When researching digital storytelling, I came across a very helpful diagram that breaks down creating a digital story. It basically makes any story that you need to tell or any presentation that you need to make more interesting and more memorable. I found this really great and helpful site, http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/, that talked about digital storytelling from an educational perspective: "Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. However, as the name implies, digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips and/or music. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between two and ten minutes." I did not know that digital storytelling was such a big deal in the educations world. There is also a really great video on th
at site that I enjoyed.
When you think about it, digital storytelling is exactly what it sounds like. It is using digital effects in telling a story. I am starting to understand why this information would be so valuable to a teacher. A teacher has to talk all day long to their students, and if there is a way to spice things up and get everyone more interested in what is going on, I am sure that any teacher would jump at that chance. This class has definitely taught me more about how to use these digital enhancements. I feel alot more comfortable with alot of basic technology, and I feel like I have learned a lot of new skills. I guess that through my blog and glog,(which I didn't have or even understand until this class), I have been digital storytelling all summer.
How do we connect with global education communities? The internet allows us to do some remarkable things. It is the ultimate tool to connect with educational communities across the world and share your own educational community with others. Information can now be exchanged through a great many resources created to do just this.
Whom did you find for students to connect with? The best resource that I found was at nea.org, the National Education Association. This site had an extensive amount of information of educators and students and many links to different programs. There were opportunities to connect with education communities in Asia, Africa, and many other places that differ greatly from the United States and would greatly broaden perspectives of American students and teachers.
How did you find it? After searching the internet for a while, I found a great website that provided many links to connect with global communities. It is courtesy of the National Education Association.
How will your students/you connect? By accessing the website, students can get their hands on information about other global communities and teachers can contact other communities in order to arrange further communication. I had a hard time finding information on how specifically this would be done, but I think that this is wonderful idea because it is extremely important for Americans, especially, to keep perspective on their own lives and those in the rest of the world. I think that this is kind of like a 21st century version of having an international pen pal.
What are possible conversation points? I think that the first step would be to talk about recreational activities and basic everyday life occurrences. What kind of sports do you play? What kind of animals do you see where you live? What kind of weather do you experience? Then, I think that teachers could dive into sharing teaching strategies and students could share what they are learningand compare their classrooms.
I have been following the blog eLearning Technology, and found some very useful information this week. I really appreciated a model that was created concerning learning about new technology. I, myself, am not exactly a technological wiz, so this was very useful advice. The blog talked about considerations a teacher should make when approaching new technology and asked the questions, "Will the content remain roughly the same for two years? Or will it really be out of date in two years? Is the content I need applicable to a relatively large audience or do I have fairly particular needs?" I definitely need to focus my search when it comes to familiarizing myself with new technology. I need to think about practicality for the classroom I am in, relevance to promoting learning, and whether or not it is worth my time to invest in new technological advances. I think that technology is advancing at such an alarming rate that it is important to filter my search for useful tools and consider their relevancy and long term benefits. I think that this funny commercial depicts this concern better than I can:
Another post on this blog discussed how the effects of technology on education are vastly underestimated. I can definitely see this when I consider how I learned when I was a young student and how I and my peers approach learning as college students. For example, when I was younger, if I wanted to learn more about a topic, I would go to the library, check out the selection on the topic, check out the books that I thought would be most helpful to me, and go read about the topic. Now, if I need to find information on something, most of the time, I think I can speak for a majority of my classmates by saying that we walk over to our computers, type the topic into google, and look through the information online. I am somewhat old fashioned if you couldn't already tell, and in my opinion, this fact is kind of sad. Now, don't get me wrong; it may be a more effective way of learning when the information is so accessible, but I really learned a lot about changing my attitude about it after reading this post. I need to get on board because I am underestimating the alarmingly increasing influence that technology has on education. One thing I absolutely agree with is trying to enhance my teaching strategies for the students' benefit, and if technology is a way to do that, I have to be open to the idea. One question that the post asked that really hit home for me was, "If we are going to force students to sit through lectures, shouldn't they be the absolute best lecture?" I answered yes to this question, and I suppose that means that I am also answering yes to technology. However, let the record state that I put up a fight!
Another post that I found extremely helpful and that I will be referencing in the future is about evaluating the tools to bee used in the classroom and considering every factor. As someone with little experience in this area, I really would not know the right questions to ask when considering using new technology in my classroom. This post provided a list of questions that I think would be valuable for us to check off in this situation. The list includes:
Cost: Is the tool free or very-low cost to use? Trial periods wouldn’t count.
Question Types/Methods: Does the tool offer the ability to create a rich testing experience by offering various question types?
Multimedia: Does the tool offer the ability to include audio and/or visuals for questions?
Data Collection: Does the tool provide detailed statistics on individual and/or group performance?
Grading: Does the tool allow for several methods of grading responses? (i.e. immediate feedback, final results with or without which questions were missed, etc.)
Download Test Results? : Can the test data be retrieved for analysis or backup?
Layout/Accessibility: Can the layout of the quiz output be changed and does it handle accessibility issues?
Security: Are there security methods in place to catch/prevent cheating, hacking, or other similar problems?
