Charlene O'Hanlon. (2007). Press '2' for 'Not Guilty'. T.H.E. Journal, 34(5), 52-53. Retrieved September 28, 2009, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1282511081).
The article I chose to review presents an overview of student response systems, or “clickers”, within the classroom. The author describes the use of interactive devices in the past several years, noting that using the telephone to vote for your favorite idol and using the remote to change channels are early examples of this technology. The article relates a study done by Kent State University involving an eighth grade English class and its analysis of the Lizzie Borden trial. Students were presented with the evidence via a debate and then had to use the response systems to vote for who they felt won the debate. The author felt that the response systems worked particularly well in middle school where students are often reluctant to offer opinions due to peer pressure. More common uses of the systems include measuring students’ comprehension of critical concepts, and as a means of submitting data from experiments. Overall, teachers love the immediacy of the assessment, so that they can go back and revisit the areas where the students don’t understand.
My primary interest in the above article is because one of my current projects at work is to figure out how to use our student response system. We’ve had it for almost a year and a half and most of that time, I didn’t even know it was in the school. Now that I do, I’m determined to put it to use. I’d like to know more potential uses for the systems, besides just measuring a student’s comprehension level of the content a teacher has just presented. I know there are several teachers who would love to use this device, but I not only have to determine how to operate the system, I have to make decisions on the best way to set up the system, access the databases, etc. I also have to find a way to show the teachers how to use the system in the quickest and easiest way possible. If it seems too complicated, few teachers will take the time to learn it. The article was helpful by offering some different ways to use the system and by revealing teacher attitudes towards it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
ComicLife - Everyone's Talking About It
I had never heard of ComicLife before beginning our recent project. However, I laughed out loud at some of the examples I saw, and I was hooked pretty quickly. I struggled to come up with a media center-related application, but then I looked at more examples and noticed one that detailed a particular procedure. That’s when I got the idea of doing a very basic “how-to” guide for using our cataloging application, Destiny. I have a program on my work computers called FullShot, which allows you to do screen shots and make them into jpg files. So, I wrote an outline of what I was going to do, created the screen shots, and then enlisted my parapro’s daughter to be my representative student. She did a great job! I originally did a pretty simple version, but then realized I could open the jpg files in Paint, and create some arrows and other features that would call the user’s attention to certain places on the picture. So I basically re-created it, but I think it was worth it in the end.
I liked ComicLife and found it fairly simple to use. But, I struggled with some of the functionality. For instance, I found I had to click at one certain place on the image in order to rotate, another to make it bigger, and still another to move it completely. When the image is small, this isn’t easy to do. I was forever rotating the picture inadvertently, and then having to undo my changes. In addition, even after using the Help feature, I had some difficulty with the Style feature. Overall however, it was pretty intuitive and I could have created a simple ComicLife project without having to use the Help feature at all.
There are so many uses for ComicLife in the classroom. Just in language arts alone, students can easily create stories either using photos or pictures they’ve drawn and scanned in. In social studies, students can present research on places or other cultures by using images and creating captions. In science and math, students or teachers can develop a graphical step-by-step procedure for solving problems. The fact that ComicLife costs money may present some limitations to using it – in my county, any application that we want on our server has to go through a lengthy approval process. But, I can see purchasing it to go on the local drives of a handful of easily accessible computers so that those teachers interested in using it would have a way to do so.
I liked ComicLife and found it fairly simple to use. But, I struggled with some of the functionality. For instance, I found I had to click at one certain place on the image in order to rotate, another to make it bigger, and still another to move it completely. When the image is small, this isn’t easy to do. I was forever rotating the picture inadvertently, and then having to undo my changes. In addition, even after using the Help feature, I had some difficulty with the Style feature. Overall however, it was pretty intuitive and I could have created a simple ComicLife project without having to use the Help feature at all.
There are so many uses for ComicLife in the classroom. Just in language arts alone, students can easily create stories either using photos or pictures they’ve drawn and scanned in. In social studies, students can present research on places or other cultures by using images and creating captions. In science and math, students or teachers can develop a graphical step-by-step procedure for solving problems. The fact that ComicLife costs money may present some limitations to using it – in my county, any application that we want on our server has to go through a lengthy approval process. But, I can see purchasing it to go on the local drives of a handful of easily accessible computers so that those teachers interested in using it would have a way to do so.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Emerging Technology That Supports Communication and Collaboration - Blog #4
After reading the chapter on communication and collaboration in Joy Egbert’s text Supporting Learning with Technology, I was struck by several things. First of all, I thought the Geography Mystery lesson described in the beginning of the chapter sounded really fun. This lesson covers many content areas, such as communication skills and knowledge of U.S. geography, but the students will also have to use reference skills in order to find out information on their place. As a media specialist, I do quite a few lessons on using reference materials since it’s one of the sections on our CRCT. I cover print and nonprint resources. These are valuable skills to use in everyday life as well as in every grade of school. But what also occurred to me was the range of communication skills these students will be using. Not only will they need to communicate within their own groups, but also with students from another state.
