Digital storytelling is way to tell stories using the digital technologies that are available to you. Digital storytelling is much like oral storytelling you just have many more tools at your disposal. You can use videos, text, pictures, and audio to help tell your story. There does not seem to be any hard set rules to digital storytelling. You can use it for just about anything that you want to tell a story about. It just helps you to be able to have more tools for you to get your point across.
This can be a great tool to let your students be creative. Once you give them the guidelines for the assignment you can let them go and see what they come up with. It is a really great way to see what type of artistic talents your students have. For younger students you may want to just do one as a class so you can guide them along more.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Global Education Community
Through searching on the internet I was able to find a website that helped to connect classrooms from all over the world to each other. This website helps to facilitate discussions between students from all over the world. The website sets up teaching units which gives a topic for the students to write about. Then the students are able to correspond with each other about how things are different it their different parts of the world. For example you could decide that you would like to know more about cultural traditions in France. So you could post on this websites discussion board that you were looking for a French classroom to correspond with. Then when a class from France answered you your students could email back and forth answering each others questions about cultural traditions. This could be a great way to find out how people live in different parts of the world. I also like the fact that it just uses email. This could be a easy thing to enrich current curriculum, and would not add any extra expenses to your budget.
Website: http://www.epals.com/
Website: http://www.epals.com/
The State of Teaching
For my most recent blog post I read other blogs about what is happening to teachers around the country. It seems like some of the educational blogs take a bit of a break during the summer, but I read many interesting posts about the issues facing teachers that were written earlier in the spring. These posts were written about what is happening to the teacher profession due to the recent attacks on teacher's unions in the last couple of months.
It seems that many people feel that education is the first place to cut when budget deficits come up. They feel that since states standardized test scores have not improved this is a sign that teacher do not deserve to be compensated as they were in the past. They feel that instead of spending more on education to make it better, they can make it better by paying teachers less. This is not to say that scores cannot come up without spending more money. I am sure that there are many things out there that can be done to make educational districts more effective and efficient. People will say that regardless of class size or technology in the classroom there is no replacement for a good teacher. If this is true, which I believe it is, then the best way to recruit the best and brightest is NOT to pay them less. If you are a recent high school graduate and you have studied hard and gotten into a really good school why would you work hard for four years to get a job where people think you are overpaid, lazy, and you have to put up with screaming parents all day? Instead they will go into engineering or business where they can make way more money and not have to deal with all of those negatives.
The parallel that I always use when talking with people about this is how people treat military funding. When the U.S. military has trouble achieving their goals, like they have in Iraq and Afghanistan, people argue that they need more funding and man power. Which I agree with and am glad that they get the support they deserve. But when people see that educational systems are not meeting their goal they blame the teachers and cut funding instead of giving teachers the additional funding and support they need to make a real difference in the American public school system.
It seems that many people feel that education is the first place to cut when budget deficits come up. They feel that since states standardized test scores have not improved this is a sign that teacher do not deserve to be compensated as they were in the past. They feel that instead of spending more on education to make it better, they can make it better by paying teachers less. This is not to say that scores cannot come up without spending more money. I am sure that there are many things out there that can be done to make educational districts more effective and efficient. People will say that regardless of class size or technology in the classroom there is no replacement for a good teacher. If this is true, which I believe it is, then the best way to recruit the best and brightest is NOT to pay them less. If you are a recent high school graduate and you have studied hard and gotten into a really good school why would you work hard for four years to get a job where people think you are overpaid, lazy, and you have to put up with screaming parents all day? Instead they will go into engineering or business where they can make way more money and not have to deal with all of those negatives.
The parallel that I always use when talking with people about this is how people treat military funding. When the U.S. military has trouble achieving their goals, like they have in Iraq and Afghanistan, people argue that they need more funding and man power. Which I agree with and am glad that they get the support they deserve. But when people see that educational systems are not meeting their goal they blame the teachers and cut funding instead of giving teachers the additional funding and support they need to make a real difference in the American public school system.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Assistive Technology
Assistive technology is technology that lets people with disabilities do things that they might have otherwise not been able to do. Assistive technology can range from self powered wheelchairs to computer programs for the visually impaired. As with every type of technology these days assistive technology is a fast growing field with advances being made everyday.
After looking at assistive technology in general I decided to focus on visually impaired students. I feel like all of us will have to deal with a visually impaired student during some point in our teaching careers. Recent polls show that more and more people are lacking health insurance, which usually includes some form of eye care. If students do not have access to glasses because their parents cannot afford it you will need to take steps to make sure that the student is given the best chance to learn possible. If you notice a student straining to see what is on the board, or they have their nose practically on any paper that they are reading they may have a visual problem. Most of these types of problems can be solved by just moving the student closer to the board, or getting some large print material. If the problem is serious enough you may check with your school nurse to see if there are any programs out there to get the student a free or reduced priced pair of glasses.
