Reactions+to+the+readings

**__My Reactions to the readings during ITC 525__** Overall, the readings that we did throughout the course were interesting because I discovered a lot about technology. From the readings I was also able to better understand the topic for the week, which therefore aided me when completing the project for the week.

 __**Response to Computers in Education**__

The article about the Digital natives and digital immigrants by far made the biggest impact on me. I feel that as a 23 year old I am in the middle of these two ‘digitals.’ As stated in the article, “Digital natives are used to receiving information very fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task.” This sounds like me through and through. But then I read, “…examples of the digital immigrant accent. They include printing out your email…; needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it…” (Prensky, 2011) and I thought this is me as well! Born in the ages where computers were just being introduced into schools (and my house) at the end of my elementary school career, I am pulled to both sides! The article entitled “Computers in Education: A Brief History” I found quite interesting. One line in particular caught my attention and had me reflecting about teachers, those who have been in the profession for a while and those of us who are new, “Technology increases productivity but requires a more highly skilled work force with a broader education and a greater //familiarity// with the tools and theories of science” (Molnar, 1997). I italicized familiarity because those of us who are newly out of college are extremely familiar with technology, as we didn’t have a choice. Teacher who have been teaching for ten, twenty plus years aren’t as familiar with it because they first of all didn’t grow up with it and secondly, they were never forced to really learn it. In order for it to come into our classrooms and provide this productivity level, the teacher in front of the classroom needs to be able to provide the support and guidance for the students, not only for the content, but also the technology if it is being used. My students have been using technology since they were born I’d like to say. They have been surrounded by technology their entire lives. I use technology often in my classroom, but I admit, not as often as I would like, as there are only 2 laptop carts for the entire school building. I often use Brainpop clips to engage them, and they are perfect because they last just about as long as their attention span (4 minutes or so). I then use the quizzes after the clips. I have them work with their desk sets and use a whiteboard to hold up the answers to the question. We have also used laptops in order to do research. I do believe that I look at my students differently after reading the articles- thinking of them as ‘Digital Natives’ and myself somewhere in between the two. I love technology and as far as I have observed they do too, which is why I am anxious to learn new ways to incorporate technology into my classroom!!

Molnar, Andrew; 1997; “Computers in Education: A Brief History; Retrieved on May 23, 2011; [|https://kud2l.kutztown.edu/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=345253&tId=3754763]

Prensky, Marc; 2001; “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”; Retrieved on May 23, 2011;

**__Response to Internet Safety and CIPA__**

As I read through the articles and watched the video clip, I was surprised at how much I started understanding the other side of the filtering debate. While I still believe that filtering is important, especially at the elementary level, I can now understand why sometimes not filtering is important as well in order to teach students responsibility when using the Internet. I think filtering is very important, especially at the elementary level. As stated in the article (Cromwell), “Many experts say the current technology should be utilized in schools because it at least makes surfing the net safer for children.” I couldn’t agree more with this advice, because students need to be using the internet during the school day… it’s what they go home and do, so why not carry that into the school day? As you go into middle and high school, I think it is more important for students to learn how to use the Internet properly without filters, or at least not as much of a filter as they have at the elementary level. Our computer teacher at the school does a lot with the students and making sure that they are safe online, but I myself did very little. I will make sure that at the beginning of next year I start the school year off right by talking about cyber bullying, online predators, etc. at their third grade level. We talked about how to search online and other tips like that, but I did not fully address the issue, other than telling them that they had to use Google for Kids (which I feel is a great search engine for my students and came highly recommended from their computer teacher). I still find that the kids aren’t always able to find the pictures they want, so I search them through regular Google. I think filtering is a form of censorship, and an important one I think! I think it is very necessary, especially in elementary schools. Our school has an AUP and just pops up when a student tries to view something that is not appropriate, such as Gmail, Facebook, etc. There is a desktop in my room, so when the students are going to use a certain website, I pull it up for them ahead of time, and they know to use the Google for kids search engine if they need to look something up. I agree that an AUP should be based on a philosophy that takes into account both freedom and responsibility (Cromwell). I took a look over my school district’s AUP and found it to be a very interesting read. I really liked seeing that there is a separate one from the district that only addresses the elementary computer labs. That one is more in the language of an elementary school student! This is definitely one way of showing the students that it is partly their responsibility to only view images and texts that are school appropriate and make it through the filtering system I attached the AUP for the District and then a separate on for the elementary computer lab. I am not sure how much our filtering system blocks, but I know that sometimes when I go to check my Gmail, it won’t let me, which can be frustrating. I have seen some systems that allow the teachers to bypass the filtering, but as far as I know, Wilson does not. As a brand new teacher in my first year, I feel that I was surrounded by technology through college, which allows me to feel very comfortable with what is out there. My mentor taught me so much about wikis, blogs, Google docs, etc. and the wonderful thing about her classroom was that there was a laptop cart that they only shared with one other classroom! It allowed me to have the student blog back and forth on Moodle that I could then look at and grade. As Richardson stated, “ It feels more and more hollow to ask students to ‘hand in’ their homework to an audience of one.” And in allowing the students to blog, other students, not just myself were able to read it and respond. My frustration at my current school is that there are only two laptop carts for K-5, which only hold 16 each. I want to integrate technology more, but with the resources I am unable to. Technology surrounds us and is changing EVERY day. I just saw an advertisement for the Ipad 2 and thought to myself, wow, I don’t even have the first one yet! In a constantly changing, technological world, it is very important to keep up and integrate technologies into our classroom. I feel it is the responsibility of the teacher to make sure this happens. In conclusion, technology is here to stay and keeps growing every minute. It is very important we stay with the ever expanding technology world, but it is also important to make sure that our students are safe while using it. As an educator I feel that my job is always to keep the children safe, and filtering the internet is part of that safety that I need for my students. I feel that that is a common goal on both sides- keeping our students safe, it’s just that there are two different ways to get there. Credits:

Cromwell, A. (1998). // The Internet safety debate //. Education World. Retrieved on May 31, 2011 from []. Richardson, W. (2006). The internet breaks school walls down. Retrieved on May 31,

2011 from [].

Reaction to Emerging Technologies

The article I chose to read is entitled //Google Docs and Spreadsheets: Collaborating in the Classroom or Library//. I found that it fit into my project for the week, as my partner and I chose to do a journal response using Google Docs. The article was broken down into sections that made a lot of sense to me since I have used the application before and find Google Docs to be a very collaborative application. He begins the article in a very interesting and attention-grabbing fashion. He is out of school for the day and the e-mails he is getting from the sub make him think that nothing is going to get accomplished. Then, one of his students e-mails him a link to a Google Doc so that he and the students can discuss any questions they have while working on their assignment, which happens to be a podcast. He further goes on to discuss how Google Docs is a dream for educators because of the accessibility it allows for its’ users. He goes on to talk about how he feels that Google Docs has drastically changed the way his students collaborate, communicate, and create. He talks about how he doesn’t have piles of papers anymore that have scribble marks all over them. The papers and their comments and corrections are right there in the document, which he also adds is accessible to parents, which they have found helpful. The students are also being more creative because they are able to have any student in the class add suggestions and comments. This allows the students to compare their pieces quite easily and incorporate suggestions with the click of some buttons. Last, but certainly not least, is the idea of collaboration. The idea of Google Docs lends itself to collaboration. He discusses how there is actually a collaborate tab and how one time he was collaborating with a student one evening through Google Docs and found that one of his other students and her sister on the other side of the country were giving this student helpful suggestions. How cool is that? Google Docs truly breaks down walls and allows for infinite possibilities. Finally, there are tips for both first time users and veterans users which I found extremely helpful! I believe that this tool fits perfectly into the classroom, if you have laptops/computer labs in order to use it. It can be used to type papers, create slideshows, and collaborate with others. The wonderful thing about this tool is that students can be working on a paper at school and instead of having to save it into the school system and not be able to work on it from home, they are able to save it on Google Docs and pick up right where they left off! I truly believe that Google Docs is one of the best technology applications around at the moment because of it’s accessibility for teachers and students! As a school employee, I do have access to Google Docs, and I assume my students do as well because they have school e-mail addresses. I use the word assume because I have not used Google Docs in my classroom. While I used it at least 3 times a week at my student teaching assignment, I have yet to use it this year (and there are only 3 ½ days left at this point). Last year, each student had a laptop, but this year I find it very difficult to integrate technology, such as this one, because of the lack of laptops in our building. I would love to have my students type their papers (as they need typing practice) and save paper by having me grade them through Google Docs, or use a presentation mode and have the students continuously commenting on their reactions to the science experiment, but it makes it difficult when you don’t have the availability of laptops. The benefits are truly endless with Google Docs. The application can be used in so many different ways and I believe really fuel collaboration in the classroom, which I think is extremely important to start at a young age.

Case, Christopher. (2011). __Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Collaborating in the Classroom or Library.__ Retrieved on June 7, 2011.
http://www.google.com/librariancenter/articles/0703_01.html **__Reaction to Educational Computing (Web 2.0 was the topic I chose)__**

