Thursday, November 21, 2013

Journal # 8

Journal Post #8

Chapter 8 communicating and networking with websites, blogs, wikis, and more.

Focus Question: How can teachers use communications technologies as teaching and learning tools.

     With the world toady being so far advanced in just a short while, we now have access to almost everything at our fingertips, why not embrace it? As an everyday person might use e-mail to relay information, blogs, online discussions or identify a website, they're still using and portraying information. With the use of the web and the internet we can reach out to so many more resources, with the internet we as educators are not limited. Also, most of our students already used these tools for recreational use, so if teachers could mandate a separate account for educational purposes, the students will already know how to navigate their way about the pages, and will be connected to not only just their friends, but their classmates and the teacher as well, even after school hours. As we have just explored in our class, in Google documents we can collaboratively work on an assignment at once without clustering around at a desk, or being loud from verbal discussion. Or we could implement the use of Google Blogger to use as a journal, and instead of passing around a notebook we as a class could access any page all at once.



Tech Tool: Teacher website and blog-building resources.

     I am going to focus on the second approach. Staying connected is a be deal in today's society, not only with personal friends, but in the classroom with your peers as well. At the same time we as educators need to be cautious of how we use the internet, and be cautious of what information may be out there. By using the second approach (Commercially Available Template) this allows us to create many different functions that also happen to be password protected. With this approach we can invite our students to create their own blogs, and instead of using the internet in a toxic way, by the teacher monitoring what is talked about in the posts, maybe the students will steer away from a negative influence and learn to be proactive with the opportunities the internet presents.

Summary:

     All in all I feel as though the internet is a very powerful tool, that can be used to our advantage. We as educators just need to have an open mind, be more educated and explore the different tools we can use. As teachers we should be looking for more ways to communicate with our students, and technology is a wonderful gateway to a better communication path. Instead of our students posting their discussions on other recreational sites such as "Facebook" and the "Twitter" we can open a new door to some proactive sites, such as Google Blogger. It's almost like having an online journal, where if you have a question you can always reach someone or some resource. 

Resources:
Youtube video credit is given to: ahstechteacher
Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011).Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN:10 0-13-159611-X, ISBN:13 978-0-13-159611-5    

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