As I was pondering the idea of collaborative groups, I wondered about the issue Egbert mentions regarding team building skills (Egbert, page 74 and 77). Even in groups of adults, there always seems to be one person who tends to dominate the group. Sometimes this is good because that person keeps the others on track, but other times the person sort of bullies the others into doing things his or her way. She also mentions social status as being a factor and I can picture that occurring quite a bit (Egbert, page 74). If a child who’s popular is in a group, the others are likely to listen to him or her more than they’d listen to others. I can see this being an even bigger issue with elementary school students who haven’t had much experience with learning to work as a group. When collaborative learning occurs at the elementary level, it would probably need to start small – like having two or three in a group for a simple assignment. That would help the students work up to being in a larger group with more responsibilities. However, once students master the group dynamics issues, collaboration would be a fantastic tool, especially for project-based learning.
Regarding integrating electronic communication tools into the curriculum, I was amazed at the number of tools that are available. I had never heard of many of the applications mentioned, such as Gaggle. But there are a few concerns that I would have about our student population and using communication tools. First of all, we have over eighty percent Hispanic students and although their mastery of the English language is quite good, the language issues make writing more of a chore. In addition, our students have terrible problems with typing. Although our computer teacher works on keyboarding skills, the students are still painfully slow and this affects much of what they do on a computer. Our students would probably benefit from using more voice communication tools. Secondly, our county is quite concerned about Internet safety issues. I try to enforce a rule in the media center that no student is allowed to use Google or Ask.com unless he or she has used the approved information-seeking tools and cannot find what they need (and even then, they’re to seek our help first).
Overall however, I love the examples that the author provides. Even if the lesson isn’t exactly appropriate for your class, it sparks ideas about other similar lessons or how you can tweak the example to fit your situation. I tend to be somewhat lacking in creativity sometimes, so I’m always looking for lesson ideas I can borrow!
Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
As I was pondering the idea of collaborative groups, I wondered about the issue Egbert mentions regarding team building skills (Egbert, page 74 and 77). Even in groups of adults, there always seems to be one person who tends to dominate the group. Sometimes this is good because that person keeps the others on track, but other times the person sort of bullies the others into doing things his or her way. She also mentions social status as being a factor and I can picture that occurring quite a bit (Egbert, page 74). If a child who’s popular is in a group, the others are likely to listen to him or her more than they’d listen to others. I can see this being an even bigger issue with elementary school students who haven’t had much experience with learning to work as a group. When collaborative learning occurs at the elementary level, it would probably need to start small – like having two or three in a group for a simple assignment. That would help the students work up to being in a larger group with more responsibilities. However, once students master the group dynamics issues, collaboration would be a fantastic tool, especially for project-based learning.
Regarding integrating electronic communication tools into the curriculum, I was amazed at the number of tools that are available. I had never heard of many of the applications mentioned, such as Gaggle. But there are a few concerns that I would have about our student population and using communication tools. First of all, we have over eighty percent Hispanic students and although their mastery of the English language is quite good, the language issues make writing more of a chore. In addition, our students have terrible problems with typing. Although our computer teacher works on keyboarding skills, the students are still painfully slow and this affects much of what they do on a computer. Our students would probably benefit from using more voice communication tools. Secondly, our county is quite concerned about Internet safety issues. I try to enforce a rule in the media center that no student is allowed to use Google or Ask.com unless he or she has used the approved information-seeking tools and cannot find what they need (and even then, they’re to seek our help first).
Overall however, I love the examples that the author provides. Even if the lesson isn’t exactly appropriate for your class, it sparks ideas about other similar lessons or how you can tweak the example to fit your situation. I tend to be somewhat lacking in creativity sometimes, so I’m always looking for lesson ideas I can borrow!
Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Technology Integration Article - Blog #3
Sichivitsa, V. (2007). Audacity in vocal improvisation: Motivating elementary school students through technology. Teaching Music, 14(4), 48. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ754960) Retrieved September 14, 2009, from ERIC database.
