CEDO520 Week 3

In week 3 we spent a lot of time working with partners to research various technological tools for implementation in the classroom. My partner and I spent a lot of time researching of these tools and trying to find ways that each could be implemented into the classroom.

Like anything, some of these tools I found to be very beneficial and some I found to be virtually useless. I'm not going to spend much time being a negative nelly so I will discuss some of the tools that I found to be very usefull.

The tools that I really liked were Google For Educators, Google Forms, Survey Monkey, Bloglines, Backpack, and Tokbox. The Google For Educators was just so diverse in it's uses for the classroom that I don't have enough time or room to discuss all the possibilities I thought of when using this program. Obviously it is largly a conglomorate of current Google Tools, however, it is awful nice to have them in one location as well as to have a site dedicated to advancing us as instructors. On a similar note, I also was quite excited about Google Forms and the possibilities it presented. A major reason that I am in this particular program is my desire to become more digital in my instruction and this application provides me some very viable ways of transitioning to that. I see the Google Forms as being a very easy and effective means of creating tests and the automatic grading aspect and data analysis doesn't hurt either. Just as importantly would be the fact that I could allow students to fill in medical information from home where they have their parents assistance and it would be stored online. This could be really beneficial if a student were to change doctors, phone numbers, or residence because they could just log-on and update the information in real time and it would take away much of the leg work for me. Survey Monkey I'm not sure how much I would use but when I would use it I could see it making life way easier for me. I currently do a lesson on invention where I have my students brainstorm a product and take it from conceptualization to creation and part of that process includes surveying their prospective market. I could see my students really using this application to assist them in that process. I could also see myself using Bloglines as a means of helping to hold my students accountable for their learning by asking them to right a response to what they've learned, much like we are doing with these blogs. Backpack seemed to be a really cool sight and one that I could see myself using as well. I'm not sure I will get the chance as my school district is currently attempting to go to an interactive web setup that seems to be similar to this, however, if they do not go to this new setup, I am definately pulling this application out of my new bag of tricks. I'm someone who really needs to have a series of assignments laid out in front of me as a constant reminder of what I need to do and when I need to do it by and I think many of my students are the same way. In addition, I think that the ability to share files and images would greatly assist the students in completing their assignments as well as reducing the amount of paper I would be using in my classroom. Finally, the last application I found to be interesting was Tokbox. I don't see a lot of need for Tokbox in the classroom but I do find the possibilities stimulating. I have always been someone who has been an advocate for accountability in the classroom. I never believed in telling a teacher when, where, and why they were going to be evaluated as I see so many teachers who then spend all of their time preparing for that one lesson and that is not a true representation of their teaching abilities. With Tokbox, you would have to be accountable as a teacher should you choose to allow parents or administrators to drop in on your class at any given time. I could see using Tokbox to create presentations and then showing them rather than having students get up in front of the class and give presentations. I like the instruction that comes with presentations, however, I hate the amount of time it takes for students to switch presentors, get setup, get going, and then answer questions. I think this system would greatly reduce that time. In addition, I could most predominately see using this to record a video myself and post for students in the case I was to be absent. I could continue to instruct my class without actually being there and I love that fact.

In all this lesson was a very rewarding one for me. I'm always trying to build my bag of tricks and refresh the old tricks. This lesson provided me with a lot of great ideas and things I will implement into my classroom. I'm looking forward to trying some of these applications in the classroom and hope my students will enjoy them and see their merit like I have.