Blog Post #5

Why should teachers use technology to communicate with students, parents and peers?

Teachers should use technology to communicate with students, parents and peers because it is a very effective communication tool. Teachers can communicate with parents directly on the Internet through e-mails and blogs, or they can use other forms of technology to create newsletters and fliers. Technology makes just about everything more efficient and more accessible. Students are often excited by the use of technology in the classroom, and it can help to spark their interest on certain topics. Students are able to go farther, explore more, and investigate more quickly with the use of technology. Teachers are able to show off student work through class blogs and even newsletters. Being able to see their child's work allows parents to feel more connected to the classroom and gets parents more involved in their child's education. 

Which technology tools have the greatest potential to improve communication between teachers and others?

Desktop Publisher and Microsoft Word can both be greatly used to a teachers' advantage. With these programs they can make newsletters (as I mentioned before) and even worksheets for their students. In this class we made both and I was pleasantly surprised to see what I could create with just these programs. Desktop Publisher allows teachers to make their own, original worksheets so that they are not limited to the worksheets provided in the basic curriculum. We made a worksheet and a flier in class in Desktop Publisher from scratch. With this program, possibilities are virtually endless. 

How do these tools improve communication?

These tools allow teachers to communicate with parents and students without calling or scheduling a meeting. The goal as a teacher should not be to eliminate meeting with parents entirely, but to make necessary communication more efficient. Parents and teachers both have very busy lives, and incorporating technology into your communication as a teacher works very nicely when neither of you have time to sit down and discuss the progress of their child. As stated earlier, class blogs can help to show student work and allow parents to ask students or the teacher more specifically about what is going on in the class. When used correctly, technology tools are able to improve communication not only between the teacher and others, but also the parent and student. Parents can ask their children to tell them more about a project they saw on the class blog rather than asking the monotonous question we have all heard far too often, "So, what did you learn at school today?"

Blog Post #4

In Defense of My Gadgets:

Other than my profile, search bar, pages, and blog archive gadgets on my blog, I have chosen a few others that supplement the information given in my blog. First of all, I chose to add a voki to my page. I feel that it really brings life to the page, and makes people more interested in finding out what my blog is about. I added two gadgets that serve the purpose of counting visitors. Although they serve the same basic purpose, they are still essentially different. One of them is a cluster map. This one shows people's geographic location on a map from where they visited my blog. I am very interested to see if people from different countries end up visiting. The second page-view counter simply counts the number of times my page has been viewed. It also keeps track of how many people visited the page per day. The cluster map really brings the reality of the Internet to life as we can see that people from across the world have access to the information I put out on the Web. I also created a poll on my page. This will help me to see how big of a problem cyber-bullying really is and how much it really effects people. Along with these gadgets, I chose a powerful video, which illustrates the harmful effects of cyber-bullying. This emphasizes the importance of technology in the classroom, and will hopefully help people to realize how important it is for children to be educated in E-Sponsibility because of how much technology is integrated today. Last, but certainly not least, I added links to different pages that include interesting information. They relate to E-Sponsibility and may help some people to realize how important it is to carefully consider everything they post on the Web.

Sustainability

In class, our teacher showed us a Voice Thread that she had previously made which included many thought provoking images. We all then went through individually and commented on various images that we felt strongly about.

Accountability

Click to Enlarge

While discussing accountability in class, we made a mind map of the pros and cons of technology in regards to accountability. This mind map shows how it can hurt as well as help in the classroom.

Evaluating Educational Blogs

Blog that Works:
Kindergarten Tales
This is a blog for a Kindergarten class, created by two teachers who teach the class together. The teachers keep the layout of the blog season oriented, so right now it features birds, flowers and spring colors. The header is rather large, but it works for the theme of the blog. There is a lot of student work featured in the blog, which is exciting for students as well as parents to see. This blog provides ideas for learning outside of the classroom through other technology venues such as apps for iPads and iPods. Students helping and working with other students are featured in videos in this blog, and  there are numerous pictures of children doing activities in the classroom. There are even stories on the blog that children can go to and read just as if they were reading the actual book. The children are encouraged to make their own books using a website provided on the blog, and are then able to share them with their classmates.

