Distance Education

Distance education provides many experiences which are highly different from those experienced inside a traditional classroom. These programs have been becoming more and more popular among homeschooling families throughout the past decade. In the more traditional school setting, these programs have many pros and cons.

Pros:

• They provide an excellent way to include parents in an educational plan for students.
• They help children to connect their home life to their school lives.
• Students are able to work at their own pace, from their own chosen location.
• Students get one-on-one attention from a parent as they learn new things.
• For families that would otherwise participate in independent homeschooling, these programs provide important and needed direction and content for those students.

Cons:

• Many parents have a difficult time seeing the value of certain activities and the time which they take in their daily schedule.
• There is very little peer interaction in the online forums.
• Students can be limited by their parents knowledge and abilities.
• Activities, like science experiments, are simplified so that they can be easily done in any home.
• Students have limited access to the many resources of public schools (such as counseling services, specialists, ect.)

Teachers who work within these online schools must have all of the same credentials as any public school teacher. These teachers are also asked to participate in professional growth activities to enhance their technology skills. Teachers in these programs also must have very flexible hours as they do not only teach for six hour days; they are required to help their students throughout a longer range of the day. In addition to these important elements, teachers in these types of programs must have excellent skills in communicating with the parents of students, as the parents play a hugely important role in the education of their students.

Students who participate in online schools must be highly motivated and must have dedicated parents who truly understand the importance of the educational standards and content of their program. Students must also be able to work on their own for at least short periods of time. Students who thrive off of social interaction, and learn best in social settings would likely find it quite difficult to participate in an online school environment.

In the future, I can see online schools becoming much more prevalent. They seem like a wonderful way to connect students work at school to their home lives. By providing parents with specific instructions on how to teach things at home, students could have more opportunities to learn important things. However, in my experience with online schools, I have found them to only work for a fraction of the families who try them, as the entire family must be fully invested in the program and its process. I think that they work well for students who use it as a supplement to their public schooling experience. However for students who work only online, school can become too tedious and boring so that the students become more and more hesitant to participate in learning activities.

Although I can see some good qualities of these programs, I would not use them much in my own classroom, as there are other tools that could be used to provide the same connection of school learning to home. However, the one interesting aspect of these schools that I was intrigued by was the virtual field trips, as they could allow students to explore places which a public school class could not visit together.

Teacher Web Critique

Teacher Web Critique

Describe how you see the use of a class web site could support your future teaching. Describe at least 3 ways how you see the use of a class web site could be used to support your future teaching. Provide specific details for each example.

A class website is a great tool that can help to connect the classroom to home. I can see it being a wonderful tool for keeping parents informed about their students work and progress in the classroom as well letting them see what their children are working on. With teacher web, I especially liked the handouts page as homework assignments and other forms that get sent home could be posted on the class website so that they are not lost in bottom of students backpacks. A class website could also be a great tool for students as it allows the teacher to direct them towards good internet sites and can help students to have great experiences on the internet.

Identify what you see as the top 2 ways students could use a class web site to enhance their learning and provide some justifications for your selections.

I think that the teacher web class website would offer some great ways to enhance students learning. The first way was with the whiteboard application. I think that it is great that students could complete worksheets on the website and save it so that teachers could see it online, this would save paper. This application is also great because it allows the students to interact with each other as they can see many of their classmates’ projects as well. This would be great for getting students to interact with each other. Another great way that class websites can enhance students learning, is that is allows the teacher to post their homework and other assignments for students to work on. This allows students to work on projects that they forgot at school. It also allows the teacher make announcements if problems arise that could help students to better understand projects. Students could be notified early of common mistakes to keep in mind, so that errors in their thinking processes are not cemented into their minds. This allows homework to be less difficult and a more effective learning experience.

Think about the page types and features of the Teacher Web system. What do you feel where the 2 strongest features or page types within the Teacher Web system? Why do you see these as the strongest?

I think that the whiteboard and the handouts tools on the teacher web system were the most effective and the strongest features of the site. The whiteboard was a great hands-on way for the students to get involved on the class website, and for the teacher to give students fun computer activities to complete on the internet. I think it is important that kids see the interactive and fun features of class websites in addition to the more practical and academic uses. The handouts tool was another strong feature in my opinion. I know that as a child, I often forgot to give my parents important handouts, or forgot worksheets that I was supposed to complete at school. Having these handouts available on the internet will help students to be more responsible, and have more learning experiences at home, and will also help to make sure that parents are as informed as possible. Although many of the other features on the teacher web were interesting tools, I felt that these two tools were by far the most helpful and conducive to connecting classroom learning to students’ home lives.

