Student #2-Devon

Student #1-Barkel

Website

My husband and I own a summertime business.  We have been working on the Softball World website below for the past 3 weeks so this assignment came at a great time.  As you can see, we still have a lot to add to some of our links. 

Website

http://www.playsoftballworld.com/

Graphic Organizer

Graphic organizers are a great way for students and teachers to be on the same page.  You can take any piece of literature and breakdown the rationale into multiple areas to show its relevance.  The one that I created was based upon a story where teenagers learn about senior citizens and their contributions to life.  The organizer is visual learning tools that allows for everyone involved in the assignment to see the importance of the assignment and how it can impact learning.  Organizers are used frequently in my classroom when we dissect literature themes, etc.

Mapping - The Moustache

https://bubbl.us/?h=e3fcb/1b1ac5/93AuGPWWtg0X6

Haiku Screencast

Charles Hackley Assignment

Below is a copy of the Google Map assignment I would do in Michigan History class.  Charles Hackley was instrumental in building Muskegon and left  many wonderful gifts for the residents to use and enjoy.  Students would have to map: Hackley Public Library, Hackley Park, Museum of Art, Muskegon High School and Hackley Hospital.  The students can easily add this to the research project that they are already required to do in the Michigan History class.

Charles Hackley Assignment

View Charles Hackley Contributions in a larger map

Reading Rocket Podcast Link

http://www.readingrockets.org/rss/itunes_experts.xml
Teaching a child to read can be challenging. It is important for teachers and parents to be enthusiastic about books in order to get children excited about reading. Dr. Maryanne Wolf discusses some of the behaviors all parents can employ to help their child become a successful reader. Wolf also emphasizes how important it is for parents to realize the positive impact they can have on their child at a young age, because they are their child's first teacher

Muskegon Map

View Larger Map

Audrie's Art

Roaring '20s

Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bowen2/?saved=1

Week 5 - Reflections

Christine Bowen    Week #5

                First of all, real learning occurs when a student knows the end objective and the teacher presents the means in which the student can reach that end objective.  Referring to behavioral objectives, maybe the teacher didn’t make the learning objectives know.  Just because students have access to technology 24/7 doesn’t mean that they understand what the objectives are.  Chapter 3 states that sometimes teaching objectives are too vague to impact student learning.  I actually can see that.  We need to tell them the big picture right up front and then give them the small pieces that make up the big picture.  I have been in classes myself where the teacher assigns work without telling us how it relates to anything.  Do this because this is the assignment.  Maybe that is one reason why the project failed.  If the teachers were giving daily work and the student’s didn’t know their big picture it could explain the fact why it had such a small effect.   

Secondly, I think that recent developments in technology over the past decade could actually be a legitimate reason as to why the project failed.  It is hard to change teachers and their practices.  Especially, when they are technologically challenged.  Teachers are used to having 100+ students looking up to them on any particular day as the one who has all the answers.  Many teachers are not big risk takers when it comes to trying technology in the classroom.  They let their fears get in the way and teachers take the easy way out.  As the teachers in the project were all core class teachers this could be the case.  I am learning some valuable tools in this class and I know some veteran teachers could use this same information but they are afraid to challenge or change their ways.  It could also be the district’s failure to provide teachers with adequate guidance as to how to integrate the new technology.                                                  

 Thirdly, a reason why the project failed could be related to the section in the chapter about instructional television.  The teachers may have required the students to watch videos without any assignment to go along with it.  If teachers are showing video for instructional purposes then the teacher must have an assignment to accompany it or the student will not apply anything in the video to their learning.  The teachers may have thought that they were assignment the greatest video as class work and it will not have any significant impact if there is not some type of assignment to hold the student accountable for their learning.                                                                                                                                                             

 A strategy that would have made an impact would be using technology to present and share information among students and teachers.  There is a variety of projects and assignments where students can create answers to different questions. Homework could be posted into folders and projects could be shared on-line.  The objectives in the core classes would have to be clearly defined so the student could understand how the little assignments all relate back to the big objective to the unit.  Teachers could send messages quickly at any time of day so that students could check in and see where they are at and what work was due the next day.  I think it would be great to link students to a forum where they could post questions and students could answer each other (similar to this class).  I think it would be great to post video for students to watch with an assignment.  I would do this now if students had access to the internet at home.  It would help the students who take longer to do assignments to have more time and it would certainly help with an absent student where they could come back with some of their missed work completed.  I believe that these are just a few strategies that could make 24/7 access more effective. 