Ease of Use: Is the tool well supported and easy to learn?
I think that without all of these considerations, a tool would become detrimental to the learning process. If it is going to suck up time, money, and patience by complicating the process of assessing your students, you are going to be frustrated, rushed, and disappointed. This goes along with what the first post talked about. I think that above everything I learned from this assignment, I have learned to ask myself, "Is this worth it in that it will greatly benefit learning?" I think that with these considerations in mind, I can more efficiently answer this question and therefore be a more efficient educator.
Assistive Technology is basically any form of technology that is used to help people with disabilities. It can be in many different forms, and is often used in schools. It is important for teachers to be aware of the available assistive technology which may aid their students with disabilities.
How is it used?
Assistive Technology is usedto help disabled individuals to accomplish tasks that are challenging or even impossible to complete otherwise. They can address physical and mental disabilities, including learning disabilities in reading, writing, math, and any other challenging subject or aspect of school. The functions or assistive technology range from wheelchairs to audio books, which is what I chose to focus on.
How will you keep up on this complex, evolving arena?
I will definitely look into some blogs that discuss audio books and other forms of assistive technology because I think it is extremely helpful to hear from a parent or teacher's perspective. I greatly enjoyed the pages that I visited above, and felt they were the best at informing and explaining about the product.
How will you incorporate this awareness into your teaching?
I will be on the lookout for warning signs of disabilities in my students, and I will also assess students when possible on their reading, writing, and basic functions like their hearing or speaking. I think that at a young age, it can be hard to tell at a young age if something is wrong, but with individual attention, I think that these things can be detected or ruled out.
This week, our assignment was to examine a tech tool of our choice that can be used in the classroom. I chose to look into using online videos in the classroom mainly because it applies to absolutely any age group. I am still unsure about what grade I prefer to teach in the future and there is no way of knowing what I will have the opportunity to teach, so I thought that this would be the most useful and versatile tool to examine.
I checked out "Use Online Video in Your Classroom: How teachers can bring the best of YouTube to your students", by Jennifer Hillner from EduTopia. This page had some interesting insight into utilizing these videos to the advantage of education and some links to great resources.
My first impression upon looking over the page was, "Wow, times have changed". It is amazing that these days, a teacher could simply look up the topic they are teaching on the internet and provide a video component to their lesson whenever they like, and in a timely fashion no less. It is hard to comprehend how different things are since I was in elementary school.
The fact is, a teacher can talk about a topic until they are blue in the face, and students can read fro hours about a topic, but sometimes, actually viewing something with your own two eyes and seeing how it occurs can be the only way to fully wrap your heard around certain things. For instance, if a class was focusing on weather and some of the amazing and terrifying things that weather is capable of like hurricanes, which we do not have experience within Alaska, the only way to completely illustrate to the students what occurs in an actual hurricane is ultimately to show them a video of one.
I fully support and actually prefer the the books and class demonstrations that bring knowledge to our students, but I must admit, this does seem to be the most effective way to educate students on certain topics in certain situations. In fact, knowing I have this tool to drive home some of the concepts that I will be teaching is comforting to me as a future teacher.
As I stated before, the educational blog that I have chosen to follow this semester is eLearning Technology. It has an unbelievably wide array of information on anything anyone could ever need to know about educational technology. I looked the page over again and tried to become more comfortable with the overwhelming amount of information.
Then I took a look at some of the other blogs in EDFN 302. I enjoyed Amanda, Kevin, Kathryn, and Peter's blogs particularly, because like me, they mentioned how everyone in the class and every blog that we come across is quite different than the other. Blogs are like snowflakes... and I suppose fingerprints, as well. No two are the same, and I noticed that the five of us, along with eLearning Technology, can agree on that and stay true to this statement.
Each of these six blogs have different styles, layouts, and content, but are concerned with the same issues and information in their own ways. I found it quite interesting how we all are given the same assignments, and yet approach them in such unique ways and say so in our blogs.
The first source I used to familiarize myself with copyright was perfect for me right off the bat because right away, it stated how copyright is everywhere but most people do not have a firm grasp on the concept of copyright and hat it actually means. This article is entitled "The Purpose of Copyright", and it did indeed give me a deeper look into the purpose and meaning of copyright. Another article that was helpful to me was "Copyright 101 for Educators". There is also a fabulous chart, "Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines for teachers", for teachers (or future teachers) to use in order to guide them through the ambiguity of copyright laws.
After reviewing some of these sources, my understanding is that copyright is basically the rights to a work, no matter the form, giving the owner of said rights and only the owner to do what they like with that original work, whether it be copy, alter, or distribute. Seeing as many of the materials that teachers especially access for their lesson plans and classroom activities, they must be well versed in copyright laws.
However, fair use grants access to copyrighted works for certain purposes, such as teaching, that are being used to educate or better the public. I have read up on the designations specifically for teachers on this issue, but I would like to learn more about what is permitted and what happens when teachers or anyone else crosses the line mistakenly. The TEACH Act, or Technology, Education and Harmonization Act, further clarifies the conditions for legitimate classroom use and teacher rights.
