Learning How To

I decided that I was going to learn how to play "Let It Be" on the piano.  I have a couple years of piano experience.  This was going to make it a lot easier to learn this task.  When I searched YouTube for the right video, I had plenty of videos to choose from.  I had to then search through which ones were even  close to helping me to play the song.  Then out of the ones that helped I had to find the one that used the terms of music that I knew.  After about 30 min of many times of replaying and rewinding through the video, I was able to play the song (not perfectly though).

I think this relates to teaching with the help of videos.  I think that the students need some sort of background knowledge to be able to understand the topic.  If I didn't know anything about piano or music, it was going to be hard to be able to learn how to play with the language they used in the video. I also think that you need to narrow down the videos that are out there that actually are useful in learning.  However, I think you do need to need to have a variety to give students the choice to fit their learning styles.

Assessments Through Student's Eyes

I really like the Turning Failure into Success scenario given in this article.  Isn't this the point of school? to learn.  Assessments are there to measure what they already know.  Students really don't get that much learning out of it.  I don't think that assessments should be changed.  I think that it is necessary for teachers to evaluate the progress their students.  I just think that the one time opportunity  of assessments should change.  The mistakes that a student makes on an assessment provides a great learning opportunity.  I think that learning from your mistakes is one of the best ways of learning.  Why not take advantage of this great learning opportunity?  Instead of giving this one time opportunity for success, students should be able to be getting something out of them.  This also helps a student break a losing streak if they get that "AH-HA" moment where they realize mistakes that they do.  This confidence will most likely get them on the winning-streak that will help them succeed in the future.

One-on-One Computing Programs

In the article that we read, I got two main points that are very important to the 1-on-1 computing in classrooms.  The first one is obviously getting the teachers behind using this technology.  The teachers are the the ones that are that are controlling and guiding the students.  If a teacher doesn't back this up, the laptops will cause a bigger distraction rather helping the student, and students won't be using the technology to its fullest potential.  This could potentially a huge step in a schools progress with this technology.  This is why I like that the teachers should get to use the technology before they implement it so that the teacher gets to get the feel for it and to see if they actually decide to get behind it.

The other point that the article pointed out that I thought was good was that the schools should get the students involved in the planning, tech support and visioning and research teams.  I think that this will help the school build the program the way the students would like rather than the way that the administrators planning it around what they think that the students will want.  The students will give some ideas and different perspective to the administrators This will also help because the students will think that they had a say in it and will get the students even more interested in the approach.

iPads and Campfires

The two articles I used.
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the-state-of-ipad-in-education-a-giant-mess
http://www.zdnet.com/ipads-and-tablets-in-k12-when-will-we-get-it-together-7000004656/

There has been a big push for schools to get iPads, tablets, etc.  However this article poses some good arguments for why the iPad wouldn't be very good for the classroom.  The main problem that the article states is simply the cost.  Besides the $399 that it cost for one iPad, there are more expenses that go along with these.  The article states that "That $399 cost doesn't even begin to address the less obvious costs of appropriate content and device management systems, school bandwidth, teacher training/professional development, and network infrastructure required to fully leverage the hardware."  Teacher training is the biggest part of the cost of bringing iPad into the classroom.  Teachers are now getting hounded to integrate technology into their lessons, but they can't keep up with the expectations.  There are a lot of teachers that are going to need a lot of training to incorporate these technologies.

Besides what the article says, I think that these can be very helpful when it comes to the "campfire,"  and they are worth the cost.  New teachers will have a good understanding of these new technologies.  These tablets provide so much more material for a teacher to use.  There are apps. that the students can use to help them understand a lesson, and students can even access the  internet for even more uses for the student.  With these tablets, it makes the teacher able to access tons more information that they can then pass on to the students.  This makes the "campfire" more like a bonfire.

