Technology In The Classroom: 2009

Friday, December 11, 2009

Using ‘Google Earth’ In The History Classroom

     Google Earth is a free 2.0 application that I’ve done some research on for other projects in my class. If you’re not familiar with Google Earth it is a virtual globe/map of the earth in 2 and 3D views that show in-depth satellite and aerial views of just about every inch of the earth. What makes Google Earth so amazing is that it can be manipulated by the user to go and show whatever locations are desired right down to even showing a street view of a destination. Because of this great quality, I’m sure you can see why this free application could be such a great asset to any curriculum.
     This article specifically titled “Using ‘Google Earth’ In The History Classroom” goes into depth about how history educators can use Google Earth to get their students involved with their lessons. Some of the ideas mentioned within this article are things like taking students on virtual field trips to places that they could not otherwise go on due to budget cutbacks or just simply because they are on the other side of the world. Because Google Earth allows for students to see what the landscapes look like as if they were actually there, both in an aerial and regular view, Google Earth works out great for geography lessons as well. They can discover why certain bodies of water exist or even why certain areas are more populated than other based on the landforms in that certain area.
     Overall Google Earth is a wonderful free application that is so diverse and can be easily used in any content area, not just ones like the social studies. I’ve been able to use Google Earth in my own classroom experiences with literature. I was able to take my students on a tour of the city that was the setting for the book that we were reading in class. They were then able to “walk” around the city and go to the places that the main character visited. This made the book come to life for the students and they were able to relate to the storyline more so then if I would not have used Google Earth.

Tarr, R. (2006). Using 'Google Earth' in the History Classroom. History Review, (56), 26-27. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Baby Steps In Web 2.0 Application

     We often think and talk about students using web 2.0 applications within the classroom to get them motivated and excited about learning. However, we don’t often think that all of this interactive web 2.0 practicing will be getting them ready for the use of 2.0 applications within the work forces. Because of the way that students are becoming more technologically advanced right out of high school, it is changing the way that the work world and even college education is implemented and run.
     The article titled “Baby Steps In Web 2.0 Application” discuses how college professors are using web 2.0 applications to implement their teaching. For example, the article mentioned how one professor, Alan Lew used Innertoob within his class. Innertoob is a 2.0 application that allows for the students to reflect on the content that he has posted. They can interact with it via text messages, blogging, or literally “voicing” there opinion. This allows for the other students as well as himself to go back and see what other students have to say about the content that he is teaching.
     I found this article to be very interesting. This may be a technology that professors are using, but it is also something that high school classroom teachers could be using as well. As I was reading this article, another thought came to my mind. If colleges are jumping on the technology bandwagon, then it really is our job to give our students as much exposure to web 2.0 and other technology when we can. If they don’t have the exposure they need, then not only will they not be trying to learn the content when they get to college, but they will be trying to lean the technology as well.

Fernando, A. (2008). Baby steps in Web 2.0 education. Communication World, 25(3), 8-9. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Primary Sources and Web 2.0: Unlikely Match or Made For Each Other?

      The article that I read titled “Primary Sources and Web 2.0: Unlikely Match or Made For Each Other?” pulls using web 2.0 applications all together. It discusses how teachers can use wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social bookmarking with their students to help them do research and put together a high quality end project. The main subject area that was focused on in this article was social studies but could be applied to any other subject as well. They discussed how using primary sources in the social studies classroom can enhance what the students take away from the lesson. It lets them see something from the past that is concrete. Primary sources are the real documents that are talked about within texts or real audio of the people themselves delivering speeches or talks. Because they are the real document, they allow for the student’s to make their own judgments and conclusions based on what they see or hear.
      Using the internet, students can find some of these primary sources and use them in web 2.0 applications to get the most out of them. For example, a student could find an electronic copy of a news paper article that deals with the topic they are exploring. They could post this document up on a wiki or a blog and invite family members, peers, teachers, and other professionals to comment on the document. This would give them more incite on the document. They might also use a wiki as a home site to store all of their primary sources while they are doing their initial research. As they are finding podcasts, audio, pictures, and newspapers, they could store them all in one place (using their wiki). This would make putting together their end project a bit easier.
      Using web 2.0 applications as tools and not only as a presentation sources, can really help out students as they are trying to find ways to store and keep track of all of their treasured finds. It makes keeping things like podcasts and primary source audio easily accessible so that when they are ready to use their sources within their final presentations, they are all at their fingertips.