Next I am going to talk about students that have more serious visual impairment issues. These students will not be helped by moving closer to the board, or something that basic. They will need much greater help in being able to read and see classroom material. Many great new tools have come into the market in the last few years. There are screens that you can put a book under and it enlargens the print of the book. This can save money in the long run, as you do not need to get as many books in large print. There are also board magnifiers that can enlargen the images on the board on a computer screen that sits on the students desk. The list could go on and on with all the new technology out there. The most important thing to remember is that you should talk to your students and their family ahead of time, and to have everything in place for the student beforehand. This can help to save on any embarrassment that the student may feel. In my resources I will link the website that I looked at that has a lot of useful assistive technology for the visually impaired.
Resources:
http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109
http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/lv/lowvision-products.asp
http://standards.gov/standards_gov/assistiveTechnology.cfm
After looking at assistive technology in general I decided to focus on visually impaired students. I feel like all of us will have to deal with a visually impaired student during some point in our teaching careers. Recent polls show that more and more people are lacking health insurance, which usually includes some form of eye care. If students do not have access to glasses because their parents cannot afford it you will need to take steps to make sure that the student is given the best chance to learn possible. If you notice a student straining to see what is on the board, or they have their nose practically on any paper that they are reading they may have a visual problem. Most of these types of problems can be solved by just moving the student closer to the board, or getting some large print material. If the problem is serious enough you may check with your school nurse to see if there are any programs out there to get the student a free or reduced priced pair of glasses.
Next I am going to talk about students that have more serious visual impairment issues. These students will not be helped by moving closer to the board, or something that basic. They will need much greater help in being able to read and see classroom material. Many great new tools have come into the market in the last few years. There are screens that you can put a book under and it enlargens the print of the book. This can save money in the long run, as you do not need to get as many books in large print. There are also board magnifiers that can enlargen the images on the board on a computer screen that sits on the students desk. The list could go on and on with all the new technology out there. The most important thing to remember is that you should talk to your students and their family ahead of time, and to have everything in place for the student beforehand. This can help to save on any embarrassment that the student may feel. In my resources I will link the website that I looked at that has a lot of useful assistive technology for the visually impaired.
Resources:
http://www.washington.edu/accessit/articles?109
http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/lv/lowvision-products.asp
http://standards.gov/standards_gov/assistiveTechnology.cfm
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Video in the classroom
For our recent assignment on tech tools I looked at the website from Edutopia about using online video in the classroom. Using online videos in your classroom can be a very beneficial way to enrich a learning unit, but there are some basic things that you should know before you use them.
There is nothing quite like actually seeing what you are learning, and in a perfect world you would be able to show all of these things to your students first hand. But we all know that that is not possible, so the next best thing can be to show your students through video. Youtube is a great place to find very helpful videos, but there are some things that you need to take into account before using them. Many school districts block sites such as Youtube because of the content that is on the site. You need to check to see if you can access the site first, if you cannot you may need to save the video to your desktop then save it in a different format. Also, with all the inappropriate videos that are out there you need to make sure that you are linked to one you want. I suggest doing your searches on your own, and copying the exact link. This way when your students get to class you can only pull up the exact video that you want.
Online videos can also be a great resource when you are wanting to see a certain type of lesson taught, or a new teaching technique. There are lots of good websites that you can view actual classes being taught showing what you want to teach. This can give you great ideas about how to use the teaching technique in your class.
With anything, though, online videos have their downfall. Teachers should not let it become the main point of the lesson. Rather teachers should use online videos to supplement what they are already teaching. Also, in elementary school you want to make sure that the videos are short and to the point. This way your students will not get bored watching a long drawn out video. As discussed earlier in class there is always the issue of copyright. Most online video use will be protected under the "Fair Use Clause." But if you are concerned that you might be infringing on someone's copyright you can always email the creator of the video about using it, or check with an administrator about using the video in the correct manner.
There is nothing quite like actually seeing what you are learning, and in a perfect world you would be able to show all of these things to your students first hand. But we all know that that is not possible, so the next best thing can be to show your students through video. Youtube is a great place to find very helpful videos, but there are some things that you need to take into account before using them. Many school districts block sites such as Youtube because of the content that is on the site. You need to check to see if you can access the site first, if you cannot you may need to save the video to your desktop then save it in a different format. Also, with all the inappropriate videos that are out there you need to make sure that you are linked to one you want. I suggest doing your searches on your own, and copying the exact link. This way when your students get to class you can only pull up the exact video that you want.
