EDCI 336 A04 Reflection

hat did you learn about teaching innovation and technology in education?

This semester was full of new experiences. EDCI-336 has been a really interesting  course. I had no idea how many different ways there are to incorporate technology in a class. Whether it is a simple youtube video, a presentation, using the smart-board, or a slideshow the possibilities really are endless. 

Our project 50 ways to tell a story really demonstrated how many ways to tell a story there are and this was just scrapping the bare bottom. There is so much more that can be done. Technology is not available in all classrooms but if it is, I believe that it should be used. Students enjoy technology and are growing up surrounded by it, so why not use it in the classroom. 

As future teachers we need to be critical about how we are using it, and when students are using it we need to ensure there safety. There are many positive things that technology can be used for and there are the same amount of negative things that could be done

Technology has come so far in a small amount of time and it continues to evolve. 

One Laptop Per Child

I wrote this last technology class but never published it.

One Laptop per Child is is a non-profit organization which offers inexpensive laptops to children in developing countries. The computers are rugged, low-power, connected laptop, for an inexpensive price. Each laptop costs about $100. The goals is to empower children to get engaged in their own education to learn and share.

At first this seemed like an odd idea to me. In some places there is little to no water or food and children are getting laptops. This didn't seem right, and I would imagine it causes a lot of controversy. But as someone in my class said that if they learn how to gather water, or plant food from using their laptop it would prove to be a great resource.

The website allows you to donate so that more laptops can be supplied to children. What you you think? Would you rather donate so they have water o a laptop? I see both pros and cons to it, but am on the fence about how I feel about it.

Here is the website to check out- http://one.laptop.org/about/mission

Smart-Board= WOW

The past couple of weeks in technology class have been a lot of fun. We have been working with Smart-board technology. I will start by saying that the Smart-board notebook is incredible. The possibilities are endless. I have spent way too much time playing around with it and seeing what is available. It is easy to see how a teacher can spend a lot of time creating lessons and activities. There are many places online that give teachers access to resources for the smart-board. Many teachers create lessons and activities and make them available to others. Using these resources will not only save time for teachers but give them starting points for creating their own lessons. In the Notebook software there are tons of multimedia tools. They have pictures, interactive and multimedia, notebook files and pages, and backgrounds and themes. For my lesson with shapes and colours I used a tool called activity builder. This allowed me to create pages where students were to match the colour to the word and if one was wrong it would bounce back and if it were right it would stay in place. I will defiantly use notebook and smart boards in my practicum and hopefully in my future teaching.

Blog Entry

Well this blog is a little late for my technology class but better late than never. This class is so much fun and I have learned so much. The internet is has unlimited resources and I have used and learned about so many that I have never heard of.

A couple of classes require us to write a blog and I enjoy them as it is something a little different than writing a journal or having to hand something in. Online there as many different websites to collaborate with others. Our delicious site is a resources with a wealth of information.

The amount of sites available to present or tell a story is incredible. Even within our class there were many different sites used and mediums, from comics to slideshows it was endless. The site that I used was Narrable. It was an easy site to use and I can think about so many ways to use it in the classroom. Using it for lesson plans, instructions, and student presentations is just scratching the surface of what is possible.

Now we have moved onto using Smart-boards. Many teachers I have had at the college just us it for slideshows and the internet, but with using notebook you can create anything. I can defiantly see myself using it when I am teaching from doing attendance to teaching lessons. I see it as a glorified powerpoint presentation.

Technology is constantly changing and it is fun to constant bye learning about it.

My Narrable Story

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