Engaging Students with Concept Mapping

Identify and describe 3-5 innovative ideas or ways you could use concept mapping activities in your future classrooms. Discuss how these ideas might impact your approach to teaching.

Concept mapping would be a great tool for helping students to compare and contrast ideas. Using a concept map, such as a Venn diagram, would help students to compare and contrast ideas in a very visual and easy to understand way. This concept map could be used on the computer using a program such as inspiration in which students could drag words or pictures to the different areas of the concept map. But it could also be used in a more motor oriented by creating a huge concept map for children to interact with through movement, for concepts like color or simpler more concrete ideas. Concept mapping could also be used to help children begin writing, as it could be a webbing activity for younger students (or older students) that helps them in the beginning process of thinking about what to write. But concept maping such as outlining could also be quite useful for many older students as it is a concrete way of laying out their papers in a good format. A third great way that concept mapping could be used in the classroom is for an activity in which the teacher determines what students know about a subject while planning future projects. Bu having children brainstorm things that they know about a topic, such as body parts, the teacher can determine what areas the students understand well, and what areas need to be improved. This is an invaluable tool for a teacher as it allows them to teach students new things, instead of telling them what they already know, or beginning a unit to learn that the students have no background knowledge to support it.

What impact might the use of Concept mapping software have on student learning within your classroom? Give 2 or 3 specific examples.

Concept mapping software would be quite useful, especially for younger grades and students with difficulty reading and writing, as it will say aloud the words that are written or the name of pictures placed on the screen. This software could help kids not only in beginning a writing project but also in learning how to read, as they can listen to the computer speak the words many times (this could also help students with difficulties in writing as the computer will say the word wrong when it is spelled incorrectly). This tool would also be great for use in the classroom because it is very interactive and allows the students to move, drag and rearrange the screen to fit their needs. Students could use pictures and words, could used premade concept maps or create their own. A third way in which this software is great, is that it allows students who are transitioning from writing simple stories using concept mapping tools such as webs to advance into more complex concept maps such as outlines that are often more helpful in essay writing.

Discuss the amount of time it may take to learn this type of application to the point where you would feel comfortable integrating it in your classroom. Do you think it would be worth the time? (you can be honest)

I think that the programs such as kidspiration are fairly simple to learn how to use. Although it may take an hour of playing around with it to become familiar with most of the features, I think it would be a great tool for kids to use because of its versatility and its interactive and entertaining nature. I feel it would be well worth the time, as kids love to use computers, and concept mapping would be much more fun on the computer than using a worksheet, which can get quite boring. This program also would be quite straight forward for students, so there would be few questions of what to do for the teacher to be distracted having to answer. Concept mapping software is definitely something that I would love to use in the classroom as a teacher.

Here is a concept map example:

Blogs and Wikis in Education

The major use that blogs and wikis currently play in education are for professional development. Many blogs are created describing new uses for technology in the classroom, and attempting to help more traditional teachers to encoorporate more technology into their classrooms. However through my research I saw many new and interesting ways to use blogs and wikis in education. One interesting use for wikis was as a forum for discussion within a class. This particular wiki, welkerswikinomics.wetpaint.com, uses the wiki to encourage disscussion and participation for her economics class. She encourages many people to post to the wiki, but only requires her students to do this. I found this to be an interesting way to extend learning outside of the classroom. Another interesting idea for blog use in the classroom was the idea created at edublogs. This site provides a forum for teachers to facilitate online blogging for his/her students. While the students are able to post blogs and interact with the site, the teacher is the manager. This allows the students to use the site while parents need not worry about their children's online safety. I thought that this type of technology use would be a wonderful resource for teachers, esspecially of the younger grades as it allows students to publish their work but skeptical parents need not worry as much. The third interesting way in which blogs and wikis could be used in education was a blog created by Lewis Elementary. This site was run by the school, but contained important information from every class in addition to resources to be used by teachers and parents. I thought that this use of a blog was quite interesting as it allows parents to be even more involved in their children's education, while the teacher do not need to spend too much time updating their class information each day.
Another important technology tool that I looked at were RSS readers and Aggregators. These are quite nice, in that they update users to changes in blogs, websites and other online information. For teachers I could see this tool being quite useful. To start RSS readers and Aggregators could be used to keep updated on new technology tools for classroom use, or simply new imformation of teaching and learning. Also these could be quite useful for looking at new postings from students. It would be great to identify the new blogs that students are posting or to fix thinking errors before they become to engrained in students' knowledge by being quickly informed of changes to students blogs.
I believe that blogs and wikis could be quite useful in classrooms. They can facilitate online resources and encourage students to interact with eachother and to look at resources that can be found online. Also for students blogs can be quite interesting as it expands a child's idea of writing to be able to fully publish their work online. However among these benefits there are also drawbacks of using blogs and wikis in education. First, safety is an important issue. Students who become too comfortable with posting to the internet may make mistakes and forget about safety issues that can arise on the internet; the internet is not private. Also parents are likely to question the use of the internet in such ways in their children's classrooms as it is unknown to them in many ways. The second problem in using blogs in classes is that students, who love to use computers, may forget about other possible ways to publish work. It is important for students to understand the ways in which the internet can be a resource for them, but it is also important that students not forget about all the other opptions that they have that remain outside of the internet. It is my belief however, that with the proper education of internet safety and uses as well as adult monitoring of students' uses of blogs, these can become quite helpful and a wonderful resource for students and teachers.

