My "Aha's!"

I believe the class where we were introduced to bloglines, del.icio.us, and blogs was had the biggest impact on me. I knew about blogs but not to the extent that we went into them in class and del.icio.us was something I knew nothing about. I never new you could bookmark and carry your bookmarks with you. Since then I have discovered that Google has the same thing and it is on my Google toolbar along with my Google mail feed. I use it everyday and I have the Google toolbar on every computer I use at home and at work.

Another big “Aha” moment for me was Second Life. I was really impressed with Second Life and its capabilities. I know they have a long way to go to get some of the bugs out of the system but it has great potential for future use in education. I think the thing that I thought would be greatest in an online setting was being able to use the movie screen in Second Life to work math problems so that students would be able to see how it is done.

I probably will not use my educational blog anymore until I start teaching psychology or sociology. I probably will start a personal blog and keep what I have in the educational blog but just not add to it.

Empowering Teachers with Technology: Final Thoughts.

I believe Romano’s guidelines/concepts are realistic because they are guidelines that can be implemented. For example, in chapter 7 Romano outlines a curriculum with technology interwoven within it that would satisfy the most critical teachers who are scared of loosing their jobs because of technology taking over. It is the technology enhanced curriculum rather than the technology taking over the teacher’s job curriculum. Romano’s scenario with the technology enhanced curriculum is a perfect example of how technology can increase learning for students and even to the point of demanding higher grades from them. Wow, this is exactly the type of technology enhancement we need for our schools both K-12 and above.

I believe that teachers can begin to make changes in their classrooms by using some of the technology Romano has suggested without the whole school having to adopt a specific program. Teachers can begin by using DVD’s in their classrooms that show actual historical footage which would go along with whatever subject they are teaching. They can use short pieces of movies to illustrate some subject matter they are trying to teach. The can stop the movie and explain things to their class and then start it back up again. I use this type of technology in my psychology classes to show some concept in psychology that movies have portrayed very well.

I am not sure that Romano’s suggestion of a whole school technologically enhancing the curriculum will work any time soon. There are just too many individuals still at the administrative level who say it has been done this way all these years why should we change it. We need to change it because it “ain’t” working.

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Research/NECC_Research_Paper_Archives/NECC_2004/Park-Sung-Hee-NECC04.pdf

The above is a research project where three teachers were studied as they implemented a technology-enhanced problem-based learning approach. All three teachers were social studies instructors.

Online Learning/My Blog-My Vision 4/17

Second Life will be a powerful medium for enhancing online learning experiences for students. The developers of Second Life still have a lot of kinks to iron out of the program but as they continue to develop it the program will become more user friendly. The idea of being able to use the movie screen inside Second Life to teach math classes will certainly empower teachers to demonstrate some very difficult concepts by working the problems on the screen for the class to see and have access to when they need it.

In the future, Virtual High Schools (VHS) will make it possible for students who cannot make in the traditional classroom setting to graduate high school rather than dropping out and not being able to further their education. It will also empower students, who do not have a problem with traditional classroom settings, by allowing them to be a part of something they have become very familiar with. I believe students should always be given a choice in the type of median they want to experience when it comes to learning. Some students do not like online learning environments and others would have it no other way. November (2001) stated that the students who do not do well in online classes are those who sit in the front of the class and who answers the questions and have the chance to shine in front of all their classmates because they are quick-witted. He believed that if students do not want to be their (i.e., an online class), they will not do well.

The VHS and Second Life will continue to grow and as the “old guard” leaves and the new one takes over we will see more and more uses of these powerful median for learning. The future hold some very exciting things for those who are willing to venture out into the virtual world and grasp the power it has for teaching students.

Windows Movie Maker

Here is a video I made with Windows Movie Maker of my graduation in the Summer of 2005.

Primary Sources and NARA

This is great stuff. I never knew anything about Primary Sources and NARA. I consider this a great find that will enhance the students learning experience when I teach face-to-face classes or completely online classes. I plan on substituting one of the writing assignments for an assignment where students have to use http://www.archives.gov/index.html to access primary sources of information on one of the individuals who have influenced psychology/sociology. I intend on suppling them with several names of individuals (e.g., Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner or John B. Watson) associated with psychology and tell them to search these archives for a primary source document print it out and write a two page paper describing the primary source, how it is related to the individual they were researching, and how the feel searching for a primary source helped enhance their learning experience. I will do the same thing for a sociology class but substitute individuals who influenced sociology (e.g. Emily Durkheim, Herbert Spencer or George Herbert Mead).

