Virtual Classroom

http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/onlinelearning/virtual-classroom.html
This website gives the definition of what is a virtual classroom. It is a private online space in Blackboard that teachers can use to support student learning. The teachers and students are able to access this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week through the internet. The virtual classroom could have class activities including group and individual learning activities, discussions and chats with students, quizzes and surveys, homework activities, online courses, forums, and webquests. The organization could include calenders, timetables, important information from the teacher to students and parents, unit overviews, grades, and homepages to students. The only people that can access the virtual classrooms are the students or staff members of the schools or place of work. Using blackboard can help the students reach the website outside of the school hours.

When I was in highschool I used blackboard. This allowed for us to see the assignments, what would be taught the next day in class, and have discussions online as well as in the classroom. Sometimes the conversation in the classroom would not end when the period was over, we could add to the discussion in the virtual classroom later that evening. I think that this was very good. I liked using blackboard as well as having the virtual classroom access in highschool. I wish that we had it in college now.

I think that research should be done to see how many other people use this tool after spending the money and time on it. I think that students and teachers enjoy this feature and would like to use it more in the work field.

Streaming Video

http://www.ripbs.org/Education/video_streaming.html
PBS shows that video streaming allows teachers acces to many clips for their curriculum over the internet. There is science, social studies, language arts, math, and health courses available for the teachers through different databases. The teacher can watch a certain clip of the video or the entire thing. Streaming video is only the transfer of videos online. PBS tries to promote teachers to sign up for their streaming video program by allowing the access of 4,000 length and 44,000 clips of videos over the internet. There are over ten subjects that are included in these videos. Lesson plans can be sampled, teacher guides, reports of videos and clips, access from their own home, and many different databases with photos. Video streaming can catch the eye of the students while allowing them to be accessed all over the country. The videos are current and up to date.

Education has grown into being used to all of the new technology advancements in the world. Through computers, videos, digital cameras, visual field trips, and now video streaming. Why not be able to see a clip or entire length of an educational video that goes along with the curriculum? The teacher normally has to find the video in the library, find the part of the movie they want to show, and sometimes pay for this. Through video streaming, the teacher will be able to access the video for free and look at the clips in an easier way.

Research can be conducted in seeing if this is really fair for those in the video. They are probably not gaining as much money for this than they would like to. This is kind of like the tv shows allowing for their viewers to see the last weeks episode online, many were upset about this and went on writers strike. I feel as though this would be easier for the teachers, but is this neccessarily fair to the libraries and the people that work hard on these films to make their money thats needed?

Podcasting in Education

http://www.apple.com/education/digitalauthoring/podcasting.html This article describes positive influences that podcasting in education has. Apple feels as though this is a "new way to inspire learning." Children can be creative with their ideas and helps excite the teachers and students in a more educational way. Podcasts can either be audio or video files over a network. The podcasts are a 21st century communication skill while also being creative. Teachers can show students voice recordings, photographs, movies, and different sound effects to give them better knowledge of information learned about. Homework assignments and many different lessons can be created over podcasts. This is also a professional development that can be taught in school and used in the work force. This article talks about how a podcast will be put into every Mac. This is a way to get people more interested in buying Mac products. Schools are able to host their own podcast through a "Podcast Producer."

Podcasts are good in education by another technological tool to help educate students. They are taught this at an earlier age and can use it when getting jobs later in life. Technology is growing rapidly and why not teach the next generation how to use the products?

Research could be done on seeing how effective they truely are. Are people wasting their money on podcasts when they can just watch a movie or put in a CD-ROM? Also, research could be done to see how many people actually use the device after they buy the product.

Web Based Multimedia/Animation

http://www.asee.org/conferences/annual/pdf/upload/2001-PIC-V-Best-Paper.pdf

This website showed a lot of how education has been evolving over the years. First education started with only lectures and paper but has now turned into using virtual classrooms and using technology to teach many different things. The virtual environment has been well equiped with multimedia, animation, interaction, and manipulated image visualization techniques. The learning of the students is more enhanced by the new upcoming technology that is offered. Models that need to be visualized are now easier when using the web multimedia. This allows for 3-D graphics to be used to be able to visualize real life structures more easily.

Technology relates to teaching and learning by allowing teachers to direct their students to the web based animation to better understand what it is that they are trying to lecture about. Something might be better to understand the concept when looking at a 3-D image rather than just listening to someone speak about the structure or object. Also, technology has been growing in the business world and needs to be more popular in education to allow the upcoming generation to know what they are doing in their jobs.

I think that the web based multimedia/animation is good to allow students to see more about the concepts they are learning. I think that more research needs to be done on how effective they really are related to how much is being spent on these designs.

