Reflection #10: My EDIT 2000 Adventure

What is your idea about technology integration in education now?

EDIT 2000 was a very educational course for me and I learned many new skills that will be useful to me even though I don’t intend on teaching.

What I liked most about this course though was that by the way it was taught, it was made to be just as interesting to non-education majors as it is for future teachers.

Because I didn’t have to learn all sorts of specifically teacher-y things that would have been predominantly unhelpful in my audiology career, I got the chance to learn even more about what interests me and in the meantime have it tie in with the required course specifications of EDIT 2000. For that I am most grateful.

I gained a lot of perspective this semester about how integral technology is in the classroom, even in the broadest sense. Many of the things we learned about could be applied not only to a k-12 classroom but also in college classes or even professional board rooms or in meetings that have the intention of updating the employees on new information.

I interned at an audiologists office a few summers ago, and heard some of them talking about how they would have to go to meetings and essentially take classes to leads about a new procedure, or go to some sort of informational workshop and many of these audiologists word get so frustrated about how slowly the information was presented and always commented on how irritatingly dry these sessions were. If some if the technologies talked about in EDIT 2000 were implemented in these types of situations then I think audiologists would find them not only more bearable but would also take away more from the presentations and in turn have a greater wealth of knowledge in order to better help their patients.

All in all, the possibilities are endless, and that is pretty great.

LAD Documentation Post #5

Within the final week of working on our LAD project, we added on a chart to satisfy the timeline/reflection requirement. Upon publishing, we ran into a few glitches that were somewhat difficult to figure out how to solve. The buttons that led to the reading materials wouldn’t work, and then our kwl chart just disappeared, which was bizarre. Luckily, though, we got these issues resolved pretty quickly.

Overall, I am very pleased with our final product. I think that, although some of the rubric requirements aim the website at a younger audience, the site still provides a lot of solid information for parents that are trying to find out the basics of hearing and communication disabilities. It’s a great resource for parents to use.

This project has even educational in several ways. It gave me a great opportunity to not only broaden my knowledge on something i am passionate about but also to learn a new way to teach others and convey to them what is important. I’m so edited because I think that this will potentially be a very useful skill in my future career.

Reflection #9: SmartBoards… Worth the Cost?

I think that SmartBoards are really awesome tools that can be super-beneficial in the classroom when used correctly. But, the problem with this is that very few teachers actually do use them correctly.

Many of the teachers at my high school had SmartBoards in their classrooms; however, some of the teachers just didn’t know how to use them at all and others would spend more class time fighting with the SmartBoard than they would actually spend teaching. It was most irritating. Especially in classes where the whole class period was needed to learn the material (math) and instead of learning, students were stuck watching the teacher fight with the SmartBoard.

It is my opinion that, while SmartBoards have a lot of potential and could easily innovate the learning experience, there is no feasible way to educate teachers enough so that they can use the SmartBoards to the fullest of their potential. Teachers for the most part just don’t have the motivation or time to learn how to use them correctly, so instead they just wing it and end up wasting time.

LAD Documentation Post #4

Within the past week or so, my group has made a fair amount of progress on our website. We got the intro video posted, and the lip-reading video posted. Then we ran into a playback issue with the lip-reading video, and got that resolved expediently. Our biggest challenge thus far was incorporating an app or technology into the website. Finally, we got that figured out. This is done in game-format. And the game is actually pretty fun. I played it twice to see how much I had learned from working on this project.

We’ve been working on the finishing touches: making the site parent-friendly and not at all overwhelming. That is, after all, the main goal. 

We presented our general ideas to the class and got almost all positive feedback, which is both good and bad. Good in the sense that it went over well and nobody saw any glaring issues. Bad because now we only know to fix what we see, we didn’t really get any advice or ideas from other groups. This can be looked at either way. (Is the glass half-full or half-empty…?)

Almost every time I look at the site, I think of new ideas and new ways to take it further. At this point in time, it’s a matter of how much is too much?

 

All-in-all, I think it’s going well. No complains. I’m still very excited about this project. As I’ve said before, and as I said during our presentation: parents need a site that has all the basic information consolidated in one place but is gentle and kind and not overwhelming. My hope for this site is that it will fulfill this need. If it does, then it will be a good resource for me to send the parents of my future patients to. I really hope that this is helpful to all those parents… 

LAD Documentation Post #3

This week, my group finished our author introduction video. I put the different parts together and loaded it onto the site. We also got the lip-reading exercise video loaded onto the site and have begun putting the finishing touches on.

 

I’m very excited about how the site is working out so far. I think that it is very wholesome in the information that it contains and could possibly be very helpful to the parents that I hope to be working with one day once I become an audiologist. In regard to the rubric content, I think that a few things could be polished up and improved slightly but for the most part, we are almost done, which is exciting. We will be meeting on Wednesday to talk about the project thus far and hopefully from that and the peer feedback, we will know exactly what needs to be done to make earsandvoices.weebley.com as good as it can possibly be.

LAD Documentation Post #2

Progress this week on the LAD project has been more theoretical than visual. We’ve done a lot of planning, a lot of research, and a lot of learning how to work the Weebly site. On Monday we brainstormed ideas for I+1 Zone and the Assessment. Continued work on introduction and the Show What You Know as well as the teaching materials. Wednesday consisted of loading Anna Lee’s power point on speech disorders and thinking about ideas for the Show What You Know section. We came up with an idea to make a lip-reading exercise to that parents can grasp what their deaf children go through in a silent world. I managed to get the sound taken out of our chosen video, but ran into some issues over break when I tried to load it onto the site. That is a work in progress still. As of now, we have polls up and a comments section… all in all, the project is coming together quite nicely. We are, honestly, nearly finished.

