Journal 6: Classroom 2.0 and Blogging (Nets 5)

Blogging: Blogging is like online journaling that is open to comments from other users. Blogs are hosted by providers like blogspot..com, blogger.com and kidsblog.com

One of the ways that teachers use blogs in a classroom is to provide an “authentic audience” for student work. Depending on the blog settings, the blogs can be seen by parents, students in the classroom, or other students in other classrooms. When one class comments on another class’ blogs, the other class generally reciprocates and communication between the two classes results. Also, it makes the students and teachers more responsible and open to parents. Both of these scenarios result in an audience for student work, which seems to motivate students to do better work and to write even when there is no assignment.
Teachers are also using blogs as a sort of online newsletter/calendar/information center for both students and parents. These sorts of blogs often host content that helps students review for exams and quizzes as well as information for parents about what the class is up to and what assignments are due when. Schools are finding blogs are a useful tool for keeping parents involved in the day-to-day activities in the classroom.
One of the interesting debates going on about classroom blogs right now is whether teachers are better served to maintain a website or a blog. Proponents of blogs argue that they often appear more professional than the standard teacher webpage does, that they are less static and that teachers are more likely to update them. Proponents of webpages argue that because a lot of teachers do not update, class webpages that provide basic information may be more suitable for most teachers.

Nets-S Collaborative Powerpoint Rubric-Nets 2 and 5

As a class, we used RCampus.com to create this rubric that we then used to grade each other's powerpoint presentations.

Nets-S Presentation made on Prezi.com- Nets 1, 2, and 3

Using Prezi.com, I created a presentation that integrates the Nets-S and possible student work that would meet those Nets.

nets-s take 3 on Prezi

Journal 4: “Finding Students Who Learn with Media” (Nets 5)

Bull, G. (2010). Finding studnets who learn with media. Learning and leading with technology, 37(5). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=February_No_5_4&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4495&ContentID=25255&DirectListComboInd=D.

Glen Bull details his experiences with having students create a student narrated video that incorporates primary documents and images about the United States in the 1930’s. The assignment uses Primary Access Movie Maker, a web based program, to reduce technology learning time and allow students to focus more on the specific project than the technology they are using to create the project. After tracking student involvement and outcomes from this assignment, Bull notes that students fall into four categories: “high technology/high content,” “high technology/low content,” “high content/low technology,” and “low content/low technology.” The students in the high/high group are engaged by all aspects of the assignment and it is a rewarding and authentic learning experience for them. Those students engaged in the high/low group are engaged in the process of making the video and as a by-product of this engagement, learn some of the content that they might not have otherwise. Those in the low/high group are more likely to enjoy researching and writing an essay than making the video. The low/low group is not connecting to the activity at all. According to Bull, part of the benefit of this project for teachers is that it allows teachers to track how students are engaging with technology and content online. This tracking, in turn, can aid teachers in tailoring their pedagogy and curriculum to the learning styles in their classroom.

Question 1: How could you incorporate some of the suggestions in this article in a classroom?

The information about using online tools to track how students are engaging with assignments is of particular interest to me. Bull mentions that part of what makes for authentic learning is the “degree of student choice” offered. Perhaps an assignment early on might show that a good percentage of your class might enjoy research and writing as much as others enjoy working with media. With this knowledge, you could offer students the option of writing an essay or making a video and engage more students more effectively at the same time. Alternatively, you could alternate traditional and media based assignments for big projects.

Question 2: Is there more information needed in addition to that provided in the article to know how you would implement these ideas in a classroom?

Yes. I don’t understand how they were able to track student engagement with both technology and content online to come to the conclusions they did. They might have tracked time spent fiddling with the technology and how well students performed on tests and then linked the two, or maybe they tracked these factors in an entirely different way. In order to replicate this sort of assignment, including the tracking for future use, in a meaningful way, I would need to understand how the tracking occurred. 

Journal 3: “Keeping the Peace” (Nets 5)

Levinson, M (2010). Keeping the peace. Learning and leading with technology, 37(5). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=February_No_5_4&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4495&ContentID=25237&DirectListComboInd=D.

In “Keeping the Peace,” Matt Levinson writes about the challenges the Nueva School faced during the first year of a one-to-one student laptop program. The particular challenge focused on in the article is that of students’ usage of instant messaging and video chat features that were initially enabled on the student laptops. Instant messaging quickly became a distraction in the classroom and some parents felt as if the school was making decisions for them about the use of instant messaging at home. Eventually, the school decided to block the instant messaging and video chat programs on student computers. This decision led to a lot of community comments, ranging from parents who applauded the effort, students who felt the ban was too all-encompassing and should be considered on a case to case basis instead, to parents who felt the school was taking on a censorship role that was unnecessary. Ultimately, the school felt that the laptops were intended for educational purposes and that blocking the instant messaging programs helps to keep the laptops as educational devices and not simply as tools for socializing.