Digital Imagery

"Increasing Visual Literacy Skills with Digital Imagery: Successful Models for Using a Set of Digital Cameras in a College of Education" (http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ710671&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ710671) by Lance Wilhelm, states that images are becoming more popular in modern culture. Schools are adapting their curriculum and practices to how the society is changing. Visual communication is the new way to go. Everyone's cell phones have cameras, a camera in their purse, and even cameras on their lap top computers. To be able to acquire in the modern society that we live in, we must be able to have visual literacy skills. Children are more interested in learning material with pictures of places and things that they can directly relate to. This concept helps them learn the material as well as connect the material to a picture. Teachers and student could use digital cameras in the classroom and for projects. This will help everyone concentrate more on the topic by focusing on the pictures. Digital cameras are becoming more practical in everyone's lives because of the decrease in price and the easier it has been made to use.

When teaching, the teacher could use the digital camera to take pictures of projects the students present and put them on the board to have their work displayed. This could save space by presenting the picture to the classroom instead of having the whole project set up. By teachers using cameras more, the students will begin to learn how to use them as well and could be a good way to connect more with their community.

I think that digital camera use in the classroom is wonderful. Digital cameras have been around since I was in middle school from what I can remember. My parents would never let me or my younger brother touch the thing because of how expensive they were. Now the pricing and SIZE of them have reduced tremendously. It is now reasonable to be in highschool and have a digital camera to take pictures with all of your friends and family. since digital cameras are in most American households, the use of them in school at early ages can help them learn how to properly use them. When presenting a project in school, teachers should take pictures to show all of the students what a wonderful job they all did.

Further research could be done in that making sure that all teachers use digital cameras in a proper way. We do not need more teacher/student relation dilemmas. I think that research could also be done on making digital cameras mandatory in the rooms (not making the teachers pay the expense) and having it so maybe the schools could get discounts on them by buying in bulk.

Storyboarding

Using http://www.e-articles.info/e/a/title/How-to-Storyboard-Your-Web-Site/ shows how to storyboard your web site. In order to plan a website, one must visualize what they are looking for it to entail. The information that you are looking to advertise should be well thought about and well organized in a storyboard. Like in building houses, the blue prints are like the storyboard of a website. This allows for the builder of the website to see what they are envisioning their website to look like and make changes before making the website. The main page is the start with the topic of what the website will be. There will be a central navigation bar that needs to be well planned for. A software program can be used to create the storyboard, sheets of paper, or any other type of mechanism. After the first draft, go back and make more corrections to the storyboard just like in writing a paper for classes. Competition in websites has a big effect if the website will be productive or not, this must be taken into consideration when preparing the website with the storyboard.

This would be helpful in education by allowing students to use storyboarding for their blogs, websites, or even their papers. They could use the storyboard as an outline and do rough drafts to final papers. Also, when students are blogging they could use the storyboard to make their blog page presentable to their classmates. This will allow them to feel as though it is a personal page and want other students to look at their information they are posting. Students can use storyboarding with the help of their teachers.

I think that storyboarding is a good idea. It allows for the person to stay on task with what they are looking for on their website. When they go to make it they are well prepared and know exactly what they are looking for. This will help their teachers know the direction they want their website to go in and also to help them with making the production happen. This will be helpful in the education world by having students have personalized websites, be able to know how to do them when they are in the business world, and move forward with the ever so growing technology world that we live in today.

Wikis

When seeing the word "wiki" as the topic for this weeks blog, I was unaware of its meaning. I googled "wiki" and came to find that it is a software for servers to allow "users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser". I typed in "wikis" on cnn.com and came to find that wikis are fairly well known. "Wikis" are almost like a myspace. A website popped up off of cnn.com stating "wikispaces". This website allows for families, friends, groups, anyone to join this website and make web pages to share with their fellow mates. There is a tour that you can check out which shows people the different steps in making your "wikispace" personalized to yourself. Questions that are asked show that wiki is used greatly for classrooms, work groups, families, sports teams, etc. This is a process to show everyone in your extended network things that are going on in your life. Every month one must pay 5-20 dollars to be allowed to use wikispaces. To encourage more teachers to use this program, they are giving away "100,000 free wikis for primary/secondary education". (www.wikispaces.com)

This type of technology would relate to teaching in that teachers would be able to discuss things with their students, post assignments, or even post announcements for their students to be able to access very easily. These wikispaces are similar to blogging but they cost money and they ensure more of a security to your page.

I am not sure where I stand with wikis. I do not want to pay to be a member, but from what I have seens through taking the tour of the page it seems like a pretty good idea to me. Although, a teacher could just use blogging instead and have it for FREE. I am not so sure how much of it is a scam because the teacher could easily just email the students for free if they needed an announcement to be out or a discussion to be started. Im not sure yet how I feel about wikis...