Blog That Needs Work:
TEAM TOA-Shanghai American School, Pudong, Third Grade Blog
This is a blog for a third grade class, yet the amount of information crammed into the blog is overwhelming even to me as a college student. It looks like a fairly decent blog when first arriving at the page with a picture of the students in the class and only a few colors, but upon scrolling down, I couldn't handle all of the information being thrown at me. The fonts are all different sizes and colors, and there is so much information in the sidebars that your eyes never get a break. There are clocks on the left side of the page which display the "times around the world," which I don't feel is necessary in the first place, but the times are not even accurate. There are pictures showing students in the classroom which is nice, but they are all crammed together so that you don't really get a chance to see each individual photo. They are also all the same photo, the only difference being the student featured in it. I enjoy seeing pictures of what is going on in the classroom, but in this case, there needs to be a more vast assortment of activities going on in the pictures, and they need to be spread out throughout the blog a lot more. Overall this blog is just very overwhelming. It may have great information, but finding it and knowing what is important is very difficult.

Wordle: Digital Divide

Set Two Questions:

1.) Is it important for all people to have access to the Internet? Why or why not?

2.) Will eliminating the digital divide create new global, national, and/or local social problems?

3.) What might these new problems be?

E-Sponsibility

If teachers are friends with their students on social networks such as facebook, their private lives as displayed online absolutely should be scrutinized. When the teachers allow their students to see what goes on in their lives outside of the classroom, everything they see should be age appropriate for all students. If a teacher has photos in which substances such as alcohol are visible, they should not be viewable by their students. It is one of a teacher's many responsibilities to protect his or her students from negative influences whenever possible. Teachers should be role models for their students, and allowing students to see inappropriate material sets a bad example. Where the line should be drawn seems to be the biggest question involving this issue. Many cases of school boards attempting to fire teachers over pictures found on the internet involve a single glass of wine or a beer on the table in the picture. Photographs such as these are not legitimate reasons for a teacher to lose his or her job. A teacher who is of age and has posted a picture of herself drinking a glass of wine on vacation in Italy does not deserve to lose her teaching license for any reason presented in the photograph. If this same teacher posted a photograph of herself belligerently drunk and dancing on a table during her vacation in Italy, I could see the school board having a case to go off of. Even if the teacher did have this picture on her facebook though, if she was an excellent teacher and her students had no way of seeing the picture, I would still have a hard time saying she should be fired. If the teacher is responsible enough to keep her personal life separate from her work life and continue to excel in her work, there is no real reason why she should lose her job.

As long as a teacher can be responsible about what he or she posts on social networking sites there should not be a problem. I don't feel that it is necessary for teachers to be "friends" with their students on facebook, especially when websites such as Edmodo are available for their use. When I become a teacher, I will not have any pictures that could be used against me in my career, nor will I allow my personal life to be put on display for my students. I will keep my personal life and career completely separate as I believe they should be. I do not want to take the risk of being fired over having a glass of wine after a rough day at work, so I will not put myself at risk for that. Especially now that teachers know the risks of putting photos involving alcohol on the internet for others to see, they should really reconsider posting them at all. Is showing the world something like a picture of yourself drinking a margarita in Mexico really worth your job? I think not. If you are really dying for your friends to see those pictures, why not invite them over to your house and show them in person? It seems silly to me that a teacher can lose his or her job over something so innocent, yet it is just not worth the risk to put it out on the internet for everyone to see.

My Experience With Technology in the Classroom

During my K-12 education, I was hardly ever exposed to technology in the classroom. In elementary school, we had computer classes where we learned to type through the use of typing games and challenges. Other than the chalkboard, my teachers only ever used overhead projectors to teach until I entered middle school. Elmos and PowerPoints were briefly introdu In 8th grade, I took geometry, and my teacher had just started experimenting with a smartboard. He wasn't very familiar with it, and was often confused about how to use it, so it wasn't until just recently during my practicum at Parker Elementary that I actually got to see a smartboard used properly.

If I were to begin teaching tomorrow, I would attempt to use a variety of technology tools in the classroom. I have seen smart boards used effectively, and would choose to use a smart board especially for teaching math. My mentor teacher for my practicum for winter term incorporated the smart board in his classroom into almost every math lesson. He would often allow his students to explain and write their answers using the smart board as well, which helped to engage every student in the class. I would also allow my students to work on laptops if they were available like they are at Parker Elementary. Laptops are somewhat of a necessity to students later on in their education, so learning to use them earlier in their life couldn't hurt. When I have seen them used in the classroom, it was very effective, and all of the students were excited to be able to use the technology.

EDST 220 Driving Questions

1. Why should teachers use technology to communicate with students, parents, and peers?
2. Which technology tools have the greatest potential to improve communication between teachers and others?
3. How do these tools improve communication?