and brain storm ideas. The use of display surfaces have been used for ever we now have new ways to use them like computers and new software for specific functions.

Exhibits
Advantages- Exhibits use many different visuals that we talked about earlier to make an exhibit. Students tend to keep their focus attention when constructing exhibits or going to exhibits such as field trips to museums or the outdoors for scientific research or using materials inside the classroom to make an exhibit for a class project.
Limitations- not every student has the money or resources to make exhibits or displays or money for field trips so the chance for exclusion is hire.
Integration- Works for any subject to make an exhibit or display. Field trips keep students attention but cost money. The chance to use an exhibit for more than one topic helps in lowering the cost for displays.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Virtual trips in the classroom.

Leon M Peterson
EDU 1141-91
Explain why a virtual field trip might be an alternative to a regular field trip and describe how you might introduce it and follow it up.

As a teacher I would incorporate a virtual field trip to somewhere that would be impossible to go within the school year. The one place that pops in my head would be a trip to somewhere in Africa. More specifically, a country that I think would be interesting to visit would be Kenya. Incorporating this could be easily done in a Social Studies or English class where students might be writing papers. As a class, we would look at Kenya as a whole society- looking at different ways of life compared to ours. We would study foods, economics, industries, government, and health care. We could also analyze the various landscapes and eco systems Kenya has to offer. We would use the internet, the library, magazines, and newspaper articles to gain knowledge and information. The depth of our exploration would depend on the amount of time we have set aside for this unit. If we took a week of class time to take a virtual field trip, each day we could spend time on one main topic. The class would be taking notes and giving the students ways of finding information about those topics. Once the week was finished the teacher could give the students a choice of what topic to write a research paper on about Kenya, relating the differences and likenesses of both societies. Or, in the beginning of the Kenya unit students could be asked to look for newspaper articles or magazine articles that are specific to our Kenya/African unit. The students could look for articles relating to any aspect of Kenyan or African life, society, nature, government etc. They would then write a brief, two paragraph response that described the article and a two paragraph response relating the article to our own society.

A homework assignment after the unit was finished could be a reflection paper on what they learned and how it influenced there lives. Another follow up assignment could be comparing the Kenya unit with the next Social Studies unit, if the information applied. Tying in the differences and or similarities of both units could be an ongoing practice. If the class spends a week of in the classroom time, the teacher could keep going back to this unit as a way of showing the students a different society has the similar socioeconomic questions and problems that we as a whole society do. Relating this unit with others and building a large foundation of information about one specific country or society can make a year full of learning opportunities.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Concept Mapping

Concept Mapping with Mindomo is a great web tool for setting up a storyboard, work flow, venn diagram, or a lesson plan. I used this web tool to set up a story board. I made a general story board that you can plug in many books or stories as you see fit. I then used it to show students how to use it. I took the story Cinderella to show how simple it can be. this web tool can be taught to students over several demonstration and can be used as homework. the teacher can keep the instructions simple with the younger students and continue to build the complexity with the older students.

Using concept mapping for work flow or a lesson plan would show the students what is most important and then second and so on. The teacher can easily give importance to some tasks by giving a numerical character. Set a basic example for everyone and have them make there own storyboard or work flow etc. Time is always a problem but a web tool like this one can be used with minimal time.

Pros and Cons of Internet access to students.

I am interested in teaching High School students. I believe that at those ages we still need to supervise our students. There are many web sites and web pages that are inappropriate to high school students. As educators we can set up firewalls that block many web sites of our choosing. But with today’s different ways of accessing the web this is a new challenge that is facing educators. We have to understand that at this level what we allow and block is more relaxed than middle school and elementary schools. Students have to be allowed to access content for research projects that maybe questionable but educational at the same time. This is the fine line that we have to walk to allow our students to learn and grow. Talking in generalizations most students would use this broader based web access to their advantage to learn and thrive. But some will use it for their amusement and ill mind. So supervision is still the key to keeping the web a viable and appropriate educational tool in our schools.

Advantages, Limitations, Intergrations of online learning.

Online learning is not something new we have just expanded the concept in many ways. Online learning is different than classroom style instruction. The student becomes the teacher and motivator. As the student of online instruction we have to self motivate. Teachers give access to online tools and the students have to access them to complete the work and excel in the courses. Its more of a pull type learning environment. What that entails is the students have to pull the information out of the websites to access it rather than giving the students the information. Another advantage for online education is the amount of information and ways to use it and understand it. This would also be a limitation of online learning. The amount of web pages and tools that are out there, may become to much for some students to navigate. Also some information on the web is not necessarily the most reliable.

Online learning is not for every student. Teachers are looking for self motivated students that can do the work at home by themselves with the use of a computer and online tools. With this type of learning many students fall behind that lack the skills to self motivate. The more and more online learning is around it will soon become the norm and students and teachers alike will use it as a successful tool to complete there agendas.
Online learning has many rules about it. There is copywrite rules students can easily cut and past papers viewed on the internet that are not there own work.

Where doing a good job of integrating online learning. I know colleges rely on online classes to recruit new students that don't have the time for on campus classes. I think the responsibility of integration of online learning is both the students and the teachers. Students are needed to use this way of educating to learn just like being in the classroom, and teachers should be required to continually use the new and improved web tools to educate. I think the newest tech is all online high schools, they are strickly online.