Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum

Well, I suddenly find myself at that time again. That time when the semester starts winding down and all of my courses come full circle in their reviews of the material learned. However, one course stands out above all the rest when it comes to meaningful information. To describe everything I learned from EME 4406, or Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum, would take days and days, and pages and pages to type up. So to keep it reasonable for myself and others, I will try to be brief yet thorough.

From this course, I learned a plethora of ways to use technology in the classroom. It can be used for communication and connecting with the community, to increase awareness of the world around the students, to inspire and encourage creativity and metacognitive thinking, it can be used for exploring and researching new ideas and perspectives, and it can be used simply as a way to get students interested and motivated to help them learn more meaningfully. I also learned many tools in which I could assist students to learn with technology, some of those being screencasting, podcasting, course wikis, concept mapping, blogging, social networking, using videos and games, and other online resources. Furthermore, I also learned about the controversies involving technology in education. So, I learned about both sides of the issue, and the problems that can arise through using technology in education, thus I have been able to develop my own views of how and when to use technology in education and how to work on solving the problems that may arise from it.

However, I didn’t just learn how to use technology. I also learned theories, ideas, and methods that I believe will make me a better teacher. I learned about the influence and uses of group work vs individual work, discussions, assessments, lesson planning, and being aware of the different ways that children can learn and how to adapt my lessons based on their interests and abilities.

What I would still like to know about using technology for teaching and learning is how to get other educators involved with using technology so that we can form a worldwide community and help each other to use technology when appropriate. I know there are websites for teachers to network on, but they seem to be under populated. There also doesn’t seem to be a very strong number of teachers who support technology in education, or who know how to use education in ways other than PowerPoint Presentations.

For other students planning on taking this course… my advice is to go wild with it. The more extravagantly you use technology in your lesson plans, the more fun you have creating them, and the more fun your students will have learning from them. Don’t be afraid to use multiple forms of technology in your lesson because of time constraints. Sometimes it’s more important to really learn one thing than it is to vaguely learn several things. Also, don’t procrastinate. Especially on journals. Once you get behind on those, it can be very time consuming and frustrating to catch up on them. So just keep up with your assignments, put obvious effort into everything you do, and you’ll do just fine!

Learning Networks

Alright. So I recently joined two learning networks. Plurk and Classroom 2.0.
Plurk was awful, I'm embarrassed that I invited my friends to join before I realized how bad it was. I can think of no practical use for Plurk.
Classroom 2.0 on the other hand is fantastic. I love that I can search for people based on various features, and that I can contact these people in a multitude of ways. I also thought that the forums were very useful. All the topics brought up in the forums are usually very interesting and worth some serious thought.

I'm following a few people who teach in Japan since I am a Japanese major and there is a good chance I will be teaching in Japan at some point in my life. Also, I haven't figured out how to search by where they work or what they do, so instead I was able to search by country and find people specifically in Japan, then filter out who would be worth talking to and who didn't put enough information on their page. That being said, a few of the people I am following are: Darren Elliot, John Paul Loucky, Michael Stout, Alex, and Kevin G. Rowley ( because I believe he is also taking EME 4406, so it will be interesting to see who he does in the future). With the exception of Kevin Rowley, everyone I follow teaches English in Japan, or has taught in Japan for a number of years at some point in their career.

I haven't engaged in any personal conversations as of yet , though I have posted comments to peoples pages ( they all live in Japan, so I would imagine they are very busy, and there is also the time difference). However, I have posted on a few discussions in the forums. I found a few discussions that were very interesting, and once I got around to writing my opinion I suddenly got very excited about this website. It was really fun and interesting to read other peoples opinions on controversial subjects in education, and I enjoyed being to put in my two cents as well. Some of the discussions I posted to were : Facebook for Students, and A Vision of K-2 Students Video.

From this process, I learned that there is a network out there for educators where we can all connect and share our ideas. Of course, I also learned that there are some very impractical networking sites out there, so I'm glad I decided to give Classroom 2.0 a try. I think Classroom 2.0 will be a very useful resource as an educator. I think it will be nice to be able to connect with other educators and get their opinions on controversial topics, as well as be able to get some creative ideas for lessons, and discuss our experiences. I think this website has a lot of potential. By searching through the forums I was able to see some very varying perspectives on different topics, and it inspired me to write up a little something on different ways to use facebook with the curriculum, so one day if facebook is still popular when I become a teacher, I will be able to integrate facebook into my classroom to some extent to keep the students connected and motivated.




