Week Five

IN CLASS
Today in class we explored four teacher sites:

• http://it.coe.uga.edu/wwild/pptgames/index.html
• http://techlearning.com/
• http://www.eduhound.com/
• http://www.teachertube.com/

I would most definitely use the WWILD, EduHound, and TeacherTube websites. WWILD provided PowerPoint games for teachers of various age groups and content areas. EduHound is a database of educational webpages organized by popular topics (e.g.: Anne Frank, black history, etc.). TeacherTube is an educator's YouTube; it provides access to videos that can supplement lessons. I was not interested in the Tech&Learning website because it was too weighed down with advertisements. I could not easily navigate the pages for any information without being bombarded with an ad. The website itself is used to provide articles, resources, blogs, webinars, and other forums devoted to the advocacy of educational technologies.

POST CLASS

Our readings for Week Four centered on the broad topic of "technology in learning":

The first article was written by an individual associated with ASU. She concentrated on expostulating the everchanging innovations in technology that have occurred in a short ten years. The majority of the article chronicled the different ways that a group of teachers incorporated technology in facilitating student learning.

The second article focused on the important characteristics of technology in respects to education. The author, Lemke, cited three major ways that technology has an influence on education: development of 21st century skills, help high academic achievement, and build problem-solving ability and accountability (Lemke, 1). The rest of the article went through how technology helps to develop higher cognitive thinking skills (i.e.: Bloom's taxonomy), as well.

Our readings for Week Five centered on the topic of how to effectively change classrooms to support digital learners:

The first article I read was Connecting the Digital Dots by Jones-Kavalier and Flannigan. The entire piece focused on how the way people learn has changed with the onslaught of different technologies and that complete literacy is not valid until technology is involved. The bi-line says the point of the article perfectly: "[l]iteracy today depends on understanding the multiple media that make up our high-tech reality and developing the skills to use them effectively" (Jones-Kavalier & Flannigan, 8).

The second article that I read was Constructing Learning by Sherman and Kurshan. This article was interesting because it focused in on how just using technology in the classroom was not enough. Technology can only be made relevent when teachers take a constructivist approach to instruction. In short, the students need to be able to actively participate in their own technological education.