Blog Chapter 7 & Chapter 8

Chapter 7 and Chapter 8

The more I learn from this course the more I feel using technology in classroom become a necessary part for all the teachers. However, teaching with technology is different from teaching in the traditional way and it will be a big challenge for teachers. Before we use technology to teach our students, we need to make sure that we find and select quality Internet resource. 
When I created my WebQuest, I found that the hardest part for me is how to selected good websites for my students. There is no doubt that high-quality software offers strategies and opportunities to transform student learning. How to tell the difference between high-quality software and low-quality software? When I read chapter 7, I found one way to identify good educational software is to recognize what constitutes poor software. Low quality software tends to possess three main features: 1) the computer dictates the activity; 2) competition, stereotyping, or violence is present, and 3) quick reactions are favored over sustained thinking and problem solving. This chapter also discuss about how problem solving and inquiry learning is supported by educational software, apps, and learning games. Teachers need to incorporate educational software to engage students in problem solving. I want my WebQuest can become a good example in teaching history. I designed my WebQuest which I try to give my students the opportunity to use technology as much as possible. And I want them not only can use this WebQuest, but also show them how to create a WebQuest. I hope them learn what is a good technology tool from creating their own WebQuest. I still look other’s good example and try to make my future class better.

There are some very good websites for teachers that I want to share with you.

http://www.mathblaster.com

http://www.squeakland.org/

http://scratch.mit.edu/#

As for chapter 8, this chapter explores different ways teachers can communicate with students using technology. I believe that it is a wonderful way for teachers to use in the class. It is not only can teach students by using technology, but also can help teachers know more about students. Teachers have the choice to use emails, text messaging, teacher or classroom websites, blogs, online discussions, and wikis to teach students. Teachers need to know the similarities and differences between synchronous and asynchronous electronic communication. For my own experience, I really like to use blogs to share ideas. We need to encourage students to use different kinds of communicative tools to share their ideas with teachers and classmates. As for class websites, they are focused mainly on student work. It gives them a chance to publish their work and pursue any interest they have in the subject. Class websites provides students with information about homework, dates for exams, and dates for school events. Teaching blogs or blogs in general provides users a way to post information and ideas as a journal.

Questions:

1. How can teachers use email or text messaging to teach our student?

2. What are the standard and open-source software applications available on most computers?

3. How can we use WebQuest to teach our students?

Reflection about Google Culture Institute & take away message

I need to say that I really like this website because I always believe that people will have a good memory about what they see rather than what they read.

This website will give students a good guide to go around the world and they will not feel that it is a task for them to finish. As a teacher, like I said before, I want to make my class like a playground for my students and I want them can learn something when they play. This website will  be a good tool for teacher to use in the class. Teachers can use this website to give students a good introduction about the topic and also can help them to get more information.

I feel very happy to have a group in today's class and I believe that we will do a good job.

Every class, professor will give us a very clear explanation for our tasks and also for our class content. I really learn a lot!

Thanks for all of you!

Chapter 5 & 6

Taking this course makes me realize how lucky our generation of teachers is. We have the use of technology and with that come the Internet! The Internet makes researching information so much easier for teachers and students. Like what I read in these two chapters, however, the technology and the Internet also give teachers some challenges. As we all know, technology become an essential part of our daily life. Even three-year-old children know how to use smartphones, tablets, and computers. As teachers, we should teach students how to use technology rather than do not let them use technology.

In chapter 5, they give us a lot of good ideas, ways, and websites to help teachers lead our students use the technology effectively and safely. Teachers use different search engines to try to find ways to better their instruction. Students use search engines to gather information about topics and lessons. Although people still use books, newspapers, magazines, libraries, and presentations to acquire information, I believe that it is more important for us to get information from Internet. Getting information from Internet is fast, simple, and easy to just type in a word and gets immediate results, however, a great many of information will make us face other challenges, which are (1) how to teach our students use the Internet in the correct way, (2) how to evaluate information, and (3) how to follow copy right laws. Even I learned a lot from this chapter, I still have to find more details to support these advice and do more observation in the real classrooms to see our students' reactions when they use the Internet.

In chapter 6, it explores about how teachers can benefit from using information management technologies. These are bookmarking, social bookmarking, information alerts, and e-newsletters that teachers can use. This will help teachers organize information that they will need to prepare lessons. As for WebQuests, we need to do a WebQuests for this course so I want to share some of my understandings on it with all of you. In the passed ten years, a student might read articles or selections from books and then write a paper or a report, but in 21th century, students are using Internet as a helper to find information and finish their work. WebQuests are online inquiries by students that are designed and guided by teachers. In a WebQuest, students follow an electronic map or take an online tour, moving from one web resource to the next to gather information and learn about a particular topic. Like I always said that teachers need to be “fresh ”, we need to keep finding good websites and use WebQuest to lead our students to get benefits from these websites.

Here is a video which is named “What's AWebquest?” Let’s see how 1^st and 2^nd grades students think about WebQuest.

Questions:

1.              How can teachers benefit from using information management technologies such as bookmarking, social bookmarking, information alerts, and e-newsletters?

2.              What are WebQuests, virtual field trips, and videoconferencing?

3.              What should we do to help our students use Internet correctly?