Module six post

M6 Blog - Visual Art Content Technology Integrations The thirteenth chapter of Roblyer and Doering's Integrating Education Technology into Teaching talks about integrating technology into both music and visual art classes. I am going to be working with visual arts so I focused mainly on those sections of the chapter. I found technology integrations that made sense and that I had already used and some new things too. One really helpful thing in this chapter was the Top Ten list on page 358. It lists different ways to integrate technology into the classroom. I agreed with all of the ideas that were listed, except for the virtual museum one. I like the idea of doing a virtual museum trip for a short class or with a substitute, but if I am going to display artwork for the students I would most likely use a power point type presentation instead. Also it is very different seeing something in a virtual setting and seeing something in real life. Artwork is one of those things in particular. To look back at the semester, I have learned a lot of different skills and found many helpful resources that I did not know or even know about before. Mainly I feel like I have gained a bit of confidence and understanding in using the computer and programs on it. For me, that is a big deal because I generally feel very disconnected from technology and online activities. It has been easier to operate my ipad and computer since being in this class and I feel that I can accomplish more things through technology than I thought possible. I still do not know where I stand on the topic of social media like facebook and twitter, but I have come to understand the ways that they can be found useful. Advantages of Integrating Technology into Teaching Art add up to be very helpful to students, mainly for visual demo/example display reasons, but for other reasons too. One advantage is that promethian boards or even just slide screens can be used with a projecting system of some sort to display examples large enough for students to see all at one time. On top of that, the addition of a document camera would be a huge help for displaying live demos on the larger screen. Also, the Keynote program from apple is great for preparing slideshows for art history segments or example slide shows to view on the projection system. Roblyer and Doering mention Powerpoint in the text on page 367, but both work well. The last advantage of integrating technology into the art classroom is the the fact that databases and programs are great resources for digital images of artworks for lecture and reference. The text lists many different resources on page 365 (Roblyer and Doering, 2013). Most of these resources also list biographic facts and the name, size, and medium of each work. I like to use Art Authority for ipad. Disadvantages of Integrating Technology into Teaching Art do exist even though, as I have shown above, they have benefits. The disadvantages of Introducing technology into the art classroom include concerns about originality, plagiarism, and copy-written materials. The most obvious concern is that about plagiarism and copy-written visuals or ideas. The text also identifies this concern as a major one in the art classroom (Roblyer and Doering, 364, 2013). This is a concern in any class, with or without technology, but the internet is very easy to 'borrow from' for some. Two Most Helpful Projects or Products of this Class this Semester The first project that comes to mind as being very helpful is the Technology Site Review. Seeing all of the technologies installed and being demoed at Liberty Park School really helped me get a picture of what would be useful in an art classroom. I really really like the Elmo type document camera that we looked at on the field trip. I think that this would be so useful for pretty much everyday of a visually oriented class. It was also good to learn about acquiring funds for technologies. The second assignment that was particularly helpful was the Letterhead/Mail Merge/Brochure Assignment. I was really glad to be able to use Excel, even if only that little bit. I would like to learn more about that program because I feel like it has many helpful options to make use of. Also, I enjoyed designing the brochure and class letterhead and may even go in and improve both of them when I have some time. Works Cited Roblyer and Doering. Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. Pearson. 6th ed. 2013. Print.

M5 Blog Post

Lately, I have been working on my wiki and it has been difficult. I found that in order to make a good wiki page you also have to have accounts to all of the other plethora of social networking type sites. I have been getting bogged down trying to get through all of the set up required to use these preliminary sites that my initial gusto for creating a wiki has lessened. Regardless of this, I am still working hard on getting the wiki ready for presenting to the class. From reading the text and searching the web I was able to find these helpful items that make wiki work a little easier. :) The first item that I searched for was another wiki that would be similar to mine. The wiki that I located can be found at https://mbhskesslerart.pbworks.com/w/page/17936774/Class%20Information. The wiki has places for lesson and slideshow type information and places to showcase student work. I think that those two capabilities are the most useful in an artclassroom. I think that one could even make use of the gallery of student work by assigning critiques as homework for the students to do online by commenting on each work. Secondly, I found two podcasts that seem helpful to me or to students one is called Art A Go-Go, and the other is called MOMA Talks: Panels and symposia. Art A Go-Go says that its goal is to "educate and entertain" and the MOMA podcast seems intriguing for upper school students. I tried to navigate the social bookmarking sites and ended up with del.icio.us because it was easier to create a profile for and was mentioned in our text (Roblyer and Doyle). I was able to find interesting articles and pages but it was hard to find someone worth following. I suppose I am missing something here. Lol. The two widgets that I found were both made from a basic form at widgetbox.com. They are a calendar widget and a slideshow widget. I was unable to embed the widgets but I am including thevweb address that is at the top of their page. Sorry about this... http://www.widgetbox.com/i/efba0a56-524c-45c8-803c-0d44d3fb4758 is the calendar widget and thanks for reading guys!