Downside of Technology and Education

 Link to the Article

In TEAC 259 we talk about how technology can be a huge advancement in the classroom.  New technology will make teaching easier and better.  With all this praise about education and technology, we forget to think about the downsides of technology in education.  One major downside to technology and education is cheating.  Many students cheat because they want to do as best as they can in their studies, and they don't really care how they do it.  Advancement in technology have made it way too easy for students to cheat with their school work. There are infinite ways for students to communicate and collaborate about school work in the wrong way.  There is even more ways to find information on any topic imaginable, and it could be on a students paper with two clicks of the mouse.  With it being so easy I think that schools need to step up their enforcement of their cheating and plagiarizing rules.

Preventing students from cheating is a mighty task.  However, this is where technology could be useful again in the classroom though.  There are many anti-plagiarism software that are already available for schools to get.  I think that the biggest place schools need to focus on is online assignments/test.  It is too easy to have another tab open and Googling the question while doing an assignment.  Companies that make this software should do something about that because that is probably the most common way that students cheat.

12 Tech Trends

Technology is always changing and improving.  It has improving exponentially for the past couple of years.  Teachers are using smartboards in the classroom and students are getting their own iPads to do all of their school work on.  The present normal classroom is changing dramatically.  There are many educational tech trends that are emerging right now.  The biggest trend from this article that have to do with high school math teacher is the  and the "web apps."

The next tech trend that will be useful to me is the web apps.  I think that hands on learning is the best way for a student to learn, and i think that there is not a better way to get the student involved in the material than web apps.  These apps let the student have freedom of exploring the with the lesson rather than just sitting in a chair listening to the teacher lecture the students.  I think this will come in handy with me because most kids are not that interested in math to begin with.  If I could find a way to let students interact with the lesson, this would make my chances higher that a student will understand that material or even find it interesting.  I know when I was in math class, the teacher used some apps to go along with the lecture they gave.  These made the those certain lesson so much better because it was easy to understand when you see the material on something other than a book.  If I could incorporate these apps into my lessons, I think that this will help my students greatly.  With the way technology is advancing, I think that I won't have any problem incorporating apps into all of my lessons.

Technology and Learning Objectives

I think that technology can play a big part in helping teachers write and communicate their learning objectives with their students and fellow teachers.  With students, teachers can post their learning objectives on a website like Edmodo the day before class.  This would let the student be able to look at what they are going to learn the next day and possibly read and study the material before that class so that they can have an understanding of the material.  Then if the student has an understanding of the material going into the class will be able to learn even more from the lesson.  Also, posting learning objectives online will help a student that has missed a day of class.  The student could easily access the learning objectives for that day.  Then the student will know what to get out of doing the lesson by themselves.

Teachers can also benefit from technology and learning objectives.  Teachers could post their objectives in a database.  Then other teachers would be able to access these objectives and use them to help write their own objectives if they are having trouble writing themselves.  Teachers could also go straight to another teacher with an email to get help with an objective.  Technology could also help substitute teachers.  If subs were able to access what the real teachers want the students to learn, it would make the subs job easier by knowing what to teach.  The real teacher then could come back and make it seem as if they never missed a day.

Role of technology in my education

Being from a smaller higher school has definitely restricted the use of modern technology in my education.  All through out most of my high school all we had were computers and laptops, but teachers never really used them for our education.  They were only used primarily used in my math classes.  However, that later part of my Junior year and into my senior year, our school purchased a couple of smart boards.  I thought that these advancements in my last one and a half years played a big role in my education.  These advancements made it easier for the teachers to educate us students.  They found things on the internet to help enhance the lessons that they were giving to us.  

I can see technology playing a huge role in my career as an educator.  It has already been two years since I have left my high school and they have already given all the students in it iPads.  After talking to some of my friends that still go there, I've realized that their education has changed dramatically.  They have said that they only use the iPads for all their homework and rarely use notebooks and writing notes.  If this is how much technology can advance in a school after two years, I can't imagine what it could be in 4 or 5 years.  I can see technology playing the main role in schools in the near future.  It pretty much already is playing a big role, but I can see it getting bigger and bigger through out every level of education.

My First Blog

I'm really excited to get to know how to incorporate technology into the classroom so that students will be able to learn way more than they would with just a teacher lecturing to them.  I am also excited to be able to discover all the different types of ways technology can help a teacher in and also out of the classroom.