Educ 630: Blog 6

Reflect on current social networking technologies and how they might be used for educational purposes. You can also outline some concerns you have with these technologies.

 

 

There are numerous social networking technologies that are currently in use throughout the world.  I feel that the most popular social networking technologies are: facebook, twitter and skype.

 

 

Facebook is a social network that connects people through status updates, picture uploads, video uploads, comments, games and wall posts.  This network can be used for educational purposes by the primary use of group work or whole group activities.  Teachers can allow students to use facebook for a discussion board where they can have discussions and debates about class topics and various subject matter in relation to the curriculum.  Facebook could also be used for students to create a "blog" type enviornment where they post notes or individual assignments and get feedback from their classmates.

 

 

Twitter is yet another social network that is becoming more popular daily.  This network can be used to do group assignments where immediate feedback is needed.  This can be used as a chat room for students where they can get immediate feedback about their individual work, communite with partners during group work or communite with the teacher.  This network would really benefit a classroom setting where the need to have immediate responses is ideal.

 

 

Skype is yet another social network that involves chatting and video.  This is primarily beneficial for group projects because the group can work from a distance but still talk and see one another.  This is extremely useful during online classes when all assignments are completed primarily from a distance; therefore group projects are more manageable when they have more structure and the group members are able to communite with one another through virtual technology and have more of a hands on experience.

educ 630: blog 4

on your own ability to collaborate in asynchronous and synchronous online environments . .for learning or for professional contexts

I feel that I function better in asynchronous online learning enviornment.  I feel this because I enjoy a learning enviornment that is more interactive and engaging.  Hence in an aynchronous enviornment there is a more student centered approach where there is more peer to peer intereactions.  This is particularily helpful when their are group projects to be completed or there are discussion boards or blogs that are to be completed.  All of these components of online learning really stimulate my thinking and lead me towards the preference of an asynchronous online enviornment.  I love that this type of learning environment promotes a high level of interactivity.

The main downside that I see to asynchronous online enviornments is that they are very dependent upon technology use and this can be a hinderace to the educators and the learners.  For example many online educational databases like Blackboard, can be used by numerous people to function in an online community, but if technology fails or experiences challenges the users are then at a stucked place because the functioning of the online community is based upon that source of technology.  This can be seen numerous times throughout the course of any educational setting when emails can not be viewed, blackboard can not be accessed, etc.

Overall I feel that asynchronous online enviornments lend to a more engaging atmosphere where students and educators can collaborate together; and that can lead to a more enriched educational experience.

Educ 630. Blog 4

As a kindergarten teacher I am constantly looking up resources to help me strengthen my instructional delievery and improve the academic levels of my students.  The web based resources below have been extremely helpful in this process for a number of reasons; not just for kindergarten but for various grade levels.

www.readingz-z.com

This website is useful to me because it is a great extension to the literacy program that we have implemented at my school.  This website provides numerous resources to help enhance the reading skills of my students, and that is especially important in kindergarten. There is a wide selection of fiction and non-fiction books, worksheets, benchmark books for each level, comprehension quizzes, and lesson plans.  This website is useful for teachers to facilitate direct instruction to their students because the lesson plans are available. All of these things are a great resource to help build the literacy skills of students.

www.abcteach.com

This website is useful to me because it has a variety of tools that can be used to generate worksheets, activities, workbooks, wall décor, etc.  All of these things save plenty of time in my classroom because more time is spent on instruction rather than trying to plan out worksheets and activities from scratch.  Also this website includes all core subject areas and that makes it where educators don’t have to go to a variety of websites to generate worksheets on different subject areas.

www.kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids

This website is useful to me because it allows me to incorporate technology into my classroom.  This website offers a lot of information on science, science inquiry and social studies.  This website has been incorporated into my lessons that were themed around countries, animals, living environments for animals, etc.  This website is great because it shows real life photos, videos, games and activities about every category offered in the kids national geographic.

www.kidslearningstation.com

This website is useful to me because it has a variety of tracing activities for students among other things.  This is a great resource for kindergarten and preschool teachers because students in these grade levels are just learning the handwriting skills and tracing will help them learn how to correctly form letters.  This website not only offers numerous tracing activities, but also activities about numbers, shapes, colors, math, phonics, etc. 

www.atozteacherstuff.com

This website is useful to me because it offers great free printables for all subject areas. This website can incorporate all learning styles due  to the variety of material offered in each subject area.  The activities from this website have been used in my classroom all year round.  The search options are very useful because they allow the teacher to search for material by grade level and subject.  The printables from this website include activities, craft ideas, worksheets and flipbooks.  These are all very useful printables, especially in my kindergarten classroom because the students need manipulatives and activities to help reinforce their learning.

educ 630: blog 3

How do you personally view your learning and the use of "presentations" - what works for you as a learner?

I have always been a very visual learner.  I love to be engaged in my instructional activities.  Therefore presentation give me the motivation and incentives I need to learn.  Often times when I do not find material to be interesting, presentations allow me to still become engaged with the material that is to be taught.  The use of graphics, text, pictures, graphs, audio, etc, all add to the learning environment for me and enhance my ability to learn.

I know that as a visual learner, I can use my other modes of learning but I learn most from visual aides.  When given information in a lecture or auditory format, I take that information and put it into a graph, spreadsheet or draw pictures cues beside the information, etc.  These things allow for me to make a visual connection between any types of information that are not given in a visual aspect.

In my classroom I also capitalize on the use of presentation because I know that kindergarten students work best when they can manipulate information and the material is presented in a visual format.  This can often be seen through the use of a Smart Board because the lessons are typically presented in an interactive fomat.  Presentation software can be used for numerous purposes but it can add to any instructional enviornment when the students are able to become more engaged in the learning process.