Johnson, M. (2009). Primary Sources and Web 2.0: Unlikely Match or Made for Each Other?. Library Media Connection, 27(4), 26-30. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

You Are There

      The author of the article titled “You Are There” is also a classroom educator of social studies himself. Dealing with budget cutbacks and the inability to take all of his students across the United States for a field trip of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he decided to make technology work for him. He uses video conferencing technology like Skype to take his students on field trips. The first video conferencing that he did was of the Constitution Center. It worked out well. The students were able to virtually “walk through” the museum with their tour guide and ask questions as if they were really there. One other time, he used video conferencing with an author of a book that they had just read. The students were able to actually get to see the author and sit down and have a one to one “chat” with her. Because video conferencing allows for streaming video to be displayed as well as sound, the author was able to show the students sound of the real props that were mentioned within the story of the book. For the students, this really made the book that they had just read more meaningful and lifelike. To put the icing on the cake…it was all FREE! Video conferencing using free 2.0 applications such as Skype, Oovoo, and CamTwist do not cost a thing so using them for educational purposes works out wonderfully.
      Some things to keep in mind before you do decide to do your initial video conference is performing a dry run. This allows for any bugs to be worked out before you go live in front of your students. While performing this dry run, some things to watch out for are sound quality, video delay, lighting, camera placement, or any other technology blips that you wouldn’t otherwise think about happening until it does. One other thing that should be noted is that you must have a good camera and microphone. This can either be integrated into your laptop or stand alone. A stand alone video camera and microphone tends to work out a little better in the classroom setting because it can be tilted and turned in ways that a built-in camera cannot be moved. Lastly, the article mentioned that the megapixel in the video camera does matter if you are plan on capturing video of close up objects (like frog dissections). If you don’t plan on doing any video of these sorts of things then a cheaper camera with a lower megapixel quality would suite you just fine.
      I can now say that I’ve used Skype before in my own career. However I didn’t use it to take my students on a field trip anywhere. I used it when I was a substitute teacher in a school district that was without a German teacher. I was able to use Skype to help bring the teacher that they had hired into the classroom from the privacy of her own home. It was a great experience for the kids to be able to see and hear the teacher even thought she wasn’t physically there.

Langhorst, Eric. (2009, June). You Are There. School Library Journal, 55(6), 46. Retrieved November 5, 2009.

Listen Up

Listen Up!

      Podcasts are a new technology that teachers everywhere should be using within there curriculums. If you’re not familiar with what podcasts are, let me fill you in. They are short or long prerecorded lectures, talks, or pieces of information that another person has created and then stored on the internet. For the most part, these podcasts are free to use and can be a great supplement to anyone’s classroom lessons. That being said, you must know where to access these great podcasts. That is where the article titled “Listen Up” comes into play.
       Listen Up is a short article that gives a list of podcasts for each subject area that could be utilized by classroom teachers. The subject areas that are featured within this article include music, art, language arts, math, science, and social studies. Not only does it list each subject, but it tells a little bit about each of the podcasts and how they could be used. This type of information is really helpful especially to classroom teachers who either don’t have the time to look this stuff up on their own, or who aren’t familiar with podcasts. For example, under the social studies category, there is a podcast titled “Where In The World”. This fun podcast is designed by not only the creator, Dan Schmit, but by children around the world. Classrooms everywhere around the world can submit clues to their own location in the form of a podcasts. This allows then for other students, like your classroom, to go listen to the podcasts and try to figure out where in the world those students are from. This can be a great way to either quiz or review places on earth with your students based on their prior geography knowledge.
       Providing access to great sources of information, such as this and other articles and websites, would be a big help in moving our school teachers to the next step of technology integration. That is where library media specialist come into play. We are there to find these resources for them and guide them in the direction of implementation. For this piece of technology, we could even create our own podcast about podcasts. Now that is making technology work for you! :)
      If you plan on doing any training on podcasts with your school staff, I would highly recommend check out the article titled “Listen Up”. It does give great ideas that you could use to “sell” and get your staff motive about using this great new technology that we call…podcasts.

Adam, Anna, Mowers, Helen. (2007, December). Listen Up. School Library Journal, 53(12). Retrieved November 1, 2009.

Monday, November 9, 2009

10 Tips About 23 Things

The article titled “10 Tips About 23 Things” was a featured article in School Library Journal in October 2008. I chose to reflect on this article because it talks about how to implement a free web 2.0 training course within any library or school institution. As school library media specialist working in the age of new technology, keeping staff and teachers up to date on this technology can be a challenge especially with tight budgets. This free web 2.0 training program would serve as a great asset to any school’s staff that is trying to implement technology into their curriculum.

In order to get the most out of the web 2.0 course, there are some things that the coordinator of the program must keep in mind. They must take into consideration that there will be those teacher’s who want to jump right into the program and those who will be reluctant. To support the reluctant teacher’s concerns, sometimes partnering them up with a more confident teacher can be the key. Once the program is established the coordinator needs to make sure that the staff has ample time to “play and explore” the new 2.0 technology. Just like with any new technology, it needs to be explored before the skills can be mastered. This leads to the next concern. The staff that is doing the training needs to have time allotted to them during their work day to do their training. With all of these things in mind and with a great facilitator (the library media specialist perhaps) this free 2.0 training can be a successes.

Helene Blowers. (2008, October). Ten Tips About 23 Things. School Library Journal, 54(10), 53. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from Social Science Module. (Document ID: 1564977431).

