Technology^50

Part 1
So thus far in the semester we have learned from about a million technology related things that we could use in our classrooms but I can't help but ask myself, "Why is this technology SO much better than an ole' fashioned paper and pencil?"


Whelp. I am not quite sure. I am very interested in using technology in the classroom but I don't want to use it just for the sake of using it.

Moving on,
Last Thursday Liz Kolb came and talked to us about many tools that she uses and how technology got her interested in school and in actually doing her assignments. That reason right there is reason enough for me to incorporate technology into my classroom in some fashion or another. Depending on the resources available to my students at home I love the idea of them having a blog or at least some sort of online presence in the class on a regular basis. After hearing about Fakebook and the educational uses of Facebook (which I hadn't really thought about since I am so familiar- unfortunately- with the interface) I would definitely like to incorporate those into the class as well. I would like my students to feel my presence outside the classroom and not just for the 55 minute period daily. I think that if technology use in my class can get students interested in the assignment then it might just get them interested in the class itself.  Especially in a World Language class I think the many different technologies we have talked about so far could be incredibly useful. In a program where little is WL focused- technology is not included in that category. If anything I think it could be the most WL applicable because we can use it for audio and for our students to hear native/near-native speakers as we are doing now to prepare for the OPI.

I think a lot of the stuff that Liz Kolb shared with us was awesome and her story of how technology got her interested and bringing it to a personal level is something that technology could do for that ONE student, in the same boat she was in. However, at the same time technology can also be incredibly alienating if a student does not have internet access or even a computer at home because his/her family cannot afford internet or a computer. How will that student feel? What about the students that are less familiar with the technology? How will they learn how to use it if we don't present a tutorial during class? What if they're the only student that doesn't have that knowledge?

As the end of the last paragraph illustrates, there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding technologies use in the classroom. I think that with time there will be fewer but for now look out.

Part 2

So Fakebook vs. Facebook: Wow. Fakebook is confusing and I was really caught off guard by how customizable but not-customizable it is. You pick a name for your Fakebook page and since its supposed to be a real person, their picture pops up. Or the other way around, if you pick a picture of a famous dead person- their name pops up. I like the idea that you can edit comments and responses but you are creating them and no one else can comment on them at all. That seems like a weird quality to have on a website that people are going to want to show others. I don't quite get that yet. Hopefully it will come to me soon :/

I do like the idea of creating a page for a historical figure (I did Alice Paul- wikipedia her, she's important). I think it will force students to really dig into the persona of a historical figure but everything that student would include on Fakebook about a historical figure can easily be found on their wikipedia page so once again...I like the concept of Fakebook but in real-world application I don't know how useful it would be. Many students would not know how to use it and would most likely be as confused as I was. That is not a reflection on those presenting...I think it was just that Fakebook is weird.

bientôt,