Week Six: Reflection

I was very nervous about creating a Jing presentation this week...simply because I have never tried to do this before. Now every time I happen to catch a glimpse of the little sun at the top of my screen, I feel the overwhelming desire to capture whatever I am working on to show other people. Unfortunately for me, I really don't have a need to use Jing on a regular basis, and I figure my mom will quickly lose interest in the emails I send her with a Jing presentation of me typing her an email. ☺ But because of the excitement I feel for this new-found knowledge I have with this type of technology, I can see why students get so excited when they learn that they can use technology to present what they are learning in class. Technology in any form is a great way to get our students actively engaged in their learning. As teachers, it is very important that we remember to step outside of the box of "traditional teaching" and use technology to reach and teach our students. Teaching with technology is (or should be) the new teaching tradition. Our students have grown up with computers and iPods and video games, so we need to teach them with these things in mind. Presentations through podcasts and Jing are a great way to accomplish this.

I know that when I was still teaching, the 'thing' that held me back when it came to incorporating technology into the classroom and daily lessons was my lack of knowledge. I am only just beginning to learn how to use many different types of technology that are available to me. I find it hard to step out and try something new--I still don't own an iPhone or an iPod--so trying to think of how to teach a lesson was enough stress for me sometimes. I didn't want to have to learn how to teach a concept and learn how to use a new form of technology at the same time.

If I had a magic wand to wave around, I would use it to change my technology skills and abilities ::poof:: just like that! Part of my problem is that I often feel like I don't have the time to learn a new trick. Had it not been for this class, I wouldn't know how to use and create a wiki or an audio presentation such as Jing. As a teacher, we are expected to know how to do it all (at least I always felt this way) so admitting to a group of students that I don't know how to do something that involves computers and such is a bit hard for me to do. BUT what I should do in a situation like this is let my students become the teachers and teach me how to use these "newfangled" computer concepts. It would become a learning experience for everyone. I'll have to keep this in mind when I return to the classroom someday.

Week Five: Wiki, Wiki

When I read in this week's assignments that we were going to be creating a wiki, I'll admit, I freaked out just a bit. (What in the world am I going to "wiki" about??) I decided to create a wiki devoted to great recipes. I have a house of picky eaters and am always looking for new recipes to try on them in order to broaden our regular dinner menu, so a wiki of recipes would be a quick place to look for a new dish without having to search too far. I have already included a few of my own recipes...the categories include: appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, desserts, breakfast dishes, and stuff for kids. Stuff for kids is meant to be a resource of cookable craft ideas (such as play dough or scratch and sniff paint) and/or kid-friendly recipes for little chefs to try out. I hope that others will find this wiki and add to it. I can't wait to see what will be added so I can cook something new and delicious for my family.

I really like the idea of wikis--now that I am not as intimidated by them☺. My mother's side of the family is very big into tracing our genealogy, so setting up a wiki where family members could edit and add any information they find about our ancestors would be great. The biggest pitfall I can see about using a wiki is the fact that just about anyone can edit the content of a wiki. The potential for mischief and misinformation is very present. By setting up a wiki to only be edited by those who are invited to the wiki (as in the genealogy wiki idea), the possibility of unwanted activity is lessened quite a bit. I think in regards to our "digital native" students and children, wikis would be a great way to get them engaged in learning. Through this class, I have found our wiki to be quite helpful in sharing thoughts and ideas with my classmates. In past classes where group work was required, a wiki would have made collaborative work much easier to facilitate since we all lived in different cities. So...using wikis in the classroom, whether it is an elementary, middle, or high school classroom, could be a great asset.

When I explored the eLearning Tools Wiki, I found a few things that I might like to investigate further. I wish I had known about this resource when I was trying to come up with an idea for creating a concept map because there is some good information about that very thing on this wiki. Also, now that I have this blog, I would also like to learn more about "vlogging"--blogging with videos included in the blogs. Maybe I'll turn my Blogging in Baby Steps class blog into a family blog about my daughter and all her antics. I might not, but if I do, the ability to include video of my kiddo singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" would be a HUGE hit with the family!

