Dr. Robert's presentation was full of valuable information for me. The information about how many hours a day children are exposed to media and how it has increased a great amount over the past few years is amazing and relevant to me. I want to take children's love for technology and bring it into the classroom in an educational manner. What I would be curious to find out is how much more media expose children are having because of kindles, ipads, etc. that were not around when this study was being conducted. Going further I wonder if reading on electronics such as kindles, effects students reading development skills. Is reading actual print better? I wonder this because in my opinion holding a book, or newspaper, or magazine in your hands is a major part of a reading experience.
The NY Times article, gives many opinions about online courses for k-12 students. in my opinion online courses for high school students are not completely bad. I think that for make up courses or for advanced course, if they are done in a way that requires students to do actual work and not just "copy" wiki pages or look at books while taking a test, they are ok. With that said, I also think that online course can be detrimental to schools, as well as, teachers. Replacing more then just make up courses or advanced courses creates many challenges for the education system. For one, if classes are going to be replaced with online courses that puts teachers out of jobs, which are hard to come by as it is. Losing teachers is not the only thing that concerns me. In my opinion not having teachers in a classroom changes learning all together. A teacher makes up a great deal of the environment in which students learn and motivate students in a way that online courses can not provide. Teachers can not tell if a student is truly trying their hardest or if they are getting all their information from unreliable resources on the Internet. For these reasons along with many others I believe that online courses are more harmful than good, and need to be very carefully thought about before implemented into any school system.
Technology Resources for the Teacher:
1. dropbox.com
This seems like a great website to utilize in any class I may teach in the future. Having the ability to store any documents they are working on in a way that they can access anywhere at anytime. This allows students who may not have a USB drive or a computer at home to work on their homework or projects on other computers. This can support students in their learning by giving them access to their work at all times.
2. http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com:
This site will generate all kinds of crosswords, word sorts, etc. For me as an elementary school teacher this resource will be very helpful. For almost all subjects these types of materials can be used as review tasks. Students love these types of reviews and will engage them in the content area.
3. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/
This website helps make rubrics for teachers. This will be a great resource for me as I will be a first year teacher and don't have much experience creating rubrics on my own. This site will help me support students by having a clear rubric to grade and assess things on.
4. http://quizlet.com/
I will absolutely use this website in my classroom. Elementary students must learn certain sight words in each grade and these flashcards will help them learn that. This will also help when teaching any ELD students that I have in my classes.
I responded to...
Karen Vigna
Heather Porch
Sarah Fredricks
Hi Allison,
ReplyDeleteI also liked the puzzlemaker but wondered how useful it would be for me since I teach high school. However, you're right about crosswords being fun and effective reviews. I think they may just be helpful for my students after all, especially since they evoke memories of elementary school, which always makes teenagers happy :)
A note on Kindles: I don't think they're helpful for reading. You can't underline, highlight, and write in the margins like you can in a book. It's useful for a certain lifestyle (i.e. adults who travel a lot), but I personally feel that it has no place in the classroom.