                                                                                                                                                                      

Delicious

http://www.delicious.com/cbowen2

Week #4 Reflections

Christine Bowen – Week #4

Chapter 1
Chapter 1 was an okay read because it reinforces the fact that technology in general is always changing and education is trying to keep up with what its role should be.  Educational technology seems an appropriate name to me. 

I pulled my district’s policy on students using the network.  It is a two-page agreement that the student and parent have to sign.  There are 20 items in the agreement.  Our technology department titles their course Business Systems & Technology.  I copied the course description below straight from the school’s website.   It is interesting to compare it to definitions in Chapter 1.  

Course Description:

BST I provides basic computer training for all students that are either post-high school education and/or entering the workplace. Students will use a variety of software in Windows, including Office 2007, which features Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet),, PowerPoint (presentation slides), and Publisher (desktop publishing). Units include Internet activities, document formatting, and business presentation skills. The curriculum used follows criteria in Microsoft Certified Application Specialist Exams. Students may also use digital cameras and scanners. Open to grades 9-12. Credit .5.

Social Bookmarking

I have worked with delicious in the past in a professional development meeting.   At work, I just save sites to, “My Favorites”.  A pro to delicious is that you can access all of your favorite sites anywhere.  Therefore, I have started to play with the delicious account to see how often I go to it. 

It is valuable to see what sites other people are using.  I really like that it lets you know the number of people that have bookmarked particular pages.  Now, that doesn’t mean the page is good but usually the numbers let me know that there must be something about the site that could be useful as so many people have bookmarked it. 

I am not sure about using this with students.  I don’t know if I trust some of my students (I teach Alternative) to drop sites into delicious from anywhere.  I don’t think they would mess with the Wiki because that posts assignments but I am a little apprehensive about the delicious. 

I did a search on delicious.  My next unit is the Great Depression.  I entered it into the search box and came back with 170 hits.  I will look at some of these this week.  I think it does a better job of filtering things for educational purposes than Google does.  Most of the posts seem to have been done by educators.

Bowen's wiki link!!!

Christine Bowen     Week #3

I had an immediate idea as to what I would use a wiki for.  I am going to try and use a wiki for book reviews of the 20 most popular books in my classroom.  I am going to have the students take a picture of the book in the classroom, this will help with their digital camera experience, and then upload it with a review to the wiki.  I will have to play with this and see how it goes.  This week is conferences so our schedule is too hectic but I think I am going to start it Monday. 

I didn’t know what a wiki was before this week.  I assumed it was related to Wikipedia.  After I discovered how easy one was I searched the internet for teacher wikis.  There are some amazing teaching wikis out there!!!  I searched everything from elementary to secondary level.  I found teacher posting videos of science experiments, field trips and written work.   

I was confused as to the difference between a blog and a wiki so I had to search that also.  It appears that a blog can only by altered by the author of the site where a wiki can be altered by anyone.  This could make for some really interesting assignments.  If we were doing an economics lesson, I could have someone from a local bank make posts onto the wikis about checking accounts and where students could go locally to sign up for me.  Another idea I really like is a, “What Do I Think Will Be on the Test” section.  Students can post what they think they will need to know for exam time under this section.  I think this would be awesome if I can get them to post quickly where it doesn’t take up a lot of classroom time.  Maybe, once a week or every other week they could have some time to post what they thought was interesting or important from a unit.  Again, I need more time to play to see if this would be a problem. I didn’t have any problem making my wiki link live in my blog so it looks like the two work well together.     

About a year ago, I tried to set up an English facebook page.  They did not go well.  Some of the students did not have appropriate profile pictures and I wanted the site to strictly be used for English.  This appears to be a good replacement.  I am concerned if my students are mature enough to handle the flexibility that a wiki will provide.

The O’Reilly article was a bit descriptive for me.  I tried really hard to understand all of it but I only understand the popular items such as Google, Amazon, etc. However, if the point was to understand that technology/software is changing then I got it.  The videos were pretty good but I was nervous about the wiki assignment.  However, after doing some reading and looking through other teacher’s wikis I can see why they are so popular. 

bowensparkinglot2.pbworks.com

Articles #2

Christine Bowen  -   Articles #2

                Setting up a blog was actually pretty easy.  Google Blogger made it easy to post the article assignment.  However, my blog is super simple and I am not trying to make a living based upon the look of it or its content.  The RSS reader and feed has been an unpleasant experience.  I have no idea how to put a feed into my blog but I can get it into Google Reader.  I am working on it and hope to figure it out.

