New adventures in technology...

Another semester is fast approaching and I am reflecting on the past year and the world of technology that was opened to me...by the wonderful class I took with Dr. Burgos...The class really opened my eyes to a world of new applications and learning environments..I have spent considerable time pondering how I will be incorporating this type of learning in the courses I will be teaching in the fall. I taught a hybrid course this past semester as an experiment in the use of technology in higher education learning. There were several revelations I made over the course of the class.

First, throughout the class I felt like I did not have enough knowledge of the amount of content each student was getting for the on-line modules. When students are not required to come to class and directly gain content from my lecture, prepared activities or student to student collaborations are they really getting the content. Each on-line module involved some sort of assignment but my assignments tend to be more practical in nature. These assignments are based on the philosophy that activities should help aspiring teachers to apply their learning in a way that is relevant. The obvious solution to my problem would be to quiz or test student knowledge, but I am sure that memorization of education theory does not help teachers better teachers.

Another realization I made is that technology is unpredictable at times. It is critical that technology applications are tested before the class meeting, and if this is not possible always have a back up plan. This is also true for assignments given for students to complete using their own technology. Students come in all different ability levels and have many different types of equipment. It is important to provide students with opportunities for tech support and possibly with access to technology. Several times during the course I came in on non-scheduled class days to support students. Technology is constantly improving and evolving so perhaps this will be less of a concern in the future..but for now it is a must.

As for the future this semester I will be experimenting with a "video confessional" idea that a friend of mine Shelley did in a course she taught. I bought a flip camera as the DV camera...was NOT user friendly. I am hoping to again have students create blogs and work with digital storytelling. I also have made a goal for myself to figure out how to broadcast and archive class meetings so no student ever misses a course. I am hoping the flip cam helps with this goal.

Technology is sooo amazing. I went to a lunch party today and we were able to Skype in our friend Anu from India. She got to see the babies and eat lunch with us...it is so "Jetsons"...amazing...and what is even more amazing is that the possibilities to use this technology in education are infinite...It makes me love what I do...ever evolving...never the same...wow!! Check back as I document my journey...

Podcasting…and other revelations!

Podcasting…I am surprised to learn that I had the completely wrong definition and understanding of what a podcast was. Similar to many things in this new age, you hear a name of an application so much that you think you know what it is. What I have learned is that you really have to experiment with any application to truly understand what it is and what it does. I learned that podcasts can be audi or digital in form and are a type of internet broadcast. I had no idea that they were serial shows or recurring in nature. The podcast I chose among the many I examined, to use in my classroom is the “Just Vocabulary” Podcast that can be found in the ITunes store under the Education link. This podcast brings you two new vocabulary words per day. I can see this being used in both a high school or college course. In the high school students are preparing for their SAT and Regents exam. Vocabulary is one of the areas many students struggle with especially the non-readers. Students that read are more frequents exposed to vocabulary. This podcast is approximately 2 minutes in length and gives students exposure every day. In the same way this could be used in an undergraduate class to prepare students for their teaching exams. Although college students read very often, much of the assigned reading may not include advanced vocabulary. This preliminary exploration has opened my eyes to a whole new world of learning. These podcasts can even be downloaded and synched to your ipod daily. This would be a great bell-ringer exercise for any classroom any age.

Sure...why not?

Here we go! A demo. I will be teaching a course on WizIQ tomorrow April 22 at 4:45...not sure how this works but I am teaching a social skills class at Buffalo State and I would like to try out this application as I will be asking students to use this application to create a parent tutorial. I will require them to post the links to their parent education classes on their blogs which can be found on my second blogroll on the left...I will let you know how it goes. But if you are interested, I think you can watch...here is the link Parental Involvement and Social Skills Come and check it out!

Internet for Your Classroom

I just got a great e-mail that has a link to a cool site that was created to help teachers discover new ways to use the internet in the classroom and thought I would share it. It is called Internet 4 Classrooms. They have a link to follow them on Twitter and when I followed the link it led me to their post for the day which was 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education. I wanted to share this also as I found it very interesting. Check it out!