I think that blogging and wikis should be compared and contrasted into pros and cons. The wikis seem to cost money where as blogging is free and open to the public. I guess the privacy factor plays a key role, this should be further investigated to insure this process. I think that research should be done in the classrooms to see if teachers would really use this in a positive way and would help the teachers and students.

Blogging in Education

"Panelists: Blogs are changing education Winners of the first-ever 'Best of the Education Blog' Awards discuss blogging's impact on teaching and learning" article describes how blogging in education has been changing rapidly. When blogging in classes, a student can post their own ideas about a subject and the classmates can respond in their agreements or disagreements. Anyone is able to have access to the discussions posted, whereas the work can be meant for class discussions or for personal views on topics. The Florida Educational Technology Conference was hosted in Orlando, Florida on March 23rd to recognize the "Best of the Education Blog." This conference discussed greatly on how blogging is helping education with students being able to express their ideas and feelings to their peers. A quote from the article that shows how all of education supporters are agreeing with blogging in the education field: "The impact of blogging on teaching and learning can be profound." Children who are using blogging in school are excited to post, comment, and read other peers blogs to get other ideas on topics. Blogging motivates the students in allowing for them to read what other students are posting where as when the work is handed in to the teachers, only the teacher is able to read the work.

In education, learning of technology has been increasing at a ever so rising pace. Elementary students are learning about technology almost all of their lives now a days to better their ability in the work force along with the high demand of technology moving into the classrooms. Blogging is used in schools for many different purposes. Teachers like to use blogging for their students to have better interaction with each other on different topics being learned. When a students posts a blog about their opinion of a story, another student may read the blog and comment on it according to how they feel about it.

In my Intro to Computers through Education class is using the blogging method to allow students to post and comment on their classmates work. I enjoy this by being able to write my own opinion about an assignment, in most cases it is on articles, and I am able to comment on my classmate's work on my opinion of their work. Sometimes when reading an article, I can be narrow minded in thinking the article means one way but when a classmate gives their advice on the subject matter it opens up my horizons. Another way that I am able to see blogging is through my room mate. She is in a Styles and Ways of Blogging class which is all to do with blogging. They have their own blogging site and are assigned to post a blog each week. These blogs are up to the students and allow for them to be created. My room mate has made her blog personalized to her interests. For instance, the name of her blogging website is "Lenscapees". Kind of like Landscapes but she likes to take photos so its Lens is added instead of Land. She communicates with her fellow classmates through this in seeing how blogging can have an affect on her opinion of things and education.

I think that future research must be done on blogging because like myspace and facebook, blogging could become open to everyone and be more of a journal page rather than to better the technology through education.

Virtual Field Trip

The Title of the Article is Virtual Field Trips - Why, Where and How To. I found this article off of CNN.com. I picked this article because I was able to click on different links to better understand different places online that could be used as virtual field trips. The article illustrates how virtual field trips are good to reward the students with when they are having good behavior and attitude throughout the classroom. The virtual field trips allow for the curriculum to be switched from the teacher lecturing to the students having hands-on experience through computers. They can see different places in the world through photographs and videos. Students are able to chat with people from that country which allows for them to better understand the difference in cultures. The article has different links that one can visit to get ideas for what places teachers would like for their students to explore. One that popped out in my mind when reading this article is the website to “Galapagos Geology on the Web” which provided information about the Galapagos Islands in a scientific and non-scientific ways. As a child, I always enjoyed learning about the Galapagos islands and think that it would have helped my education to be able to go on a virtual field trip to such a place. This place is not welcoming to many tourists, mainly only scientists. The animals are endangered and the website allows for me to see the different types of animals and plants in this area. The website also allows for me to email some of the scientists that have had the opportunity to go and give me some feedback as to what it is like over there.

I think that virtual field trips are good for students to learn the subject matter more effectively. When searching around on the web and going to different sites, the students will tend to automatically remember what they have seen. When a teacher lectures to them about the material, the students tend to fade and do not realize exactly what they are talking about. Through this type of technology, they can now understand the culture background and the different environments that people are being brought up in. Computers can help students have more hands-on activities with around the world instead of only science. Learning different geographical sites and monuments through different websites will allow them to better understand it rather than just reading about it from the book. Sometimes there are questions the students would like to ask that are not answered in the book and teachers do not always have the answers. Asking the people from that country will allow for answers and more interest from the students.

Students are enabling themselves to get more computer literate when searching the websites for interesting facts about a certain place. They can directly relate their interests when seeing someone who is living in this type of environment and having the opportunity of talking with them. It’s good to reiterate what is learned through a book or a lecture through something hands-on and productive. I had never heard of Virtual Field Trips but I am now excited to be able to share this with my students when I become a teacher.