The article above describes a lesson to be used in an elementary music classroom involving the application Audacity, a program that allows you to record and edit sounds. In this lesson, the students use the software to create a voice improvisation for a jazz accompaniment. Students can do multiple voice recordings until they find one that they’re happy with, and once all recordings are made, they can choose which one to submit. The primary benefit of using this software is to minimize the self-consciousness factor for the students since they wouldn’t be singing in front of their peers. By each having their own computer, headphones and microphone, students can work independently without disturbing each other and feel more comfortable that no one else is judging or poking fun at them.
I chose this article because after using the VoiceThread software, I was interested to see what other voice-related software applications existed and how they had been integrated into the curriculum. Typically, when you think about technology integration, you tend to think about applications that are more visual or visual and auditory combined. I had no idea there were software programs that were so focused on auditory applications. Although the lesson was somewhat difficult for me to follow, since I don’t have the musical knowledge to understand some of the more technical information, I could still appreciate the benefit of using the software not only in a music classroom, but in other areas of the school as well.
In my school, our student population is over eighty percent Hispanic. We have eight ESOL teachers, some of whom work with primary students and others who work with intermediate students. I can see how Audacity could be used with these ELL learners to help them listen to and learn the English language. In the past, our county has purchased applications such as Rosetta Stone and Read 180 in order to help English learners. But Audacity is free and could even be used by students at home, if they have computers. ELL students benefit greatly from being able to hear and repeat English words, and this application would be a wonderful tool for that.
The article above describes a lesson to be used in an elementary music classroom involving the application Audacity, a program that allows you to record and edit sounds. In this lesson, the students use the software to create a voice improvisation for a jazz accompaniment. Students can do multiple voice recordings until they find one that they’re happy with, and once all recordings are made, they can choose which one to submit. The primary benefit of using this software is to minimize the self-consciousness factor for the students since they wouldn’t be singing in front of their peers. By each having their own computer, headphones and microphone, students can work independently without disturbing each other and feel more comfortable that no one else is judging or poking fun at them.
I chose this article because after using the VoiceThread software, I was interested to see what other voice-related software applications existed and how they had been integrated into the curriculum. Typically, when you think about technology integration, you tend to think about applications that are more visual or visual and auditory combined. I had no idea there were software programs that were so focused on auditory applications. Although the lesson was somewhat difficult for me to follow, since I don’t have the musical knowledge to understand some of the more technical information, I could still appreciate the benefit of using the software not only in a music classroom, but in other areas of the school as well.
In my school, our student population is over eighty percent Hispanic. We have eight ESOL teachers, some of whom work with primary students and others who work with intermediate students. I can see how Audacity could be used with these ELL learners to help them listen to and learn the English language. In the past, our county has purchased applications such as Rosetta Stone and Read 180 in order to help English learners. But Audacity is free and could even be used by students at home, if they have computers. ELL students benefit greatly from being able to hear and repeat English words, and this application would be a wonderful tool for that.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
VoiceThread Reflections
I must admit that I had never even heard of VoiceThread before the demo we saw in our Technology Integration class. My first reaction was that it was pretty slick, but I didn’t take much time to consider how it could be used in a classroom. I also wasn’t sure how I would use it since I only have classes for 30 minutes at a time. I wanted to do something different and not necessarily literacy-related, and during a discussion of it with a colleague who is pretty techno-savvy, it occurred to me to use our Outdoor Classroom as the basis for a project. My colleague told me that our ALP teacher (same thing as Target) has a teacher son in North Carolina who uses it, and our ALP teacher also happens to be one of those in charge of our Outdoor Classroom. When I mentioned it to her, she was excited that this might be a great “PR” tool for the Classroom, and could even be put on our Web site or sent to the corporate sponsors who were so vital to the creation of the Classroom.
So, this project ultimately became a sort of collaboration between our ALP teacher and me. She and some of her students wrote the scripts we used, and I chose the students who would speak and took pictures of the Classroom. For speakers, I chose a few of the kids who do our morning broadcast, because they’re used to speaking into microphones and know how to speak more slowly and clearly. I gave each of them a script to take home and practice, and while they did that, I played around with VoiceThread so that I’d be comfortable when it was time to record. I found VoiceThread to be surprisingly easy to use and fairly intuitive (with the help of the tutorials). The only real frustration I had was trying to figure out if and how I could fix the order of the comments. The information flowed better if read in a certain way, and I also wanted our ALP teacher’s comments to go last. After trying different things, I just gave up and let the comments happen in whatever order VoiceThread dictated. Fortunately, the comment I wanted to be first did occur first, but the rest were pretty random.
