What is your media Diet?

I feel that these two articles contradicted each other on some level. The article "Don't fear the digital" talks about how youngsters now days are using the internet. It says that they should have a 'balanced media diet'. I would have to say that I agree with this. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times facebook has derailed my 'homework time'. The other article "The Multitasking generation" followed a LA family. It basically said that technology affects, or at least IS the new family structure. A few weeks ago, my math teacher gave a good example of this. She said that while visiting her family, everyone was on a lap top or a cell phone with facebook up. The worst part about it was that they were also messaging each other!!! I kind of think this is ridiculous. However, my mother is guilty of this. She will always send me text messages even though I am only down stairs. Every time I go up the stairs and force her to have a conversation with me!

2 articles

Don't fear the digital talks about how the world of writing and communication is always developing and changing. This article also talks about how we need to be able to adapt to the rapid changes in technology.

The multi-tasking generation was about what happens in your brain when you attempt to multi-task and how that effects the way you learn to preform a task or skill.

We can relate to Don't fear the digital because we are the generation that is developing these new ways to communicate such as, IM, texting, and e-mail. I have noticed that if you talk to the people in the older generations they are set in their ways of having to write everything out by hand.

Multi-tasking is an activity that everyone does, but most of us are not aware that we are doing it, let alone how it affects how we learn. I believe that this is a habbit that most people, including my self need to work on learning more about.

Two articles

Don't fear the digital article explains how the children/teenagers today use the interent. They are learning how to create websites/blogs. They are saying kids should have a balanced media diet. Today's kids rely on the interent a lot to finish the task they have to make. The multi tasking generation article talks about how the digital technology life is affecting kids and their plans. The Cox family from Los Angeles are participating in a 4 year study of modern family life. The director of the center of everyday lives of families says ipods, instant messaging, and cell phones are the structure of a family relationship. Kids spend most of their time on the computers, either on myspace, facebook, or whatever the case may be. I question is the internet taking over kids lives? Even the parents lives?

Chapter Two

This chapter was about designing a lesson plan using technology in a lesson. However, one line in particular caught my eye:

"Technology should be employed only when instructional planning has been completed and it is clear that a technology in support of instruction is called for." page 75, middle of the first paragraph

I believe that this is a very important idea to keep in mind. I feel that some teachers shy away from technology because they are unfamiliar with it while others overuse it. I almost feel that when you overuse technology, or you use it the wrong capacity then it loses its effectiveness. On the same page towards the bottom the book also states, "No mistakes can be more costly than those that affect our students...Plan well, teach well."

Interchapter 8

This chapter was about making a classroom website. Throughout reading this, I kept thinking of pizza. It wasn't just because I was dreadfully hungry, it's that the chapter made the process sound like pizza making.

Step one was to story board or get a general idea of what you want. When making a pizza you have to think about what sort of toppings you might want, the sauce to use, thin crust or thin, etc. The same as a classroom website. You have to decided which population to guide it to (parents or adults), do you include information about yourself, if so how much?, etc.

Step Two was content. When making a pizza you eventually have to decide what to do with it, otherwise you end up with a disgusting mess that no one wants to eat. Websites are the same way! If you just slop things together without really thinking about it, you will not only look unprofessional but you will more than likely turn your target audience away from your website.

