Professional Journal Article

How can you infuse technology into the instructional strategies depicted? What is the value added?)

The article I chose from my professional journal is actually specifically about how to infuse technology into instructional strategies. The article is from the official journal of National Council for the Social Studies, it's entitled "Using Technology to Teach Historical Understanding." This article is points out that the best way to make technology effective in the classroom is by fitting it with the ways in which teachers can best teach and students can best learn. The article comments on how it is up the teachers to design "digital history projects that integrate technology with substantive content and effective pedagogy." The main focus of the article gives three actual examples of successful technological models in the class. These examples are all well structured, user friendly, interesting and fun activities using websites, online calculators, creative charts, and other technologies that allow the lesson to be possible. This could not be done using pens, paper, books, and other simple classroom tools. The technology adds a value that is not parallelled by those other tools. One of the models in the article is using an online calculator to study the decision to enslave Africans. The lesson poses the question, Why did white plantation owners in America decide to enslave Africans? The students then plug in the costs of importing slave labor vs. indentured servitude and other factors to discover the cheaper prices in using slaves. By doing this the students really see the motivation behind the slave trade on the most basic level. After reading this article I have no doubt that technology, when used the proper way for both teachers and students can be an amazing, unrivaled tool as far as achieving succes in the classroom.

Power Point clip review

Yes, power point does guide the student to focus on the main "bullets" or points of a larger topic, and that may seem like it is encouraging some students to skim the topic solely for the main themes, but I really don't see how that is harmful to a student. In college, I would never be able to survive all the reading and work I am assigned if I wasn't skilled at going through and picking out the main items I really need to focus on. The woman who claimed that in life we must be capable of having conversations and power point is hindering students abilities to learn how to do so, is putting far too much emphasis on the influence of power point in the social skills of students in my opinion. The other man who was not in favor of power point claimed that power point is only helpful for the organizationally challenged students. EXACTLY! Students who have a hard time putting things in a coherent sequence need programs like power point. After all, as teachers it is our job to decrease as many handicaps on our students as we can. This is a perfect example of how we can help struggling children. As for other students who find it easier to organize, I'm sure power point is not causing them any severe obstacles to learning it just might not be quite as beneficial as to the others.

digital movie reflection

Before taking EDLF 345 I was really intimidated. My friends who had taken it last semester had all sorts of horror stories about their iMovies and movie maker experiences. I had no idea what to expect and was pretty scared. I really wish my friends who had gone through so much trouble last semester could have been in this section of 345 with me because I truly enjoyed making my digital story and watching it come to life. I only encountered a few problems which weren't really even problems once I figured out that it was me who was doing wrong not the program. At first I wasn't thrilled with the idea of my story line but now I'm really glad I chose to do the topic I did because I feel like it was something I needed to say. I feel like my movie is a little bit rushed, because I had such a long story to tell I had to cut a lot of it out and the parts I had remaining had to be sped up a little bit. That might be something I will need to go back and fix, but I think all in all it is a pretty decent movie. I am so glad I learned how to do this because I can definitely see myself utilizing it in my classroom one day. Especially in secondary education I think this is an amazingly useful tool. I had so much fun with it I am sure high school students would really enjoy being able to express themselves so freely through such a cool modern tool. I can see myself using it for history reports, biographies, and tons of other educational purposes.

Article 2 review

This article was especially interesting to me since I am going to be a secondary Social Studies teacher and images are such a huge part of learning about and interpreting history. It really is amazing how vast the quantity of historical images and documents are online. A student can go online and google any historical image and several different websites devoted to that image will pop up in less than a second. Not only is it great, it's amazing too! Students have the ability to research better and easier, be more creative and express themselves using new avenues. The article does have a good point that it is important to limit the scope of the technological activities you do with your classroom, but just knowing that all these wonderful technologies are available to students today is a great thing. Knowing how far technology in the classroom has come makes me so excited to see where it will be when I actually have a class of my own.

post-power point presentation

I found that I really liked doing the power point presentation. I was expecting it to be fine but a little boring because I have had a fair amount of experience with power point in the past and I didn't think it was going to be challenging. I didn't find it to be too challenging, but that's because there was so much I didn't know could be done. After seeing some of my classmates presentations I'm much more excited about the possiblities of using power point in my classroom one day. I think by using animation and more moving aspects it can be a really useful classroom tool.

My technological background

I used to condsider myself a huge technophobe. If I didn't have to use it I didn't want to. Now I can't live without my laptop, iPod, digital camera, cell phone and the plethora of other electronic devices that make my life so much easier. Although I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world I have enough confidence that I could pretty much handle any piece of technology thrown my way. I sometimes wonder how on earth did people get things done before the days of portable electronics and home computer systems. I grew up using computers so I never really had any issues with them. It's amazing to me that I still have to explain to my mother how to check her email and program the VCR to record Law and Order. But I forget that she didn't grow up always knowing and using these things and for her it's much harder to just jump right in and know what to do when it comes to technology. I can't even imagine the tools my children will have someday and how they will make fun of me for not understanding how to use them. For the time being though, I will label myself a technophile.

Article Review

After reading this article I can't help but feel like the internet is a necessary evil. Without the internet students would be missing out on so many amazing educational opportunities. There are so many great things students as individuals can learn from the click of a mouse that would otherwise take much longer for teachers to instruct. However, society has unfortunately seen how the internet can be dangerous to anyone, especially vulnerable young people. This article asks the question, How can we prevent students from abusing the internet and staying safe without hindering the use of the internet for good purposes? Completely halting use of the internet is out of the question. Society in general (especially me) is pretty dependent on this phenomenon. I think the suggestions mentioned in the article, such as making sure parents are aware of what their kids are doing online, keeping kids aware of the dangers and abuses of the internet and also setting guidlines for in school use are great ways to monitor and maintain a healthy use of the internet. One of the things I love about kids is the curiosity they express. The internet is a great way for kids to satisfy curiosities and learn about new things. For the most part, when a child is taught the proper way to use a tool, they will adhere to that way and not take advantage of it. It's a shame many people abuse the internet but for the most part if teachers do a good job of educating students, parents and all others, the internet will be a safer more effective medium for generations to come.