Probing and Simulations

"Gee has identified a number of principles that underlie modern game design that can teach us a lot about learning" (Jonassen pg. 54, 2008).  I believe that three are very good principles.  The practice principle lets the learners get lots of practice in a non boring way.  It makes the learning not boring because it is virtual.  The practice is related to the task at hand.  I also like the discovery principle.  This is letting the learner experiment and make discoveries on their own.  In my opinion, it is similar to the practice principle but you get to learn on your own by making your own mistakes.  I also like the active, critical learning principle.  I love that it is a more active learning.  I don't believe in passive learning, learning should be a hands on.


I believe simulations would be very hard to create in a math setting.  I would have them use the urban simulation.  Since mathematics was mostly originated in Europe, I would have them make do a simulation in Greece.  All of the Greek scientists lived in very awesome architecture and discovered many formulas.  They could use the language that was spoken and find developments in that.  Simulations help people that are big in architecture and engineering and the Greek architecture would make this very interesting.  In order to do these simulations, a student would have to be an upper level educated student, high school, college, etc.  This would be a very interesting experiment.


I like the venturing into games.  It makes learning much more fun and I know if I were a student and was given these products, I would love to be involved in this.  When I was in elementary, it made me love math and also there was a program that made me want to learn to spell.  Simulations are a great technology to keep the students involved.  I think that learning is going to be a lot of fun in the future just because of the technologies that are vastly growing today.


Resources:


Jonassen, D., Howard, J., Marra, R., Crismond, D. (2008). Meaningful learning with technology (pp. 54). Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Pearson.

Meaningful Learning

A grading rubric is a tool used to let the student know what is expected from them on a certain assignment or in class in general.  For me as a student, I think that they are very useful.  During my assignment, I can just check as I go to see if I am on the right track.  For a teacher, it is easier because you know what to look for while grading.  For me as a math teacher, it will be used very seldom.  I could use it on projects and work in those kinds of things.  Although I wouldn't use it very much, an english or speech teacher would use it very often for papers and journal entries.

I used clickers in my first semester in college.  I used a clicker in my physics class.  It was my teachers first time to use a clicker.  Our instructor included questions included in his PowerPoint that we would answer using our clickers.  We never used it for a quiz; he just used it as a test to see if we were getting it.  We did exam reviews the night before the exam and he would print out the questions that were missed the most.  I believe it really helped us a lot because it gave us immediate feedback of things that we needed to study more.  The clicker system is not free but I believe it would be very useful in a high school or college setting.  I will definitely find ways to use a clicker and other types of new technology in my classroom.  Technology is only going to help future teachers like myself in instructing my classroom.

Inspiration and Kidspiration are two programs that help students with their thinking skills.  It helps them to learn more effectively.  Kidspiration is intended for the lower grade levels from kindergarten to intermediate school.  Inspiration is directed more to the middle and high school students.  It is directed toward the language arts and english area.  Therefore, I wouldn't use it much in my class but I would definitely recommend it to my fellow colleagues.

Resources:

Inspiration Software, Inc. (2010). Inspiration Software. Retrieved November 24, 2010 fromhttp://www.inspiration.com/Inspiration

Jonassen, D. ., Howard, J., Marra, R., Crismond, D.  (2008). Meaningful learning with technology (pp. 226). Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Pearson.

Qwizdom Inc. (2010). Quizdom. Retrieved November 24, 2010 fromhttp://www.qwizdom.com/?gclid=CNLygeH3mpcCFQZqswodWV6D-g

Digital Storytelling, Mathematics, Learning Through Television

Digital storytelling is exactly what it sounds like; a story told by using technology that we have today.  "Digital storytelling provides students with the opportunity to establish a connection between the creator and the viewer" (Jonassen 212).  The activity in the book provides students with an opportunity to work together with all the different roles that people who work in movies have to do.  I believe it would be hard to use in a math classroom but it could be done.  Students could make a simple movie on how to solve linear equations or how to use the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of a side.  Although tough, it would be a great use of technology and would be very proactive in learning.  Either way, the students use their creative skills and grow from the activity.


Helping students to visualize concepts in mathematics and apply it to real life have been used for as long as math has been used.  "One of the best-known visualization tools is Geometric Supposer, a tool for making and testing conjectures in geometry through the process of constructing and manipulating geometric objects and exploring the relationships within and between these objects" (Jonassen 203).  It allows students to construct their own shape by defining points, line segments, angles, etc.  It makes shape making a lot easier and quicker.  It is also a good visualization because shapes drawn by human can get a tad messy.  "TinkerPlots for elementary and middle grade students, Fathom Dynamic Statistics Software allows high school students access to powerful tools for making sense of large data sets" (Jonassen 202).  This is useful because it makes huge data available to graph.  It is a very powerful and useful tool.  These types of software help the people who are not very good in math or constructing tables and graphs.  The book also mentions graphing calculators which make math a lot easier! I know that since I am a math major, I use it nearly every class period and it has helped me tremendously.  It is like a small graphing software in your hands.  It is a very useful tool and I would recommend anyone to get one.