Step Three was Check Criteria. When you make a pizza you must make sure that you have all of the ingredients on the pizza. After all, what is a pizza without sauce? When creating a website it is important to make sure you satisfy all of the criteria. Otherwise your pizza won't be tasting very well if you know what I mean.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is titled Designing and Planning Technology-Enhanced Instruction. It gives you a lot of useful tools that can help you create an effective lesson plan. The first step to creating an effective lesson is asking yourself questions about your students and the classroom to begin the planning. I believe that this is an extremely important step because teachers should always be thinking about their students. If the lesson you are teaching is not made to fit your specific students needs it may not be as effective. The needs of students in your classroom can vary greatly from the needs of the students in the classroom down the hall. This chapter has a lot of great pictures and charts that help to make the understanding of making a lesson plan a little easier. They make the steps to making a lesson plan more clear and easier to understand. One that I found really interesting was the Learning Environment Rubric, it is set up to help you figure out where your classroom is and where is should be for optimal learning.
Bloom's Taxonomy is a topic that we have discussed in class as well as read about in this chapter. Blooms Taxonomy believes in students being creative while using a higher level of thinking. As a teacher, you should always be aiming for your students to be using higher level thinking. It helps them get a better grasp on the topic in which you are teaching them. The Bloom's Taxonomy and Performance Objectives chart helped me understand Bloom's Taxonomy a little better. It broke the steps down and told what students should be able to do.
Over all this chapter was extremely interesting and there was a lot of information about making lesson plans that I had not know about.

Interchapter 8

I believe that if I would have read this chapter before I started working on my classroom webpage that I would have had an easier time. But, for the most part I thought that creating a classroom webpage was pretty easy. I believe that it would even be easier to think of what to put on it when I am actually teaching. This chapter talks about all the different ways to go about making a classroom website. It gives you details on how to do it and some different ideas. It also talks about the educational recourses that are available on the web. You can put links to these educational resources on your classroom websites for parents and students.

Chapter two

Chapter Two is about designing and planning technology-enhanced instruction. Its about becoming a teacher and beable to design and plan instruction enhanced and supported by technology. When planning there are a few questions to think about. What are my students like, do they have any special needs, what should my students be able to do when I am done with my lesson, what do you as the teacher need to do in the classroom to get everything done, and how will the teacher know if the instruction ws successful. When making a lesson plan you will want to use the instructional planning system. Which is made up with a plan like 1. design: design the instructional unit. 2. plan: Make specific lesson plans within the unit and 3. act: develop an instructional action plan that will help you through out the unit. When doing a lesson there are some things you want to know. You want to know your learners, state your objective, etablish the learning environment, identify teaching and learning strategies, identify and select technologies, and summative evaluation and revision plan. Being a teacher if you can accomplish all of those your lessons should be very useful! When making a lesson plan also use Bloom's Taxonomy and Action verbs, his step up to higher levels of thinking. They are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. If you use these in your lesson plan your lesson plan will be sure one where the students will learn from!

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 talks about designing and planning technology-enhanced instruction. This planning and designing technology-enhanced instruction can be broken down into four different types of planning. These types are planning for effective instruction, DID model, lesson plans, and action plans. Planning effective insturction is a teacher must carefully consider everything that is needed in the classroom. The DID model can be broken down into six categories which are, know the learner, state objectives, establish objectives, establishing environment, identify stratiegies, select technologies, and evaluate and revise. The lesson plan can be broken down into five different parts such as, readying the learner, teargeting objectives, preparing the lesson, pedagogical cycle, and check for sources.

The action plan is a list of to-do's for a lesson. These to-do list are broken down into seven categories having to do with the classroom, students, and the activity itself. These categories are learner preparation, activity lists, list feedback, ready the classroom, technology list, personal prompts, and follow-up activities. These check list will help you as a teacher to stay on track when you are teaching a lesson and make sure that you have what you need to teach the lesson effectively.

Inter Chapter 8

This inter-chapter focused on designing a classroom web site. This inter chapter breaks down the website design into 3 different steps. The first step in this chapter is storyboard, which is sketching out your webpages. The second step that is discussed in this inter-chapter is to determine your content. This content can include teacher information, class/course information, daily information and homework, information for parents, and information for the community. The third step that is discussed is to check guidelines for an educational website. These guidelines include site consistency, bias-free content, date notifications, current links, and contact information.

interchapter 8

Interchapter 8 is all about designing a classroom website. There is 3 steps when it comes to making a website. The first step is the storyboard, which to to decide the components you would like to use. Start with an idea, visualize an overall plan, draft each secreen on index cards, arrange index cards in final sequence and then finally create your webpage. Step 2 you need to determine your content. The teacher information, class/course information, the daily/weekley information and homework. Step 3 is check guidelines. Make sure you met the criteria needed. Classroom websites are really fun to me! They are a great way of communication to the students and the parents.

