Blog #4

I would like to begin this blog with stating that prior to this course I was not a big fan of a lot of technology use in the classroom. I thought technology used by the teacher could be useful to the educational process. But, allowing the students to use technology would be a disaster waiting to happen. You can call me old school but I thought that using too much technology in the classroom would take away from the relationship building that needs to occur between student and teacher. My EDCI 505 introduction to principles of instructional technology class has shown me there is a way to utilize technology but not lose touch with your students. Having worked in a charter school I have experienced student’s main interaction being with the computer. My class has shown me ways that I can incorporate technology into my class as a support to my lesson. I have seen how technology can help me with addressing the challenges differentiated instruction. I will be using technology for cooperative learning activities. I will also use technology for my record keeping. These are just a few uses I have discovered. As I become more comfortable with the integration of technology, into math and language arts, I see myself enhancing my student’s educational experiences in my classroom.

Blog #3

Since our last blog we have created an interactive power point, designed an educational movie and developed Wikispaces. I enjoyed creating the power point. I have created power points before, but never like the power point we designed for class. I liked the fact that we made the power points interactive so that students can use them as well the teacher. I also thought the hyperlinks added to the power point effectiveness. The educational movies were the next project.  What I enjoyed learning from this project was how to download a movie to you tube for public viewing.  I think the movies would be a great review of a lesson or units.  I plan to implement movies as reviews for student to review before or on our day of review for a quiz or test.  It was the first time I used Windows Live Movie Maker.  The third project was to develop a wikispace.  I haven’t been able to vision how I would implement this technology into my classroom.  The other technologies I thought provided the technology that the wikispace provides and then some. However the from this wikispace assignment I did discover some of the emerging technology that I found to be useful.  My favorite emergent technology was the side vibe. I liked the way that program helps with keeping all of the research and note taking information up on the monitor. With side vibe you don’t have a bunch of papers on the desk that need to be arranged in some manner, everything is on front of you on the computer.