Reflective Blog #6

I believe that we live in a society that is going to face implications in technology on a daily basis. Technology has changed so much since I was a little girl growing up to now it's just amazing just watching the changes that have taken place in this global society. I'm thirty one years old and I remember in elementary school being called up to the chalkboard to solve a math problem with chalk. Today, a student can walk up to an promethean board and they can use an interactive wand to answer their math problem interactively on the board. During my studies this week I discovered how teachers can create learning communities using distance learning. Twenty years ago I wasn't able to take such a course online, I had to attend class every day. I believe that technology has changed so much that some people are afraid to try new ways of presenting materials and distributing technology based curriculum over to faculty and students. I think that was preventing some people to change their habits of thinking it's because their having difficulty to change, they want to keep teaching the same way they did fifteen years ago and it's not going to work for our students. As teachers we are competing with nintendo, ds's, WII, and other game systems, we have to come up with creative ways for students to learn in the classroom. We need to face the facts we live in a microwave society and we want to retain the knowledge in our heads in fast pace way through creativity interactively through high technology. If I could wave a magic wand around I would make it mandatory that teachers receive twelve hours of technology instruction a year and that they would have to implement technology in their daily plans. We are faced every day with a variety of ways to enhance students learning on a daily basis daily. The decision is up to the teachers and administrators to make a choice to stand for implementing technology. The reason for implementing such a plan is to introduce the learner with vast variety of resources for learning so that it would keep the interest for learning alive and not make the learner bored about the information their retaining. In 2010 we have to stay abreast of the new methods of learning for our students.

Reflective Blog #5

When creating my wiki I wanted it to be beneficial to teachers that are trying to expose their students to technology. I decided to have a wiki that compiled websites for students and teachers to utilize for curriculum I feel this is essential because I know that I am always looking for new ways to incorporate the use technology into my students' learning. Also the students themselves look forward to seeing what new sites Ms. Jackson has found for them to explore this week.
The advantages of compiling a wiki for this purpose is that teachers don't have to go through and search through lists of sites that are not age appropriate or that my not be content specific enough to address their students needs. Another advantage is that if the location of the site has changed recently one can always update the information immediately. Furthermore with the wiki you can upload the site to the wiki so that those viewing the site are no more than a click away from access.