Module 4-2: Digital Literacy

I think I am finally at the place in my technology education that I am not more and more overwhelmed the more I research. I found a great blog post on edutopia's Big list that helps teachers have fun in the summer learning new technologies. The writer says to start out by using the new technologies for you personal use and as a teacher you will probably think of ways to use it in the classroom. The article gives 10 technologies to become familiar with.

Using something called MIRO, teachers can make their own video vault for use in class. Itunes for videos. This beats trying to find a video off the internet the night before your lesson.

Bighugelabs.com is site that helps organize pictures into posters, collages, etc. I can already think of ways students could use this to enhance the learning of history.

Comic life by Plasq would really be enjoyable for students of all ages. Comics or graphic novels could be made for any unit of history and the students could create, create, create.

Newseum looks interesting. My students are interested in what is going on in other parts of the world, but are often very ignorant of the facts. This could be used daily or so to add a global perspective on our social studies learning

These are just a few ideas in the post. This is the kind of thing I like finding. Not just talking and discussing, real practical applications I can use in my life and in my classroom.

Module 4: Changes

The video of the man trying to learn the new technology of the book was hilarious. I look back at my first try at using different gadgets and technologies and think of how silly my questions would seem to someone familiar with it. That cannot stop us from continuing to learn new things, as these new technologies are coming faster and faster.

I have always believed people learn better when they are having fun. You want to participate, you want to be successful, and you may want to try it again if you are having fun. If our students are bored and not challenged with things relevant to their lives, what point is the 180+ days of school we make them suffer through every year.

I am going to put the video about how students learn on my desktop so I can watch it at very regular intervals. I hav become a believer that if we do not teach our students with technology as much as possible we are doing a great disservice to them, if not harming their education and lives. Students today expect and deserve to be taught using the most up to date technologies available. How do I do this, that is what I am trying to figure out!





This is one video out of a group of 8 that shows the use of different digital learning devices in the classroom. After watching all 8, I found that the one on using youtube would be the most beneficial to my classroom at this time. In my school, we have to be extra careful of confidentiality and my students are not often able to be out in the community. This make some technologies very hard to adapt. Youtube now has an education component that has been very useful already for my students. It is amazing how much more attention the computer screen gets than I usually do. I am firmly of the belief that teachers need much more assistance in bringing technology into the classroom. The time and learning curve issues are so great it is very hard for most teachers to learn the technology and then be able to make engaging lessons thorughout the year using them. I think this is why teachers so often fall back to more traditional teaching methods. The educational community needs to hand teachers good lessons they can use in the classroom with new technologies they can implement with little leg work. These videos do that. You can watch each one and get one or more ideas of how you could use a new technology in your classroom. I will continue to search for these ideas, and when I find them or create my own, I will share them with the teaching community.

My goal is to use our school's airliner, a powerpoint, and the mobile computers at least one day for each unit for the rest of the school year. I hope I can do this more, but if I can do them once a unit, that would be approximately 15 days of digital learning in my classroom for the remainder of the school year. I will report on my progress near the end of the term.

Emerging Technology 1: Thinkfinity

I have always believed the educational system does a great disservice to educators and students with its lack of support in lesson planning for the classroom teacher. With the multitude of tasks a teacher has, the more resources and access to others ideas are invaluable. The Social networking the web allows us, teachers around the world can share good units and lessons and hopefully create classrooms with more engaging and productive lessons.



The technology I am researching today is called Thinkfinity. It is a website by Verizon that is useful for educators, students, and teachers. If you would like to get a run-down of what it is all about clik here http://www.thinkfinity.org/tour/thinkfinitytour.aspx. It is a type of clearinghouse for standards based lessons and activities. I will be using a lesson this week I found through thinkfinity on Lewis and Clark. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/13/g68/object.html.



Lessons and activities are only part of what Thinkfinity offers. There is homework help for students, book lists, interactive games, maps and many other useful resources. I can see Thinkfinity being used in my classroom by myself and my students regularly.