Digital Blog Post #C

This week in “Technology for Educators” we were asked to review Chapters 5 and 7 in our textbook and share three concepts that we could elaborate on. 

Electronic note taking seems to be the future of the ole’ pen and paper, our text seems to think. Several applications and software programs have electronic note taking built in, or it is just as simple to add a note taking option to any device these days. Some of the most popular note taking applications are EverNote, One Note and Google’s note taking app, GoogleKeep. They are all variations of the same concept: jot your notes down on whichever device you have handy and have access to your content on any device you own. The more sophisticated versions also have a collaboration option to them which make group projects a snap. I, however, am not a fan of electronic note taking. My note taking process is more of a mind mapping jumble of organized mess, and I love it that way. Throughout the years I have developed my own code and system of arrows and boxes that makes perfect sense to me. The thought of being semi confined to text on an electronic device that could die or fail at any moment (we have ALL been there) doesn’t sit with me well, which is why I have not made the switch. I made this comic using BitStrips.com to light heartedly illustrate how technology could fail, but the teacher will always swoop in and save the day!

Credit to Amanda Sweeney 

The second concept that I focused on for this post is broadening the typical web search methods of my students. Too often “Google” is the quick solution for everything online. As our text points out, “Google is now one of the most visited Internet sites worldwide, and the company is continually expanding…” (Maloy 2013, p. 108).To “Google” is now considered a verb and I have many times referred to “consulting Dr. Google” when trying to self diagnose when something in my body goes awry. There are many other search engines out there on the vast World Wide Web as well as different types of searches, as we learned in Chapter 5. Some tips to get a better search is to add Boolean terms that are more restrictive, less restrictive or excluding (OR, AND, and NOT, respectively) to narrow what you are looking for.

Photo Credit to Zuyd, International

The third concept that I focused on in our reading was digital games for online learning. Teaching is a new learning path for me and online gaming wasn’t “a thing” when I was in school so this concept continues to fascinate me. Initially I was pretty against gaming, but now I am reconsidering. Our text points out many different types of online gaming- from virtual worlds, simulation games, browser based games and finally, apps. I typically think that there aren’t vast quantities of fans for something unless it is well liked and proven to have positive outcomes. This must be true for gamed-learning. Our text has approximately 10 pages of various gaming options, suggestions and research dedicated to this concept, so I believe there must be a lot of good coming from it. Sure enough, I recently did observation hours in a 1^st grade classroom. When the children were broken down into stations for the day, a desktop based game was one of the stations. I asked the teacher what she thought of it and she was very pleased with the quality and knowledge that the kids got from the online program. Sure enough, while doing research for the previous rubric assignment I searched for almost an hour before coming across an informational website geared towards kids. All of the others I found through web searches of “kids websites” were ALL some kind of game! The games seem to grab the engagement of children (and young adults!) and use their time with the child in the best possible way. I suppose if my children will be participating in online gaming, I would prefer that it is educational as it seems many other parents do.

Gif credit to Wikipedia Commons 

Resources: 

Dratini0. (2012, May 2). File:PascalTriangleAnimated2.gif. Retrieved February 21, 2016, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PascalTriangleAnimated2.gif 

Effective searching. (n.d.). Retrieved February 21, 2016, from http://bibliotheek.zuyd.nl/en/information-literacy/finding-information/effective-searching 

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Sweeney, A. M. (2016, February 16). Technology Strikes Again! Retrieved February 21, 2016, from https://bitstrips.com/user/NR3VNS/read.php?comic_id=CX7CK 

Digital Blog Post #B

This is my first semester at FSW with the intention of obtaining an Elementary Education degree. I am enrolled in two “teaching” courses and in one of them I was asked, “What is your teaching philosophy?” I didn’t know. Right off the bat even a simple Google of teaching philosophies didn’t point me in the right direction of what I thought embodied me as a future teacher. In Chapters 2 and 3 of our text, however, two opposing teaching philosophies were reviewed: student centered teaching and teacher-centered teaching. After review of these I would say that I will undoubtedly be more towards the student-centered teaching viewpoint.

Student-centered teaching, according to our text, is about “orchestrating different experiences for students” and that “the role of the teacher is to create puzzles, ask questions, and engage in conversation with students” and guide them on their own path of study (Maloy 2013, p. 36). This is right up my alley and exactly what I hope to embody as a teacher one day. This style of learning was always my favorite and it felt like a real world experience than another day of being talked at for hours.

By being a teacher that will focus on a learner centered structure, I hope to incorporate as much technology into my classroom as I can. With that being said, I will also have to teach the students how important it is to research credible sources, and to use critical thinking to determine what is credible and what is not.  Our textbook calls this “Internet literacy”, and featured an experiment on a fictional “Tree Octopus” that had middle school students tricked into thinking a forest octopus actually existed. This example would be perfect to re-simulate in a classroom to prove the importance of doing more than just reading online content, but also to deconstruct it and question its validity. Here are a couple of prime examples by using the fantastic tools at piktochart.com:

The third concept that struck my attention was expressing online creativity. Our text refers to creativity as being too wide spread, and true creativity only existing in genius form (such as Mozart and Einstein) (Maloy 2013, p. 63). While I understand that perspective and can respect that the great innovative thinkers were definitely creative, I think creativity can be present in smaller forms and still be considered “creativity”. Students will find that expressing, thinking or acting creatively in a typical classroom setting can be difficult, so I suspect that by adding another dimension to that will create a bigger divide between the creative students and the non. I could be wrong, however. Constructing online content could be easier for those students that don’t express easily otherwise. There are many forms of expression available to students these days online through Social Media and applications. The largest and fastest growing online photography app, Instagram, sold for a cool 1 billion dollars shortly after its inception and continues to be a huge company to this day (Swisher, 2013).  Instagram is the front runner in expressive art applications that are used by today’s youth.

Resources:

Baby-foot-womb [Photograph]. (n.d.).

http://jmsmith.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/baby-foot-womb.jpg

Lichtenstein castle [Photograph]. (n.d.). Khao Phing Kan.

This fake photograph is difficult to trace back to it's origin. What is known is that it is a combination of photos from a German castle, Lichtenstein castle, and Khao Phing Kan in Thailand. The creator submitted this product for a photo altering contest on www.worth1000.com.

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Misener, J. (2013, July 26). 15 Viral Pinterest Photos That Are Actually Fake. Retrieved February 03, 2016, from http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/15-viral-pinterest-photos-that-are-actually-fake#.hxZ3LM23K

Schroder, A., & E. P. (2013, August 30). Taylor Swift Pinterest page is actually a bunch of Hitler quotes. Retrieved February 03, 2016, from http://www.dailydot.com/lol/real-taylor-swift-pinterest-quotes-hitler/

Sweeney, A. M. (2016, February 3). Internet Literacy with a Modern Disguise. Retrieved February 03, 2016, from https://magic.piktochart.com/editor/piktochart/10989734#

Swisher, K. (2013, June). Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom on What Really Happened When Facebook Bought Instagram. Retrieved February 03, 2016, from http://www.vanityfair.com/news/business/2013/06/kara-swisher-instagram