My Blog-My Vision Posting: 4/3

I see that many instructors are apprehensive about teaching via teleconference because of the extra load it causes them and not adequate compensation for the extra work. I have been in a teleconference setting where the home class was teleconferenced to other areas and we interacting with each other. We had to push buttons to talk so that our classmates could hear use talk as we made comments. I can see the added pressure that the instructor would have in dealing with twice as many students and from a distance. I believe this could be resolved by reduce the instructors work load if they had to teach teleconference class as well as compensate them with an increase in the amount of money allotted for teaching these types of classes.

“Experience over the past 50 years indicates that any application of television—or any technology—that compromises the teacher’s traditional role in the classroom inevitably will engender resistance” (p. 77). I experience this when I am worried about how much I should reveal about the amount of technology I use in the traditional classroom setting. There are some traditional instructors who would frown on the use of WebCT for taking quizzes, exams and having discussion postings.

“Television’s primary role in education is not to supplant teachers. Rather, it can be adapted to supplement their capacity to impart audible and visible information, thus enhancing the fuel that powers the teaching-learning process and consequently the outcome” (p. 78). I believe this and use movies to portray certain things I am trying to teach in psychology. There are some things a movie can show more realistically than I could ever show any other way.

The above is reiterated in the perception “Television’s fundamental role in the classroom is to allow teachers to eliminate the compromise of using verbal descriptions of anything that can be seen, thus enhancing the quality of the information they make available to the learners, enhancing the outcome of the teaching-learning process” (p. 80).

I have experienced the perception “The mind coupled with a computer infinitely amplifies its capacity to perform the basic cognitive functions. Yet, there is no configuration of microchips that replicates the intricate, vital interface between mind and emotions―a basic limitations of computers” (p. 87). I have seen this in communication with email where you cannot express emotions and cannot tell what people are trying to express because you are not face-to-face with them knowing really how they feel because you can see it in there face.

Romano, M. T. (2003). Empowering Teachers with Technology. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Perceptions

One of Romano’s perceptions was that the final out-come of the teaching-learning process relies heavily on how teachers handle the vast amount of information generated with the digital age. He included a profound statement “Thompson said that the successful teacher primarily manages information, not students” (p. 52). This may be true at the collegiate level but any education lower than that seems to make demands on teachers to spend more time managing students to be successful in their classrooms.

Romano (2003) stated that the master instructors in the Information Age will be those individuals who can sort through all the vast amounts of data provided by the Worldwide Web and pick out only the information that will enhance the students learning experience. This is something I am trying to improve myself by taking this class so that I can develop more effective learning communities. The words “replicas” and “referents” helped me to better understand how the quality of the experience you are trying replicate to learners is derived from the disparity between the referent and the replica. This disparity determines the fidelity of information you are trying to bring into the learners environment.

Another one of Romano’s perceptions identified the fundamental level of all learning being done through the senses which consist of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling. In past teaching experiences, I have tried to bring in each on of the senses during the learning process. It is very difficult to always use all of the senses all the time but over the course of the whole semester different ones can be used to help students’ process information.

I think the perception presented by Romano that overwhelmed my cognitive ability to comprehend was “Human progress from the Stone Age to the Information Age resulted primarily from amplifying individuals’ capacity to function, first by empowering them with crude implements, then tools, then machines, and now technology. He later inferred that the amplifier brought about by the computer and its being able to link across the world with distribution technologies is “too awesome to contemplate” (p. 47). This would bring about a million-fold multiplication of a million-fold amplifier which is more than I can comprehend. I know that the technological knowledge we have now grow exponentially every so many years and we have not even come close to what the future could hold in technology which will effect the teacher.