Chapter 10 and on your mark get set wait.

Chapter 10 is about using technology to redefine the classroom. It talked about distance learning and tools to help the teachers. The article was based on technology for people in schools and to sepcial education students. With the distance learning style it takes a lot of more planning and preparing what you are going to teach. They have to prepare a pretest to let the students see if they have any previous knowledge. The teachers need to make materials for students to research and learn. Chapter 10 also discusses Murphy's Law , stating that anything can go wrong, will go wrong. It states to have a backup system to solve crises. It talks about delivery technologies with telephone, broadcast video, radio broadcast, internet chat, videoconferencing, and net meeting. The article discusses Assistive technology also AT which is a new field that is constantly changing. It mentions Universal Design for learning, which is a concept that orginated in the field of architecture. They are wanting teachers to use these programs in their classrooms to help the students learn.

Chapter Ten

This week there were two course readings: Chapter ten and the article “On Your Mark….Get set…Wait!” Chapter ten discussed distance learning and tools to help teachers while the article talked about using technology for the general population in schools in addition to special education. I couldn’t help but feel that these reading contradicted each other. The book claimed that distance education originated to serve students in remote locations. They both agree that teachers are having to use technology more and more, especially with No Child Left Behind being passed. The book also endorses the use of online learning etc. However the article stated that using assistive technology is not as effective once it is used in isolation. I know of a few elementary schools in town that use assistive technology in isolation only. I suppose it could be to avoid jealousy from other students. Or it could be to keep the peace of the classroom atmosphere. If anything, I can’t help but wonder if there is more evidence out there to tip the scales?

Comment Questions: What AT do you want to use? How will you use it in your classroom? Will you use it in isolation or will you try to integrate it into the classroom? What do you think about the situation of isolation vs Integration? Why?

Chapter 10 and On your mark, get set, wait.

Chapter 10 focuses on the topic of using distatance education in the classroom. The distance learning teaching style The distance learning system goes beyond a normal lesson plan and involoves more planning. Once you start to plan your distance learning leason plan teachers will then need to prepare their students. When preparing the students the teacher should prepare a pretest, so that students are able to check for previous knoledge that would conect with what is being taught and they should also make review materials availible for the students to look over. Along with students checking their previous knowledge teachers who use distance learning should also provide feed back from the pretest all the way through the end of the school year. Even though technology is a great tool to use it may sometimes not work as you planned it to. When a certain peice of technology fails, commonly reffered to as Murphy's Law, it is useful to have a back up plan or system. Distance learning has many peices of support technology that helps to enhance the experience of learning online. These peices of support technology can be spit up into two types of instruction synchronous and asynchronous. In our every day lives we are actively useing several of these types of technology. Some examples of these technology types are the telephone, internet chat,voice mail, and electronic mail. Even though these peices of technology are used to support and encourage distance learning there five major issues that are addressed in this chapter, readiness, prep time, tech support, instruction support, and copyright. On your mark, get set, wait examines the standards, assistive technology, and the universal design for learning.

Chapter eight

Chapter eight discussed the vast majority of Electronic resources available to educators. The chapter discussed educational journals and their uses as well as how to access them whether it be by PDF or HTML. Something interesting that I hadn’t really thought about before this class was teacher blogs and chat rooms. I guess I didn’t think teachers could be so organized! I believe that through these blogs the teachers learn about all of the electronic resources available to them. For example, the chapter said some electronic resources teachers take advantages are test generators and electronic grade books. Maybe a teacher could be faced with a decision on which program is the best for them, but do not want to risk downloading anything? They could go onto the teacher blogs!
Another way teacher blogs can help is to arrange a global learning community. Not everyone knows of someone in another country, specifically a foreign teacher. Through blogs a teacher could meet and arrange for their class to have cyber pen pals or they could arrange for a video chat.
Another great way for teachers to utilize blogs are to communicate with the parents. We have all been in the position where your parent asks you, “So what did you do in school today?” I don’t know about any of you, but this was the LAST thing I wanted to talk about after having done it all day long. If a teacher were to use a blog daily, then the parent could simply look up what their child did in school and generate conversation that way.

