Technology Blog For EDU580

            This was the last class of Foundations of Technology in the Classroom.  It seems like not too long ago we were entering class for the first time wondering what the course would be like.  Now looking back, this class was well worth the time put in.  Being unfamiliar with many aspects of technology I had my hesitations, I feel more comfortable with technical applications that can be used in a classroom and different free online materials that would enhance my lessons.

            In the last class we all presented our technology enhanced lessons.  I found all of the lessons interesting and wish we had more time to see them in additional detail.  This has been the theme for the entire five weeks of this class.  I have learned so much from the opinions and contributions of my peers.  I will miss that regular interaction; however, perhaps technology, with its ease of communication, promises to allow us to exchange ideas over greater distance.  Not seeing or being with someone is not an excuse to not keep in touch. 

            Indeed, technology can increase our abilities to achieve if we apply them correctly.  I am glad to know new ways of doing this.  That having been said, I still look forward to turning off my cell phone and spend the night camping under the stars.  Thanks all, keep well.

Second Life is an online game that places its account holders in a virtual world.  In the virtual world people create an alterable identity, called an Avatar, which is able to visit many different places created by others using of the program.  For a fee, one can create virtual lands of their own.  In this cyber-place users have created landscapes, buildings, games, alternate clothing, and other items.  People can visit and create places that are beyond the scope of reality and have experiences that they would not have in real life, both good and bad.

          One major stumbling block to using this program in educating adolescents is that there is considerable initial investment of time to become adequate enough to use the program.  Because of this, any resources that might be used on the program to increase higher order thinking can only be used after learning the program.  A teacher’s curriculum and students’ lives are already so busy that they would not allow for the week or two of orientation to proficiently use the program.  This hinders higher order thinking with the program.  Also, there are many aspects of Second Life that would be inappropriate and counterproductive to learning.  It is easy to unknowingly enter restricted areas within the virtual world.  Such an action might serve as a distraction to students and perhaps even amount to an unsafe environment for them.  Perhaps in a computer science class there would be a place to use higher order thinking with Second Life but not in the general classroom.

          I think that with continued use, Second Life might change one’s view of reality.  This would happen as they take their Second Life more seriously than their first life.  Viewing someone as an Avatar and speaking to them through instant messaging creates a loss of the meaning of person to person contact.  Because people are not interacting face-to-face with other real people there is a sense that social rules that normally would apply in the real world might not apply in this simulation.  People can be much less understanding in this cyber world.  One might worry that this could eventually spill over into the real word as humans lose their ability to positively interact with others.  Because this technology is used many for entertainment and personal enjoyment, it favors the development of attitudes of self fulfillment and disregard for others.  However, the program does hold the promise, if used correctly, of bringing together people of common positive interests to share ideas and experiences for the growth of their cause.  I have also seen this in a science based world I am currently exploring where one can tour a virtual cell, look at scientific posters, and take a simulation quest like that of Charles Darwin.

          Overall, I think Second Life is not very useful in the classroom, at least not at this time.  Perhaps as more students become familiar with the program and communities develop that are committed to learning and the advance of human knowledge, it might be a good idea to incorporate more of this program into a curriculum.  I think as teachers we would need to ensure that a safe environment is available and that students have enough structured guidance to have a beneficial learning experience in Second Life.  This program is a novel idea, but needs further development and refinement before it will be useable in a classroom.

At the web site http://www.edheads.org/ there is a suite of educational games.  These games tend to be related to a science class and seem to be geared toward the middle school age group.  In these games students can take on the role of holding a real career.  Some careers are that of doctors, police officers, and meteorologists.  The students are then guided through problems such as performing surgery on the brain, investigating the scene of an accident, or predicting the weather.  During these games the player is instructed on each step of the process.  The games are structured to benefit certain aspects of education.  For instance, the game about investigating a crash scene might benefit a physics class that deals with determining forces of impacts.  There are also games about identifying parts of a machine that give a mechanical advantage.  These might be used in a physics class as well.

            These games expand upon factual information and give students the chance to participate in an application of learned material.  Students must broaden their knowledge and problem solving abilities by answering questions and drawing conclusions about a situation.  The games do a good job of using relevant vocabulary for students to expand their knowledge.  The answers are not given to questions asked until after the student gets it correct.  The web site could do a better job of explaining answers, right or wrong, and give additional support to students’ responses. 

            The games on the website have a moderate amount of graphics that might be interesting.  Most of the time, students achieve tasks by clicking on the screen and there is the ability to click randomly in order to advance in the game.  This means that some students could simply click everywhere to complete the tasks.  Teachers should ensure that students are completing the games in a way that encourages learning.  In other games, calculations and recording on paper are required.  A teacher should be available when doing these tasks to make certain that the student is successful.  In some games many of the data obtained in one part are used in another so the teacher should ensure that all students have the necessary information before progressing to avoid disappointment at the end of the game.