I believe that it is possible to learn just from watching a television instruction.  I know through experience that I learned how to tie my tie through a YouTube video.  Although it is possible, you may not perfect it on the first try.  With effort and practice, it is possible to do anything.  My first two calculus classes were shown through a television screen with a teacher talking to us.  It made the class more difficult, but with practice and lots of hard work, I was able to succeed in the class.  I believe that watching through a television should be used as an aide and not the main source of learning.  Cooking, for example, is a lot easier to learn while doing it.  You learn through practice.  Watching Bobby Flay make an a ricotta ravioli is not going to provide you with the tools to make it, you have to practice.  PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.

References

Crismond, D., Howland, J., Jonassen, D., Marra, R. M.  (2008).  Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Pearson.

Podcasting

"A podcast is an audio recording that is saved as an MP3 file and made available on the Internet through RSS." (Crismond, Howland, Jonassen Marra pg. 160)  Users can subscribe to a users podcasts or just simply choose any random users content that they choose to listen to.  It enables anyone to be an independent producer and distributor of audio or video content that can be offered through the internet.  It could be used in class for a simple group project. The teacher could subscribe to their podcast and listen to it and give them a grade on that.  The students could subscribe to the teachers podcast and the teacher could put each lecture online for the student to make sure they didn't miss anything.  There are many uses that podcasting could be used for in the classroom.

Podcasting is similar to other Web 2.0 applications we've discovered in this class because it does not require face to face communication.  These have all been online applications and have been very interesting to learn about.  It is different because it is more broad.  Anyone can subscribe to a podcast and the user will never know how the subscribers feel about their podcast.  The subscriber could give a reply via making their own podcast which would be very interesting and a great use of technology in my opinion.

I do own an Ipod and I only use it for music.  I use it nearly everyday because I love music.  I am honestly not very interested in what some people have to say.  I looked at podcasts and some of it just seemed ignorant.  I do think it could be very useful in a classroom setting though.  I would use it in the classroom like I stated in the paragraph above.  It would be a tool that could be used to be a review over the lecture or to capture the highlights of the lesson.  Plus it could be used as an interactive activity between the teacher and the student by having the teacher subscribe to the students podcasts.  I do not see any disadvantages in podcasting if you use it for a reviewing tool and not just to base the whole classroom on podcasting.  The teacher can subscribe to the students and the teacher can put "Attention: John Doe" if they need to get a certain students attention.  I think it could be a very useful tool.

Resources:


Meaningful Learning with Technology, 2008. Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., and Crismond, D.

Wikis, Blogs, Social Bookmarking, etc.

I think that wikis are a great use of technology! There can be so many uses for them in a classroom.  It can be a good communication tool group assignments. The kids could assign responsibilities for different projects. They could edit their wikis one person at a time and everyone could see the progress.  It could be a very useful tool.  I would love to use them in my math classroom.  Blogs wouldn't be so useful in a math classroom in my opinion but I think they are a great way of expressing yourself, not just doing assignments.  If the kids are struggling with an assignment, they can post in on their blog and other students could help them.  It could also be used as a daily journal just for fun.


I think the idea of social bookmarking is great.  It is like a personal goto guide for the user.  It is very personal but at the same time, it is very social.  People can use your pages that you've created.  It is just a very useful tool and could be very helpful in a learning experience.  Even for the user, it is helpful because it could be used months later to go back and look on and quickly find information.  It would be very useful in my classroom because math is such a difficult subject for some students.  I, as the teacher, could post some sites that help with problem solving. As for VoiceThread, this is the first time that I came across it.  It is a very neat tool and a good use of technology.  I don't know if I would use it in my classroom just because of the shyness of some people but I do think it is really cool.  The thought of communicating around the globe through video is amazing.


I have not explored Tapped In any more than what is in the book.  I think it is a cool use of technology though.  The idea of having Learning Circles online is pretty cool.  It has a public conference area which is kind of like a question and answer because everyone else can see the information which could be very useful.  There is also a private conference area that could used for more touchy subjects or for people that don't want others knowing about a certain thing.  The calendar is also a good tool that could be used by many who are related by a group or a profession.


Reference:

Community Building with Technologies, Chapter 6. Meaningful Learning with Technology, 2008. Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M., and Crismond, D.