Comment Questions: How would you use electronic resources in your classroom? What would you use? How often would you like to use it? What technology would you most like to use in your classroom?

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is all about using the web for teaching and learning in the classroom. It talks about online publications which are current and archived artciles of interest to educators. It states that electronic publications offer a page or related links that will be useful to the persons information. They can be saved or printed. It mentions blogs and working with blogs helps you communicate better with others. It talks about book marking your favorite sites that way you can always have them in just a click away. It explains electronic grade books, where the students average is calculated for you. It talks about classroom websites that give the teacher, student and parents a way to communicate with each other. Also so everyone knows what is going on day by day. It mentions in the end the internet issues that you can face. Being a teacher you need to use the interent acceptable. When sharing students work use the guidelines becuase of privacy issues. Chapter 8 is basically teaching you all the ways to use the interent in the classroom, and ways to have fun and be safe with the internet.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is about using the web for teaching and learning. Online publications was one of the first things that caught my attention. We have done a lot of work with online publications in W200. It talks about the different ways that you can use these articles. You can save them, print them or even email them to yourself. It talks about how some websites save their articles as PDF files. This is something that I have dealt with a lot. I think it is actually easier to have the articles as a PDF file then just on the website. You have to have Adobe Reader to read PDF files. The chapter then goes on to talk about weblogs. Blogs are something that I have had a great deal of experience with. I've had several different blogs over the past few years. I love blogging and I would love to incorporate it into my classroom one day. Another part of the chapter that I found interesting was Class Web Sites. It talks about teachers who made their own classrooms websites. I definitely think that this would be something that I would enjoy doing with my class one day. It would be a great activity for older students and I definitely think that they would really enjoy it. Towards the end of the chapter it talks about acceptable use for the interenet and privacy. This is something that we have covered a lot during class. As a teacher you have to make sure that your students are not abusing the internet and that all of their personal information is kept safe.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 focused on the broad topic of academic software. To me this broad topic is so important for teachers to incorrporate into the classroom. In this chapter this broard topic is divided into a variety of categories of software. The categories of software that stood out to me were the graphic software, tutorial software, educational games, special needs software, and mapping tools. I believe that these specific types of software stuck out to me in the reading because they are the ones that I have personally seen used integrated into the classroom. What I like most about these types of software was that they get the students to be interactive with the lesson.

Chapter 6

Chapter six is all about academic software. Academic software includes a wide variety of things such as, desktop publishing, graphics, reference like encarta, tutorials and drill and practice, educational games, simulations and special needs. I remember using simulation software in elementary school to play the oregon trail game. It was a lot of fun and helped me learn more about oregon trail and how things happened. Educational games are something that students probably enjoy the most out of anything. They learn without even knowing that they're learning. The chapter then goes on to talk about how to use each of these systems. One thing that I found useful was the pictures and diagrams they used to help explain themselves. I'm a visual learner so pictures are always better for me. Also, I liked the rubics that they used to show how to grade the different softwares. Towards the end of the chapter it talks about content specific software. It explains the different types of software for math, science, social studies, and language arts.

