My experience in technology class

I am not going to lie and say that I was absolutely thrilled to be taking a technology class. I was totally satisfied with what I knew and was sure I would pick up a few more things along the way. After taking this class I am surprised that I thought I could go into the teaching world without knowing about all of these tools. I thought I was overwhelmed the first day of class when I had to sign up for a twitter account...then to find out all the other accounts and tools I would be learning about! There is so much out there that can be helpful to me as a teacher and I am so excited to use it in my classroom.
It was really great being able to learn from my fellow classmates about the different technological tools that are available to me to use in my classroom. It was a great way for each of us to get familiar with our one topic and share it with the class. I had the pleasure of teaching about podcasts and itunes U, which before my presentation were pretty foreign to me. I now know the usefulness of these tools as well as an array of others. I really enjoyed the tools that are hands on and can be used as alternative assessments for the students in my class. History can be a very boring subject when it is all lecture and essay based. The tools that I learned through technology have taught me how to bring history alive. I really enjoyed the Glogster project as well as the little things like creating a class blog or wiki page.
It was also very interesting and useful to me to learn about basic and effective teaching. What makes teaching meaningful? How can you create networked learners? What is a teacher leader? These are questions that I had never even thought of and now understand the concepts and importance behind them. I now want to take what I have learned and become a teacher leader and a networked teacher. I now know the importance of teaching my students technology. And not only how to use it, but how to use it effectively and properly.
I wish that I had more time to play around with each and every tool that was provided for me, but am glad that I have a delicious account and the netvibes learning center to refer back to when I am looking for ways to implement technology in my classroom. I will continue to attempt to bridge the digital divide by educating my future students and helping them to be more digitally literate. It is such a crucial role for a teacher to take in students lives.
I will most definitely need to continue more research on the resources available to me and my future students as well as refresh myself on what I have learned. I just know that it is important for me to get my ideas out there to my students as well as to other teachers. The teachers that I have begun following on twitter have provided excellent resources for me and I hope to someday be providing some for them.
I think the biggest thing that I will take away from this class is not just all of the tools that I learned, but I now have a motivation and determination that I never had before. I want to continue to learn and spend more time researching so that I will be prepared to implement what I now know in my classroom. This class has been very beneficial to me in giving me this desire to learn more and I am so excited to further explore the world of technology!

Space Race Timeline

Nichole S. on Dipity.

Bridging the Digital Divide

This class has completely changed my view on the importance of technology in the classroom. Due to the fact that I have never been the most technology advanced person and have still made it through life just fine I just never say why so many people though it was so important. After taking this class as well as most every class I am currently in I see that it would be holding my students back to not implement technology into the classroom. This generation as well as future generations have access to these amazing tools and it is my job as an educator to help them become a part of this digital world. Even today we can see how having access to the internet is at times crucial in order to partake in certain class projects and even outside of the classroom the internet is not only used to communicate with people around the world for leisure purposes, but companies will hold interviews via the web. Technology is going to continue to develop and become a crucial part in all of our lives and therefore it is very important for students to begin feeling comfortable with these tools at a young age.
In order to help students gain this comfort level it is important that they have digital access in the classroom. It is one thing to learn how to do something, but I find that students will grasp the information better if they are able to interact with these tools in order to understand the wide variety of ways to use it. If the school that I work at is unable to provide the technology that I would like to have my students use during the year than I would like to work with the school to acquire such equipment. There does not need to be a computer or any other device I might be using for every single student because they can work in groups, or I will create stations so students can partake in different parts of the assignment using different equipment. In order to obtain more digital access for my students I would start by asking the school what the issues with acquiring it is. I will then write a grant asking for the equipment at my school. I also would try and work with parents and the PTA to see if there are any connections I can find there or maybe set up some sort of fundraiser to earn money for the school.
The teachers that I follow on twitter have shown me how they are trying to bridge the digital divide. It was difficult to find explicit information on how they attempt to get technology into their classrooms if they do not have it, but they do post information to help fellow teachers use technology in their classrooms and apply it to their content. So using this information and putting this information out there to help other teachers is a way that they are working to get more technology in their classrooms. One teacher has provided a link to his blog "free technology for the teacher" when I went to this site it provides a virtual tour of the Lincoln Memorial. Many schools are not able to travel to see these historical places, but having access to the internet can provide students to still get a feel for what it would be like to see it in person. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/11/great-virtual-tour-of-lincoln-memorial.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://techlearning.com/blogs/22558 I thought that this was interesting to bring into the idea of bridging the digital divide because it is Ten Ideas for Getting Started with 21st Century Teaching and Learning. The first thing that is said on this is that having the proper equipment which involves the laptop and projector that we are concerned we will not have access to in our classroom. It is also showing how important it is to obtain these things and hopefully someday we will gain access to them.
This also was a really cool website that intrigued me and made me think about the digital divide that we not only see in our classroom, but between us and the rest of the world and this is a website that brings everyone together. This site helps students and teachers collaborate with others all around the world using this technology which we all hope to have. http://iearn.org/
It was difficult to find websites about how people are actually attempting to bridge the gap, but I found a lot of ideas to use in classrooms. All of these sites are further proving my point on the importance of technology in the classroom because there are so many cool things you are able to do like this story about how students used cell phones to map the slums of Brazil. Things like cell phones might be easier to gain access to because you do not need a lot of them to do projects like this. http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2009/11/using-mobile-phones-to-map-the-slums-of-brazil311.html
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/408
This website was also very interesting in how important it is to bridge the digital divide across the world. But it also acknowledges that having access to this technology is not enough, one must also know how to properly use the tools. This is important and this is why it is important for teachers to educate students how to use technology.
I hope that someday we all have access to these tools and in the mean time there are many sites available providing great ways to bring technology into the classroom even if you are not equipped with a variety of tools there are still ways to help teach your students. It is important that we continue to work toward bridging the gap and knowing that teachers are out there working together to do that is very helpful to us pre-service teachers. There are so many ways to bring these ideas into a social studies classroom such as the virtual tour of the Lincoln memorial. Things like this are important to a history classroom because it can help to bring the content alive. This makes it more interesting for students.

