Beam me up, Scotty.

As I was glued to my TV on Tuesday night watching the election coverage, I discovered that many stations had really gone all out with their technology usage during their broadcasts. Instead of static maps and boring political analysts, some stations were using smart boards, interactive graphics, and wonder of all wonders, holograms. In case you didn't happen to catch any of CNN's coverage, they were using holographic spokespeople to report from different locations around the country. They even beamed in a hip-hop celebrity (Will I. Am from the Black Eyed Peas) to discuss his support of President-Elect Obama. I think this new technology could really open up some interesting ways to report the news. Imagine having a reporter that's station in a war zone or on location after a devastating natural disaster being able to be holographically shown on the news. Who knows, maybe we could one day have our favorite reporter beamed into our own living room to interact with.
In case you missed seeing this, here is a video of CNN's new technology in action:

Girls and Technology

TECHNOLOGY, GIRLS, TECHNOLOGY, GIRLS

I feel, after completing research for many of my assignments and attending the KSRA Reading Conference in October, that the United States is definitely behind the times with the use of technology. Okay, maybe not the entire United States - but definitely some specific locations. I found a website based out of Queensland, Australia that actually believes girls can and should become more involved in ICT endeavors. They have actually created a website devoted just for girls interested in ICT. The entire website has many useful links associated with technology and the way they incoprorate within the educational system.


Main Site Visited:
Department of Education, Training and the Arts --- Queensland

Visit these links that are also posted there:

Girls in ICT Information

Girls in ICT Website

More Mathematical (and other) Resources

While I was working on my lessons for the blackboard project, I felt it was necessary to include resources for students. Everyone has been providing such great resources, but I’m beginning to wonder: If we provide our students with so many resources, will they use them or will they be overwhelmed? I narrowed a list to six resources for mathematics and included a quick statement about what they include. Then if students want to add more, they may. For those of you that would find mathematics resources (there are other subjects in some as well) of use, here is my list:
http://www.mathwarehouse.com – provides interactive tools for practicing prerequisite skills (algebra, geometry, etc.)
www.purplemath.com – includes examples and easy-to-understand explanations on a variety of mathematical topics.
http://www.hippocampus.org/?gclid=CM6l65_gw5YCFQNfFQod3Wt1wg – multimedia source for calculus topics (lessons to watch and listen). There are other subjects at this site as well.
http://mathforum.org/math.topics.html - from Drexel University, this encompasses a wide range of mathematical topics at a number of levels. All sorts of goodies in this resource.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ - “ the web’s most extensive mathematics resource”. This site is a bit more technical and may be hard to understand at times, but it really does have almost everything.
http://free.ed.gov/subjects.cfm?subject_id=186&toplvl=33 – breaks math down into the five areas that the PSSA tests on: Algebra, Data Analysis, Geometry, Numbers and Operation, and Measurement. Calculus IS on there! You have to search around for what you want, but Algebra will lead you to a calculus application. This is a really comprehensive source. Not all of the links are equally engaging, so again, hunt around. This site also provides other subject lessons and activities.
I hope you find these useful! I’m actually going to use a few of these and other topic-specific sites this week in my calculus class. These resources are free, so we only need technology that will support it – and we have that.

Literacy & Technology

Just returned from the KRSA Reading Conference in King of Prussia. I heard a great speaker Dr. Donald Leu from the University of Connecticut. He spoke in depth about the need for a connection between literacy and technology. He spoke about how our country is far behind the times in preparing our children for future endeavors in the world of technology. Please take a moment to check out the website related to Dr. Leu and the University of Connecticut. There are many useful links depending on what you are interested in reading about.

http://www.literacy.uconn.edu/littech.htm

Software Essentials for the Modern Educator

Today I came across a link to Judy Brown's website. In bright red letters, I read the words, "I have been working on mobile learning and tools specific to mobile learning," and I was hooked! Although the page was not about mobile learning, it still had a lot of great information relating to Web 2.0 tools. She listed an amazing site that would be useful for any educator because it provides a wide variety of software tools that educators want to use for free; or at least, most of them are free!

Visit the "Software Essentials for the Modern Educator" page to find new tools that may be helpful to you as an educator.

Podcasting and Technology Budget

In November, I will be going to a mathematical conference for two days, and already I am wondering what to do to continue my students’ learning when I am gone. I certainly have nothing against leaving substitute plans, but from experience, if the substitute shows up, he or she is often not certified in mathematics. This is not so much a problem when I leave a detailed description of the algebra needed to solve some problems. However, no matter the depth of the explanation, I cannot expect someone to come in and understand the lesson I have prepared for AP Calculus; this is not a required course to graduate. Since time is short, and concepts are many, I do not want students to be stagnant. The wonderful idea of podcasting may just suite me for this absence in the classroom. On eLearningnews.net, http://www.elearningnews.net/view_news.php?news_id=1063 ,I found an article that states:
'Podcasting for Learning in Universities' offers a model for podcasting, describes how podcasting is used in universities worldwide and has a practical step-by-step guide to producing podcasts for education. It also shows that:

• Students benefit from podcasting making resources easier to use, accessible, reusable and more fun
• Lecturers benefit as podcasting is easy, quick and DIY

Clearly, I’d be excited to use this technology if I knew our network could support it! This brings me to a question: how much is appropriate to spend on technology each year in a school district? I’d love to hear your opinion!