Question 1: Do you agree with banning IM programs on school computers?

Yes! I believe it is a problem if students are communicating with their classmates clandestinely through IM when they should be paying attention in class. Notes and whispering are things teachers can catch, IM’s can be much more insidious in the classroom. Furthermore, I think that IM’s inside of classrooms might lead to more cyber-bullying. Finally, I don’t see how IM’s actually improve the learning happening with the computers.

Question 2: How could the IM problem and similar ones be avoided at other schools?

Levinson mentions that banning chat and IM would have been easier if it had been done at the start of the one-to-one initiative. In order for schools to know this sort of information, it is important to have a “best practices” guide with other schools experiences available. As schools begin to implement one-to-one programs, research into these best practices should help them avoid a lot of problems that other schools have already gone through and remedied. 

Journal 2: “Using Podcasts to Create a Global Perspective” (Nets 5)

Maguth, B. M., & Elliot, J. (2010). Using podcasts to develop a global perspective. Learning and leading with technology, 37(5). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=February_No_5_4&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4495&ContentID=25244&DirectListComboInd=D

            In “Using Podcasts to Create a Global Perspective,” Brad M. Maguth and Jeff Elliot document an assignment used in a technology, math and sciences highschool setting. In the assignment the authors wrote about, students are challenged to research a global issue and then present their research in the form of a “Meet the Press” style debate that is recorded and later turned into a podcast that can be shared online. According to the authors, using podcasts allows for “authentic learning” because students feel that the public nature of podcasts requires that their work be quality but also allows their work to reach an audience and be relevant to both the students and others. The technical aspects discussed in the article include the fact that the editing software Garage Band was used in the example project, but that Audacity is a free program that could be used, and that the audio files, once edited, need to be converted to the mp3 format before being posted to a website as a podcast.

Question 1: Are there privacy concerns about posting student work, in the form of audio content, on the internet?

If the students are identified by name and the website is publicly accessible, there may be privacy concerns. Teachers and administrators can get permission slips to post the student work. If the students are not visually identified in the file itself, and are not identified by name in the description on the website or in the file itself, there may not be privacy concerns to contend with. Another option would be to put the files on a password protected website. Unfortunately, doing so would negate the “global aspect” of sharing podcasts.

Question 2: Will student’s actually believe that their podcasts can reach wide audiences from a school website?

The idea that students will take their work more seriously and see it as relevant if there is a chance that people all over the world might see their work is contingent on students actually believing that people might see their podcast. By high school, students are smart enough to know that simply existing online does not guarantee being seen. All it would take is one cynical student to point this out to the entire class and change the dynamic of the assignment. To counteract this, teachers could have colleagues from other places comment on the finished podcasts from previous years to show to future students. 

Journal 1: “Computing in the Clouds” (Nets 5)

Johnson, D. (2009). Computing in the clouds. Learning and leading with technology, 37(4). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume3720092010/DecemberJanuaryNo4/Computing_in_the_Clouds.htm
Doug Johnson, Director of Media and Technology for the Manakota public schools, predicts that the use of netbooks and cloud software can save schools money while increasing student usage of technology. Johnson describes cloud software as programs that exist online, rather than on an individual hard-drive; the specific programs Johnson focuses on, like g-mail and google-docs, are free to use. The advantages of cloud programs are that they are free, allowing schools to spend money on other resources, they do not use computer space, allowing students and schools to rely on inexpensive netbooks rather than more expensive computers for standard computing needs, and because files and resources are stored online instead of on a hard-drive, computers become interchangeable and the user is not tied to a specific device. On the flip side, there are concerns about security and privacy with online cloud programs. Furthermore, netbooks and cloud software do not provide the necessary programming, or computer power, to complete complex or large projects like film and photo editing. Though there are limitations to “computing in the clouds,” Johnson ultimately thinks that cloud software can be useful for schools and that most students will eventually own at least a netbook.
Question 1: What are the funding possibilities for getting netbooks into classrooms?
If the faculty was able to stop using programs like Microsoft outlook and move to g-mail accounts, for example, the school district might be able to save some money that they could relocate to funding netbooks in the classrooms. Furthermore, grant money and donations from companies could be pursued. Like the article mentioned, in some districts asking the parents to buy the netbooks as part of the school supplies might be a possibility. My parents were asked to buy calculators, just like Johnson was.
Question 2: Would netbooks be disruptive in classrooms?
A well-written and enforced student usage agreement would need to be in place to keep netbooks from being more distraction and disruption than teaching aid. In order for netbooks to really be useful, wireless internet and web-browsers need to be available, and with wi-fi and google comes a host of possible distractions. Teachers would need to be aware of ways of minimizing this, students would need to be aware of the proper usage of netbooks as well as the consequences for improper usage, and the administration would need to carefully draft the usage agreements in place.