Day 11: Evaluating the Impact of Technology on Teaching and Learning

I thought that it was such a good idea to have students make paper airplanes to determine the mean, median, and mode of the flights. I have many students who love to make them in class and I never know exactly how to integrate them into a lesson. Now I do. I also like the idea that the students can record the data from their paper aircraft and design graphs in Excel and present their findings with the whole class. What a great way to get kids interested in engineering. This was a such a great article to read. It really inspired me to think outside of the box when planning lessons and to steer clear of the lecture (sage on the stage) style of teaching. Finally, I thought that the following quote was really wonderful. "You learn best when you make sense and make your own meaning." :)

Day 10: Evaluating Web Sites AND Standards

Sometimes it can be really hard to figure out if what you are reading online is from a legitimate source. I remember finding a web site that had a lot of medical advice and I was reading it and some of the information posted on the site was clearly wrong. I have also found information on places lie wikipedia that appears to be written by people who do not have the credibility to be posting such things. Fortunately, I think the period of believing everything you see and read online is coming to an end. I think that it is really important that we as teachers prepare our students to search or conduct research for information that was created by credible people. However, we must first be able to effectively determine what makes a person credible and what does not.

Day 9: Building Global Learning Communities AND School Web Sites

I have seen some school web sites that seem to be designed by professional web site developers. They have full, custom graphics, animation, and motion tweens that are composed in Dreamweaver and Flash. They are amazing. I think that it is a great idea for schools to update their web sites every year and to include everyone in the development of it. I especially like the inclusion of the student body. What a great experience, to design and help build a custom web site. Teams of students can take digital pictures, organize files, and learn Dreamweaver, Flash, XML, and HTML. Then students could add this experience to their resumes, college applications and it could be something to really be proud of. We could even include parents and the rest of the professional community. I think I am going to have to mention this idea to my principal.

Day 8: Equity Issues

I think that it's a real shame that there is still a digital divide for minority students. It seems to me that there must be a way that we can begin to include everyone in the great technology boom that we are currently experiencing. This problem is compounded by the fact that many students from diverse backgrounds attend schools that are in lower economic bracket ad therefore they do not have the resources to teach teachers to use technology nor buy devices that can be used in the classroom. What's even sadder is that many of these types of schools fail to make AYP and do not receive federal funds to purchase simple things like textbooks. So, how can we as teachers change the system to support ALL students and provide them with some experience working with technology? We are going to have to teach our administrators, teachers, parents, and anyone else who will listen the real values of teaching with technology

Day 7: Teaching Information Literacy: Tips and Resources

It is truly amazing to see how many different kinds of search engines are out there. It's even crazier to think that 90% of the people that use these search engines don't use them correctly. Unfortunately, I am one of them. As a teacher, I wish that there were workshops that could train teachers how to correctly use, nit only search engines, but different workshops for all of the things that we use incorrectly. Teaching Information Literacy is a great online article that provides teachers and students with a working definition of information literacy, but it also provide readers with a list of useful search engines that are designed to search in different ways. The Spider’s Apprentice is an interesting guide to web engines that I found myself searching through for somewhat of an hour. Perhaps because of its name, The Spider’s Apprentice drew me in with the “What Spidap Offers” section. Spidap is a six-step list of frequently asked questions regarding search engines and how to use them. They vary from strategies, web search wizards, basic searches and historical information. It was really useful for a novice like myself.

Day 6: The CyberPilot's License: A Modest Proposal for Educational Curricula

I thought it was interesting how the author argued for an AUP that students and parents could easily understand. I agreed that AUP's can be very impersonal and many of them that I have seen read like a 5 page court document that was created by a slew of trial attorneys. I also thought that it was interesting when he spoke of an implicit curriculum that makes students follow each and every demand the teacher has. He was written and this it made me think that I was a little to hard on my students, sometimes. Maybe I should take the time to let me speak about what’s on their minds. Maybe I should set aside a little time during the beginning of the day when students can get together and talk openly about whatever they want to. Maybe I should do a lot of things. If I only had more time...

Day 6: Safe Passage: Teaching Kids to be Safe and Responsible Online

Many school districts are committed to maintaining safety for their students by restricting access to most Web Sites. While their intention is good, this ultimately does not teach students how to surf the web and Internet in a safe manner. It would really be nice if there was enough time in a school day to teach our students proper web etiquette, how to navigate, conduct research and effectively search for information in a safe, secure manner. Unfortunately, this is not possible. There are many school districts in Arizona that don't even have enough computers to share them with their students. These are often the districts that are in low socioeconomic regions of the city. This is creating a generation of students who have almost no experience with computers or the Internet. It's really sad.
Fortunately, I believe that we are approaching a crossroads in education where students and educators will teach each other how to safely browse the Internet, take part in social/peer networking, and create dynamic Web Sites. There may even come a time when all students will have a built in computer at their desks. Wouldn't that be great?