Week 8 WOW

My Aha’s were that every technology project, except the blog creation was brand new to me. The wiki is still something I am learning how to use efficiently for the possibility to use in my local library. Our library has classrooms open to the city residents to use and I am developing a class to teach to high school students on entrepreneurship. I know that the wiki can be used with Facebook or the success of this project.

My educational philosophy has certainly expanded to new technologies that I had not used before. I am certainly excited about using a wiki in the classroom in the near future. This class has been so fast and I wish it was a full semester for more in depth projects.

Week 7 Reflection

I work with so many teenagers that are unemployed and that is why I created a new wiki. Students can search for jobs and post their findings. This past week, I taught a high school class and was amazed how they did not know how to save a word document properly. Students know hot to use technology for games but sadly lack the skills necessary for employment.
This has changed my instruction because now there is a need for more specificity in my instructions. Instructing students to save a document was not clear to any student. Every student saved the document as document1. I cannot assume that they understand that each word document needs to have a separate file name. Technology is so very important for our students and teachers. I was teaching a lesson plan not created by me and it made me realize that objectives are very important for student success.

212 degrees - The Extra Degree

Week 6

The challenge of technology is sometimes it does not cooperate. I have used an ipod to listen to podcasts since 2005. I saw then that classrooms could use this for projects. I plan to put my presentations about business entrepreneurship for high school students on a podcast. Using podcasts can really streamline a teacher's life. A teacher can record a lecture once and require students to listen. The teacher can use class time to really facilitate learning. The only thing that can stop us from change is fear of doing something new in the classroom. If I could wave a magic wand, I would give every teacher the best laptop and a tech. assistant to help them 24/7. I would want there to be no computer viruses, either!