Reflective Essay

 By:Sean MacEntee








During my time in Technology for Education has been frustrating, rewarding and very informative. During this semester it took some time to get into the class participation but after I got into the subeject it was a lot easier but I had my own procrastination issues which all students have. When I become an educator that is the number one subject I will address in the class and nip that in the bud. In the time I have spent in the class we have used a number of different website and technology tools to help us understand what we can use when we become educators. A couple of examples, one of the most interesting tools we used was the Tracking Device, this device we used on a scavenger hunt, we were hunting for answers and we had our groups we used the device to help locate the questions we had to answer. It was frustrating just for the fact it took awhile to find the questions because they were hidden in a public place it would be moved or just misplaced. But that activity we did required team work and was able to get us the students out of the classrooms a lot of children benefit from this method it gets them involved with the lesson and they have alot of fun. This is a great benefit for the Kinesthetic Learners. If I had the tools for my classroom I would defiantly use it. Also one of the websites Delicious was a huge technology tool that I have come to love in the class. I am defiantly going to use this with my class because this is one thing I hated in school was having to remember what websites I have visited with this tool they can benefit from this as well.  The Collaborative Lesson Plan was fun and interesting because when we individually work on a lesson plan we only listen to our idea and what we want to do but with the group we were able to put ideas together and listen to each other and what the others could do with their own ideas. But then of course the difficult part of that project is the whole idea of putting your thoughts together everyone has different ideas and subjects that they wanted to teach.  Working in groups is a big thing for teaching because you work with a team of other teachers in a school and you need to learn to get along. The Instructional wiki was easier because everyone had their own part in which they had to finish but then the pressure of hoping that the other person did their part because if they don't do their part it reflects badly on the whole group and looks bad. Both of the projects involved team work and being able to collaborate ideas. The big differences is that with the instructional wiki it was more independent group working and most of the communication was over the internet. The collaborative lesson plan was more interaction with the group and you all had to come to one idea that would work for everyone. Similarities was that everyone was working toward one goal of a successful project. This class was a great learning experiences and I can not wait to be able to learn more as I go through school and to be able to teach the students what I know.




















References

• Working in Groups, Retrieved Dec,05,2012 ,http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/groups.php
• Kinsesthetic Learning, Retrieved Dec, 03,2012, :http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/miralogy/xtlsymmetry/kinesthetics.html
• Delicious, Retrieved Dec 05,2012,http://www.delicious.com/mgarner1

Post 11

Focus Question: How can teachers use student participation systems as effective assessment methods?
One tool I have used is when a teacher post a question on the board us students are placed into groups and we have a game as to who can answer the question the fastest and correct and how we answer is by using our clickers that we used. Participation is a great way for students to get involved and also to have them repeat what they need to know and what they can learn. Open-ended questions is a great way to get them involved as well.
Photo By Comingstobrazil TechTool: Survey Monkey Its an online survey tool that teachers can use to ask the students questions and that they can collect information on the students and their answers through that. Also when the students have a presentation and they would like to get the other students opinion. Here is an simple example I created that can give you an idea as to what you can create with the survey monkey, Addition and Subtraction.
comingstobrazil

Summary:  As gearing toward the end of the semester we are working towards our own e-portfolio and this chapter helps get the students involved in the evaluations and assessing their work in the class. Our portfolio gathers all of our work that we have created throughout this class and we can go and edit what we please and see what we have created throughout the whole semester.  And the chapter goes into detail about how students can do peer evaluation, it talks about how we can use technology such as e-portfolios, presentations and publications of personal and student assessment. This can help students keep track of their own grades and work on what they have created.  We use En grade and that helps us keep track as to where we are in the class and what we need to work on.












Maloy, Robert W. "Chapter 11." Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. N. pag. Print.

Post 10

                                                   Response to "This I Believe"
When bringing technology into the classroom there are so many ways that you can bring into the lesson to get the children excited, For Robert the teacher he wants to get his students excited about writing essays which is already hard to do now in days, and what he wants to accomplish is:"Read and hear different types of the example essays,"2:have the students write the essay,3:having them gain a better confidence in writing . With this scenario he has to introduce the lesson in a creative way to get them excited. And telling them how people have changed the world giving them some examples to read on their own, Everyone loves giving their opinion and discussing so why not get them talking about their ideas and what they want to change. But getting to work for brainstorming they can use Computers to do some research on the idea and to get more correct information on what they "believe". For writing their drafts they can use Microsoft word to help them write the paper a lot of times the spell check is a great use. They can also place photos and little characters into the photos to bring the paper to life. For the revising and the editing the children can just email the teacher the drafts and even email each other if the want peer evaluation. Now what we used for the blogger such as what we are using right now we can have them post their papers on here instead of handing in papers. Also classroom websites, power point,e-portfolios even can make a newspaper with all the headlines. Getting creative about what the lesson is can help them get excited for the papers, fcats and SATS and give them the confidence that they need.  














Maloy, Robert W. "Chapter 10." Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. 302-03. Print.

