delicious

http://delicious.com/tsimmons12

I imported all of the teaching web sites I had bookmarked on my internet explorer and started adding tags. Some of the ones I have tagged already show over 1500 other tags!

I did it!!

I said in my post that there should be a way to link one page to the next. Well there is and it is sooooo easy. I guess I was blind, deaf, and dumb not to have seen it before. I went back this morning determined to figure out tags because I was sure that had something to do with it. Nope. Still do not understand what the tags are for but I stumbled into the very plain instruction "link to another page." So I went to our groups first page and linked it to our next page so you can navigate straight to it without going back to the beginning. Now I know the rest of you probably figured that out right away. Don't crucify me for being slooow!

Wiki Wonder

I almost forgot to post this!! I have been so caught up in working on the Wiki. I have not yet tryed to set up my own but I think I will using the education challenge they offer that Kendra told me about. I truly dreaded trying to figure this out. The first video I watched was awesome!! It really got down on my level (preschool, haha). Then I watched one of the archived webcast on using a wiki and I began to feel like I could really do this. There are still many things that I am not sure how to do but I am no longer hesitant about trying them. I am truly enjoying each of these ventures. I would not have known about them on my own. I mean you can spend years on the internet and never find your way out!!! One of the things I must not know how to do is navigate from page to page. We had all those pages out there and I had to go back to the beginning each time to choose a new page. Should you not have some way to move from the page you are on to the next page without having to go all the way back?

When I set up a wiki for my class, I wil use it as an information resource for parents and teach the students how to use one. With first and second graders, low income families, and not every student with access to a computer, I believe my students would benifit more from technology instruction and would need it to participate in a wiki.

week 2

I had never heard of RSS feeds or readers so I had no idea what they would do. I found setting mine up to be too easy. I expected it to be complicated I guess. As soon as I created my account, Google Reader pulled in all of the blogs from class. I just sat there wondering how it knew to do that? I then subscribed to my local TV channel and a couple of the bundled feeds Google offered. I find having all this come to one spot more efficient but not less information to wade through. Setting up the blog was also easy but I found it time consuming to follow every one else's until they were all pulled into my reader account.Both the Blog and RSS lend themselves to the top tiers of Dale's Cone. Maybe I should say using them would be in the top tiers. If the students were having to set them up like we did then each tool could fit in all tiers.I agree with Siegel that it is "how we use technologies to achieve learning" rather than the technologies themselves. However, I find myself on the side of not knowing how to use available technologies imaginatively. Hince I am in this class. I need to experiment with both the blog and RSS more before I can give an "imaginative" educational use for each or offer suggestions on how my second grade students might use these tools. I am reading each reflection posted to see how vetern teachers think they could be used. In all honesty, I feel like I giving a lecture on open heart surgery. I know about as much about it as I do about using these technologies.

technology transformation versus Luddites

As I began to read the Postman article, I could not help but nod my head in agreement to a lot of the things Postman says starting with the statement “[technologies] have nothing to do with the fundamental problems we have to solve in schooling our young.” He and I were on the same wave length as he goes on to talk about the principal function of schools being to teach children how to behave in groups and that “the great problems of education are of a social and moral nature and have nothing to do with dazzling new technologies.” Our next wave length came together over technologies diverting “the intelligence and energy of talented people from addressing the issues we need most to confront.” Students today seem more interested in the newest video game than what is going on in the real world. A lot of them do not seem capable of distinguishing between fantasy and real life. As for his statement, “[Technology giveth and it taketh away,” I have experienced this first hand where students can not complete simple mathematical processes with out a calculator, or the cashiers who have worked for me over the years that could not count change back correctly if they punched the amount tendered into the cash register incorrectly. However, we all know nothing is ever completely black and white.

Then I read the Reigeluth & Joseph article and found myself agreeing with most of what they said and thinking what a wonderful thing technology transformation would be if it were accomplished. Although there have been some changes in our educational system since Reigeluth completed his synthesis of the key markers of the industrial age and the information age, I feel that it still reflects most of the industrial age markers. The No Child Left Behind law has been instrumental in stopping the change needed. NCLB promotes standardization, compliance, conformity, bureaucratic organization, centralized control, autocratic decision-making, and boss (EOGs) as king. Our current paradigm of education is still not designed for learning, just testing. I agree that “we should hold achievement constant at a mastery level,” which seems to have been the original purpose of NCLB; however, this same law does not allow “children as much time as they need to reach those standards.” Having a “learning-focused education system” that offers “customization rather than standardization” is contradictory to NCLB and let’s all laugh together at the policy-makers investing more resources! I work for a charter school whose vision is to accomplish the entire list of principles Reigeluth & Joseph give for a learning-focused paradigm of education. Our greatest challenge is the question they pose, “how can a teacher help 30 children to all learn different things at different rates and in different ways utilizing authentic tasks?” Of course the answer is technology. No, we should not dismiss all of the other agents needed such as parents, community, organizations, and our natural resources but technology will play a “large role.” This is the very thing I want out of my Masters degree.

I desire to teach my students how to master key concepts with out using technology such as calculators and cash registers, but I also want to teach my students to live, function, and be productive participates in the new information age. To do this is like living life – a balancing act.

Learn somthing everyday

Well this is a first for me! My sons are avid 'My Space' users!