            I think the game would work well as an extra resource for students to use.  It may not have directly beneficial applications in the classroom.  Because relevant vocabulary, formulas, and observation skills are necessary; this would be valuable for students to do, perhaps on their own.  I think they would find it interesting because of the animation and the opportunity to be as hands on as possible for some of the tasks, such as surgery.  Using the surgery example, I think it is important for students to see how the things that they are learning are used outside of school. The students are able to look at X-ray pictures and view CT and MRI scans.  They are able to make decisions about the steps to follow to achieve the task of performing the surgery.  I think students would enjoy these activities.

                At the beginning of class we talked about how we will be wrapping up this course with lesson plans.  I will be doing my lesson plan eighth on the ninth.  When we give our lesson we must explicitly state what the goal is for student understanding in the lesson.  It is important for students to know what we expect them to get out of the work teachers give them.  We were also given details on a rubric about our web site; this can be found at rubistar.  My web site is coming together nicely and I think it should work pretty well. 

                The first digital domain for the day was a game site at www.funbrain.com.  This has many games that do not appear to be very educational.  They might be used to practice math facts and other memorization skills, but they lack the ability to encourage upper level thinking.  The next review was on a children centered virtual world found at www.b.whyville.net.  Because the focus group for this site is children a major concern is safety.  It appears that in order to make an account, a parent’s email must be entered.  This allows any inappropriate interaction between people in the program to be shared with a child’s parents.  I hope this is adequate to protect children, it is better than nothing.  The virtual world itself allows students to earn virtual money and use it to buy items, property, and such.  This site may help develop budgeting skills but with very little at stake perhaps it might have a negative effect of making it appear that earning money is easy and being wasteful with it is OK.  The final digital domain review for the semester was on Zoo Tycoon.  This is a simulator that puts students into the role of designing a zoo.  Players control many aspects of zoo design and operation including layout, admission price, exhibits, hiring help, and writing grants.  Once again the player must manage money.  I think managing money in this game is of greater benefit than in b.whyville.  The game allows children to see directly how setting a price affects the availability of money for the zoo, it will give a better idea of economics in a fun way for children.

                Class continued with a “virtual walk” around the local city.  The teacher had taken pictures of many of the old buildings to contrast their construction to buildings built today.  We noticed that the buildings had an old style of architecture and had the company or association’s names engraved in them.  It is interesting that their construction suggests that the building had a heritage when it was built, calling from the Greeks.  The fact that they had their name engraved in the building hints at a certain aspiration of permanence.  The owners who constructed the buildings intended to be around forever.  Today signs are made of a temporary and cheap plastic.  Plastic is easy to get, work with, and dispose of.  So too are the companies that these signs publicize.  Our plans are not permanent, or set in stone.  Our future will change and perhaps the businesses that are formed today have no intention of being around five years from now.  This mirrors technology.  The technology we have today will be outdated in a short time.  We do not know what programs might be successful two years down the road.  It is a quickly changing aspect of human life and one which we cannot create too much attachment to.  Things that are digital are easily manipulatable.  They can be changed with the click of a mouse.  This is the world that we are quickly becoming more engulfed in.

                We then discussed who owns information.  Do textbook companies need to charge large amounts of money to schools trying to educate people and does this charge somehow imply that the company owns something that is not attainable elsewhere?  The state of California has started working on an online resource for teachers to compile information about school subjects.  This information is free to others to use as a virtual textbook in their class.  This will save the schools money and provide teachers with more options when educating their students.  Required readings can be tailored to a teacher’s style, instead of the teacher’s style reflecting the textbook.  The Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts out another resource for learning.  They have a website found at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm where people can download lectures, course materials, and tests given at MIT to the students.  This means that anyone with an internet connection can now get an education from MIT.  It is an amazing resource that makes information almost free to everyone.  One can get instruction from an advanced school without paying a cent or stepping foot in the classroom.  Knowledge and education should be about being available to everyone.  This site makes it possible.  It is surely a site I will be exploring in the near future.

                Class started with an interesting point about lesson plans, one that I had not thought about before.  We commonly write what objectives we expect students to demonstrate through completing the lesson and we know what activities we want to do in order to construct knowledge.  We often do not specify what kind of thinking skills we wish for students to demonstrate.  Teachers ideally should be helping students develop their ability to think, yet we rarely take the time to help them learn different ways of thinking.  Perhaps we would be meeting our goals as teachers if we taught with the intent of developing particular thinking skills in our students.  They would also be better off as a result.

                As a class we compiled the rubrics we designed last class.  There were many points that were repeated by different groups so we boiled down what is to be assessed into seven categories.  These include accurate assessment, hands/minds on, technology use, content and accuracy, preparedness/planning, standards met, and learning objectives.