Module 4 blog- chapters 7&8

Chapters 7 and 8 of the text discuss how the internet plays a role in various learning situations such as distance learning which is talked about in chapter seven. The role of the internet in the classroom setting might be difficult to determine, so reading these chapters was extremely useful. Some of the main items of discussion are listed and described below. URLs- a url can identify much information about any given website. Roblyer and Doering say that "the last three letters in the address lline constitue what is called a domain designator, which typically indicates the type of content one would find at the website (Pg.216)."  Some examples of domain designators are .com, .gov, and .org. Search engines- just like learning how to use the card catalogue at the library can help you quickly and easily find one particular book out of a sea of titles, learning to use a search engine effectively can help people direct themselves to the specific information that they are looking for. The text states that there are two ways of using a search engine. These are subject index searches and keyword searches (page 219) Internet tools- Roblyer and Doering say the "most powerful uses of internet tools are for social networking and collaborating with others in many different locations (page 223)." The internet tool that I would choose to use in a classroom setting is ePortfolio. I like that, according to the text, the ePortfolio is "cleaner, more organized and more professional... (Page 224)." I would use ePortfolio.com or a similar site to allow students in an upper level art class to assemble their AP and/or college portfolios. These portfolios are critiqued by important decision-makers and need to look as polished and professional as possible. ePortfolio.com looks like a website that could help acheive those goals. Web based lesson- http://www.globalschoolnet.org seems like a good source for a web based lesson. The text says that the site is a "clearinghouse for more than 2,000 online collaborative projects, organized by topic, grade, and project date (Page 243)."  Favorite websites Voicethread.com- i think that voicethread is a great program. I already had the app on my ipad. It is listed in the book on page 240 in table 8.1. Voicethread is grouped into the electronic publishing genre of types and examples of web based lessons and projects. A teacher or student can use voicethread because it is a very simple app. It is also free! This application could be combined with websites like youtube.com or vimeo.com (listed as "Video and Photo-Sharing Communities" on page 225.) to reach students in the classroom or in a distance learning program. Kinderart.com-pg. 243 (inside chapter 8) says that kinderart has "how to lessons and activities."       This website would be grouped into web based lessons and projects. It is often hard to make lessons  for younger children that still teach the standards required by the state, so any resources that can assist in that are useful. Source: Roblyer & Doering. Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. 6th Ed. Pearson. 2013. Print.

M3 blog

Chapter Six talks about hypermedia applications in the classroom. After reading about all of the different types of commercial hypermedia products, I decided to write about the collections of developmental resources. These are found on page 175 of our text. I looked at a specific website thst the text listed under graphics for teachers. The website is teachingheart.net and seems like an excellent resource for educational graphics for teachers, especially those teaching pre-K through fourth grade. After rerviewing all of the types of hypermedia authoring software, I decided to write about hypermedia production software. The particular software that I researched was adobe's creative suite. Their website is     adobe.com/products/creativesuite/web.html This could be used to help upperclass art students to make virtual portfolios to document and share their art with the community, jobs, galleries, and college recruiters. The text states that "multimedia and hypermedia authoring tools can help students generate new and different perspectives on organizing and presenting information" on page 174. Another reason to swithch to a digital option for portfolio creation is stated by Roblyer and Doering on page 178 of our text. They say, "in today's digital world, powerful personal computers and ubiquitous electronic networking allow people to incorporate a variety of media into their communications. Indeed, hypermedia publishing may eventually supercede paper publishing in importance and impact; moreover, the students in today's classroom will be on the forefront of this succession, both in use and development." students that are aware of their own capabilities thanks to the help of technology can feel confident and knowlegeable in the classroom. On page 193, the text states that "as with other types of hypermedia, student-created products are among the most powerful and constructivist strategies." Page 185 of the text mentions that while hypermedia production software can create confident students that are excited about getting to work on hypermedia, teachers should structure the students' ability to use authoring software to make sure that they student does not "overshaddow" the information that they are preseting with bells and whistles available to them via hypermedia.

