My Experiences in EME 2040

          During this semester, my self-contribution to the class was in different ways. These ways were applied mostly in group projects, by sharing different ideas and completing my section necessary to build a potential project. During the Collaborative Project, I contributed in sections like the ELL/ESOL strategies, the rubric to evaluate the required websites used in the lesson plan, and the description of each of the multiple intelligences. For my Power Point, I believe that my class collaboration was to teach my classmates about the use of Apple Devices as assistive and adaptive technologies for learning disability students. During the WebQuest, I used the topic of heredity and reproduction to create a lesson plan for it and teach any online learner. Through this lesson plan, students will then be able to figure out their future offspring through the use of punnett squares. During my Teacher e-Portfolio, I contributed to the class by making my own page as a special education instructor and revealing each one of my teacher experiences. From all of these projects, there was one that was further analyzed because of heavy use of technology, and it is Instructional Strategy Wiki.

                                video credit to wwwinsanelygreatmac

                My strategy for this Instructional Strategy Wiki was the Independent Study strategy. As a group, I believe our Introduction page was well described, as we included a good definition for instructional strategies and each one of its strategies. According to effectiveness of our strategies, I believe each classmate showed signs of researching its proper use and accuracy in class. To analyze and critique our Wiki, we used different examples of teachers applying these strategies in their classrooms. In terms of visuals, we used a variety of them, except for the use of tables. The uniqueness of this project was about using cyber messaging to complete this project; and unfortunately, I believe we weren’t proficient enough on it.

                Just like this Instructional Wiki, I went through different processes to create my assignments. My processes began by first learning how to use the different technological techniques like hyper linking in my paper, posting visuals like photos and videos, and using the creative commons photographs to complete my assignments. My blog and discussion posts served me as a practice to then be able to complete the larger projects like the ones mentioned initially.

                There are many negative and positive experiences lived while working on these large projects as a group. Some of the negative experiences were the coordination of time, the last minute unfinished independent work from each student, and dealing with the different efforts and personalities in the group. Some of the positive experiences were the sharing of ideas in between each other, the motivation we give to each other to make this project the best one, the corrections that I receive to make my future projects better, and the delight you feel together as a team after finish your wonderful project.

                There are also some differences and similarities when working on these collaborative projects  on the process and on the product. One of the first similarities is visioning the product of your project throughout the process. I believe that this is one of the best feelings for any student who is working on a project and he/she is loving what they are doing. If you don’t see the end from the beginning, it might be difficult for you to accomplish a great product. Another similarity is planning out the steps to accomplish the product you want to obtain. On the other hand, there is also one difference. One of the differences is that the product usually ends up looking differently than the way you though it will look. Even though you are always planning on making one specific product, your process is always changing, causing your product to change.

                In my future as an educator, there is one assignment and activity that I will be interested in using in my classroom. The activity that I will apply was the finding of the sips of paper through the GPS tracking device. This activity really expanded my knowledge on technology and made me grow a stronger interest on it. The fun part about this finding was that these pieces of paper had questions regarding our lesson in class. The assignment that I will be interested on using was the Digital Story Telling activity. For this assignment, I used a website called Prezi, next to my classmate Jessica, and  created a lesson on the developmental process of the butterfly. I will call this website “The newer way of powerpoint,” with fun zooming and visuals for your presentation. This assignment gave us the capacity to enjoy the voyage on the internet and use it on what we love the best.  

photo credit to stevec77

Resources

Adorama (2012). Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour Personal GPS Tracking   

     Device, Green. Retrieved December 6, 2012.

     http://www.adorama.com/BSBTDTGG.html?

     gclid=CMvhtuzmhrQCFQixnQodJicA_w

Lawson, Eric (2011). iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones as Assistive

     Technology in Education. Retrieved December 6, 2012.

     http://www.techlearning.com/from-the-classroom/0015/ipads-ipod-

     touches-and-iphones-as-assistive-technology-in-education/47768

Prezi (2012). Retrieved December 6, 2012. http://prezi.com/

 

Ch. 11 Engaging Teachers and Students in Learning and Self-Reflection

Focus Question: How can students become actively involved in assessment and evaluation using technology?

Evaluation is the one thing that scares and panics students when they hear about it. On the other hand, is also the one thing that teachers need to apply to know about the stundent's performance in school. How can we then involve the students in it? As we know, technology supports active roles by students in the learning assessment process. Different techniology tools students can be evaluated by are online survey and polls, students e-portfolios, classroom website, and discussion boards; and through this they will document their learning and preassess the student interest and knowledge

Tech Tool: Zoomerang

On this website, I can create my own online survey and polls and I can categorize it with the theme of my choice, using the templates for any specific topic. The membership is free if you only decide to keep it for a short period of time. There's, of course, a charge If you want to keep it for a longer period. Once I view the results online it gives me the capacity to create my own charts and graphs to demonstrate my results in a more illustrative way.