                For the digital domain review I presented the FrontPage® tutorial that I have written about in a previous blog.  The other two reviews were about Google Earth and a mathematics review aid for teachers found at www.multiplication.com.  Google Earth would be a wonderful way to give virtual tours of important places in the world.  This would have specific application in a social studies class.  I would be concerned that many people might begin to think that going online to virtually tour a place makes visiting it in person to be a waste of time and money.  There is certain value and personal growth to be achieved in going to a place of significant history or relevance to being human.  People would lose that opportunity of developing themselves by accepting a virtual tour as good enough.  The math games website looks like it might be interesting to students.  It is good to look for new ways to help students learn.  This might be a very helpful website.

                During class the instructor’s wife was kind enough to bring us dinner.  She is from Spain so it was our opportunity to have a genuine Spanish dinner.  I knew very little about Spanish cuisine so I broadened my palate and enjoyed conversations with my classmates.  We learned a little about Spanish family traditions, especially mealtime customs.  When talking about cultures and traditions we often recall times of less technology.  It is interesting that a great way to learn about these is the way that we did, with little technology and more talk and experience. 

                The class was surprisingly drowsy after our dinner so we focused the rest of our time on the workshop portion.  During this time I began working on my website.  I worked in Microsoft Word® and Publisher®.  I think the easiest of all of the website design programs I have tried has been Publisher® so I will probably be completing the website assignment there.

                Class started with a mental exercise regarding where the future of technology may be taking us.  The technologies are available to keep individuals “wired” to their environment so that surroundings, like billboard signs, would reflect the person’s interests.  Advertisements might be for restaurants that an individual likes or for music that one likes.  I think a system like this would result in people who only live in the world that they are comfortable with.  They will never be exposed to new ideas or experiences.  Being bombarded with stimuli that is known to be pleasing to someone will cause them to be inadaptable to less favorable situations.  One might argue that to some extent this is already the case today.  If one has personal information about themselves “floating around” in the air around them it might also give people seeking to do harm another avenue to do so.  This technology, as with all technology, gives not only people who wish to do good more tools, but it also gives those who wish to do bad.  It might make these people more powerful and capable of harming others.  I think overall the negative aspects of such a situation outweigh the positive.

                The two digital domain reviews included a simulator that allows someone to input details of a particular lifestyle, like food consumption and physical activity, and watch the effects on the body; and the other was the computer game Spore.  The simulator can be found at http://phet.colorado.edu/simulations/sims.php?sim=Eating_and_Exercise.  This simulator would be good for a health, or to a lesser extent, biology class.  This simulator would be beneficial for adolescent children who need to make lifestyle decisions.  With guidance, this technology would allow students to draw conclusions about what type of lifestyle is most healthy and allow them to alter their habits to ensure a strong heart and body.  The Spore game can be downloaded after doing a Google search for the game.  I am not sure how beneficial this would be to studies in biology.  It looks like a fun game; however it may lead to misconceptions about life and evolution.  Scientists are not sure how life started so implying that it was from a meteor coming to Earth may lead students to believe this.  Also, designing a creature to survive may not allow the students to realize that the changes are random.  Certain species might be better suited for the environment, natural selection, or may survive due to chance, genetic drift.  I am not sure if these aspects of evolution are easily understandable from this game so I would have to learn more about the game before deciding that it is worth using in a biology classroom.

                We then worked on creating rubrics to aid in assessing student achievement.  We were introduced to the website http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php.  This site allows teachers to view other rubrics or design one’s own.  This opens communication among teachers to create strong rubrics that assess students’ progress better.  In groups we created rubrics and task lists to be used in grading our lesson plans.   

At the Web site http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC061276411033&ofcresset=1 one will find a tutorial on using Microsoft FrontPage 2003®.  The tutorial takes the learner through the steps for designing a website using the program.  The tutorial is divided into six different parts.  The introductions are narrated by a recording.  Within each part the learner can read several pages about the given topic.  At the end of each section there are multiple choice questions so that the learner can check their own understanding.  If the learner answers a question wrong the quiz explains why the response was incorrect and then allows the reader to answer again.  In doing this the reader has their incorrect answer justified and then must continue to seek the correct answer.  This is a better model for learning from mistakes than if the tutorial were to simply give the learner the correct answer. 

                This tutorial would make people better able to use features available to them in designing a website with FrontPage® software.  It gives helpful tips for designing a website that is friendlier to a visitor to the site.  The tutorial also gives enough detail about the infrastructure necessary to have a website to be useful.  There is not too much information to make it confusing to the new website designer.  The function of a website is different for everyone.  This tutorial is vague enough to help in designing all types of websites.  It is becoming easier for any person to make a website and this tutorial would be helpful to new website designers.  The tutorial does take close to an hour to complete.  At the end of the tutorial learners are given the option to print out a note card that has a bulleted list of the aspects of the entire tutorial boiled down for quick reference.

