Who is teaching?

Something that was mentioned right at the end of class during our discussion of Web 2.0 really struck a chord with me.  Instead of the teacher standing in front of the classroom and lecturing, we are now presented with all of this new technology.  Is this really a good thing though?  If we don’t know what to do with it, it can be a very dangerous prospect i feel.

Though I rarely knew a student who actually read the ENTIRE textbook (even what wasn’t required), textbooks have an ending.  They have restrictions as to what you are learning.  For a child to be able to explore whatever most interests them about a topic is great.  Then again, it can be dangerous.  Say for example, in a high school or middle school class the students are told to research a particular person in history.  After writing a paper, the students will include their resources on where they retrieved this information.  The information that the child is learning could be completely false.  Unless the information they are writing is completely obvious (like the lice/holocaust situation) the teacher will most likely have no clue.  Her students could be walking away from class with a bunch of incorrect information.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for integrating technology into the classroom.  But until we can figure out a safe way of controlling what our students are researching (possibly giving them certain sites that they are restricted to when doing research that we know contain true facts) then I think the Internet shouldn’t be used as a research tool.  If we continue to use the Internet as our only source of reading/researching, what will happen to the thousands of books in the library?  Why would we even need a library; why not just have a room filled with computers and call it the Research Lab…?  Books may be restricting, but is it better to be restricted to accurate information or given an unlimited source of questionable facts?

Technology at its finest

Today I experienced one of the Internet’s most annoying features.  You know, when you’re at an important part of your Internet search and all of a sudden that box pops up that says “Internet Explorer is shutting down – – ‘Send error report’ or ‘Don’t send error report.'”  I think that box is dreadful.  I was about 47 minutes through that one hour Will Richardson speech when that happened to me.  Of course it couldn’t happen 13 minutes later when I had finished watching the video.  Personally, I think that the video was very poorly made and I couldn’t hear/see what was going on very well.  So, afterwards I decided to read parts of Will’s blog, since I am more of a visual person than an audio person anyways.  When you click on ‘ed blogs,’ it’s amazing how much information is in there.  This can be so helpful to a teacher who is interested in learning more about how to use technology in the classroom but doesn’t know where/how to start.  I think that every school needs someone like Will to present to the school’s educators and give tutorials on technology in the classroom.  Our society is becoming more and more technology based…why not our classrooms as well?

Inspiration

After browsing through both Inspiration and Kidspiration, it was obvious to me why Kidspiration was created.  Although both programs have similar features and accomplish the same goal of organizational webs, Kidspiration was a lot more fun to play with.  I used Inspiration only once in my undergraduate experience and it was just basic web creation.  We didn’t really get a chance to play with the colors and different features; which is disappointing because that is what makes Inspiration such a great program.  It does so much more than just create web diagrams. 

Even in the 10 minutes or so in class when we had a chance to explore Kidspiration it was apparent to me that this program could be very addicting.  I can totally see how kids could get distracted by the cool features and fun animation.  I think I spent a solid 5 minutes using the drawing tools to make a funny looking man with a mustache when I could have simply chosen a preselected graphic.  But that wouldn’t have been as much fun.  When given Kidspiration as a tool, students most definitely need to be given explicit instructions ahead of time as to what is expected of them.  Otherwise, they will spend all of their time drawing funny looking men with mustaches…

Microsoft Excel

Its funny, but in class today it almost seemed as though more people were familiar with Microsoft Excel (the basic features) than Microsoft Word as we used it last week.  Excel has always been a program that has sat in my “Microsoft Programs” folder and rarely been touched.  I can only account for one time that I have ever even used it in the classroom:  during student teaching I had to incorporate technology and I chose to use Excel to have the students enter data such as height, length of arm span, and how far they could jump, because they were working on a measurement unit.  This was a first grade activity so they seemed to enjoy watching me explain how to enter the data (similar to what we did in class with the M&M’s) after they had collected it and watching the graphs compare/contrast the different measurements.  Since I do not have my own classroom yet, I haven’t been able to use the different features of Excel, but I guess that I should probably learn more about what I can do with it, so that when the time comes, I will be prepared.   It’s true, what was said in class, Excel has always been viewed as the “nerd” program, used only for accounting and math.  I had that misconception as well.  It was great to be able to hear about all of the different things that we could use it for, in subjects other than math.  Students probably have that misconception as well, so as long as we clear that up, Excel can be a great tool for them to use.  Who knows…maybe in a few years, elementary students will have mastered the Excel program and it will no longer have that label.

Microsoft Word

As much as I love using the computer, Microsoft Word is not really my thing.  I use it for writing papers or other simple tasks, but that’s pretty much it.  This week’s class was kind of a refresher for me.  I have not used those features of Word in a very long time.  Anytime I need a worksheet or flyer created, I use Power Point.  Microsoft Power Point is my go-to program.  I find it easier to use for those kinds of things because everything is by itself; the text boxes, the graphics, etc.  There is no confusion like in Word where you have to change the picture to wrap around the text, or you get frustrated because you inserted something and all of a sudden your Word document looks completely different than it did two seconds ago.  I have a feeling if I took the time to understand Word more, I would begin to use it for brochures and ditto sheets more often, but for right now, I’ll stick to Power Point.