Journal Post #9

Focus Question: How can Teachers use video resources in their teachings?
It is becoming more popular to use videos,DVD,YouTube and ect. Even what we are going over in class right now about the Instructional Strategies, we are going over on what we use in our class in order to get our students interacting and being involved in the lesson. Students are more about visuals anyone can sit and listen but a video or any video accessories can help the student who learn more by seeing is great for Visual Learners. For an example given in the book Transforming Learning with New Technologies,(pg 271) they say that a successful strategy used was when watching a video with your class you can stop and pause the video to have the students ask and answer questions. This video about teachers using Video sheds light on how videos can help students get involved. 

Tech Tool Link:  Since I am wanting to go into middle school and trying to grab the attention of teenagers will be challenging but the tech tool in the book talks about one of the most popular tools IPODS,IPADS and ect. Now to everyone it is just a way to listen to music but we can get it to play in our favor in the classroom. It talks about how college students are using the ipods in the classroom in order to record and have full and quick access to videos or anything needed for the lesson, since ipods now in days are coming with full wifi and able to almost do anything a computer can do. Even us teachers are using it to record ourselves so we can go back and listen to see what we can improve on. Now the websites they  

Summary: Chapter 9 goes into the way on communication and Power point.  Power point is what we were going over in our class right now and being able to learn and master the power point a huge thing, because that is how alot of projects are done now in days in the class. Just because it is easy for students to get into the project and have them work in a group. I have learned from this chapter because in order to be able to have this in my class is a huge advantage. Cameras was talked about as well since now almost everything is communicated over the phone or online but now we are being able to video chat just as easily. This is a huge help for online classes and for students to be able to brainstorm with students who don't even live in the U.S, such as the blog we did with the students from Australia, if we did use video chat we could of created even a bigger project. And putting this in the classroom we can have the kids in a real life situation because most of the time you wont be able to communicate with your bosses if they live in another country and its easier to communicate with someone if their right in front of you. 

• Maloy, Robert W. "Chapter 9 Creating and Sharing Information with Multimedia Technologies." Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. N. pag. Print. 
• "Resources." Resources. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2012. <http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/ntti/resources/video1.html>.

Chapter 8 blog post

Focus Question: How can teachers use email or instant messaging to foster information exchanges with and among students? Email and instant messaging is one of the largest ways of communicating between each other. Teachers use email to communicate with students, colleagues and families. So why not bring it into your classroom for not only giving students the option to contact you on the weekend via email or as teachers we can even set up a time once a week and offer a instant message hour for any students who need help, it will help students who feel shy about asking questions in person. But argued in the book it is true that a lot of instant messages/texts can be misread.  
Tech Tool: One of the tech tools that was offered was our very own blogger from Google. we use this blog for our very own class. Each student has a blog in which our teacher and other students can view each others blog and can help use it for research. It also gives people a chance to create their own blogs for the public.
Summary: Chapter eight talks about all the ways that teachers and students use computers and other ways to share information and ideas in the classrooms and online public. The first couple of sections talk about the different websites that can come about with teaching that you can use with the class. Blogs are pretty popular because students can write their ideas or homework and it gives students and teachers a chance to comment on their blogs. Another type of communication that was spoken about instant messaging and email is used for communicating with students and colleagues.




Maloy, Robert W. Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. Print.  

JEOPARDY!!!!

Technology is slowly creeping its way into the classroom and a big tool that people may not consider is online games. Now online games is normally what kids will have on their computer on a tab underneath what they should be doing for work. Now in days we as teachers need to keep up with the times and figure out a way to keep them interested. While doing research I cam across a website that had a couple of games that teachers created in order to help with their lessons and get the kids excited. Tech Tools. One of the games I found to be helpful was the Flash Jeopardy, it is the traditional game to which you can plug in your own questions and answers. This is a great activity because it gets the kids excited about answering the questions and helps with social interaction with the students because you can create teams. I enjoy being able to get the students excited and have them actually pay attention in order to WIN.

Click Here to see Flash Jeopardy in action.

Chapter 6 Blog

Focus Question: What are WebQuests and virtual field trips? are virtual field trips that engaged web-based teaching methods. Virtual field trips allow students and children to visit places all around the world as part of their studies.
Tech Tool: The Cave Web sites like these are great to grab the attention of students. If they have more hands on research and are able to go through pictures and truly get into the website it makes it easier for them to pay attention and get interested. The nice thing is that its a lot of facts and information shorten in a couple of paragraphs and we know how students love reading things that are short. By clicking some of the photos it takes them to other places in the cave and to view some of the amazing art work in the cave will get the creative juices flowing.


Chapter Summary: This chapter introduced resources such as bookmarking, social bookmarking and information alerts. We even use some of the book markings in the class such as delicious. This tool is very helpful for teachers that research information and are able to keep it in a safe area that they can pull up the information on any computer. Also Social bookmarking is used for group projects so when students are at home they can all work on the project together with out having to be there. And everyone has encountered an information alert at some time.  When they are using their own computer any time something new for their system is available a little pop up comes on the screen and tells them about it, even with phones now with apps. Its great for teachers who are looking for something with google alerts and they type it in and want more information when they have it they will be let in on when the information is ready and it will alert them by email.














Maloy, Robert W. Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. Print.