                As websites get easier to design, more individuals will be apt to make them for less than valuable reasons.  Someone looking for information on the internet may find that they encounter many sites that are not useful for their research.  This is a negative aspect of the ease of website design.  I fear that as individuals become comfortable with making websites, the quality of websites will diminish.  If a website is just one of many that an individual intends to make throughout a lifetime there may not be motivation to make it as good as it might otherwise be.

                Not being technology savvy myself, I wondered if I would feel comfortable designing a website of my own after completing this tutorial.  I looked on my computer for the FrontPage® software and was surprised to see that it was not included in the Microsoft suit that was installed there.  Having not yet designed a website I am not sure how beneficial the tutorial was.  I do feel more informed about terms I did not know before; like server, URL, and HTML.  I also feel more informed about what is necessary to publish a website on the internet.  Designing a website is not just about typing information into a template.  In order to have a website available to the world one must have a URL, a server, and must upload their webpage.  This would have to be done every time a change was made to the site, unless the site was designed on a server-based program.  Overall I feel more comfortable with the computer terms that are commonly used and when I come to designing a website I think I am better prepared to make it as useful to viewers as possible.  I would recommend a new website designer to take the time to review this tutorial before they begin working on it.

                I presented one of the three digital domain reviews today.  It was on the career simulation found at http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitdna/index.jsp.  This is discussed further in a previous post.  The other presentations included a typing game that would help grade school children learn to be faster typists and a game that helps test knowledge of the skeletal system and muscles in the body.  The typing game works to encourage not just speed but also accuracy.  It is designed for a grade school age group and includes cartoon animation to make the task a little more interesting.  It is more and more important for people to be efficient at typing, chiefly for the purpose of being professional.  I fear it is a skill that is not transferable to a non-computer trade.  I think one could reasonably question whether a farmer who can type twenty words a minute, but can grow all the food his family needs for the winter, is better suited for survival than someone who can type one hundred fifty words a minute.  In the society we have created typing is necessary for most people to earn money to support their families.  I am not sure that it is a skill that increases very basic survival, and perhaps happiness.  It becomes more important that teachers encourage typing as only a means to make material more presentable.  Activities like this help the student develop the skill of typing, but in assignments the actual act of typing should have minimal importance.  The muscle and skeletal system game seemed interesting.  The ability to name certain structures is very much about memorization.  This is a task that many students dread.  It can be very boring and simply requires committing time to a task that may never be used again.  I think these games would be helpful to students’ memorization.  The timing aspect encourages students to better themselves, instead of comparing themselves to others.  The games also tell the students what the correct answer is to incorrect responses.  This helps students to adjust their misconceptions without having to look up answers in the book.  It is an instant correction for students to use which makes students more apt to learn from their mistakes instead of ignoring them and using trial and error to make corrections.  I think both of these sites would be very valuable in health and physical education classes for memorizing certain material.  Such sites might be useful for certain studies in biology.  In a high school class a similar site could be used to memorize organs and other structures before dissections. 

                The second half of the class enabled us to review positive and negative aspects of websites.  My partner and I decided that well designed websites are easy to follow.  They have material well organized so that navigating through the site is easy.  Sites must be updated regularly; otherwise there is little sense in visiting the site regularly.  Pictures should be used if they support the theme of the webpage and should not take a long time to load.  With all of the criteria we specified, there were no perfect teacher websites that we were able to find.  Interestingly, we did find one school, Peru Central, which had a weather center page.  This page had barometric pressure, temperature, wind direction, dew point, and many other weather components.  This is an interesting addition to a website and could be well used by an earth science class.  Such use exemplifies the role of technology in education.  Technology should support student learning and enhance the opportunities for all learners to manipulate and integrate information.  I think this page would do this well for some students.  There was also a faculty webpage found at Northeastern Clinton Central School that had lesson plans for each class for each week.  This would be useful for students who might want to know what is planned for a future week or it would benefit a student who missed a day of class to catch up on work while at home.  The page also had any handouts or transparencies used for that day which would allow students to print extra copies for themselves if they misplaced theirs. 

                Also in class we experimented with altering media.  We looked at the websites www.archive.org and www.creativecommons.org.  Both of these sites allow people to download text, pictures, sound, and video.  One can then alter it to create original works.  We were encouraged to alter different media using a paint or image program or using the Audacity program, which allows users to alter video and sound clips.  These programs show how easy it is to manipulate digital information.  Similar to typing, altering media to create new works will probably not address many standards in most curriculums.  Instead these might be used for unique ways of showcasing one’s knowledge.  Therefore teachers must be sure that the majority of credit is given for the content not the novelty of the work.  We must also be careful that the time students put into creating media presentations is proportional to what is expected for students to learn.  Students should not spend hours composing a showcase for their knowledge and less than an hour learning what needed to be included.