This is a response to the blog titled Connected Educators: Digital Citizenship Survival Kit On the blog site called Techchef4u. Apparently, WordPress does not like me and would not email me my password to actually respond on the blog itself.
Moving on.
Blog Subject: How to live with technology and how to organize your life online. Pretend that your digital existence is another country- this blog post tells you how to be a citizen of that country. Something which I think everyone should learn how to do. Especially those young'uns.
Response: BEST. IDEA. EVER. This should be read by more people. The presentation she gives and the link that are included are the majority of what the blog is made of but within those things is some valuable information.
This brings up the question: When is there too much technology? If students have to learn how to act using technology like they are citizens of another country does that mean we as a society have taken it a step too far? I realize how hypocritical I must sound as I type on my Macbook, text on my iphone and watch tv on my flatpanel HDtv.
My name is DestineyGrace and I am addicted to technology.
*Not as much as some people, I would like to note*
Nonetheless, I am curious to see if anyone agrees/disagrees or what thoughts are. Hopefully since this blogging assignment is due tomorrow- I'll get some responses.
à beintôt mes amis,
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Tech Tools in my placement
Without giving away the name of the school at which I am placed I will tell you these things about the technology in the school:
We haven't discussed this Tech in my placement survey in class but this situation with this amount of technology is not common. It may be in Washtenaw County or the it could be the average property tax of the district itself and how much of that goes to the schools. I know from what I have seen that the entire district is a Mac district so it is not just the high school. Teachers need technology in order to properly plan and execute their lessons and with that I whole heartedly agree; however, I don't think that there is this much technology needed. I don't know how many of the teachers use smartboards but I know they were installed because of a grant and that many of the teachers don't use them-1 reason I know makes sense. Having computer carts is nice because there aren't very many iMacs in the library- certainly not enough for an entire class- saves time with transitions. I mainly have witnessed students using google.translate to basically write their assignments for them or looking up videos on youtube when they should have been working.
I think comparing this school to other "less fortunate" schools in the area (like the high school I attended) is a good idea because not every school has carts and carts of Macbooks to let their teachers use. Granted- this high school has about 1,200 students in it so obviously they get more money from the state itself. But that is not the only method the school pays for stuff.
Almost all the students (except for a small population) have internet at home. Some have their own Macbooks that they bring to school with them (idk why).
My placement has a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy in place so students have their cell phones out during class and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. Most of them just check it real quick between activities or if they finish early- less strict than my grad classes- i'll say that. I have only noticed it become distracting a couple times but its never been bad. I think its a good gradual introduction to college life- since most of these students are tracked to go to a 4-year institution.
CONCLUSION: I do not know if this technology is a good thing or a bad thing. Somedays I miss the use of encyclopedias and typewriters that only typed. What about dictionaries? OMG THEY EXIST?
- All the teachers have a Macbook of some sort
- There are 4 Mac laptop cars for each floor of the school that can be reserved.
- All the computers in the library are Mac
- Every classroom has a smartboard
- Every classroom has a projector
- Every classroom has whiteboards
- Every classroom has surround sound
- Every classroom comes with microphones for the teachers to use.
- The school has wifi- kinda of slow- a lot of sites are not allowed.
We haven't discussed this Tech in my placement survey in class but this situation with this amount of technology is not common. It may be in Washtenaw County or the it could be the average property tax of the district itself and how much of that goes to the schools. I know from what I have seen that the entire district is a Mac district so it is not just the high school. Teachers need technology in order to properly plan and execute their lessons and with that I whole heartedly agree; however, I don't think that there is this much technology needed. I don't know how many of the teachers use smartboards but I know they were installed because of a grant and that many of the teachers don't use them-1 reason I know makes sense. Having computer carts is nice because there aren't very many iMacs in the library- certainly not enough for an entire class- saves time with transitions. I mainly have witnessed students using google.translate to basically write their assignments for them or looking up videos on youtube when they should have been working.
I think comparing this school to other "less fortunate" schools in the area (like the high school I attended) is a good idea because not every school has carts and carts of Macbooks to let their teachers use. Granted- this high school has about 1,200 students in it so obviously they get more money from the state itself. But that is not the only method the school pays for stuff.
Almost all the students (except for a small population) have internet at home. Some have their own Macbooks that they bring to school with them (idk why).
My placement has a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy in place so students have their cell phones out during class and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. Most of them just check it real quick between activities or if they finish early- less strict than my grad classes- i'll say that. I have only noticed it become distracting a couple times but its never been bad. I think its a good gradual introduction to college life- since most of these students are tracked to go to a 4-year institution.
CONCLUSION: I do not know if this technology is a good thing or a bad thing. Somedays I miss the use of encyclopedias and typewriters that only typed. What about dictionaries? OMG THEY EXIST?
Edudemic.com
So as part of an assignment we had to look at an edublog [Blog about education]. I chose Edudemic. The only thing I can say is MIND BLOWN! This blog has everything a teacher could possibly need for their classroom. There are blogs that are reviews of the best laptops for teachers, tablets for students, etc. In addition to tips and posts about using technology for the sake of learning and not just games in the classroom. This blog is made of posts by several different people- so its not the blog of one single educator. This factor, I think, is important because I think it means that you're getting quality information that more than one person thought was relavent to the field of education technology, you can actually submit a blog and have it reviewed and perhaps posted. This blog mainly focuses on the connection of education and technology so I think I'll be bookmarking this blog for later use for sure.
Some of the really interesting articles that I have read on the page so far:
A kindergarten teacher in China used an immersion iPad project with her students so they could draw themselves as superheros in this blog titled "Incredibly Immersive iPad Project Makes Students Into Superheroes."
This blog titled How To Use Scaffolding For Deeper Understanding is quite interesting as well considered the stuff we've discussed in our program thus far.
One thing I also liked about this blog is that there are tabs for students and teachers. A little something for everyone! Which is why I couldn't pick one blog post to talk about because they're all so awesome. I hope you all check the site out-its quite fabulous.
Some of the really interesting articles that I have read on the page so far:
A kindergarten teacher in China used an immersion iPad project with her students so they could draw themselves as superheros in this blog titled "Incredibly Immersive iPad Project Makes Students Into Superheroes."
This blog titled How To Use Scaffolding For Deeper Understanding is quite interesting as well considered the stuff we've discussed in our program thus far.
One thing I also liked about this blog is that there are tabs for students and teachers. A little something for everyone! Which is why I couldn't pick one blog post to talk about because they're all so awesome. I hope you all check the site out-its quite fabulous.
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