Week 12 Assignment

iTunes Univeristy is an easy way to access educational content provided by hundreds of different colleges and universities. Students are able to sync the programs to their iPods or iPhones and listen to the material at any time through out the day. Using iTunes University keeps the student engaged within their classroom. It Provideds a spoken message that can be followed along in a book or watching a video on the lecture is an easy way to keep students focused on their academics.

As a student, I believe the use of iTunes University would benefit me because it is an easy way to enrich your learning. If you feel particually fond of a subject and the class you're in did not cover it completely, you can research more knowledge on it through iTunes University. If teacher's here at South Alabama posted videos or podcast to the iTunes University I know I would listen to them to help me understand the subject material better. I think this type of technology would be a good thing to incorporate in the classroom because sometimes it takes more than one explanation for some students to understand the material.

As a teacher, I believe it depends on what grade level you are teaching to how much you should incorporate iTunes University into your classroom. Personally I want to teach the lower grades of elementary school, but I feel that you can still use this library of knowledge to your advantage. You could post your own podcasts during the summer to keep the students up to date on their summer reading. You could also read a story and post it to the library for the students to listen too. For the upper part of elementary school you could post different videos for your students to watch for homework. For example you could post a science video and for homework have the student develop the scientific method for that video. I think the older the students are the more they would benefit from this iTunes University because it is designed for older college students.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html

Week 11 Assignment

Apple has a website set up for teachers who want to use iPods in their classrooms. Apple sets up a website with different lessons plans on different topics. For example, they have music for learning mathematics. This allows students to create songs to show off their knowledge of math problems. Teacher's can also use iPods to help students learn different sounds. Students can follow a lesson by listening to the teacher's recorded message. The iPod can also be used when students are learning another language. They can record a conversation in the language they are learning. These are some of the many suggestions the apple website gives users.
http://www.apple.com/au/education/ipod/lessons/

Duke University began using iPods in the classroom in the fall of 2004. All first year students who were enrolled in a class that used iPods received a free iPod. Students are responsible for taking care of their own iPod and will not receive a new one, unless their current one is outdated for the class they are taking. Duke University feels that the use of iPods in the classroom is a positive impact and that students have adapted quickly. Duke is glad they took the risk of introducing something new in the classroom because the students responded so well to the new technology.
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2005/12/ipodupdate.html

I think the use of iPods in the classroom is a great idea. Teacher's could post their lectures in the form of podcasts so if you were unable to make it to class you could still hear the lecture. I am sure there are a million years you could incorporate iPods into the classroom that would not only benefit the student, but the teacher. I'm sure in the near future more universities and school will start adapting new technology into their classroom.

Week 10 Assignment

Dr. Alice Christie, an educator for the past forty years designed a website for fellow teachers to show the value in using technology in the classroom. Her website has many helpful links that provide information on computer technology. One section I chose was the Educational Technology Guide because it has many links of different ways of using technology in the classroom. Using technology in the classroom enhances a teacher's ability to teach and the students ability to learn. Dr. Christie gives rubrics on grading computer based work like web units and power points. She also provides teachers with the internet slang so that they do not get lost in the way teenagers talk now. Another section that I find useful is the workshop link. Dr. Christie informs when a workshop is and what material it will be covering.

I think both of these sections would be useful to me as a teacher because she gives you many different technological strategies to use within your classroom. She helps you by giving an example rubric and a whole list of internet slang. I believe in the classroom you should use different teaching strategies to help influence the best learning for all students. Involving technology in your classroom is a great way to do this. The workshop section would be another useful topic to me as an educator because it would be beneficial to attend one of her workshops if I wanted to implement one of her teaching strategies in my own classroom.

Week 9 Assignment

After reading the three articles and listening to the two podcasts about wikipedia, I have come to the conclusion that wikipedia is not a reliable source. I think wikipedia is a great resource for your own personal interest. I use it all the time on topics I am interested in, but I would never use it in a research paper or to claim something was true. The reason I would not is because any average person can access that website and make changes regardless if they are factual changes or not.

Virgil Griffith invented the wikiscanner, which gives access to everyone to find out who submits changes on wikipedia.org. The websites I read informed me that a lot of big companies edit their wikipedia information so that they look better and don't have any bad comments about them that would mess up their public image. I understand that it's the free right for anyone to add on to the wikipedia encyclopedia, but when people are editing the truth I don't think the website remains accurate or truthful.

The only way I would use wikipedia information would be to use the reference page and locate who wrote what. Personally, I do not trust the wikipedia website enough to use this website to write a paper or present the information to a class. However, I see no harm in using the website for your own personal research that will not be presented as a truthful site to other people.

Week 8 Assignment

The blog I chose was the post from November called "Why Wireless?". Mr. Fisch's previous post was about how his school just got wireless internet and that everyone can access it. Some of the community had concerns about this because they felt it was one more way to get students off task. Therefore Mr. Fisch wrote a response to the concerns about the community through the school newsletter.

The newsletter explained to the parents the obvious reasons for having open internet access at the school would be access to teacher websites, grades, electronic databases. Beyond the obvious reasons, Mr Fisch explained that students are now in a technology driven world and that teacher's want to break down the classroom walls and extend classroom learning. Students are going to need to understand the new technology in the world to be able to survive and be successful. The job of the student is to learn and they must be given to opportunity of being able to take advantage of other resources. By allowing the students wireless access they are able to learn the value of internet resources. Mr. Fisch also explained that students are treated as responsible adults and given the chance to prove to the staff they are able to stay on task and use their privileges to their advantage. He ends the blog stating that we need wireless internet because the century demands it.

I agree with everything Mr. Fisch blogged about. Internet access is a vital key to success when dealing with school. I personally don't know what I would do without the help of the internet. There is so much to learn and research out there and by giving students access to open internet we are giving them that extra push to succeed. It's a different world out there now and people need to get with the picture. It's time to learn and experience what computers and internet can do for you as an individual. I know I would not want to live without my computer and I don't ever plan too.

Week 7 Assignment

The fisch bowl blog is about being technologically illiterate. Karl blogged about how times have changed drastically. We use to be able to get a job and be successful if we couldn't read or write back in the beginning of the 20 century. As the years have gone by it's nearly impossible to find a job without being able to read or write, let alone be considered successful. As times go on technology is becoming more and more important to understand because it is apart of our everyday lives. It's no longer acceptable to just shrug off computers because you just don't get it or understand them.

"If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." -Karl Fisch

I think this quote by Karl Fisch is completely true! It's time for everyone young and old to realize computers are here and becoming more and more involved in our everyday lives! In classrooms attendance and grades are now posted to an online site. How can you expect to live up to your schools expectations if you can not operate a computer. I believe if you want to be a teacher you should also want to learn. It is our job to guide children and teach them new things. Computers are a way of life now and we need to be able to implicant that to our students. I believe Terry Freedman is correct in stating that all teachers should have some basic achievement in technological capabilities. My final thought on this matter is that I believe everyone and especially teachers should have the basic computer skills that they use in everyday life. There should not be anymore excuses because technology is NOW.

Web Accessibility and Adaptive Technologies

John Sullivan presented to the class the different technologies that are available to deaf and blind people. He discussed web accessibility and showed us a special computer blind people can use. He also passed around a LED magnifier that uses a small camera to zoom up on objects. He also demonstrated the program that repeats what keys he touches on the computer.