What I took away from the readings this week is that if technology is implemented correctly, it can be a truly powerful tool, both inside and outside of the classroom. Technology provides resources to teachers that will help us search out and discover pertinent content, organize this said content for more simplified retrieval, stay up to date on what's happening on the web and in the world, and engage students in new and exciting ways. Chapter four demonstrated to me that technology integration is a process that does not come to fruition overnight. Once educators decide that they are going to build their technology integration skills, they must figure out where to go next, but before that next step can be taken, they must come to discover where they are at currently. Looking at the stages provided on page 90 of the text, I believe that I am slowly coming out of the adoption stage and beginning to enter the adaption stage. Now that I have learned many new technologies, I am discovering ways to successfully implement them into my classes as part of my regular practice. Chapter 6 helped offer even more resources that I can use in my classroom to aide in all facets of my classroom structure. I particularly liked the information about social bookmarking. I am a big proponent of electronic bookmarking on my personal computer, and the idea of widening the scope here is quite enthralling to me. I currently use a few sites that would be considered social bookmarking sites, but they are not often used for education purposes. Perhaps you have heard of Pinterest or StumbleUpon. These site organize sites that you deem "favorites" and place them into categories. I use my Pinterest account everyday, and what I "repin" comes in handy in my life on a daily basis. I find myself using recipes I've pinned, or looking back at hair/makeup style ideas, or even passing on wedding ideas to my friend who is getting married later this year. Recently, I was sent an invitation to "pin" into a multi-user board titled "Vegetarian/Vegan Dishes". I found this particularly cool because there are thousands of people who have access to "pin" things they like relating to this subject into this space. I can then access this board and see what other users have bookmarked and reference back to it when I am looking for my next meal. Here is the link to my Pinterest, so you can see how it works and some of the things I have pinned: http://pinterest.com/samacc1621/ With that said, I was pleased with the other social bookmarking sites offered by the text and I will be checking some of those out ASAP.
I'd like to leave you with some questions to ponder and as a platform for discussion:
(1) Are you familiar with any other social bookmarking sites not mentioned here or in the text? What do you use them for?
(2) The text mentions virtual field trips. I have explored this with the USHMM website and it was a great success. Anyone else ever tried this? What sites? How'd you organized this? How long did it take you?
(3) Are you for or against lesson planning websites? Sure, it is convenient to utilize someone else pre-made lesson, but is it effective? Should we be creating our own lesson and our own materials or is it ok to borrow from others?
I totally didn't even think of pinterest as a social bookmarking site but it totally is. It would be smart to make a pinterest for students to use. I know my personal pinterest has categories that are not at all educational; however I have found many sites that are helpful to me as a teacher and could definitely be helpful for students. Thanks for putting that idea in my head!
ReplyDeleteIn response to your third question I personally feel that it is helpful in using lessons found from lesson planning websites but I tweak them to make it my own. I have yet to find a lesson in which it seemed so perfect and flawless and would work perfectly with my students and the reason for this is because no two classes are the same. What may be a perfect lesson for one class might not work for another, which is why knowing your students is important. Yes I have sometimes turned to websites to help gain ideas for teaching a lesson in a new way to my afterschool students but I sometimes like to pull different ideas from a few lessons and create my own lesson using bits and pieces from the ones I found. It isn't a problem to borrow ideas from others and thats what networking and these websites should be used for, as a guide for teachers who may have teachers block and not now how to go about a certain lesson. I do however feel that teachers should not always rely 100% on these sites because look at the like clip we looked at in class last week for example, the teacher who used the Edgar Allen Poe webquest ended up having a lesson that was a complete dud and so boring. I feel he could have used some of the points to then create his own more interactive webquest and it would have been his own and more engaging for his students.
ReplyDeleteI love the way that you demonstrate pinterest as a classroom tool. It really opened my eyes to the fact that we, as teachers, essentially take already-existing tools and repurpose them to fit our educational needs. This brings us back to the question of inclusion vs. infusion, and whether we as teachers are ever really doing anything inherently new.
ReplyDeleteAfter exploring your pinterest for a bit, I definitely can see it being a tool I implement into my English classroom- students could pin sentences, images, etc. that reverberate with them in relation to the text we are reading.
In terms of social bookmarking sites that I have used, I am personally very fond of Reddit. To me, Reddit represents the establishment and maintenance of miniature learning communities. People of various backgrounds and interests come together to synthesize and sort the information on the internet as it best suits a discussion of said interests. While this creates new issues for teachers, the benefits, I think, outweigh the costs.