Educational Advanatges of using Blogs within the Classroom

There are various uses for Blogs within the classroom, as well as within educational settings. For example, teachers can have students use Blog entries to respond to assigned questions in order to help determine their understanding of recently taught material. Another way that Blogs can help assess ongoing student learning is through weekly posts, in which students describe what they learned and what they may be having difficulty with. Teachers can also uses Blog entries as a form of communication between both students and parents, since Blogs enable users to respond to posts with questions, concerns, or comments. In addition to Blogs having various educational uses, Blogs also provide many advantages over traditional forms of instruction. Since Blogs do not require face-to-face interaction, they are able to incorporate a wider variety of people from greater distances. Also, Blogs may allow individuals who are unable to attend school, the opportunity to participate in classroom activities. Overall, Blogs increase the amount of communication between teachers, students, and parents.

Integration of Technology Into Lesson Plan

“Fishing for F’s” is a lesson plan that can be used to introduce the initial sound of “F” to kindergarten students. (Access to the lesson plan can be found at tiger.towson.edu/~eherbe2/portfolio/lessonplan) To supplement instruction, Microsoft Power Point can be used to display pictures of words with the initial sound of “F.” Students benefit from visual aids in two ways. First, visual aids help students make the mental connection between the word and the object that it represents. Secondly, visual aids help maintain their already short attention span. In addition to Microsoft Power Point, Inspiration Software can be used in order to further incorporate technological software into the “Fishing for F’s” lesson. The software can be used to collaboratively develop, as a class, a prewriting graphic organizer that will aid students with an associated writing activity. The graphic organizer can contain characteristics of the story, such as characters, setting, plot, and conclusion. Developing a graphic organizer will provide students with a different type of visual aid that helps organize their thoughts. The technology sources being integrated into the lesson plan are appropriate, and non-obtrusive supplements, and therefore allow students to focus on the material rather than the technology. Additionally, the integrated technology presents relevant information and images that contribute to the smooth flow of the lesson plan therefore making the reason for the incorporation clear. While the lesson plan can be taught without the use of technology, it may be boring for the learner due to the lack of visual stimuli. Additionally, the learner may not be able to make the mental connection between the word and the object it represents without visual examples.

Enhancing Classroom Activities with Technology

Incorporating technology into standard classroom curriculums is an up and coming trend in education. Various programs, aside from Microsoft Word are available, however the most frequently used programs are Microsoft Power Point, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Access. Both teachers and students can utilize these programs. Power point programs are used to present information through slide shows. Teachers can use power point to display the daily plans or to serve as a visual aid during lectures. Students often use power point during oral presentations. Spreadsheet programs are used to organize and manipulate data while providing the user with faster calculations and more visual feedback. Teachers often use spreadsheet programs to record and calculate students’ grades, attendance, and classroom budget. Students use spreadsheet programs to supplement problem-solving activities or to analyze data that was collected over a period of time. For example, students can convert measurement by applying formulas to the appropriate cells. Additionally, students can record daily temperatures and analyze the temperature changes weekly, monthly, or even yearly. Database programs are used to store and organize information for the purpose of easy retrieval through a keyboard search. Teachers can use database programs to store student information such as, their name, address, phone number, and birthday. Once the information is stored, the teacher can then quickly formulate lists, or merge database information with a word processing document to personalize one letter to each receiver. Students can use database programs to promote organization skills and study skills. For example, students can organize their workload by categorizing assignments into fields such as long-term projects, tests, homework that requires more than 30 minutes to complete, and homework that requires less than 30 minutes to complete. By sorting assignments based on the time necessary to complete them, students can prioritize their time. Additionally, students can store information that will be helpful when studying into fields such as vocabulary, formulas, what I understand, and what I do not understand. This will help students recognize their strengths and weaknesses.

Determining the Relative Advantage

The latest educational phenomenon is to integrate technology into the classroom in order to supplement curriculum. However, many argue that integrating technology is not proving to be efficient. While many aspects can contribute to the apparent lack of success, it is often contributed to the insufficient reasons behind the use of the technology. For example, teachers often use technology because it is available at the school, or because the principle encourages it. While these reasons are not necessarily bad, they are not always effective. As a result, teachers should consider the "relative advantage" of the technology before integrating it into the classroom. The relative advantage focuses on the degree of which the technology enhances and improves the resources that were being used previously. The goal of integrating technology is to improve the classroom understanding, therefore if insufficient technology is being used it may in fact hinder classroom understanding and ultimately waste time.
Looking back on my education, there were many missed opportunities for integrating technology. I personally disliked the subject history. I found it to be extremely boring and basically useless knowledge that I could never incorporate into my future career. However, regardless of how I felt about the subject, it was required for graduation. Luckily, there are high relative advantage technological solutions for these and many other learning problems. For students who are not interested in a subject, teachers could introduce multimedia activities to possibly increase the students interest. For example, a history class that is studying the Civil War may watch the movie "Glory." Simulation activities can be used for students who fail to see the relevance a subject will hold in the future. There is a common saying that history will repeat itself and in order to avoid this, one must know there history. Therefore during simulations, students could act as the President or as a War General and make important decisions for their country or army in a time of war. This activity requires the student to know the past in order to make wise decisions for the future. Another aspect to keep in mind is that software can be created. Therefore if appropriate software is not readily available, team up with your students and create the software that will be appropriate in the future.

Success

I finally have a blogspot!!