                The Cone article was lengthy but valid.  I think teachers are aware of the different learning experiences but have a hard time fitting them into curriculum.  So many teachers work individually and I think if we worked together more that we could provide many of these types of experiences. 

The question of where blogs fall into the Cone model is tricky.  Simply creating a blog could be a direct, purposeful experience.  Students in the class had to learn by creating a blog.  I learned that it was not too hard to create a simple blog and therefore the learning experience was purposeful.  The teacher told us where to go and the software pretty much did the work for us.  What you put on the blog may or may not put you into a different level of the Cone model.  Movies are just one item that comes to mind that someone might place on their blog.  As stated in the article, “Not all the original experience is there, but compression of the experience provides advantages.” (pg.121)

                The RSS is a different story.  I am really unsure if I am doing the assignment right.  I read the history of the RSS and can see its usefulness.  Clicking on feeds lets one browse news article in a much more efficient way than searching the entire web site on a regular basis.  That much I can tell.  I subscribed to a local news station and thought it was really cool how I could peruse the news headlines without clicking on a multiple links and taking the time to travel to the web site constantly.  Again, this experience was more direct and purposeful.  However, due to all of the symbols involved it could be a symbolic experience.  The orange RSS button is a unique symbol that has meaning.    

                A blog could be useful in the classroom.  One advantage that a blog has is that it can be accessed from anywhere.   To answer Postman, the ability to put videos on a blog for students to view would save a lot of lost learning/instructional time.  I show videos for a purpose and there is almost always an assignment to accompany a video.  When a student is absent, the work rarely gets made up because I don’t have time to reshow it in class.  If I could place it in my blog they could easily view it in their credit recovery class or for some students at home.  I might actually try this.  However, I know I would have to create a new blog as my district does not allow Google Blogger.  When I asked why I was told that they could not control the blogs that student access so they said I could not use it at school as it was specifically blocked.    Teachers in my districts do have blogs so I would just have to find out what they use.  I am not sure if my videos would be blocked content or not.  To be imaginative, I might have my students post reviews on books in the classroom to spark student interest.  We could add how many stars out of five, what type of person should read the book, etc. and then students could search the blog for this material.

Christine Bowen Articles #1
First and foremost, the problem with technology in education is that technology is funded through school bonds. Therefore, technology varies from district to district. Some students have access to technology in school for the entire day while other districts have to sign out a computer lab. How do we address a curriculum for all students to access the same learning when the same tools are not supplied?
The Reigeluth & Joseph was interesting in the fact that it described that students were moving from, “sorters” to, “learners”. I understand where the authors were heading with this. I believe that students who used to take jobs in industry will now be taking jobs in retail. Let’s face it; if the great divide didn’t still exist my students would have computers at home. Out of my forty students, only ten have access to computers at home while eight of them have printers. Sixty percent of my students receive free/reduced lunch.
Moving on, the article states that education should move from, “a time-based system to an attainment based system”. I agree that technology has the ability to assist with this goal. I want to strongly emphasize the word, “assist”. I do not think that computers should replace educators. It seems that now more than ever educators are teaching life skills as well as curriculum. However, teacher blogs have been a wonderful tool as far as posting assignments and projects. It then becomes a way for the student to demonstrate their learning themselves where this sometimes becomes the teacher’s responsibility to demonstrate the learning of the class. It would be wonderful to place more curriculum on line but to do so would require more access to computers in schools and districts can move only as fast as the dollars will let them. Overall, I understood the points of the article and do agree with some aspects of attainment based education.
On the flip side, there is the Luddites article. Talk about pessimism. Why can’t moral and social values coincide with technology? Can we not teach values while using technology? I believe so. Educators all know the dark side of technology: texting, facebook and games. I still think when it comes down to it the good outweighs the bad. The article states that, “information has become a source of garbage”. When it comes to education, I disagree. Garbage definitely exists on the Internet but that is not what education and technology is all about. Educators use technology to enhance a lesson not to hurt it. Is Postman saying that dittos and encyclopedias need to make a comeback? Postman also states that the primary function of education is to teach students to behave in groups. I think people are more sensitive to other people when using technology. How carefully are emails constructed? I email so much differently than how I speak. Email makes me think before I speak and in many instances that had me overcome a social dilemma better than if I was speaking directly to the person at the time. I did appreciate Postman’s viewpoint in presenting the flip side but I definitely disagree about its usefulness in education.