Katelyn’s Blog

I have just watched the video Melissa’s World. The video is based upon the life of Melissa, a girl born with spastic cerebral palsy. The video shows how Melissa can not walk or talk. The video touched me so deeply that I almost cried! The video goes into details how Melissa uses technology to communicate with others by using her head to touch buttons on the side of her wheelchair. Further it showed how she used her eyes to move a mouse on the screen! This technology amazed me!

If technology can be created such as this to help disabled members of the community where will it stop? The use of technology to help students who have trouble communicating will be a great asset, not only for schools but for the whole community. I believe if we can incorporate this technology into the classrooms in the future it will be beneficial not only to the special education students and their families, but to all students in our classes.

If this technology can develop further and be used on a commercial level so that all people can access it, the schools of the future will benefit greatly, and students who have often been separated from others may be able to be incorporated into the classroom by using these forms of technology.

I believe that if we can give one little girl the chance to express herself with technology, every child should have the same opportunities.

I have just read Matthew Kearney post Connecting learning across the world, and it interested me greatly. The article talks about how a French teacher has been running a collaborative project with 30 schools around the world. I found this amazing that now the perimeters of the classroom can move globally. What interested me more was the fact they can’t write their correspondence in their native language!

I think that this amazing, seemingly borderless classroom we have through using internet tool should try to be accepted in schools. If schools on a global level can work together, I believe that this helps our students become worldlier and globally aware.

I feel that if we can use techniques like the ones Matthew has mentioned in his post, what we can’t do with technology in the classroom!

I have just read the post Reading….that thing we did before video and it was very interesting. It talks about how when we use technology, such as websites, students rarely read the text, they just skim the words looking for certain words. I thought about this for a minute and realised how true this is. I have often done it myself.

The article continues by saying some skimming is effective, as reading everything takes a lot of time, however it also states that skimming is often ineffective as information often has to be reread. I think as a teacher we have to look at both sides of the debate and has to relate specifically to the task at hand and the information that needs to be obtained.

Overall I think that this article raises interesting points and a teacher must consider what they are getting students to research and read before automatically using the web.

After discovering in class that we would have to create our own digital stories I was compelled to see what were digital stories? What digital stories have other people made? To answer these questions I came across the commentary Digital Stories in the Classroom. After viewing this video, it makes me see how powerful a video story can be. The words, pictures and emotion in the readers’ voice really affected me and made me want to undertake these in my own classroom.

The article states however, that students need significant time to think about what their digital story will be about. I believe that this is the key to any successful digital story as students need time to develop their ideas otherwise there ideas can be rushed and not a true representation of what they want to portray.

Overall I think that digital stories are a great resource to use in the classroom, if used correctly. However teachers need to be careful about the subjects they are based on as well as the audience that the story will have.

I have just read Jess’s Post on the topic of podcasts and i agree with her views on the subject.

I like how Jess included the fact that students can reach a global audience when using podcasts and it allows parents and relatives to gain insight into their children’s education. I believe that including parents is a highly important part of education in today’s society and I agree with Jess when she says that some parents, due to extenuating circumstances can’t come to the school as often as they like, and by allowing podcasts it allows a virtual window into the classroom.

I love how Jess ends her post saying podcasting is fun, interactive and creative!!!! So, why not podcast?!? i totally agree with this statement and intend to use podcasts in my future classroom.

Image: http://brownblog.info/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/child-headphones.JPG

Technology in the Classroom

Whilst searching on the internet, I came across an interest video on teacher tube entitled Technology in the Classroom. It is a very simple video combing pictures, words and music illustrating many ways of using technology in the classroom. This video shows how this particular school has incorporated different uses of technology into their classroom including blogs, virtual games and contests even using it for creating and publishing artworks.

This video inspired me by showing how I can use technology in my own classroom. It showed me how things that I thought would be boring to students can be used to make learning fun, such as design a picture in a program such as paint and then publishing the artworks.  The video also showed how the school has set up rules when using blogs and I think that establishing these rules are fundamental to students to help to protect them.

Overall I think that teachers who wish to incorporate technology in their classrooms should watch this video. Even though this is a very simple video it had a great influence on me, and I believe that it will influence other teachers as well as it shows us that incorporating technology into the classroom is not an overly daunting task and can be used in simple ways and still have outstanding results .

I have just read Sarah’s Post, Dont tell your parents – schools embrace MySpace and I found it to be incredibly interesting. I, like Sarah, have a facebook and myspace account and yet it never crossed my mind that it could be used for educational purposes. Like Sarah says, it makes her wonder. I like how Sarah included the point these websites can be used to help teachers with similar interests share their ideas.

I like how Sarah shows her opinions on this topic by saying how she agrees that social networks may be useful for communicating ideas; however she believes that they should not be used in schools as they can be a distraction and could waste students working time. I do agree with this as at the moment social networking sites such as facebook and myspace are incredibly popular and if students do get the opportunity to use these in class, they will most likely be used for personal enjoyment, rather then designated work.

Overall I think that if a teacher wants to use social networking sites, they must first consider the success rate they think it will have and whether they can monitor and manage that students are on task.  At this current time I think it would be extremely hard to incorporate these websites into today’s classrooms.

I have just read the article Visual Literacy in Classrooms and I found it highly interesting. The article defines visual literacy as the ability to understand and produce visual messages and this simple definition helped me to understand what visual literacy is.

Before reading this article I believed that visual literacy was a huge hurdle that teachers had to overcome, but from reading it has allowed me to see it in a more simple way. The article also defines what implications visual literacy has, such as teachers can provide appropriate learning environments and materials and I believe that a teacher must look at these implications when deciding to undertake visual literacy in their classroom.

Reading this article gave me great insight into how teachers can use visual literacy in there everyday classrooms to provide different learning experiences for their students and how visual literacy can be used to support the curriculum. I believe that if teachers plan to use visual literacy in there classroom it should not be used randomly, or as a reward but should be integrated into the classroom to ensure that students benefit from it.

I have just read Sarah’s post about her experiences on her practicum. I loved to read how Sarah’s class was able to experience and incorporate different types of computer technology in her classroom. I have to admit I am slightly jealous that she got to have the experience of undertaking what we have been learning this whole semester in a practical sense, while I am still to experience this.

I agree with Sarah when she says that computer games must be used for educational purposes and not just having fun. I do believe that having fun must also be incorporated, as otherwise children’s’ participation levels could be affected, however one must work out a balance between the two. I also mirror Sarah attitude that she will try to incorporate educational computer games into her future teaching, as will I.

 Image: http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/public/editable/Themes/childrens-services/images/enjoy-achieve-computer.jpg

I have just finished my practicum experience on a kindergarten class and I am sad to say that I was really disappointed in the fact that over the 3 week period no use of technology was included on my class. Although very young, I still believe that all students should be able to have the chance to use technology in the classroom, and though the teacher said they were only 6 years old I believe why should this matter?

Technology is becoming such an integral part of our future I believe that children should be exposed to it at a young age.