Week 9 Assignment

For this assignment I have learned a lot about podcasting that I did not know. I heard about podcasting but really didn’t have any idea about what exactly it was or what it did. I learned that everyone can publish a podcast of their own using the internet.  Podcasts are useful for people on the move a lot because they can download the information from the internet on to an I pod or MP3 player and listen to it while being away from a computer.

Podcasting is similar to Web 2.0 in ways in that they can both be posted on the internet by anyone and others can upload it or read it on the computer. Both of these can be very useful in today’s classrooms because of our advances in technology. I think that we need to take advantage of these things and really start to use them in our classes. Podcasting and Web 2.0 differ because using podcasting you are given the chance to download it to a MP3 player or I pod and listen to it while not actually being at the computer.

I guess most people will probably say I am not up to date but I currently do not own a I-pod or a MP3 player and I probably will not every buy one. If I did have one I would probably only use it to listen to music. I probably would not use it in my classroom because I am going to be teaching P.E. and I think that it would be a distraction in the classroom. While most of the kids might be listening to what there suppose to be listening to others would abuse this and listen to their own thing which would get them off task. Some advantages to using online tools would be that its easy to remember what the teacher says because they can just listen to it over again using the internet. A disadvantage of this would be lets say u allow students to record your lecture. This is good but you are going to have some students playing games on their I pod or listen to music during your lecture. It will be hard to manage the use of I pods in your classroom.

Reference:

Podcasting in English. You Tube video. Posted on E college (TAMU- Commerce). 2010

Jonassen, David. Meaningful Learning with Technology. Third Edition.Pgs 159-161.

Week 7 Assignment

I will be teaching physical education and I never have thought about using blogs or wikis in the classroom. After doing these assignments and learning a lot about wikis and blogs, I have came to the conclusion that I could use either of these in my classroom for an assignment or possibly for an extra credit opportunity.  A good example of this would be to have the blog about a certain sport we are going over and have the students post questions that they may have about it which would allow me to see how much my students know about the sport.

I think that social bookmarking is an excellent way to mark a web page that you might find interesting and helpful for you as a teacher. It would be helpful to a teacher so that they can find the web page that they liked because of their lesson plans on it. It can really get old searching for that website that you liked but didn’t mark. Students could use it by bookmarking a certain site that they find useful information on that they want to remember. I would be interested in making creating a voicethread if I were to teach health because it would be a great way to show students the effects of drugs, alcohol misuse, and hypokinetic diseases.

Tapped in is a useful online source for teachers and is known as “the online workplace of an international community of education professionals” (Jonassen).  I think that it is a wonderful way for teachers to learn, collaborate, share, and support one another.  I will probably use this resource in the future to get helpful strategies for teaching a high school physical education class.

REFERENCES:

Jonassen, David, Howland Jane, Marra M. Rose, Crismond, David. (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Third Edition

Retrieved October 14, 2010, from http://tappedin.org/tappedin/

Retrieved October 14, 2010, from http://voicethread.com/about/features/

Retrieved October 14, 2010, from http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english

Week 6 Assignment

We use assessment activities so that we can evaluate the learning process and how much the students have actually learned about the content we teach them. If we do not give out assessment activities, we as educators will never know what level our students are on and how well the students have learned the material. Once the students have learned the material being taught to them, it is time to move on. If the students are not doing well on their assessments, the teacher may need to go over the material again to the whole class or perhaps with one-on-one instructions for better learning.  

E-portfolios are simply a collection of data posted on a webpage that anyone can create in which you can post videos, sounds, artwork, information, multimedia presentations, or any other type of information that the creator wants to put on it. It helps teachers and students because it is a way to post homework assignments for teachers or information that the students may want to look at. For students, an E-portfolio is a good way for you to be able to keep track of what you have learned through out the semester and is a great way to remember what you have learned as well. Computer based tests are tests that are given online and must be taken while on a computer or laptop that has an internet connection. Computer-based tests impact validity because most of the time, test you take online are valid questions about the material that you are going over. Now I have had tests online that are valid but not reliable questions because the questions could be a trick question or may not be able to tell if the student really knows the material and hasn’t just memorized a vocabulary word.

In conclusion, assessments are extremely important for teachers as well as they are for the students. If the teacher does not know if the kids are understanding the material that they are being taught, you could move on to learn about something else while half of the class still does not know the first thing you taught them. E-portfolios are extremely important for a classroom in today’s time because they are very helpful in being able to write down important information or what you are learning in your classroom. We have the technology, we really need to start using it in our classrooms because it is a must in today’s world with all the technology that our kids use outside of class.

REFERENCES:

Jonassen, David, Howland Jane, Marra M. Rose, Crismond, David. (2008). Meaningful Learning With Technology. Third Edition