Now that I’ve used VoiceThread, I can see some interesting uses for it in the classroom, and I’m anxious to introduce it to our teachers. The two that I’ve already shown it to seemed excited to try it, and I think that even the technology-intimidated teachers might be willing to give it a go. Also, the fact that educators can get the basic version for free is even more appealing. And now, I have an example to show them! If you’d like to see my final project, just click on the link below and take a look.
http://voicethread.com/share/606263/
So, this project ultimately became a sort of collaboration between our ALP teacher and me. She and some of her students wrote the scripts we used, and I chose the students who would speak and took pictures of the Classroom. For speakers, I chose a few of the kids who do our morning broadcast, because they’re used to speaking into microphones and know how to speak more slowly and clearly. I gave each of them a script to take home and practice, and while they did that, I played around with VoiceThread so that I’d be comfortable when it was time to record. I found VoiceThread to be surprisingly easy to use and fairly intuitive (with the help of the tutorials). The only real frustration I had was trying to figure out if and how I could fix the order of the comments. The information flowed better if read in a certain way, and I also wanted our ALP teacher’s comments to go last. After trying different things, I just gave up and let the comments happen in whatever order VoiceThread dictated. Fortunately, the comment I wanted to be first did occur first, but the rest were pretty random.
Now that I’ve used VoiceThread, I can see some interesting uses for it in the classroom, and I’m anxious to introduce it to our teachers. The two that I’ve already shown it to seemed excited to try it, and I think that even the technology-intimidated teachers might be willing to give it a go. Also, the fact that educators can get the basic version for free is even more appealing. And now, I have an example to show them! If you’d like to see my final project, just click on the link below and take a look.
http://voicethread.com/share/606263/
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Emerging Technology That Supports Content Learning - Blog #2
In this chapter, the author discusses the meaning of content learning, and how the use of technology can support and enhance it in the classroom. The case described at the beginning of the chapter sounded a bit familiar to me. I work in a high-poverty school and have seen our school receive Title I funds that must be used for technology. As the “technology contact” for the school, one would think that I might be consulted on which technology would be best to purchase. But it always seems that the administrators gravitate towards the latest and greatest technology – whatever that might be. What doesn’t seem to be completely addressed is the fact that almost no one really knows what to do with the technology once they get it. There are always those teachers who jump right into technology with both feet, but the majority hang back until they see what others do with it. In the case described, the school actually has to develop a plan for the technology before they can get the funding to buy it. I wish all schools had to do this. It might prevent school districts from just throwing money at technology and then crossing their fingers.
I was also interested in the five descriptions of effective content learning because they seemed to be pretty much just common sense. Technology is, as a rule, engaging; however students also need a focus when using it or they just find a way to turn it into a game. Another task is to help students become responsible for their own learning. This requires the teacher to not only be confident in her knowledge and use of the technology, but also to make sure the students know she’s confident. It’s unlikely that students will become comfortable with independent learning if they haven’t seen it modeled by the teacher. The fourth task discusses collaboration, which is extremely helpful when working with technology. In our school, many students don’t have access to computers at home and are therefore not as adept at navigating their way around them at school. By pairing those students with others who are more technology-savvy, both students’ learning experiences can be enhanced.
Finally, the information the author presents on creating opportunities for learning content poses some important considerations. With inclusion being implemented in many schools, teachers need to think about the use of technology with special needs students. In addition, our school has a very high percentage of ESOL students so their needs should be considered as well. And differentiated instruction is becoming more important, so teachers have to plan how the use of technology can enhance, and not complicate, that type of instruction.
I was also interested in the five descriptions of effective content learning because they seemed to be pretty much just common sense. Technology is, as a rule, engaging; however students also need a focus when using it or they just find a way to turn it into a game. Another task is to help students become responsible for their own learning. This requires the teacher to not only be confident in her knowledge and use of the technology, but also to make sure the students know she’s confident. It’s unlikely that students will become comfortable with independent learning if they haven’t seen it modeled by the teacher. The fourth task discusses collaboration, which is extremely helpful when working with technology. In our school, many students don’t have access to computers at home and are therefore not as adept at navigating their way around them at school. By pairing those students with others who are more technology-savvy, both students’ learning experiences can be enhanced.
Finally, the information the author presents on creating opportunities for learning content poses some important considerations. With inclusion being implemented in many schools, teachers need to think about the use of technology with special needs students. In addition, our school has a very high percentage of ESOL students so their needs should be considered as well. And differentiated instruction is becoming more important, so teachers have to plan how the use of technology can enhance, and not complicate, that type of instruction.
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