I was really surprised when I was reading this chapter because I had no idea that there were so many different types of academic softwares that could be used in schools.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6 was all about software! The Academic Software includes the software that can help the teacher and the students learning. They have many softwares such as desktop publishing, graphics, and educational games. All of these helping the teacher and the students. Chapter 6 gives a description of the paint program, the drawing program, the imaging software which is used with scanners to convert hard copy images to digital images. The editing software allows you to change the image. It explains the reference software such as encyclopedias, atlases, grammer tools, and dictionaries.
Chapter 6 is all about the software available to you to use on the computers. To me it was all familiar to me just a review.

Chapter Six

Chapter six was all about software! This chapter discussed the vast category of academic software giving examples of how to use it. For example the chapter talked about special needs software that will perform operations such as reading sounds and words .
This chapter also went into desktop publishing software which is used for a variety of reasons. A few ways teachers use them could be to type up a newsletter so they could easily add and arrange graphics, made a worksheet, or even make a flyer for a school event.
Another interesting thing chapter six addressed was simulations. I honestly had to think a little bit to remember that I had in fact used a simulation before. In middle school we had to take a class called tech ed. In this class there was a plethora of ‘modules’ or work stations for us to do. We wouldn’t be able to do all of them but there were enough to keep everyone busy. I can remember that I did the module on aviation in which I got to do a flight simulation! The plane I ‘flew’ ended up crashing, but it was an interesting experience.

Chapter 4

Overall chapter 4 talks about using digital technologies in the classroom. In this chapter these digital technologies can be broken down into the three categories of useful input devices, useful output devices and emerging technologies.

Useful input devices are peices of technology that are sed to imput data into a computer. These devices include: scanners, digital cameras, graphic tables, microphones, tablet PCs, touch screens, and electronic whiteboards.

Output devices allow the teacher to share data with students and faculty. Output devices include a variety of methods of technology. The output devices talked about in this chapter include: data projectors and speakers and headphones. This two major devices share data through images that are projected for students.

Emerging digital techologies for the classroom can be discribed as hardware that are likey to be adapted for use in schools. These types of hardware include: wireless devices, handheld computers, E-books, voice-activated devices, portable storage and the use of virtual environments.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 is all about the digital technologies in the classroom. They start out discussing how teachers can take pictures and easily download their pictures on their computers. It states that the two most commonly used devices when using a computer are a keyboard and a mouse. With these two devices you can do everything you need to do on a computer. Other devices that are commonly used with the computer are scanners, digital cameras, and touch screen devices. The most common type of scanner is called a flat bed scanner, its like a small personal copier. Also they discuss all about the digital camera. Being a owner of a digital camera, I know all about the special features and how to use one. The memory card is a very important investment when you have a camera some types of cards are Smart Media, Compact Flash, and a memory stick.
A graphic tablet is a electronic pad to draw diagrams or create artwork. This is helpful for art students because it gives a more typical digitizer to draw the original images. It discusses pen input devices which is a PDA. Its a portable computing device that can be used for hand notes, and transfers them into a Word processor. They are very useful for business people and teachers. For people that is on the go all the time! Another digital tool is touch screens. Its a computer monitor that responds to your finger when you touch the screen. Chapter 4 is all about the different technology resources you can use in the classroom to help the teachers and the students teach and learn better. To me Chapter 4 was all a review when reading, because I am familiar with all the technology they mentioned.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 was all about digital technologies in the classroom. I found it to be a pretty interesting chapter because it was about somethings that i had used before in my classes in high school or even have used in classrooms here at IUE. The first piece of technology that the chapter talks about is a scanner and how a flat bed scanner can be used in so many different ways. I haven't really had a lot of experience with scanners so i found this section of the chapter pretty informative.

The chapter then goes on to talk about scantrons. I've had a lot of experience with these. They are really easy to use. We always took scantron tests or quizzes in high school and my biology professor here at IUE even is giving scantron quizzes. It can grade a whole class of 30 plus student's quizzes in a matter of minutes. It's an easy and effective way to take quizzes or test. It definitely makes a teachers job easier, atleast when it comes to grading.