The following is a work in progress, I just wanted to get my initial thoughts down for my own use. :P

How to use facebook in the classroom:

Kids are always on facebook these days. You might as well take advantage of it. One way to do this is to set up a group page for your classroom and ask your students to “become a fan”, offer extra credit if you have to. Through this you can keep them up to date with reminders on the group page about due dates, etc. This will also give them a place to ask questions of the teacher or each other when they are doing hw late at night because they spent all day on facebook ( hey, at least they are doing it!). This will also give them a good way to find their classmates in a neutral zone so that they can feel more comfortable about adding strangers from their class (yay for making friends!).

Here are some components of facebook and how to make them useful:

Status updates: Give students a brief reminder about what hw is due tomorrow! These will show up in their friend feeds with all their other friends status updates etc. So while they are browsing through to see what Jack and Jill are doing, they will come across your reminder.
Photos: upload photos of past assignments for students to do self-corrections, also you can upload photos of any group projects your students are proud of, share the love!
Wall/Discussion board: Q&A area, this could also be used for when you want your students to discuss topics relevant to the class as hw. Here you can monitor the discussions and remind them to stay on topic.
Events: Invite the students in your group to “events”. Events can be anything like big exams, due dates, student recitals, or out of class speakers, etc. (if they choose to “attend” it will show up in a side bar where their friends birthday reminders also show up).


As an added bonus, if you so choose, you can also invite student’s parents to the group. Believe it or not, there are a lot of parents on Facebook!

This will help to set parents minds at ease that you aren’t acting inappropriately with the students on facebook as they will be able to see your communications. Also, it might appease parent’s in the sense that they know their children are getting reminders and maybe even some school work done even though they are still on facebook.

Social Action and Communication

Social Action Related Websites:

1. http://www.takepart.com/ This site is best for 7-12th graders. Students can research current issues and participate in taking action. This could also be a good resource for highlighting controversial current events in a social studies course, or to find negative affects of recent historical events. This website also provides an application for students to tweet info from the website easily to help make an issue more well known.

2. http://www.blogger.com This site is best for 6-12th graders. Students can use it to gain readers and publish content that they can care about. They can also share the website with their friends and relatives to be shared out further to gain a larger audience. This site could also be used for teachers to keep students and parents up to date with what's going on in the class. Also, it could be used to gather interested parties and forward them to a more direct form of action such as a link to a petition, survey, or school project.

3. http://socialactions.com/ This site is best for 10-12th graders. They can use it to find petitions that are relevant to topics of interest, and follow the petitions to the original website to learn more. they can also use it to meet other people who share the same interests and work together to effect changes. Teachers can use it to encourage their students to get involved in things they care about and to meet other people to discuss the topics learn other peoples points of view, and effect change.

Communication Skills Related Websites:
1. http://www.essortment.com/all/communicationte_rqmd.htm This site is good to use with 6-11th graders. It contains great ideas for activities to teach students good communication skills without the students getting defensive about already knowing how to communicate.


2. http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/08/12/rs.how.to.think.on.feet/index.html This site is best for 8-12th graders. The information within can be used to create a fun activity in which students learn and practice how to think fast and improve their communication skills.

3. http://www.podomatic.com This site is best for 10-12th graders. It can be used to create podcasts for students to listen to later, or it can be used to have students create their own podcasts to share with the class or the world. When time is tight it can also be used for recording student foreign language oral presentations in a lab where the teacher can monitor that they aren't reading off of something. It can also be used for students to create advertisements, how-to-podcasts, and messages about a cause they want to share.

Curiosity, Imagination, Creativity, & Play

What do you know about curiosity, imagination, creativity, and play?
I know that these four elements are important to learning and help children to discover and learn things on their own. It is important for children to socialize and play in different ways while they are young in order to develop social skills. It is also important for adults to play in order to keep our imagination, creativity, and curiosity engaged so that we can continue to grow as people.

What do you want to know about curiosity, imagination, creativity, and play?
I want to know how to encourage these things in any grade level while maintaining course relevance. I also want to know the mechanics of how these things help children learn. Also, I’d like to know how to foster these elements in children who at first seem to be unresponsive or uninterested in play.