LAD Documentation Post #1

This week, we have made a lot of progress on our LAD project. As a group, we’ve started putting our site together, including the home page, introduction video, and the hook page. We’ve begun researching for our topic and putting together Power Points that inform parents about hearing disabilities and speech impairments. We have started making plans for what the rest of the project will consist of in regard to the I +1 Zone, standards, and assessments.

We began working on our introduction video at the end of class on monday. In order to incorporate creativity within the video, we decided to learn our names in sign language as well as how to say, “Hello, my name is.” Our video is not quite complete yet, due to time constraints difficulty in learning how to sign, and collaborating with each other on the best way to create our video.

Gaming: a Means To An End of Real-Life Problems (Reflection #8)

I’ve only had one true experience with project based learning in my prior schooling. It was sophomore year in high school. We had to take what we learned in class about the French Revolution and go and research even more and turn it into a children’s book. We had several months to work on the project and the finished product was really awesome. My group had a lot of  fun making it, but more importantly we learned a lot in the process. I don’t remember a whole lot from that class, except for about the French Revolution.

 

“Johnny: The Mediocre Human”

 

I think that, from a student’s perspective, project based learning is really fun and helps us truly learn the material instead of temporarily remembering it for the test and then forgetting it. However, if the work-period isn’t long enough or the project isn’t explained well then project-based learning can be really stressful. If this is the case then the stress factor can be distracting and inhibit the learning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a teacher, I would imagine that the project designing process would be  very time consuming since it would have to be a detailed plan. And having to answer student questions and provide help when necessary may be arduous. But the finished product, the excitement from students about learning, would be so gratifying that all of the work and time spent would definitely be worth it, like in the video about the school-design project (http://www.edutopia.org/mountlake-terrace-geometry-real-world-video).

Reflection #7 (10-7-13)

• Describe your experience as a user of the tool/ app/ website.  What is your opinion about using this tool/ app/ website to teach someone something?  My stop animation project focused on an app called AllRecipie.Com. This is an easy-to-maneuver cooking app. You can tell it what main ingredients you want to use, what meal you’re cooking, how long you have to cook/prepare, and the way in which you want to cook it. It gives a lot of recipe options and is very simple and easy to use, especially for those who are new to the kitchen. I, being a novice myself, found it very easy to navigate and find exactly what I was looking for. The directions are simplistic so it is a very good tool for teaching someone how to cook.

AllRecipe.Com Logo

•  You have at least learned 5 different tools/ apps/ websites from your peers.  What is your opinion about using these emerging technologies in 21st century learning?  I think that using these technologies in the classroom can be beneficial but should not be used at a main learning tool. I think that the most efficient usage of them is for a side-tool and to assist teaching, or for at-home practice. Many people find it difficult to learn without face-to-face assistance from an instructor. Technology is good but it cannot replace human interaction.

http://blog.alleducationalsoftware.com/files/2013/08/Children-using-digital-tablet-with-teacher-300×200.jpg

• Describe your experience in making a stop animation video.  What are the pros and cons of this technique?  What suggestions will you give to others who want to try this technique?  I had some issues with my stop animation video. Since my project included cooking, my hands were dirty and thus it was difficult to take pictures as frequently as I needed to. I also spent a lot of time fighting with iMovie, since I had never used it before and was having a lot of trouble learning how to make it work the way I needed it to. The finished product was somewhat choppy and, honestly, a little boring. But, I think that it overall accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish, which is giving information about the app and showing how it can be used as a learning tool. I would suggest to take a LOT of pictures to make it flow smoothly, because otherwise it will be choppy and resemble a slide show instead of a movie.

The Finished Product

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4b1f17440000000000e78729/cameras-are-about-to-get-1000-times-better-at-taking-low-light-photos.jpg

 

Reflection #6 Augmented Reality

 

“Augmented Reality… is the fusion of digital information with either live streaming video or the viewer’s real environment” (http://augmented-reality-in-education.wikispaces.com). Augmented Reality (AR) is gradually becoming more and more commonplace, be it in sporting events, walking down the street, gaming, and even in the classroom.

 

AR tools are great tools for teaching, if used correctly. They open up the door to a whole new realm that takes knowledge and learning from the textbook and turns it into something real and tangible. Students now have the ability to use their phones

and go out into the community. With the   use of AR apps, students can learn about almost anything by simply scanning a building or picture.

 

There are, however, some issues surrounding AR technology. The main issue that I can see would be that although most students have smartphones and/or tablets, not all of them do and it is unfair to those that don’t to do activities in class that they cannot partake in. Another issue is, as pointed out at

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/feb/11/augmented-reality-teaching-tool-trend, “the longevity of each provider, and as each captures its share of the market the transition to subscription with no consideration of what education has in terms of financial resources”, which somewhat goes hand-in-hand. 

 

 

 

There is a definite upside though. They are great tools and really get students involved and (here’s the key:) interested in learning. http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/feb/11/augmented-reality-teaching-tool-trend says that it is “a new platform on which providers are emerging and allowing access for free as a means of capturing their share of the market”.  Many of these AR games even allow teachers to put their own spin on the games and make them more custom-made to their classes, which is awesome.