Discussion and other throughts

In the last class, we had our first classroom discussion about what we had been reading. Sometimes class discussion can go nowhere fast and the whole thing ends up going in a big circle. However, I think the variety of different cultural and personal perspectives really added to the quality of the discussion.

One of the items that we ended on was the basic issue of connectivity that the students have outside of the buildings that we teach in. I remember a few years ago this was also discussed in the district that I was working. A computer connection/mentor/mentee was starting up and they needed to figure out how to get affordable access to the students. The program ended up providing computers to students (and their families) for about $20 a month with unlimited dial-up. I guess previously, the program just handed the computers to the students without any monetary commitment and some of the computers walked away to the pawn shop. The program lasted few years with the grant that it was under with some positive results for the students that were motivated to understand and use the technology. That program supplied (relatively) hugh eMacs to the students. Now there are a few grade level programs in the district that use MacBooks. I don't believe those come with any kind of internet access for the home, but with the wireless cards, there are more spots available for connectivity to some kind of network.

I have added the Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast link on the Personal Links sections. The listing of the topics appears to be much like what we talk about in class and in our discussions. The neat piece is these are teachers that are in the trenches working with the students and applying the technology to learning.

With a sniffle and a cough

Class yesterday was about the hardest thing that I have done in a while. My nose continues to run a marathon down my face and coming to a rest in my chest. Fortunately, the walk to the bus-stop after was not as wet as it was the web-site presentations. Anyway, I was able to finish up up my Inspiration yesterday before class. I centered mine around coffee and a few aspects about the production, history, and social arena. The concept map was a bit bigger than the writing space provided by Blogger, so I don't know what I will try and do. The answer might be to use Picasa and link to the picture, as I don't really feel like messing around with the code anymore. Getting the title of the blog was hard enough. What would be cool would to have a mouse-over and the picture would just pop-up. kind of like how Netflix does it with their movies synopsis.

I have a plan in mind for the Powerpoint, which should go fine. Speaking of Powerpoint, I did find one of the shortcomings to the Google Presenter and Zoho Show. They don't export into the ppt format. You are able to download the presentation into an HTML document and view it through a web-browser, but not through Powerpoint (or at least, I have not found a way to do so).

Example for Zoho Notebook

View the notes here

My life with Inspiration(tm)

The assignments from this past class are two that have been plaguing me for quite sometime. Not just in the sense that these are assignment for a class, but these are two pieces of work that I have been meaning to experiement with for a while.

Finishing and finalizing a blogging site... I have had a blog on blogger for about two years now. I started it with the best of intentions, as would be evident from the frequent postings. I had read somewhere that a regular posting schedule would help bring in readers. Not that I was looking for readers, but it would have been nice. I thought it would be neat to chronical the events of moving the middle of the US, starting a Phd program, and getting married. To me that sounded like a good source of writable and readable material. Well, all of those pieces happened and they were quite eventful, except for the chronicalling. The events got the better of me and the writing never happened. So the blog just sat there with no postings for a long time...and pretty much still does to this day. Although, I did just add to it with bigger update and a few links.

Inspiration has been talked around me for a few years when I was a teacher. I saw it used, and I always had good intentions of using it in the classroom. Much like the blog, a survival mode of simply getting through life as a Jr. High Special Education teacher took over. The use of technology as a tool in the classroom was more of "if I can pick it up and use it right now, then I will try it." I didn't have time to play around and work out a plan for teaching the tool or even intengrating it into my presentations for class.

I guess now is the time to finally cross off some of good intentions of the past.

Using Technology in the Classroom

Using technology in the classroom. This topic is a that sometimes has teachers, students, parents, and administrators up in arms. Why can't we have the latest and greatest technology in our classroom? Just because a kind of technology (computers, calculators, paper, pencils...) might be new and ready for public consumption doesn't mean that it is automatically ready to used in the schools and in the classroom. A question has to be asked, "What is the educational benefit of having this new piece of technology and what is it going to provide that isn't being provided now?"

Teachers trying to answer the questions for themselves have brought into the classroom a use for publishing blogs, making a use of iPods other than a distraction in the classroom, and making the Internet more of a class wide presentation tool than a passive means of searching for information. Blogs provide a space for teachers to post lesson plans, process about the school day, and communicate with other like (or un-like minded) people. Blogs can also provide a place for student work to be published and shared to the community of students and staff or the world. Podcasts, an audio version of blogging, can give the auditory cues and voice inflection that isn't sometimes carried through the written word.

While this isn't necessarily the latest technology be invented, it is an effective means of using new technology and providing some kind of educational benefit to the students or professional who read or listen. I don't think the schools are ready for nanobots to be used to help students not fall asleep in class.