Romano (2003) stated “A verbal description alone of anything that can be seen must be considered a compromise; a compromise made every day in classrooms in an age when technology makes it unnecessary” (p. 56). This is why I try to use all the visual aids I can when I teach face-to-face. I put pictures of neurotransmitters and etc. on my website and pull them up and project them on the screen in the front of the class. In addition, I use movies to show an accurate portrayal of a particular disorder we are talking about.

Creating this type of learning experience encroaches on Romano’s perception that there is enough scientific evidence “That learning is heightened when teachers create visually rich experiences, thus engaging the learner’s entire brain―rather than only half. This evidence has encouraged me to include even more visual aids and continue to use WebCT to enrich the learners experience so that both sides of their brains will be used during the learning process.

Romano, M. T. (2003). Empowering Teachers with Technology. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

Worst Fears and Best Hopes

My worst fear is that I will not be able to connect my students to a global audience. I hope that I will be able to create the network needed to produce the interaction with other students that would increase their desire to perform at a higher capacity.

1. I will use my students to help me overcome these fears. I will ask them to help me create a network that would include students from another country. I would ask them what suggestions would they make on how to begin creating this network and make it part of their assignment to create this network.

2. I tried to identify to the barriers outlined by Romano and did not find any that I have come in contact with personally.

3. Learning more about blogging and building effective learning communities have lead to my fear of not being able to go global with these communities and being effective in the use of them.

4. As mentioned earlier I plan on shifting the control of creating a global audience that is diverse culturally to the students and get them to mentor me in the effective way to achieve this.

November and Romano Chapter 2 Readings

1. One of the things I want to use that we have learned about in class is having other people look at and evaluate each other’s work. Many students would do just about anything to perform in the sports arenas around the nation. They perform to the applause of the many fans who come to watch their sports activities whether it be at the college or professional levels. November (2001) stated this principle:

The importance of a real audience to motivate students can be a very powerful and positive force. Ask any music teacher or football coach what would happen to student focus, motivation, and intensity if the audience was removed―no more performances and no more games in the stadium. Some of these educators will tell you that the effect of the audience or crowd is one of the strongest catalysts of student motivation. (p. 34)

This is the same reason that many professors continue to publish their research studies. It is the approval of the many individual’s who evaluate their work on a regular basis. If we can incorporate this into the learning environment, it could produce motivation that can not be reached in any other fashion. Using the Word Wide Web to produce collaborative learning would be a great way to incorporate this element into the learning environment. Even if we are teaching a face-to-face class we can have our students publish their work so that other students from different parts of the state, country, or world can evaluate their work which could produce greater motivation for completion and quality of work.

2. I will no longer worry about quantity of technology without first planning for quality of use of technology. If we have all the classrooms in the United States furnished with computers but have not planned on what ways they will be used to increase motivation to learn, then we have accomplished nothing. In addition, when I am creating a online class I will review the 13 factors that Notar, Wilson, and Ross (2002) have suggested during the process.

3. It is very important to use the Internet for connecting students to other cultures. The world we live in requires individuals to develop relationships with others in different cultures. If we as educators can help students develop this skill we will be preparing them for something they are most likely to encounter in the business world.

Romano (2003) made it very clear that a revolution in education is not likely to occur so it is imperative that we bring about an evolution in education with technology. One of the things we need to do is start adding both in the classroom and in the online learning environments ways to increase right brain learning. I have done this by incorporating images into the face-to-face lecture environment. There are many images that I use when teaching psychology that help the student use their right brain learning capabilities. These images help the students visualize some concepts that could be very hard to grasp.

Microsoft Word and Publisher

Word is a very powerful tool for creating documents, merging envelops and labels with addresses, and desktop publishing. I have used Word to do all three of these things and there are many other capabilities that it has besides these. I have used Publisher to create brochures for conferences when I worked in the Education Department at SFA. Since then I have not had a need to use it so it was good to get a refresher on it. I would hope that in the future I will get the opportunity to use Publisher again because I enjoy desktop publishing but just never have a reason to use it in the areas that I am working.

