Kalynn Yeater

The National Repository Online Courses (NROC) is an online library completely free for everyone, students, teachers…anyone! The NROC identifies the best online course and content available and try to improve the student learning experience and to maintain the quality of the course library. The courses utilize various combinations of video, animation, still graphics, simulations, text and audio to provide a resource beyond the development capacity of most educational institutions and organizations. With all this information out there in this library it would be silly not to use it for free!

The Podcast Math Mutation had a variety of different podcast’s by Erik Seligman dealing with mathematics. I listened to Math Mutation 38 – 11 Dimensional Spaghetti Monsters and Math Mutation 37 – Baby Math. Each segment discussed difficult questions dealing with math and how we try to understand different concepts. The 11 Dimensional Spaghetti Monsters discussed how we live in a 11 dimensional world, but do not realize it. Seligman described how flat land is 2D and then compared it to the 11D world and explained how the other dimensions are compacted. The Baby Math discussed the article of 6 month-olds recognizing subtraction and how 7 month-olds can match voices to images. Both Podcast’s were very interesting and they gave you a different view on math.

In the discussion “Releasing the Hounds” Chris Harbeck discusses the importance of electronic portfolios in the classroom. He describes how E-portfolios provide instead a snapshot of the students learning, a showcase of the students learning over a year’s time. The students can then show their parents what the learned, teach different subject content, and show off the new 2.0 tools the know how to use.

E-portfolios are also accessible to do work at home. The best thing about a electronic portfolio is that it lets parents get involved, because students can create questions for their parents and also make answer keys. It allows the students to teach their parents what they are learning and in return it gets the parents involved. Harbeck said that the most rewarding thing was the comments made by the parents about the E-portfolios. Many parents thought it was amazing what their child could do with it.

In the Keynote by Clarence Fisher at the K12 Online Conference 2007, he discussed many important points. Education is a vital national resource and a vital international resource. It can change people’s lives and it can make or break people’s future. Fisher explains how classroom 2.0 is about us, the teachers, it’s about change, and it is about what we need to do to help the students get to their futures.

Some factors he mentions that will help change education are changing the way we teach, tools, relationships, and curriculum. Changing the way we teach is pretty self explanatory. We can not go back to the old ways of making the students memorize information, we as teachers must come up with new techniques or activities that help the students gather the information so that the will remember it for the future. Tools is the second most important. This deals with collaboration with students local, students and the teacher, students and the school, different classrooms, and even students that are international. Tools that promote collaboration that help exchange ideas about learning, make connections, etc. are needed in the classroom today to expand the education. Tools mentioned by Fisher are blogging, RSSD, Flicker, Pod-casting, and he has recently starting using voice ray in his classroom. Tools are very important. Examples may include Edublogs or wiki spaces which are both free for teachers and students.

Next, is relationship. Different relationships we have in the classroom will broaden the education spectrum such as the relationship we have to information, (information is vital) or the relationship we promote with the students in the classroom. Finally, is the curriculum. The curriculum is one factor that is out of the teachers control, but it needs looked at often and needs to go under constant change. What is important and what do the kids need have to be taken into consideration when creating a curriculum.

Besides these four factors Fisher brings up the most important change in the classroom must be our attitude toward the classroom and education. Not only the teacher but also the socity’s attitude about education. We need to redefine what happens in the classroom or what we think should happen in the classroom. If we change our attitude and look at them in a new way we can explore new activities, experiment with the look of the classroom, and create a more productive learning environment that will expand education.

The Knowledge Web is an activity rather than just a web site. It is an expedition in time, space, and technology to landscape the human thought and experience. The Knowledge Web will be a place where teachers, students, and others can explore information. This free technology offered on the web can offer may people an opportunity to learn different subjects not like in the traditional classroom, it will connect history with science. The aim is to put learning into a context that makes it easier to see the greater relevance of people, ideas, and events, and to inspire new ways of thinking.

Collaborative Bookmarking extends social bookmarking which is a way for internet users to store, share, and organize links to web pages they want to remember or reuse in the future. Collaborative Bookmarking is more for the business aspect where the users share a common theme. This system of tagging web pages was first used by Network in 2002, and shows many advantages. Some advantages may include its simple way for users to group bookmarks together and share with co-workers, assessible through different routes, and very easy to retieve.

Collaborative Bookmarking can be helpful in the classroom, because a teacher can tag all of her web pages she used for a lesson plan or information about a topic and bring them right up in the classroom instead of re-searching for them. It can also be of use for students for the same purpose.

Recent studies have shown that there is a significant amount of increase in learning when teachers use microphones in the classroom. This also means that the classroom experience can be improved for the teachers as well as the students by sound reinforcement.

A microphone can amplify what the teacher is saying which can eliminate vocal strain some teachers may suffer from. Students can also hear better and also be more apt to participate. The microphone can benefit students with hearing loss, learning disability, special ed. students, and students struggling in reading, spelling, and language development. A microphone will be a great technology to have in every teachers classroom because it is not only an advantage for the teacher but as well as all of his/her’s students.

http://www.pentegrasystems.com/helpful_audio_hints.html 

Webcams are becoming more and more popular in the classroom today. A webcam can bring any topic to life such as checking the weather, viewing another country, or getting updates of a sporting event. The webcam can enhance a students understanding visually. The students can also learn how to use the webcam themselves which allows them to interact with a lesson plan hands on. A webcam would be a great technology to evolve into your style of teaching, simply because it broadens what your capabilities as a teacher will be if you open up the whole world to your students, and you can do with a simple webcam.

Check out more information by clicking Webcam!

The Smart Board is a technology that has entered the classroom around 1991 and seems to be making a big impact in education today. The smart board is a technology that takes a regular whiteboard and connects it to your computer. A teacher can create an entertaining way to present the material she/he would like to cover through the computer and it would directly display on the whiteboard through a projector. However the role can be reversed. The teacher and make notes on to the whiteboard and save them directly to the computer. This new technology is becoming more and more common in the classroom because it is easy to use. The smart board also gives lesson plans an extra boost of entertainment and a visual application so the students can grasp a concept by seeing it rather than hearing it.

http://www.smartboards.com/index.php?method=showpage&rollid=About-IntWhiteboards

The three prominent people in educational technology in my opinion are Ivan Sutherland, Tim Berners-Lee, and Howard Hathaway Aiken.

Ivan Sutherland was the co-founder of 3D computer molding and visual stimulation that is helpful today in every classroom.

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web. This application is useful in education for students doing research, for teachers to come up with lesson plans, and to promote your school on the web.

Howard Hathaway Aiken invented the IBN automatic sequence controlled calculator in 1943. He started the trend of a calculator which has continues to develop over the years. The calculator has eliminated the process of figuring out hard mathematical problems by hand and saves on time and energy in the classroom for students as well as teachers.

http://www.trustyetc.com/trustyblog/2007/09/05/who-is-important-here/