Educational software tools

Module two blog post- educational software tools
 
     There are many types of software tools available to teachers and schools that help with learning, productivity, and provide students with experiences that the school would otherwise be unable to provide. According to Roblyer and Doering, there are six kinds of educational software, three kinds of productivity software, and there are six kinds of software support tools. These programs make up the body of software that schools use today.
     Chapter three in our text talks about instructional software. As I stated earlier, there are six types of this kind of software. These genres can sometimes seem to overlap, but each grouping has it's own specific characteristics (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.79). These types of software all help to teach students in various ways.
      The first type of instructional software is called drill and practice. For this type of software, I researched a program called Quizlet (quizlet.com). It is a website as well as an app, so it's very handy for when you're on the go. Quizlet is mainly about flashcards, but also gives other practice formats like a matching quiz or fill in the blanks section. Drill and practice is all about helping students gain automaticity, or automatic recall of information that they have previously learned (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.84). I find that practice with flashcards is one of the best ways to do this, so Quizlet seems very useful. It is also relatively simple and easy to use.
      The second type of instructional software is tutorial software. Tutorials are meant to teach a subject in its entirety without the aid of other materials (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.86). There are two types of tutorial: linear and branching (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.87). The tutorials that I researched are available at www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line2.htm. This website holds many tutorials that are about learning how to use a mac computer. This is something that I am still learning and the tutorial videos were helpful and easy to follow, so this site is now in my bookmarks.
      Another genre of instructional software is simulation software. This type of software "is a computerized model of a real or imagined system that is designed to teach how the system works," say Roblyer and Doering. The simulation software that I found was on this website: digitalfrog.com. This program allows for a more humane experience with animal dissection for science purposes. I had to dissect a rat in tenth grade and I felt deeply for all of the rats, pigs, and even cats that are dissected by the hundreds or thousands every year. This type of program can give students peace of mind AND the scientific instruction that they need.
      Instructional games are another type of instructional software. Many students will be excited about the idea of playing games in class, and these games help ensure that the students are learning. I found a website called www.gamesclassroom.com that offers many different types of instructional games. Roblyer and Doering advise teachers to emphasize the things that students should learn rather than just the rules of a particular game, to include all groups of students in the game, and to use games sparingly so that they do not become stale or take time out of your lessons.
      The next-to-last group of instructional software is problem solving. Problem solving software can be based on a particular content area or can be content free (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.99). Either way, this type of software should help students learn skills like metacognition, analyzing, sequencing, inferring, etc (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.99). The problem solving software that I found is called alien rescue and can be found at this website: www.edb.utexas.edu/alienrescue. It's a free tool that teaches science problem solving skills. 
      The last type of instructional software is integrated learning systems. These programs both instruct students and track their grades (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.102). Programs like these have increased in popularity due to the emphasis put on accountability by the NCLB act (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg. 103). The integrated learning system that I researched is called carnegie 
learning. It is located at carnegielearning.com. In addition to instructional software, there are programs called software tools. These programs include word processors, spreadsheet software, and presentation making software (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.112). These software tools are supported by programs called software support tools. Software support tools are programs that help make other software more efficient or productive, look more attractive, be more accurate and timely, and more accessible to support and sharing (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg. 140-141). I will discuss two types of this kind of software. One type of software support tools are reference and research tools (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg.141). These types of tools provide the information needed to use other programs or perform certain tasks. The program that I researched is an online dictionary. It can be found at merriam-webster.com. It is also available as an app, which is what I use on an almost daily basis with my various readings. Another group of software support tools are data collection and analysis tools (Roblyer and Doering 2013, pg. 141). These tools help teachers collect information about student progress, according to Roblyer and Doering. The program that I looked at is called global scholar and can be found at globalscholar,com. It is an electronic grade book. It is obvious why teachers would want to use a program like this- it would vastly improve organization and save time.

The Ever-Evolving State of Technology

                                     The Ever-Evolving State of Technology

     The technological developments made over the years are astounding and have provided people with new resources and tools. Technology evolves at a very fast pace. Although this is generally seen as a good thing, it can pose problems for teachers and schools. The technological advances may be difficult to keep up with, especially for teachers who are already busy (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). Funding may also be an issue for schools trying to stay up to date with the latest technologies (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). While each school deals with technological advances differently, there are universal concepts that can enhance a student's ability to learn. Showing the students the most advanced tools is ideal, but for many it is not realistic. To remedy this problem teachers can implement Constructivist learning techniques that can help the student "learn how to learn" so that they are well-equipped to continue learning in the future (Roblyer & Doering, 2013).

      Constructivist learning theory states that students generate their own knowledge, rather than having it transmitted to them like with the Objectivist learning theory. It stresses the importance of learning through experience, as Jerome Bruner proposed, and self-efficacy, which was introduced by Albert Bandura (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). The Scaffolding Theory of Lev Vygotsky states that adults help students learn through scaffolding newly acquired knowledge on what they already know (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). These and other Constructivist theories can help students "learn how to learn." Rather than being told facts to memorize or doing drills, Constructivist educational experiences enable students to continue learning-even beyond the classroom.
       As technology continues to amaze us with its constant growth, teachers and schools struggle to keep up with the most up to date technology. No matter what technologic advances a school or teacher has, the student can be equipped to "learn how to learn" whatever he/she needs for their future in the ever-changing world of technology.
         Boost your self-efficacy with this learning style self test:
                             www.studygs.net/metacognitiona.htm

Sources:
 Roblyer & Doering, (2013). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching. Pearson.

Learning to Learn. Retrieved from www.studygs.net/metacognitiona.htm

Hello. <Test Post>