                                          Video from zoomerangsurveys on Youtube

Summary and Conclusion: As I mentioned earlier, students have a difficult time dealing with assessment and evaluations and want to get away from them as much as they can. This chapter not only is descrbing new ways to describe the students attention, but its also teaching abut the engagement of teachers. Teachers are so used to following the traditional teaching style, mainly because it makes it easier for them. On the other hand, I believe they should be trained with the technology interaction students are living today and take the extra mile to see learning productivity.

Ch.10 Promoting Success for All Students through Technology

Focus Question: How does assistive technology support efforts by teachers to reach all learners?
Assistive technology can be described as one device that holds different functions and features and makes the academic material easier to access for every student. In today's era, it minimizes the barriers that are made in between students and teachers,like the teacher lectures, reading materials, hand-outs, to make education productive in the students.

Tech Tool Link: Jim Martindale's Calculators

The Jim Martindale On-line Center provide a great abundance of calculation tools, making it effective especially for middle and high schoolers. It provides thousands of calculation programs, many of them containing online simulations and teaching modules. You can calculate anything from space to ice age to the capacity of any electronic device today. Is a much faster and economic way than the manual use of math. Definitely recommend it.

Summary and Conclusion: This chapter not only demonstrates how technology is refining the way students are learning, but it also explains about he expansion of technology to meet every student needs. Beginning with regular students to every special education student. I truly believe that assistive technologies is the extra hand that teachers have today to be able to teach their students freely and include their teaching activities with no barriers.

Ch. 9 Creating and Sharing Information with Multimedia Technologies

Focus Question: What is multimedia technology and how can teachers use it to effectively create and share visual information dynamically in their teaching?
 Multimedia learning is caused when a variety of media like texting, data, voice, picture, and video) are used to communicate information. From these media, schools emphasize the most on  single media, noninteractive modes of learning. A multimedia classroom uses this media for teaching and learning.

Tech Tool Link: Audacity (Audio Recording Software)

 

This is such a great website for teachers to edit their voice recordings and eliminate and unwanted or distracting material. This website can also be used for the editing of recordings that can be used for professional and/or teaching purposes.

 

Summary and Conclusion: The use of multimedia technology for teaching and learning purposes is probably one of the most effective ways to capture the student's attention towards the topic being taught. I believe that teachers should receive a training on how to use multimedia; and therefore, making teaching an easier job for teachers by joining in with the students' relative media.

Ch.8 Communicating and Networking with Websites, Blogs, Wikis, and More

Focus Question: How can teachers use a website or blog to improve teaching and learning?
There are three basic types of education-related blogs: 1) "official face" blogs, single-purpose blogs, and 3) active learning blogs. Teachers have three options for creating their own website or blog: 1) a do-it-yourself option, 2) a commercially available option, or 3) a open source option.

Tech Tool Link: Go Daddy

This website gives you the options for building the website yourself or it can build it for you. If building it yourself, it gives you hundreds of different templates to drag and drop, it also includes a web host and n e-mail, and it gives you different online communication widgets. It also provides the website with website servers to improve the quality performance.

Summary and Conclusion: This chapter goes further than a teacher just simply sharing his or her ideas verbally and linguistically. It concentrates on the use of websites and blogs to share information and ideas in between students and teachers. This is probably the most effective way for students to learn, and be able to share their ideas in the form of the era we are living in, through computers.

Ch. 7 Problem Solving and Inquiry Learning with Software and Web Tools

Focus Question: How can teachers use computer games and simulations as learning resources?
Since today's students love to play computer a dvideo games, researchers envision exciting possibilities for learning when students use the intellectual skills needed in effective game playing for educational purposes.

Tech Tool Link: Scratch

 

 

This toolkit gives the opportunity for any student from any grade level to develop their learning skills by creating their own games, animated stories, and interactive art. This makes a turn-around in the way teachers teach their students by letting their students take initiative to learn the subject.

 

 

Summary and Conclusion: Having the capacity to solve certain study problems online and to learn a subject by following a step by step guidance through software makes a complete relation with the students, causing for the lessons to cause an effect in their lives.

Ch.6 Teaching with Educational Websites and Other Online Resources

Focus Question: What are WebQuests and virtual field trips?
They are innovative and engaging Web teaching methods that can be used for all ages. WebQuests are virtual pathways where students select a group of preselected websitesin order to explore some educational topics by accessing online visual information. Virtual field trips allows the faculty and students of the school to visit places around the world with a academis purpose.

Tech Tool Link: The Cave of Chauvet-Pont-D'Arc

This website allows you to experience an online virtual field trip like if you were literally walking in it. It gives you the privilege to take a tour through this subterranean world and link on the different facts and pictures from the entire cave system. I believe this can bring lots of interest to the students, allowing them to experience the beauty of any place through tehir favorite thing to do, and it is surfing the web.

Summary and Conclusion: There are certain curriculums and policies that teachers need to follow in a state in order to prepare and teach their lessons to students. By managing their information online, teachers can apply the proper curriculum and be able to engage the students in their teaching. This information is being managed through educational websites, in which in this chapter they are examined with the purpose of always providing the students with the proper education.