Online videos can also be a great resource when you are wanting to see a certain type of lesson taught, or a new teaching technique. There are lots of good websites that you can view actual classes being taught showing what you want to teach. This can give you great ideas about how to use the teaching technique in your class.
With anything, though, online videos have their downfall. Teachers should not let it become the main point of the lesson. Rather teachers should use online videos to supplement what they are already teaching. Also, in elementary school you want to make sure that the videos are short and to the point. This way your students will not get bored watching a long drawn out video. As discussed earlier in class there is always the issue of copyright. Most online video use will be protected under the "Fair Use Clause." But if you are concerned that you might be infringing on someone's copyright you can always email the creator of the video about using it, or check with an administrator about using the video in the correct manner.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
My thoughts on blogs
Blogs are a lot like people in the sense that no two are the same. I guess that this shouldn't come as a surprise since blogs are created by people after all. After looking at almost all the blogs of everyone in this class, and the few that i chose to follow the thing that kept sticking out to me was the uniqueness of each blog. For instance the last blog post that most of us did for class was about copyright. We all had the same few articles to choose from, but yet we all wrote very different things. It is so interesting to me that we can all read the same thing and take away such different things from it. I guess that as teachers that can be an important thing to remember, that when you have your students read something they may all come up with different opinions about it.
I think that each blogs uniqueness is what can make them so useful. It would not be much of a help if all education blogs took the same stance on every issue. It is really nice to be able to want to learn something new about a topic and have so many different opinions on the topic right at your fingertips. This way you can spend some time learning about different points of view, and you may even see something in a way that you would never have thought possible before. I think that this is a huge benefit for teachers that no generation of teachers has had before. I hope that everyone uses all of these great new resources to their full benefit.
I think that each blogs uniqueness is what can make them so useful. It would not be much of a help if all education blogs took the same stance on every issue. It is really nice to be able to want to learn something new about a topic and have so many different opinions on the topic right at your fingertips. This way you can spend some time learning about different points of view, and you may even see something in a way that you would never have thought possible before. I think that this is a huge benefit for teachers that no generation of teachers has had before. I hope that everyone uses all of these great new resources to their full benefit.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
What is Copyright????
For my blog post on copyright I chose to read the article "The Purpose of Copyright" by Lydia Pallas Loren. According to this article the purpose copyright law is expressly spelled out in the Constitution. That goal is to "promote the process of knowledge and learning." Before reading this article I did not really know that much about copyright, or any history behind how we got to where we are today. This article did a good job of explaining how we got to where we are today and the current problems that are facing copyrights.
After reading this article I saw that I was one of the general public that has been led to believe that the main purpose of copyrights is to protect the work that people have done. But this article shows that the framers of the Constitution thought of copyright laws as a way spur discoveries and innovation. Recently all new copyright reform that has been enacted has benefited the holders of the copyright and has not done much to protect the people that use the work to innovate, or do something for the public good.
As teachers I think that it is important to remember that many, if not all, of the material that you use in class is based on someone else's work. Most of it though is meant for educational uses through workbooks and things like that. Where teachers need to be careful is when playing videos, or using material that is outside of the normal class curriculum. After reading the article it seems that most educational uses are protected under the Fair Use Act. But it is always a good idea to get permission before using someone else's work. For students it is important that they know when they use a source for a paper or project that they correctly site it. It is important for teachers to teach students about the proper ways to cite sources, and when they need to do it. Because if they do not learn the proper citation rules when they are young it can lead to much bigger problems as they enter high school and college.
After reading this article I saw that I was one of the general public that has been led to believe that the main purpose of copyrights is to protect the work that people have done. But this article shows that the framers of the Constitution thought of copyright laws as a way spur discoveries and innovation. Recently all new copyright reform that has been enacted has benefited the holders of the copyright and has not done much to protect the people that use the work to innovate, or do something for the public good.
As teachers I think that it is important to remember that many, if not all, of the material that you use in class is based on someone else's work. Most of it though is meant for educational uses through workbooks and things like that. Where teachers need to be careful is when playing videos, or using material that is outside of the normal class curriculum. After reading the article it seems that most educational uses are protected under the Fair Use Act. But it is always a good idea to get permission before using someone else's work. For students it is important that they know when they use a source for a paper or project that they correctly site it. It is important for teachers to teach students about the proper ways to cite sources, and when they need to do it. Because if they do not learn the proper citation rules when they are young it can lead to much bigger problems as they enter high school and college.
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