Blog #4

Paragraph 1: Personal Digital Assistants
What are Personal Digital Assistants? How do you use them in classrooms?
     Personal Digital Assistants are also known as handhed devices.  For short they are also reffered to as PDAs.  Many people use them to help organize their daily lives.  Teachers say they are very helpful in the classroom for "instruction and positively impact student motivation."  Personal digital assistants usely run on the Palm operating system and some on windows, but I feel that with the new Android system many classrooms may see a change in they systems.
Paragraph 2: Online Surveys
Why do we use online survey tools? How does it help us in our classrooms? What are 2 good rules for writing good surveys in your opinion?
     We use online surveys to help collect data for different curriculums.  Surveys can help in classrooms by allowing the teachers top learn more about their students, as well as allowing students learn more about themselves.  In my opinion my first rule would be to make the survey questions repeat themselves, but in a different way to ensure more acurate results.  Make many of the questions yes or no.

Paragraph 3: Conclusion
     I feel that technology and school have to go hand and hand with the growth of it in the world and our everyday lives.  I believe that eventually many schools will use less books and more online sources for their teachings.  With the growth of technology and its many uses, many students can access things for class without being in class.  I enjoy the idea of being able to connect with students anytime I am available.




Reference
Jonassen, David H., and David H. Jonassen. Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, 2008.

Bog #3

Paragraph1: According to the website,

please tell what you find, what you think, and what interests you. How and why may you use Inspiration in your classroom? What do you think about Webspiration Classroom? 

From the website I found that the two computer programs could be very beneficial to students of the more technical age.  I would probably use Inspiration in my classroom a little bit, but I could not use the program for my class all of the time.  I am just strongly believe in learning by doing, so I would probably still have my students to do some hand written assignments just because that was the way I learned things in school. I also have the same feeling toward using Webspiration in the classroom as well.

Paragraph 2: According to the website and the textbook, answer the following questions:

What type of writing activities would make the best use of technology in your classroom?

Writing is an activity that benefits from multiple revisions and high-quality feedback. Recognizing that your teaching time is limited, how can you have students help each other during writing? How can you use technology tools to support peer feedback?

Recall the first time you had to teach a new topic or skill. How well did you know  the topic before you taught it? Did you know it better after you taught it?

I feel that for the field of education that I plan to teach that technology will play a very big point in many of the assignments and activities that my class will do.  I would use the creative writing for my class.  I would use the online classroom tools, such as blogs and discussion boards, and even email so that the students would be able to interact and help each other on assignments without being in a classroom, or even in the same room.  I would also monitor what was being said and passed around to hep prevent the students from cheating and sharing answers.  The first topic or skill I can remeber teaching was a cheer.  I was a cheerleader at the time and  once I taught the cheer I felt I knew it somewhat better.

Paragraph 3: Conclusion

Teaching and learning are two things, or skills, that you become better at by doing, in my opinion.  With technology and computers becoming more prevalent to everything we do, teachers and educators must learn to teach more things through technology and the web.  The world has become more fast paced, and will continue to do so.  Technology is become one of the most important factors in almost every part of every one's life education must keep up.






Referenceshttp://www.inspiration.com/webspirationclassroom
http://www.inspiration.com/videos/Inspiration
Jonassen, David H., and David H. Jonassen. Meaningful Learning with Technology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, 2008.