Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Reflection on Ed 422

Reflect on your favorite assignment from the course!!

Excel Tutorial and EdTechProfile (NETS-T 1, 3, 5)

Excel Tutorial
For this assignment, I used a tutorial to create an excel spreadsheet, using text, data, and charts.



EdTechProfile
This chart compares the pre-assessment and the same assessment that I took after the course.

Journal 10: "Transforming School Communities"

http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume3620082009/AugustNo1/L_L_August_2008.htm

Transforming School Communities: Creating Dialog Using Web 2.0 Tools
By Helen Soulé

Fair Use Harbor (NETS-T 4)

Using the collaborative tool Google Docs, two peers and I created a document summarizing the webpage Fair Use Harbor. This website provides a tutorial about the laws, rules, and regulations concerning the legal and ethical use of digital information and infringement.

Wiki Webpage (NETS-T 5)

I created this webpage on the classroom Wiki. I explored the tool FotoFlexer, an image editing tool. I was able to share this page with my peers on the wiki, which encourages collaboration and exploring new technology for the classroom.


Journal 9: "The Kids Are All Right"

The article “The Kids Are All Right,” by John K. Waters, explores the findings of a study of the impact of technology on learning. The researchers interviewed more than 800 young people and their parents over 3 years, and spent more than 5,000 hours observing on websites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. They were looking at the relationship between learning and participation in networking sites. They essentially found that there were three levels of digital interest among youth. The first stage is “Hanging Out” where their internet use is largely “friendship-driven practices.” Second is “Messing Around,” where students explore a topic that they are interested in. The third level is “Geeking Out,” where there is a level of intense interest, and the student becomes an expert on a certain area. The article reports that the study concluded that this is not a waste of time for these students, it is simply a different type of learning. The students are self-directed, and learn on their own terms and time schedules.
I like the point of view of this article. I also think it is important for students to find and develop their own interest in things and not force it upon them. It is important for teachers to be open to new ideas and to the different things their students are doing online.
1. Doesn’t this take away from the academic classroom?
I think there is a time and a place for allowing students to have freedom to do what they want on the internet. I think allowing them to explore their own interests on their own time is important as well. Self-motivation is definitely a quality that we want to instill in our students and this usually happens if they are interested in what they are learning.
2. How young is too young to allow students on networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace?
These sites are largely un-regulated, so I think the teacher needs to be discerning regarding the sites the students visit with regards to the age of the children. This article mainly talks about teens, so I think it would be interesting to find resources for younger children to network with other students, even students across the globe. They should be taught proper etiquette and use of these sites throughout their education.

Waters, J. K. (2009, March). The Kids Are All Right. THE Journal, Retrieved April 25, 2009, from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/24104

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

iMovie CSUSM Introduction (NETS-T 3)

This is a short clip that I created on iMovie, which introduces the Cal State San Marcos campus. On the program iMovie, I edited movie clips and added text and music to create my own short film.