Digital Imagery

http://futureofmath.misterteacher.com/digitalcameras.html

My article focuses on digital imagery in math classes. I picked this article because I want to become a math teacher and I thought this article fit me best. A picture is worth a thousand words. Most students are visual learners and with pictures to help show them specific situations and problems, it will be easier for the students to recall the information that they learned to solve the problem. "When students take the pictures and actively use them for purposeful knowledge, you have a dynamic combination for engagement and active learning." (McAnear, 2004, p.4). Instead of lecturing over a topic and then handing out worksheets or making your students do mulitple problems in their books, we should use digital imagery. Show your students a picture of a playground and tell them its deminsions and ask them how much fence is going to be needed to fence off the playground, or other examples similar to that. We can use pictures form all over. We can google pictures or even use our digital cameras and upload them to our computers.

I believe that more research should be done determining weather or not students do learn and recall more information by using digital imagery.

Storyboarding

http://www.ibiblio.org/ism/articles/huffcorzine.html

Before doing some research on storyboarding, I had a small idea of what it is. "Storyboarding, the use of a series of pictures in separate frames to outline or brainstorm ideas about how to tell a story can lead to such descriptions." according to Lin Huff-Corzine. Pictures are worth 1000 words. Students do not want to sit in a classrooms and do boring worksheets or read long sections of a history book, instead why not let them make a story board. This allows students to learn visually. They can use storyboards for almost anything. Have them make a story board about the history lesson they were just taught, I can almost guarntee that the students will remember the material better than if they were just to read it. Having your students do storyboards also helps them work with other people. It teaches them how to lead and follow. I believe that it is better for students to work in groups on storyboards than on their own. They can bounce their ideas off of one another. Two heads are better than one.

I think we should do some reseach and ask the students if storyboarding helps them learn or is just extra work that takes up their homework time.

WIKI

http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/wiki.jsp#whatsawiki

Wiki means 'quick' in Hawaiian. It is a websit that makes it easier for anyone to add to or revise certain links. It is simple to read and edit. I think that Wiki's are very useful and are a plus to have in the classrooms. Personally, I would love this as a teacher. I would make a lesson plan and then if I wanted to change it I would just log into my Wiki page and change it that way, I wouldn't have to keep making up new ones. I would just go in and edit the one that I already made. I would also make my students use Wiki. I like that fact that it shows the new piece along with the old piece. Students get immediate feedback from their peers and they can comment on each other's work. Instead of emails not going through or just sitting in your inbox not getting read, you can get on Wiki and check it out right away. I also like it that students can get on and do an assignment or check comments anytime, anywhere. The one thing I do not like about Wiki is that the information may not always be reliable. With students being able to edit and change sites and information who knows what is the correct information and what is fiction. I think that we should do more research on how to make these sites reliable and make them to where only your class can log onto that particular site.

Blogging

"Blog" is a short version of "weblog". It is used like a diary. Blogs have a range of information. You can almost blog about anything. When blogging, you are focusing on a particular subject. Students in today's society are blogging more and more. Blogging can be both negative and positive. A positive is that students get to state their own opinion without feeling dumb. I like the fact that other students can comment on someone else's blog. This allows us to see what others think of our ideas. I also think that Blogging is a bonus to those who are too shy to raise their hand in class. People find it more easy to write things down and get their feelings out that way. I also think that blogging will help improve student's writing skills. When people publicly write for others to see, they want to make sure there are very few mistakes. However, I do not think that blogging should take over. I think that if we use blogging for everything, kids will forget how to write with a pencil. For example, students will not know how to write in cursive if all we do is type on the computer.

I do like the fact that it is a very quick and easy way to communicate with everyone in your class. I also like the fact that teachers can put restrictions on the page. We wouldn't want just random people reading our blogs. I also think that it is a good thing not to write about personal issues while blogging. I believe that futher research should be done in order to see if blogging really does affect how student's learn.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging

Virtual Field Trips

In today's society, money is the problem for everything. With gas prices going up it is more difficult for schools to go on as many field trips. Technology in the classroom as become a big stress reliever. Now we can just go on Virtual Field Trips. VFT make the trips go by a lot faster and if students interact on the computer with the tour guide or the instructor, they will get the same affect from a VFT as they would if they were to actually go to the site. Virtual Field Trips are best used for destinations that are extremely far away, for example if your students are doing a project on pyramids, it would be a good thing to take a Virtual Field Trip to Egypt and let them see the pyramids first hand. However, I do not believe that Virtual Field Trips should take the place of all field trips. If students are capable of going to a certain location, do it. I beleive that there is nothing like learning hands on. Being able to actually go and touch things and smell things is not replaceable. I do think that if a student is reading about a volcano in his/her history book it is better to take them on a virtual field trip to a volcano and let them see it rather than just read about it. Futher research about virtual field trips is needed. We need to ask the students if they feel that they get the same experience from virtual field trips as they do from regular field trips.

http://www.phschool.com/eteach/professional_development/virtual_field_trips/essay.html