Week Four: Assessment FOR Learning

This week when I was searching for a journal article to reflect upon, I focused on the Assessment For Learning tenent that states that the AFL should focus on how students learn. I chose this one because it seems like one of the most important things educators need to keep in mind when deciding what to teach and how to teach it. I also feel that this tenent might be one that I tended to overlook when I was in the classroom. I was not good at incorporating technology into my lessons when I taught school prior to becoming a stay-at-home-mom. I have never been very comfortable with technology beyond that of basic computer skills--typing Word documents, checking email, updating Facebook (I'm still learning), playing Solitaire etc.--and most of the newly acquired skills I have learned have been introduced to me through my TAMU-C online courses. I am a "digital immigrant"--that's for sure--but in order for me to truly connect with my students when I return to the classroom someday, I am going to have to step out of my technology comfort zone and look for ways to bring the technology that my students will be familiar with (and maybe some technology that is less familiar) into our classroom and the lessons I teach. If I just stick to standing at the front of the room talking about what's found in the textbook, I am going to have a group of students who are learning very little (aside from perfecting their skills in looking like they're paying attention or sleeping with their eyes open☺)

As far as the potential I see in portfolio assessments, I think the potential is there. I like the idea of allowing the students the freedom of selecting the items to be included in their portfolios. I remember when I graduated high school, I was surprised to be given my Language Arts portfolio that followed me from 6th to 12th grade. I vaguely remember writing my name across the front of that green pocket folder with brads in the sixth grade, but I had no idea it was going to follow me to high school. I was surprised to see some of the writing samples that my past teachers had decided to include in it (and a bit embarrassed by some of my earlier writing attempts). It would have been nice if I had been given the opportunity to select my own pieces for inclusion in MY portfolio. Again, as a "digital immigrant", the online portfolio that we are creating for this class is throwing me for a loop because I feel like I know so little about using this "new fangled" technology, but I'll get there one way or another.

Week Three: Reflection

Ok...for our MAPping activity, I chose the site about California's velcro crop. I realized from the start that this was a bogus site, but I clicked on it anyway to get a good chuckle. I have to say, I have never had any training that I can recall where I was taught about ways to verify the source of something I find on the Web, so this activity was rather enlightening.

I am thrilled to feel like I am now armed with some "weapons of Web debunktion". I was aware of the fact that if a web address includes a ~ followed by a name, that was an indicator that the site was a personal one and not necessarily unbiased, but that's about all. I was thrilled to learn about the tool at http://www.altavista.com/ where you can type in the URL of a site preceded by the word link: to find out which sites have been externally linked to the site in question. Had I not already realized that the site about California's velcro crop was satirical, I would have been able to figure it out just by using this tool. I was able to see that the sites that were externally linked to the velcro site were either citing the URL as one that is bogus and non-factual or using the site as an example in a lesson about evaluating web content.

Determining the author or publisher of a site is crucial, especially when you are in charge of teaching youngsters about surfing the web. I attended a workshop where the keynote speaker, David Warlick, used the same Martin Luther King, Jr. web site that Alan November used as an example of the importance of determining who is supporting the information we find on a web site. At this workshop, Warlick showed us how to determine who was authoring the information found in the MLK site, and a collective gasp escaped the crowd as we realized it was backed by a white supremacy group. To think that students might be reading this type of slander while researching Dr. King is astounding. Easywhois.com is a fabulous tool that I was also unaware of prior to this activity, but its value is huge! By simply entering the domain name of a site into the search box, you can easily learn more about the author/publisher of a site.

When searching the Web in the future, I plan to use easywhois.com and altavista.com periodically to help me remember thess features until I get back in the classroom and to check out the validity of some unknown sites I might visit in the future. I feel fairly confident about the sources I have used in the past for research, both personal and academic, but it would have been nice to know there are free tools available to help me make sure I don't quote bad information. I will be sure to keep these things in mind as I continue my Master's courses. That being said, it is so important for teachers to empower their students with the tools necessary to weed out information found on the Web so as not to be misinformed. Most of the sites like the MLK site backed by Stormfront that are strongly biased and provide false information and bold untruths are blocked by the filters in the school network, but these filters do not follow students home when they search the Internet from their home computers. If teachers do not teach students how to access the tools that will help them determine the author of a site or see how other sites have linked to a particular site, how will the students be able to determine which information is valid and which is false?

Finally, organizing information through tools such as Delicious is wonderful because it allows me to bookmark any useful sites that I might find so that they are accessible to me no matter where I am. I love the 'Favorites" feature of my computer because I don't have to type in the address for TAMU-Commerce each time I want to log in to my classes, but when I am away from my home computer, the log-in process takes me a bit longer because I have to start from the TAMU-C homepage...a small step but an inconvenience just the same. The bookmarks I've made in Delicious are things I think might come in handy when I go back to teaching, and the chance that I will remember even a handful of those web addresses by the time that happens is slim to nil, so thank you, Delicious.com.