The next thing the chapter talked about that I could really relate to was DIGITAL CAMERAS! I love digital cameras! I use mine everyday! They're small and portable and definitely easy to use and now a days they're pretty inexpensive for a decent one! This is something I will definitely be incorporating into my class room! Everyone loves pictures! I plan on taking lots of pictures of my classrooms throughout each school year and making slideshow dvds for my students and their parents at the end of the year.

Later on in the chapter it talked about LCD projectors. I really don't know how to used one, I always struggle with them when I try to use them. They must be really stubborn or something. But I see LCD projectors all the time at IUE and saw them a lot during high school and I was always having to try and use them. I just never had good luck with them, not even this past fall in speech. Even our professor struggled with it.

At the end of the chapter it talked about portable storage. This is also something that I have a lot of experience with. I actuall used a USB drive today to save my cheerleading packets on. USB drives are easy to use and an effective way to move your documents from place to place. USB drives are very inexpensive and are an effictive tool for anyone using computers.

Chapter 4

Chapter four was all about the different kinds of technology available today for educators to use. The chapter talked about input and output devices along with devices such as cameras, scanners, webcams, and graphics tablets.
In my pre calculus class during my senior year at Richmond High School, I had a wonderful teacher by the name of Mary-Jane Hansing. She had recently adapted her class to the use of a graphics tablet and a projector. I really loved this simply because she could get a view of the class while she was teaching so she honestly knew if we were getting the concept or not. She once said she liked it because she didn’t have to block information while she wrote it on the chalk board.
Not only did the graphics tablet help us to learn faster, but it really came in handy whenever we missed a class. When Ms. Hansing taught a lesson and wrote notes/examples on the tablet she would save it. That way all she had to do was print it out and give it to whoever had missed class.
On top of those two things, I found that I really enjoyed that class (I highly doubt it was because I LOVED math). She made it fun and was able to show us multiple ways of doing the same problem side by side.

Chapter 11

Chapter eleven discussed issues pertaining to the ‘digital divide’. The digital divide is essentially all of the bureaucratic red tape issues that come with technology such as copy write issues. This chapter also addressed topics like privacy of students and their work, the proper use of technology by students, and plagiarism.
I suppose I never really realized it until the book pointed it out, the teacher is responsible for insuring that the students use the technology properly. The proper use of technology is just as important to know as knowing how to take care of your textbooks.
I cannot say that I have an experience with modern technology and plagiarism, but I do remember when it was first addressed with me. I was in third grade and we all had to do a report on an inventor. The inventor I had chosen was Thomas Edison. The class went down to the library and got books on our inventor of choice. This was the first time I had to do an actual report and I was seriously concerned about doing it. I did not know how to take notes or how to organize anything so I did the only thing I could think of: memorize the book word for word. Of course, to my third grade mind, this was brilliant! I thought this report would be easy because I remembered the book, I could just re-write it. Then when my teacher saw it, she first congratulated me on memorizing the book but then told me that what I had done was called plagiarism and was illegal. She told me that I would get arrested for taking someone else’s work. Needless to say, I never plagiarized again!

Chapter 11

The main part of chapter 11 focuses on the ethical issue of plagiarism when using other peoples work for a research paper. It is not only important for teachers to notice the importance of avoiding plagiarism , but it is also important for students to learn the importance of avoiding plagerism. Teachers can address these issues through a variety of resources. Electronic white boards, powerpoints, and posters can be used to show students how to evaluate the websites that are being used.