Since my vision/goal is to teach psychology/sociology at the collegiate level I do not see myself using Publisher but Word is something I intend to use quit often. I have already used the track changes part in Word when I graded my students writing assignments for the online course I taught in sociology. I have also used it when I write papers for school. I have a friend who edits my papers for me and I turn on track changes so when she edits it I can tell what she has changed so that I can make sure I agree with the changes. Word is something that I probably take for grant because I use it so much. I forget how powerful it is in other areas like desktop publishing and it was great to be reminded of all those features.

Bloglines and del.icio.us

Class on the 6th was the best class I have been in for a long time. I am completely amazed at the information that we were allowed to become privy too. The site www.bloglines.com will and has allowed me to streamline many things I am trying to accomplish on the Internet. I have enjoyed being able to get on the site and now what knew things have been added to other people's blogs and the new things that are going on in the news and sports. I don't have to wade through a whole lot of duplicated material anymore and in turn make use of my time more wisely. The site www.del.icio.us is another website that was introduced in class on the 6th that has improved my world (i.e., made my life much easier). I am very grateful for learning about this website and being able to centralize all my favorites so I could access them over the Internet. These two things that we learned about shows the vastness of computers and the Internet and how they open the door for never being able to learn all there is to know about them. These are things we can study for the rest of our lifetimes and never stop being able to learn something new. Technology is so exciting and rewarding. Thanks again to everyone who was involved in introducing these new tools into our lives.

Charlie

Technology Skills

I can do just about anything with a computer but program and have no interest in programing. I was taught the basic things about computers and office programs and then taught myself everything else I know about computers. I build my own computers and have built computers for friends. I am proficient with Microsoft Office (i.e., Excel, Word, Outlook, & PowerPoint). I know Access but have not used it enough and I am rusty with it. I can build and edit webpages and I use Dreamweaver to do this. I am proficient with WebCT and can design courses with it. I use Adobe Photoshop to edit images for webpages and edit pictures. I can find just about anything on the Internet and enjoy surfing the net. When I write papers, I do most of my research over the Internet through the libraries access to on-line journals. I make very few trips to the library itself and I know all you librarians hate that but I could write a whole research paper without setting foot in a library and all my sources would be legitimate. What I love about computers is the fact that you can never learn everything there is to learn about them or the Internet they provide access to and I am looking forward to the new things I will learn in this class.

Definition of Educational/Instructional Technology

When searching for a definition of educational/instructional technology, the Internet was sighted as the primary tool making up this group of instruments intent on enhancing learning. There are many instruments that are used in educational/instructional technology ranging from the computer to the projectors used in classrooms. The computer opens up a whole world of technology when access to the internet is made available. There is a vast wealth of knowledge available through the internet but the reliability of this knowledge must be brought into question and learners must be taught how to distinguish between what is reliable and what is not. Educational/instructional technology is the use of electronic medium for enhancing the learning capabilities of individual’s searching for knowledge. The types of educational/instructional technology that I am interested in learning about are developing effective learning communities over the internet and which types of educational software like WebCT and Blackboard are the most effective in enhancing on-line learning. In addition, I would like to know some basic things about Java script because as of now I do not understand anything about it and I have run into it at work when editing the webpages for UIL.

Murray, L., Hourigan, T., Jeanneau, C. & Chappell, D. (2005). Netskills and the current state of beliefs and practices in student learning: An assessment and recommendations. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(3), 425-438.

Moyer, P. S., Bolyard, J. J., & Spikell, M. A. (2001). Virtual manipulatives in the K-12 classroom. (Report No. SE-066-585). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED-468-203).

Introductional Blog

I am taking this class as an elective because I am interested in instructional technology. I want to learn more about building communities on the internet. I did not know this was going to be part of the class but was glad to find out we would be learning about using the internet to build learning communities.

I am working on the doctoral degree in higher education because I want to increase my knowledge of higher education. In addition, I want to teach psychology or sociology as a full-time instructor at a community college and I believe this degree will increase my qualifications for obtaining a full-time position.

My current goal is to finish my doctoral degree and gain as much technological knowledge as possible. My future goal is to teach full-time and I want to teach on-line courses as well as face-to-face courses. I have already taught sociology completely on-line with WebCT and I really enjoyed it. I used to work in the education department at SFA helping to develop courses in WebCT so I designed the sociology course and taught it for Panola College in the Fall of 2005.