True E-Learning?

Inspired by the YouTube video shared by Chris, I recalled something that I had seen a while back that is less e-learning overall and more technology, how we interact with it and how it interacts with us. These last two elements fascinate me.

The title is "The Machine is Us/using Us."



So I take away from this that true e-learning is learning that is done not by us, but by the "E" that we use... :)

Joking aside, while this video is not specifically directed at e-learning (it was produced by an ethnographer), it nevertheless is a great tie-in with Chris' offering if viewed in the light of our evolving interactivity with e-resources. If (maybe a big if) there are fundamental changes in how we interact as a society, this most certainly warrants a look at how this affects learning.

By the way, 4 1/2 minutes seems to be a pretty common time for these YouTube instructional/inspirational vids. Perhaps that has something to do with our class discussion on attention spans...

Star Trek Classroom

A group of "techperts" (experts) at Durham University have designed the first interactive classroom desks. The multi-touch desks are very similar to giant Apple iPhones and allow interaction among students. "The team has linked up with manufacturers to design software, and desks that recognize multiple touches on the desktop, using vision systems that can see infrared light.
SynergyNet will integrate ICT into the fabric of the classroom. The new desk with a 'multi-touch' surface will be the central component; the desks will be networked and linked to a main smartboard offering new opportunities for teaching and collaboration."

The group recognized that this product could help collaborative group work improve its outcomes and also engage hard to reach learners. Watch the demo - I enjoyed the dominoes!

http://smart.dur.ac.uk/index.php?n=Main.MultitouchPage

Contingency Plans

After reading the design for the virtual classroom chapter in William Horton’s eLearning by Design, something in particular stuck with me. “The best way to prevent problems is to anticipate them.” This is not only true of eLearning, but as this is a type of teaching and learning that may be new to some of us, it is exceptionally important. I believe it is hard enough trying to create an engaging online meeting without worrying about all the potential downfalls when you have that meeting. Though, why spend the time in creating something great if it is going to fail when it is implemented? You might as well take the extra step and create a problem-solution list for technology failures, lack of student involvement, personal emergencies, and so on. This idea truly has me thinking about how useful a classroom management course could have been before I stepped into a classroom. Now I have created a mental list of potential problems and solutions about some common student misbehavior as well as problems with students understanding certain concepts. Human behavior is unpredictable, so prepare for as much as you can; it makes life easier. What are some situations in which you obtained benefits from anticipating problems?

Tools for Teachers and One for ALL

I know that it is that time of year when all teachers are just starting to get into your routine for the year. Personally, I am still working on it! However, you may want to add the following site to your routine when you are planning your lessons.

http://www.internet4classrooms.com/

Contained on this website are specific resources for individual subjects from K-12. By this, I mean that they actually break down the resources by grade levels (K-12) and have resources also broken down by subject area. They also have links for practice modules and have daily updated brain teasers and such. I can speak from personal experience as a Geometry and PreCalculus teacher at the high school level that this source is one of the most specific resources that I have seen on the Web for subject areas. The materials are always being added as well!

Another interesting website I found actually lists the Web 2.0 sources. When you click on one of the names, a small toolbar shows up at the bottom of the screen to let you know a little bit about the website's purpose and provides a link so that you can go to the homepage. I knew there were a lot of Web 2.0 websites, but this list contains some I have never even heard of! You should be able to find what you are looking for here because they do have a search bar as well.



http://www.go2web20.net/

Software Tutorials

Beginning an online course or using a new program for the first time can be a daunting task for some people. I have found a few FREE resources that make it easy to create short video tutorials to help the new learner get started greater ease. You might want to try them out for future reference: Camstudio and Freez Video Screen Capture.

Great Online Course Management Site

I would like to preface this by saying this is my first blog ever.
Now, after spending (surfing) time on the Web, I came across a website that I don't believe has been mentioned before. If it has, I apologize, but I think its a valuable resource for teachers and administrators to use if they want to set up an online course. Edu2.0 is a site for anyone - even those with minimal technical skills - to set up an online course for any subject for FREE. It is a great online course management system. Take the 3-minute tour http://www.edu20.org/tour and you will be impressed with how many resources are available.

The term edu2.0 stands for "next generation education" and also mentions that its a great tool for parents who want to home school their children. They also allow you to upload information and host if it for free. If you start at http://www.edu20.org/company/about , check out different tabs. Its an eye-appealling website that offers numerous options for the online teacher. Great site!