Personally I have not seen elementary teachers address the issue of plagiarism. What I have noticed is that this very important issue is being addressed heavily in the middle and high school classrooms.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 was about using technology in classrooms. In the beginning of the chapter it talks about strategic planning that schools have to do because of the costs of technology in this day and age. At the high school I attended I saw how our school had to plan to make technology work. We had some very outdated computer labs and a couple updated ones. We also had a couple of classrooms that got smartboards or projectors to use and were considered smart classrooms. So our school was slowly making changes to implement technology and they had a strategic plan.
The Chapter then goes on to talk about Legal issues in the digital age. I didn't know there were that many different legal issues. But, I guess it makes sense since we have so much more access to everything. I liked the fair use guidelines chart on page 401. It made it easier for me to understand what fair use guidelines were.
The chapter also talked about privacy on technology. As a teacher you have to make sure you are protecting your students privacy. You also have to make sure that you are following the school districts polocies. Also, you would want to make sure you are protecting the pictures of students and all of their information.
The academic dishonesty part of the chapter is something that I found interesting and it was definitely something that I could kind of relate to. I have heard of friends going to websites and getting papers that another student had wrote and turning it in in high school instead of doing it themselves. This is probably a big problem at a lot of schools that don't have antiplagiarism software because I know of a lot of people that have done this or tried to do this.
At the end of the chapter it talked about how the role of a teacher is changing because of all of the changing technology and how technology is being incorporated into all of the students lessons. There are the NETS standards that we all know about. Technology is going to play a large part in our teaching careers.

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 is all about Issues in implementing technology in schools. It addresses the ISTE National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers. About planning and designing learning environments and experiences, assesment and evaluation, productivity and professional practice, and social, ethical, legal, and human issues. It talks about Strategic planning, how and why they spend so much time preparing for technology. It explains copyright and the fair use of using resources. It talks about the freedom of speech and the interent, and how the content on the interent is not regulated and some material are not acceptable for children. It talks about Academic Dishonesty where they have websites where students hire someone to write their papers, which to me is unfair and I don't think they should be able to have these websites. It gives you a detail description of Wireless networking. How schools offer WiFi and most local business places offer Wifi. I thought chapter 11 gave you a basic learning of technology in schools, How they are hiring people to write papers, and the use of WiFi in schools.

Chapter 7

The biggest part of chapter seven was about the variety of ways to communicate over the internet. E-mails, chat rooms, instant messaging, discussions, mailing list, and video confrencing are just a few communication techniques that are discussed in this chapter. What I found interesting was that most of these techniques are things that we use everyday, but I 'm sure like most of you I didn't realize that all of these could be used in the classroom. If you take a look at the elementary students they are just as savy when communicating through technology as we are as college students. My opinion is that it is more important than ever that we, as future teachers, learn to communicate not only with the other faculty members and parents through technology, but also the students.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is all about something that i'm sure all of us use everyday, The internet. The chapter goes over many different aspects of internet. One thing that i'm sure we all use everyday is e-mail. We use it in this class to get our assignments to Judy and is something we all know how to use. It also talks about ISPs which are internet service providers. ISPs include things like e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging and even internet access and browsers like internet explorer or mozilla firefox. It also goes on to talk about using electronic mail in teaching and learning and that is something that we do in this class. We use assignment transmisson which are assigned activites that are emailed to the teacher. Later on in the chapter it talks about creating and evaluating web sites. It gives you an easy to read and understand website evaluating rubic. It gives you all of the different categories and descriptions of what the different scores would be. This made it easier for me to understand how to grade the websites and what was good and bad.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is all about the internet and the world wide web. It talks about modems. How you can connect through satellite equipment, external modem, and a DSL modem. It talks about internet based communications like e-mail, chat rooms. It tells you how to understand e-mails. Also using e-mail in teaching and learning. Like for assignments, class discussions, communication student to student, or teacher to student. It discusses mailing list, and a FTP. Which is a File Transfer protocol a method used for transferring files. It talks about creating and evaluating websites. Reading this chapter was basically a review for me. I know how to e-mail. and communicate through e-mail. I understand and have created a website before and went through a evaluation on a website. So while reading this chapter it basically was a review for me, about the internet and using e-mail for communication and transferring files. 