What you learned about curiosity, imagination, creativity, and play?
I learned that it takes all different kinds of creativity and play for our world to be successful. Without all these elements we would still be socializing around a fire in a cave, but since we are curious and play we have developed all kinds of things to change our living conditions and evolve. Also, I learned that play is important for kids to socialize, and without it it could lead to problems later on in life (an extreme being becoming a mass murderer). Also, without engaging our creative selves we tend to lock ourselves into our own little worlds of repetition where nothing exciting ever happens and we lose all sense of imagination. It is important that we encourage our imagination and creativity as well as that of our children so that we can continue to grow and explore our world. It is especially important now to encourage creativity in children since so many creative classes are being removed from the curriculum so that children never have a chance to continue pursuing anything creative and thus continue growing creatively and improving their critical thinking skills. One big element of creativity is that children have a chance to work hands on with things, or to have problems tailored to the interests of children to get them more interested in what they are doing and make their imagination more applicable to the world we live in. Once a child’s imagination is able to escape from the confines of their minds the result is a slew of new creative inventions that may have never been thought of otherwise. After watching these videos, I also learned that adults do play, and I began to realize all the ways in which I still play, even if it isn’t the same way that I did as I child. I also learned that failure can be an asset when it comes to imagination and creativity, both of which can help people survive during tough times. Without creativity, imagination, curiosity, and play, we wouldn’t be where we are as a society and we wouldn’t be able to advance ourselves.

Fair Use, Copyrights, and Creative Commons

(1) Include the notes you took on the resources here:
Four factors taken into consideration during copyright trials: “the nature of the use, the nature of the work used, the extent of the use, and its economic effect (the so-called “four factors”).”
Guidelines on fair use are just that, guidelines, not laws that have to be followed exactly in order to act lawfully.
“• Did the unlicensed use “transform” the material taken from the copyrighted work
by using it for a different purpose than that of the original, or did it just repeat
the work for the same intent and value as the original?
• Was the material taken appropriate in kind and amount, considering the nature
of the copyrighted work and of the use?
If the answers to these two questions are “yes,” a court is likely to find a use fair.”
( still typing the rest up since I wrote them on notebook paper..)

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(2) Please describe how the multimedia artifact you submitted for this assignment demonstrates your understanding of the following issues:

(a) Educational Fair Use- I used images from a website in order to educate people about copyrights. The information in the images was not originally intended for this purpose, so I transformed them for my own purpose of education. I also used a youtube video to teach people the basics of knitting, and although I didn’t alter it, I attributed it to the source.
(b) Creative Commons- I used an example of someone who has a creative commons license on her knitting pattern. I also used a link to the website hosting the pattern and used a picture of the product of the pattern. I was able to do this because her creative commons license gives me permission to.
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(3) Please provide a self-evaluation of your artifact using the following criteria:

Creativity- I think I portrayed this pretty creatively. Instead of just creating a straightforward lesson about Fair Use and Creative Commons, I made a presentation on a topic that you might not ordinarily think of at first when you think of those topics.

Artifact design- I think the design is alright. I’m not spectacular at using Google Presentations. However, I think it’s about as well designed as I can make it at this point.

Success in demonstrating knowledge of content- I think I demonstrated knowledge of the content well by instructing people to be aware of Creative Commons while simultaneously being aware of it myself to use the sources I did.

Effort put forth- I think the effort put forth into this assignment varies based on the aspects of it. It was hard to find an example of someone who used a Creative Commons License. It was also pretty hard trying to think of a presentation topic in the first place. However, I didn’t put forth 110% of my effort towards it, though I do have intentions of adding another media source to the presentation sometime in the future.

Level of learning attained- I think my level of learning attained was mediocre. I feel like I learned the gist of the material by reading and watching the sources provided. But they didn’t give me a very deep understanding of the material. So although I learned enough to be aware of Fair Use and Creative Commons, I probably couldn’t give a speech on it or write a paper on it, etc.
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(4) Provide feedback on the assignment so I can continually improve the course.
I thought this assignment was deceptively difficult. The videos were unexciting and the 24 page document was informative yet hard to retain. I think if there were more interesting ways for us to learn this, the actual assignment following the readings/videos would have been a better experience. Other than the lack of excitement in the readings/videos, I think the assignment was well thought out, and could be a good way of cementing the information in our minds. I think Step 2, was a good idea since you wanted us to create something based on what we learned. Overall it was a good assignment, and the only thing lacking was to be found with the interest level of the readings/videos.