Assessment and E-Portfolio

In order to evaluate authentic learning, we must use authentic assessments (Crismond, Howland, Jonassen, Marra, 2008, pg. 218).  An assessment can be a test (TAKS), quiz over a chapter, a discussion activity or even a poster or presentation.  I believe that this helps the student show the teacher what they learn and what skills they have acquired during the timeline the assessment is assigned over.  It also helps the teacher because if the student is not grasping the subject, the teacher can most likely help them with whatever is troubling the student.  It's a great tool in the learning process.

E-portfolios are a collection of digitized artifacts that may include clips, graphics, sound, writing samples, artwork, and multimedia presentation (Crismond, Howland, Jonassen, Marra, 2008, pg. 220). They may also represent the successes and accomplishments of learners. They exhibit students' efforts and progress as well.  It helps teachers because it could help them understand the students learning and it also aides the teacher in monitoring the students progress.  Computer-based tests are taken on the computer or with computer-scored tests. These tests can get you a more accurate or quicker grade back rather than turning it in to a teacher.  It avoids the possibility of human error.  I believe that the use of computer-based tests don't impact reliability or validity, if they do, it's very small.  Most people in this day and age that are going to school know how to use a computer and computers are accurate for the most part.  The test giver would have some kind of training in giving the computer-based tests. For the most part, paper given tests and computer-based tests would give back the same results.

I believe that an e-portfolio would be very useful in a math class. Programs like Mathematica would be very useful in adding the information to an e-portfolio.  I would like to monitor my students and make sure they are making good progress.  Although it would be more simple in my opinion to just give in class tests and do board activities in a math classroom, I think e-portfolios are a good use of technology and could possibly be very useful. Assessments are necessary for education.  There is no way of possibly knowing if your student is understanding the material unless assignments and tests are being given in some manner.  These assessments in the form of a quiz or test could and in my opinion, should be given in a computer-based testing format.  I believe that computer-based testing is where the education world is headed.  I don't see a problem with it honestly.  I can't tell you how many times I had to take my test or quiz back to the teacher because there was an error in grading.  In my opinion, computer-based testing would be a lot quicker and could possibly be easier on the student and also more environment friendly.

References

Crismond, D., Howland, J., Jonassen, D., Marra, R. M.  (2008).  Meaningful Learning With Technology. Upper Saddle, New Jersey: Pearson.

Copyright, Online Safety & Cyberbullying

                In my opinion, the most important reason for copyrighting is that it gives the creator the right to charge for their idea.  People try to tweak ideas and go off of someone else’s thoughts to make money and since the creator has a copyright, he can sue.  Another important thing is that it just gives credit to the creator.  It is like publishing a proof for a mathematician; if the proof is never published, someone else can take their idea and get credit for it.  I think I will have my students do an assignment on copyrighting laws before I have them do an assignment.  I think that it would be very informational for them because all these years that I’ve been citing sources, I never knew how important it actually is.  I always thought it was just busy work.  If I were to create an invention or write a song, I would like to be recognized for it, I think every person feels that way.  That’s another reason why it’s important to follow copyright rules.  It’s like the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Online safety is an effective tool that can be used to seal an identity and keep sexual predators or stalkers away.  A student should never reveal his/her real name, home or school address, or any other personal information online.  Students should use their cyber names when doing online activities.  However, online safety and cyberbullying are not the same. Cyberbullying occurs when you are getting unwanted attention from any person online.  This could come from not using the proper online safety or you could possibly be doing everything right and still be a victim of cyberbullying.  It is very common on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.  If someone is harassing you online, either block that person or you can even go as far as creating a new account under a new name.  I believe that in order to fix cyberbullying, we have to get the information out to families.  Some parents don’t know what goes on their kid’s webpage.  I think we should have workshops for parents that can help them monitor their kid’s usage online.  Knowledge is power in this situation and all it takes is a little bit of effort from the parent. 

I learned so much about copyrighting this week.  I never knew that it was such a serious issue.  I’ve never really known why it was so important to have copyright laws before this week’s lesson. At SFA, if we were caught downloading music using campus internet access, we were told that we could go to prison.  I learned very quickly how important copyrighting was after that.  I made a 75% on the quiz over copyrighting so I at least passed.  I plan on looking more into this because some of the rules were very interesting to me.  I thought it was very cool that they have an Anti-Bullying Alliance board.  I did not know how much of a problem cyber bullying is and it is scary that my future kids will have to be so careful about what they do on the internet.  Even us as adults should be more careful about what we put out there on the World Wide Web.   

References:

Carnell, Liz. New advisor on Anti-Bullying Alliance board. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.bullying.co.uk/

Copyright Office. About Copyright. Accessed September 28, 2010.

http://www.copyright.gov/

Copyright Quiz. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/p/peachj/edte230/copyright/quiz.htm

Rushing, Amani. NetSmartz Workshop. Accessed September 28, 2010.

http://www.netsmartz.org/