CHAPTER 5

Chapter 5 discusses many different types of software and how to incorporate them effectively into the classroom. The first two types of software that the chapter addresses are administrative and academic software. Both types of software are designed to make the teachers job easier. In the chapter it also reminds that the ISTE's NETS emphasize the importance of being able to use software efficiently. It also adresses Productivity software which is used most by both students and teachers. Productivity software includes programs that we use everyday such as microsoft word which would be an example of word processing software. Productivity software also includes electronic spreadsheets, database management systems, and presentation software. The chapter goes on to talk about portfolio assessment software and evaluating and selecting the right management software. It gives a rubic to help you grade and evaluate the management software.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 talks about administrative software and the ways it can be used in the classroom. The main topic of this chapter is productivity software. Productivity software includes word processing, elecronic spreadsheets, database management systens, and presentation software. Before reading this chapter I had a good idea of how word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software could be used by teachers, but I didn't understand how data bases could be used within the classroom. After reading this chapter I learned that a data base is basicly used to get organized both in teaching and professional task.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 was about understanding software. A administrative software that is software that assits an educator. It also mentions academic software, software that assits both educators and learns in teaching and learning the process itself. Chapter 5 basically covers the different software types that you can use in the classroom. Such as word processing, electronic spreadsheets, database management systems, and presentation software. It talks about how you can print your document, and save what you have done. Its also shows how you can break down a presentation, with the slides, graphics, multimedia, hyperlinks, and printing options.

Chapter 7

Chapter seven was all about one of my favorite things, the internet. Throughout most of my life, I have had access to technology and the internet and just took for granted that both things would work. Before reading this chapter, I suppose that I never really thought about what exactly the internet is. The book said that the internet is "made up of millions of individual machines and networks that have agreed to connect, provide resources to each other, and share data." To me, this is kind of like a bunch of people in a group working on a research paper. Everyone agrees to get along and share what they come across.

The rest of this chapter was about the different ways an individual can receive the internet such as DSLs and Cable Modems.

Chapter 5`

Chapter five was all about software and other tools that help professionals accomplish their given tasks more efficiently and more accurately. This would be defined as productivity software. This particular chapter happened to focus on more common tools such as Microsoft word, excel, publisher, access, etc. The book states that word-processing software is "the most commonly used computer application". Programs such as word-processing software have almost entirely replaced older technology such as the typewriter. The advantage to using word-processing software instead of a typewriter is that you can store and manipulate your data until you are finished working. With a typewriter you would have to be very careful not to make an error because you can not manipulate what you do as you do it.

What I learned in Class today

Today in class I learned a lot about how technology is used in the classroom. Learning about the online portfolios was very interesting, and I had no idea that they were using them in fourth and fifth grades. That shocked me, but its good to see that they are using the technology that is given to them to their advantage.

What I learned today!

Today we went over a few things we covered last week. Then we went over the 6+1 traits as well as practicing them. Then we learned about various grading systems and administrative software.

Practice Post

I learned alot about how databases are used in schools to organize and store information. I also learned how different gradebooks and electronic portfolios can be used in classrooms. Learning these different things helped me to learn how different types of administrative software can be used by both the students and the teachers.

What I learned on 1/28/10

Today I learned all the different ways an electronic gradebook can be used. You can communicate with the student and parents away from school from your home. You are able to grade papers and enter them into the computer, leaving your prep period at school free to come up with new lessons for the students in the coming weeks. In some electronic gradebooks, you are able to talk to the parents speaking their language! You can type a comment in english, and when you send it to them, it translates it to spanish. I thought that was really neat because there are sometimes language barriers between teachers and foreign parents. I also learned that you are able to print off progress reports of how the student is doing, and you can experiment with the grades to tell them what they will get if they do this project, if they pass this next big test, ect. All of these are really neat and helpful technologies that have made teaching a little bit easier to do. :)

What I learned in class today

I learned a lot from the reading in class today. I had no idea that 4th and 5th grade students were making online portfolios. To me that seems kind of young. I didn't think that students that young were capable of creating something like that. But, in the reading it said that it was something that the students enjoyed and really took pride in.