Diary of a Blog: Listening to Kids in an Elementary School Library

Blogs are a great way to express how you feel about a certain idea or topic. This article talks about a librarian who used blogs in her library to answer questions she wanted to know about her students. She asked them questions like what they liked to read, what web sites were their favorite, who their favorite characters where, what genre they liked to read, what books they wanted to add to their collection, and many others. She used her blog to get responses from both the students in her school and the faculty. Some of the issues she was faced with throughout the duration of this blog were minor. One of the issues she had to deal with was some students “pranking” her blog. She didn’t let this get in the way of her blog. She just simply made them non-public so everyone wouldn’t see them.

I feel that this article just goes to show once again that if there is a will there is a way. This particular teacher didn’t let something such as students “pranking” her blog get in the way of her utilizing this great resource. Also, after reading prior articles, she would have benefited from setting up clear classroom technology rules and even a terms of use policy. These were both mentioned in one of the other articles that I had read and posted on in a previous blog.

Cowan, J. (2008). Diary of a blog: Listening to kids in an elementary school library. Teacher Librarian,

35(5), 20-26. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from Research Library Core database.

Flipped

Flipped.

After reading about how one public library system used technology to “lure” teens into the library, I became inspired. The King’s County Library System used technology to their advantage to get teens involved in what they were reading. They set up a contest that involved having teens create a movie trailer to go along with the book of their choice that they had read. The contest took place over the summer which allowed for the teens to have more free time to work on their creations. When the King’s County Library System first launched this contest, they were only anticipating having at least 10 entries submitted. However, they were amazed when they received a whopping 38 entries. The overall quality of the entries was stunning. The staff was quite amazed at how talented and advanced teens were when it came to working with technology. The best part about the whole contest is the amount of teens that now use the library that previously had not been users. Teens are coming to the realization that the library is not just a place to come to to read books, but it’s a place that they can go to to engage in new technologies.

This article holds very true. I have found that in my own personal career that having students use technology to supplement their work can really get them inspired and motivated to excel. Having students create just a plan old paper and pencil book report can be dull and boring. However, the movie trailer idea that was mentioned above, along with other technologically inclined ideas, can really put a twist on the outcome of the work that is submitted.

Some other ideas for book reports might include having the teens create a wiki for their book. They could produce a music video based on their book. Creating a soundtrack would also allow for the use of technology to be implemented, at the same time as the book is being showcased. Podcasts and teen blogs, based on their books, could also be used to demonstrate understanding of the plot of a book that was read.

Jennifer Wooten. (2009, May). Flipped! School Library Journal, 55(5), 38. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from Social Science Module. (Document ID: 1694418941).

An Information Skills Workout: Wikis and Collaborative Writing

     This article gives an overview on wikis and how they can be used by teachers and librarians to supplement their classes. It discusses what wikis are exactly and how they can be introduced to students. It is important that students know the difference between adding to someone else’s wiki to further the discussion and vandalizing someone’s wiki. Once students understand this concept and how to develop and maintain a wiki, they are ready to use it for their classes. Using wikis for literature discussion is one way they are being used in school settings. They can be used to discuss story elements, introduce new books, or simply express an option on a book. Lastly, the article mentions that if teacher librarians start using wikis, we need to create terms of use for them. This will help maintain a healthy wiki environment which in turn will promote healthier learning habits.

       As our textbook stated as well as this article, it is very important to have good classroom management (with technology in mind) as well as have things such as terms of use. This will help us, as educators and facilitators, do just that...be able to facilitate not having to focus on management issues. With this in mind, having this foundation is a necessary start to using wikis to help supplement classroom curriculum.

Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2007). An information skills workout: Wikis and collaborative writing. Teacher     Librarian, 34(5), 57-59,71. Retrieved October 10, 2009, from Research Library Core databse.

Get Ready For Google Wave

I just read an article titled “Get Ready For Google Wave”. I wanted to share this article because it talks about the up and coming free Google feature called Google Wave. This is going to be a 2.0 application that librarians and teachers could use within their classrooms to teach and collaborate. Google Wave is a program that is a mix between a wiki, blog, word processer, and instant messenger. This application has it all.

What makes Google Wave better than a plan old wiki or blog is the fact that everything is instant. For example, if a group of students are working on a wiki together, they can all be working on the wiki at the same time. There is no delay time that would normally occur when a person is working on a regular wiki. The delay time I’m talking about is the time that goes by while a person is making changes until they save their changes. Because changes to Google Wave are instant, it doesn’t require its users to save their changes, thus eliminating this delay time. Google Wave also allows the users to view a running history of who has contributed and did what on the documents. This is a great feature that would allow for teachers to evaluate student participation. Ultimately, this would help the teacher to determine who deserves the grades that they should get for their projects.

Google Wave is going to be a tremendous asset to teachers and librarians alike. It sounds almost like it was made to be geared toward people who have to collaborate together on projects. This would defiantly be students working on projects or librarians collaborating with other teachers on projects. I can’t until this great Google application is launched. It is supposed to be launched by the end of this year so only time will tell if it’s all that they make it out to be. However, I can’t imagine it not being. Google hasn’t let me down yet when it comes to meeting my technology standards and needs.

Christopher Harris. (2009, August). Get Ready for Google Wave. School Library Journal, 55(8), 12. Retrieved September 24, 2009, from Social Science Module. (Document ID: 1814684491).