Teacher Leaders

A teacher leader is someone who is organized and can work well with others. They have an innate leadership quality that the school community benefits from. These teacher leaders are able to be helpful and active members of their school based on many qualities that they possess. They are open to other people's opinions and suggestions. Teacher leaders are also creative people that are able to come up with exciting new ideas for the school. They are willing to work with the faculty, parents, and students so as to better the classroom learning environment for the students.

http://www.teacherleaders.org/about/who
this is a teacher leader network which provides resources to teacher leaders and also connects them to one another to become better teacher leaders. This website provides teacher leadership resources as well as news about upcoming events that will bring teacher leaders together and give them ideas to become better teacher leaders. This site also provides links to fellow teacher's blogs that provide useful information for teacher leaders.

http://www.leadershipteacher.org/
This site uses information from a variety of people and offers assistance to teachers to become leaders in their schools. They hope that teachers can be a positive change in their schools and this website provides links and workshops to enhance those skills that the teachers already have. This website tries to organize and inform teachers on how to be a positive impact not only on your student's lives but also in the whole school community.

I feel that I could possess the qualities to become an effective teacher leader in the school that I teach at in my future. I want to be a positive impact not only on my students but in working with faculty, parents, and the community as a whole. It might be hard at first to gain all the skills necessary to be a teacher leader, but with hard work and the resources available to us I believe I can build on my skills and become a teacher leader in my school.

How will you use your skills to become a teacher leader in your future schools? Are these resources necessary or is it a quality that you already possess?

Networked Learning

The human network is this idea that we are all connected together and technology has made this more possible and easier for us to navigate. Due to the fact that we have access to these tools and are able to contact people all over the world how we learn is changing as well. We are relying less on our teachers to give us the answers and are being motivated to use the tools that we have through technology to find the answers ourselves. This is the idea of the networking student. It is someone that takes what is available to them and conducts their own research while connecting with experts on the subject.
Digital literacy is important to the networked student because in order to be an effective networked student you must be able to use the technology available. The networked student needs to know how to navigate through the internet and be aware of fraudulent information that might be trying to pass as the truth. The student also needs to know how to use different social networking tools as well has have the understanding of other individuals in order to communicate with other experts they are researching. Basically the networked student needs to be able to use technology in functional, useful ways.
While the teacher takes more of a backseat approach in the networked student's life the instruction that is provided by the instructor is very important. The teacher has a huge responsibility in providing the student with the proper information on how to use the tools in order to be the most effective in using them. The teacher also helps the student to organize the information that they come across. I think that this is a very important for for a teacher and I could definitely see myself taking this role in my student's lives when necessary. We have spent a great deal of this semester discussing how important it is for us as teachers to do exactly this and let our students take on responsibility and learn how to properly use the technology that is available to them. I do not think that I would want to take on this role all the time and would probably start off with smaller projects in order to see if my students benefit from this method. I think it is a good idea to have a combination of networked learning and a more traditional style of in class time.
This slideshare is cool and similar to the ideas that Professor Drexler shared with us. This actually even uses an image that is hers. This focuses on what the teacher does to create his or her own personal learning network which I thought was a cool twist on what we were talking about for our future students! It is good for us to create our own if we are going to encourage our students to create a learning network!

Your Personal Learning Network Cc Day T2 09

View more presentations from Stu Hasic.

How do you plan on encouraging your students to become networked students? Do you think that the traditional ways of the student teacher relationship will become obsolete because of the importance put on the idea of the networked student?

Service Learning Notes

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQfeRlHDvyT3ZDU5bXRxal8yZmZrYzc0ZGc&hl=en

Glogster