This week I looked at two articles that had different topics but a common core. The common core is Web 2.0 and how (1) it is affecting librarians, and (2) how it is being used among educators to further educate students and themselves. The first article I read, entitled, “The Teach Web 2.0 Consortium: a tool to promote educational social and networking and Web 2.0” was about a consortium that teachers created in order to share questions, comments and new applications through a wiki and also (although it declined a few months after this began) face-to-face meetings. It didn’t surprise the teachers who were interviewed about the fact that the face-to-face meetings had less and less people after it began. They commented that with schedules it was hard, as well as, the fact that they had a wiki that they could talk on virtually when they had the time available to log on. I never knew that this existed and am thinking about checking it out! Being able to collaborate with others is so important and you end up learning so much from one another! In order for students to truly get the best education possibly, collaboration among teachers is imperative. Especially with technology, it is good to have others to talk to about different problems/questions you may be having. In the article it also stated that the consortium served as a place for inquiry among the teachers, as well, as knowledge building. Furthermore, it was discussed that once they launched the wiki, they began interacting and collaborating with people all over the world! Discussed in the article was the fact that student learning is impacted in two ways. The first is that teachers researched the applications with the thought of how it could be valued in their classroom. Secondly, the teachers themselves are taking part in online collaboration, so they are able to see the effect of online collaboration. In conclusion, after a school year of using this wiki and having meetings, the teachers found this to be extremely useful and were able to integrate technology into their classrooms because of the great resources everyone was sharing. I found this article extremely interesting and was very impressed by the idea and initiative to try something this. The second article, entitled “A Model of the Reference and Information Service Process” was an educator’s perspective about how the role of librarians in schools and communities has been changing with the ever-changing world of technology. Librarians have moved more from assistance in the library to more of a teacher role in how to find modern information on Web 2.0. The article also discussed how we are moving from a world of face-to-face and paper-based to a world of online interactions and electronic information. I know that when I think about my own experience in college, I hardly used the library at all. Currently, we can find almost anything we could need, including articles and books online through different databases and websites. I thought that they may add at the end of the article that librarians, as well as libraries may become extinct with time, but the author said that libraries are moving with technology. They are including computers in libraries, along with programs to find books and research. Librarians are also becoming a key teacher in how to use these programs, so for the foreseeable future, libraries are here to stay. I find this to be very comforting because my students, as well as, myself enjoy visiting the library and talking to our librarian about different books on the shelves and library tools online. Web 2.0 offers a broad range of possibilities. Technology is always changing and because of that our role as teachers is changing as well, along with librarians’ and other careers. In order to not short change our students, teachers need to learn about how to use the different applications on the internet and collaborate with other teachers in order to truly be prepared when bringing the applications into the classroom for the students.

Sources: Drexler, Wendy (2008). The Teach Web 2.0 Consortium: a tool to promote educational social networking and Web 2.0 use among educators (Online). //Educational Media International,// 271-283.

Agosto, Denise (2011). A Model of Reference and Information Service Process: An Educator’s Perspective (Online). //Reference and User Services Quarterly,// 235-244.

**__Reaction to Wikis and Blogs__**

Wikis and blogs offer a great platform for communication and collaboration in education settings. With technology constantly changing and growing, wikis and blogs are some of the easiest tools to use, and therefore, one of the best places to begin. An article I had looked at in week 4, entitled “The Teach Web 2.0 Consortium: a tool to promote educational social networking and Web 2.0 use among educators” discussed the use of a wiki among teachers in order to learn more about different application on Web 2.0. They stated that they used a wiki instead of another application because it was the easiest one to use (Drexler, 2008). I think that is an interesting, but true, statement to make. With educators commenting about wikis in this way, I was interested to further learn more about wikis and blogs. Many online course management systems, like Moodle, provide places for students to blog within the system. I had my sixth graders respond to prompts on a form of Moodle and then they had to comment on at least three of their classmates. Very often the students would end up responding to more than three classmates because they said they enjoyed it so much! I have an inkling that if I had asked them to respond on paper and pencil they probably would not have gone above and beyond. I found a couple articles on Kutztown’s library site, but the article “Authoring Wikis: Rethinking Authorship through Digital Collaboration” stood out as an article that really looked into wikis and blogs in the classroom and how they work. The article discussed how blogs and wikis have taken away the paper and pencil aspect and offered a technological way to communicate thoughts and have discussions. Furthermore, it went on to say that blogs and wikis can be used by people who have little or no knowledge of them because they are so user friendly (Frost, Weingarten). The main difference between a wiki and a blog, which I did not know before doing this research, is that the text on wikis can be edited by anyone and are not ordered chronologically, like blogs are. In this way, blogs allow users to have a distinct voice, while wikis are much more a collaborative voice (Frost, Weingarten). I had not thought about wikis and blogs being different from one another, because they are usually grouped together, but their differences are very important to know before using them in a classroom setting, or really using them at all. Wikis and blogs allow students and teachers to communicate about what they are studying, along with the chance of a large-scale audience. Wikis and blogs allow users to communicate and collaborate with people all over the world, which allows students the access to different cultures and criticisms (Binkowski, 2011). This online learning environment presents a different platform for students to collaborate and grow as learners. When incorporating technology into the classroom, I feel that wikis and blogs are one of the best and easiest ways to do it. Students (at least most students I know) love using computers when they are available to them and would enjoy typing a response to a friend through a blog rather than writing it on paper. With ever changing technology at our fingertips, sometimes the best place to start is with the easiest tools, and blogs and wikis are just that.

Sources:

Binkowski, Kathleen (2011). The Role of Technology (Online). //The Plainville Citizen,// 12.

Drexler, Wendy (2008). The Teach Web 2.0 Consortium: a tool to promote educational social networking and Web 2.0 use among educators (Online). //Educational Media International,// 271-283.

Frost, Corey and Weingarten, Karen (2011). //Authoring Wikis: Rethinking Authorship through Digital Collaboration// (Online). //Radical Teacher,// 47-56.