Chapter 7

Chapter 7 is all about evaluating educational technology and integration strategies. Recourse's are available from school districts, professional education organizations, Departments of education,catalogs, and websites can help educators to identify and evaluate the suitable integration strategies of educational technologies. Software evaluation rubrics help teachers evaluate educational software.For instance when evaluating a website teachers must consider the credibility of the author of the web page or website, the affiliation, and the content of the website. There are a few alternative ways to evaluate student performance such as authentic assessment,project based assessment, and portfolio assessment. when using authentic assessment, it is common for teachers to make a checklist,rating scales, and rubrics. Teachers also learn to change up their lessons to continuously challenge and motivate students to learn. Founding for classroom technology can come from a number of sources including people with their school district, businesses, private organizations, foundations, and grants. the majority of outside founding sources for technology in schools fall under the general grant category.

Last week in class we made our WIKI sites. I thought it was neat, I have never really done anything like that. Stacey was the best WIKI partner EVER!!

Chapter 6

This chapter is all about integrating technology into the classroom. As teachers we must be able to understand the curriculum standards and be able to apply them with an appropriate technology project. We create learning objectives which is essentially tied to an understanding of the curriculum standard. Basically for technology integration to be successful in the classroom, the students must be able to get into and enjoy the project through authentic Learning.. Authentic learning is instructional activities that demonstrate real life connections by associating the lesson with a real life activity. In my opinion the best strategy for curriculum integration is to weed out the teachers that do not have proper training and prior experiences in technology and give this type of curriculum to trained teachers. The students will find that they enjoy learning about technology as well as learning content in a subject related curriculum areas, as long as the teacher is using proper strategies for technology integration.

Last class we talked about our Web page evaluation assignment. At first I did not really get the point of having students evaluate a web page. after reading and doing the research it became obvious to me that this assignment could be beneficial to most students. I did not realize how many websites out there provide false information. being aware of this fact could be very beneficial.

Chapter 5

I believe that this has been the most important chapter we have read so far. Technology is changing the way children learn in the classroom. There are so many different way to incorporate digital media into the classroom and this chapter really pushed into all of those different techniques. in this chapter you learn how to create and present digital media through educational software applications such as power point, inspiration, and kidspiration. The programs like Reader Rabbit, Math Blasters, and Geo Safari let kids learn inside the classroom what they do not have the means to learn outside of the classroom. The most interesting program I read about was the English Express Deluxe, and the Instant Immersion language programs. These software applications can solve the problem of the language barrier in the classroom. how much easier would i be for a child to learn English if his teacher could provide him or her with a program on the computer everyday in class.

Last week we did the Google searches. I did not find this assignment to be challenging at all. I use Google everyday to help me get through school projects and just for fun fact finding =) YAY Google!!

Chapter 4

When it comes to describing the system unit...I know NOTHING. Reading about system units, data representation, the control unit , and the arithmetic/logic unit was absolutely horrible. I do not find the makings and complications of a computer very interesting quite honestly. The section on input devices like the keyboard, the mouse, and joysticks was easier to follow because i actually know what a keyboard is and I use/have used all three.

Moving into all of the output devices like the screen and high def...that is an easier read. I think that knowing about flat screens and plasmas and the differences between the two is important to me in the real world because i watch a lot of TV and i need to know what the best one out there is =) getting into the storage part of the chapter was kind of interesting. I did not know how much memory a computer could hold/what it does with all of the information.

Last week we used inspiration to make flow charts. I liked this assignment the best so far. I had never used it before and I believe that a program like that is very useful in college; writing papers and taking notes more effectively, and very beneficial in the classroom helping students prepare for note taking and long papers in college.