Multiple Intelegences in the Classroom

I recently took the multiple intelligences test in class and discovered that I have strengths in logical, existential, and intrapersonal learning. These are good indicators for me of my preferences as a learner and the ways in which I learn best.

Being a logical learner means that I prefer and am often better at learning projects which include reasoning and problem solving. A student who prefers logical learning experiences, are likely to enjoy science and math assignments in particular as they illicit problem solving methods. In the classroom, as a teacher, it is important to help support this learning style for students who prefer it by providing many opportunities to allow these students to use problem solving and use their logic skills to help them when learning new things. Technology can be used a lot with students who prefer the logical learning to others as it is easy for programs to create logical puzzles or problem solving experiences within many different types of forums. Some common ways in which technology support this style of learning is through puzzles, especially math puzzles which ask students to find an answer in a logical and straight forward way.

My tendency towards existential learning shows my preference to connect my current learning to other knowledge and assignments that I do. Many students also share this tendency; these are typically the students in class that ask questions such as, "Why do we have to know this?". Of course all students have some interest in the existential meaning of their learning, but students who excel in this learning style are likely to have a difficult time completing and focusing on projects when they can not understand the purpose of the project. Therefore teachers must be aware of students' needs to understand the meaning of their projects and be clear with students about why certain material is important to know. Teachers must show ways in which information in class can be used and adapted for use outside of class. Technology can be quite helpful for teachers as they attempt to do this with their students as it often offers and abundance of examples of real world uses of topics typically discussed in the classroom. It is helpful for students to be given time to look at information about professionals using information presented in class, but also for teachers to know about these professionals as they present information.

Also, as an intrapersonal learner, I learn well with assignments which I am passionate about and have personal connections to. Students, who like me, prefer to learn when passionate about it are likely to have great potential, but to need persistent motivation when beginning a project. However, once a student who prefers this learning style, begins a project and becomes excited about it, she is likely to do an excellent job, and perhaps have trouble putting it to an end. To help these learners, teachers must constantly provide students with examples of the meanings that assignments have to them. Students must be reminded that knowing information is an area will be beneficial, and interesting for them to learn. Technology again can be quite helpful for this as it offers students a good method for seeing different ways in which their own class work is already used, and can benefit, their own lives. Sites in which authors discuss the impact of a certain thing in their own life, are likely to be quite motivational to students with this learning preference.

As a teacher I know that I need to pay close attention to learning styles as I teach. It is important for me to provide instruction and aid to students using all of the different learning styles to guide activities and instruction, as it will help them to learn more and be more successful. I will have to be careful to teach students using learning preferences that may be different than my own. In addition to this, however, I also must try hard to connect with students whose learning styles are quite different from mine. An understanding of each learning style and its impact on learning and learners will help me to connect and understand the struggles of each of my students as I begin teaching young students. Because I intend to teach young children it is especially important that I am aware of their learning styles because, if I fail at connecting with them and helping them to be successful, than they are likely to have much less love for learning, and could possibly feel that they are not good at learning because of it. Teaching is an incredible important job and understanding how children learn is an essential part of that job which I must remember.

Welcome!!!

Hello! Welcome to my new blog. I just created this for my tech class at Washington State University! This is my first blog and I am can't wait to see how it works.