My Artifact:
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhqw3dhk_142vr47nct

RSS Reader

The sites I'm following are mostly blogs by kindergarten teachers and people who teach English in Japan. A blog that reviews foreign films, a blog called Forecast Earth, and two or three personal blogs. I choose these sites because they were of interest to me. My ideal job would be teaching kindergarten, so by following the kindergarten teacher blogs I've been able to read about some very creative lessons and the teachers experiences. By following the English in Japan teachers' blogs I've been able to see what teaching in Japan is really like. And I'll tell you what, at least where these people are teaching, it is nothing like programs like JET and other overseas teaching programs try to tell you it is. So,thanks to these blogs, I feel like my knowledge of what these positions have the potential to be like has already significantly increased. I also think that if I continue to watch these sites, and even follow some others with different view points or experiences I will be able to become a little more rounded in my knowledge of the subjects, and thus hopefully have a little bit better understanding of what to expect if I end up in any of the positions of the people in the blogs that I follow.

What was challenging about this activity was finding blogs that were actually worth following. It seemed like a lot of the blogs and websites that came up in the search were more or less useless. And before I could even search for anything, it was somewhat hard to figure out what I wanted to search for. Since I'm not entirely sure what I will end up teaching, I decided to just follow blogs from every subject I have considered. However, I wasn't able to find anything worthwhile about teaching Home Economics. Once I found something I wanted to follow, it was really easy to do so since I only had to click an icon, it would ask me if I wanted to follow that site, and viola!

As a teacher I think I could use a feed reader to alert students to blogs and things that I thought would be of interest to them, or would pertain to the lesson. Instead of writing DBQ's on the board, I could have them access the reader (or bring it up on a screen) , and have them respond to something from that and write about how it is relevant to our class. I could also do a kind of activity that asked them to follow a certain number of sites on a given topic, and report their findings after a week. Kind of like what we were asked to do for this journal assignment.

To further my knowledge of feed readers, I would like to learn how to make a Google RSS account public so that other people could view what I was following. I might also like to learn a little more about other feed reading sources. Also, it would be interesting to learn how other teachers have used feed readers in their classes.

Access

Socioeconomic status affects access to the Internet and social media by limiting people’s ability to utilize these resources. People with a lower socioeconomic status often have less access to these resources. Since Internet is not a freely given resource, it can be hard for some people to obtain it, and thus hard to utilize it. Even when people with a lower status are able to access the Internet through libraries, etc. they still may not be as adept to using it as are people with a higher socioeconomic status who have had more experience with Internet and social media through their ability to have the Internet on hand and easily accessible.

Access to the Internet and social media is important because it is how many people choose to communicate, and the number of people choosing to make this choice is only increasing. Everyday there are 2 million more people accessing the Internet. These days, people use the Internet for networking, socializing, communicating important messages, leisure, planning, researching, advertising, and countless other activities. It is important for people to be able to access these activities in order for them to be able to keep up with their peers. Without access to the Internet and social media, it could be hard for some people to keep up with things such as the most recent research on stem cells, where the after hours office meeting has been moved to, or what their friends across the country have been up to recently. The Internet is an important to for discerning and delivering information and many people use it as their primary source to get information out to other people, therefore its important that those other people also have access to the Internet and social media so that they can receive the information.

In order to support students who do not have access to the Internet at home, we could inform them of places that give free Internet access, such as many libraries. It would also be helpful to talk to schools about providing students access to on-campus computer labs before and after school. It may also be a good idea for schools to begin renting out laptops for a night to students, just as you would rent out a book, so that the student is still responsible for returning it, but is also able to utilize the resource when they need to. If these things cannot be done, we can support students without Internet access at home by giving them guidance on how to make the most of their time on the Internet when they are able to get to a computer with free Internet access. Also, we should teach life skills of how to get by without the Internet so that students will be able to plan ahead and communicate effectively enough that the Internet is not constantly necessary.