EDUC 7105 - Module 4

EDUC 7105 – Module 4
With the networks created in my life whether it is for educational purposes or everyday life I have almost immediate access to information. This information I am learning can be educational or it can be about someone individually. I am constantly checking my Gmail for blog postings for my students and other information from friends. Facebook has been a way for me to reconnect with friends from high school and college that either provides a social and/or knowledge connection. I also check Facebook feeds daily to keep up with the players on my soccer team. I can be aware of tests, personal situations or just make comments on their page to say hello. This digital contact with my soccer players has helped them make better personal decisions that will reflect not only themselves as a person, but the team and myself as the coach.

The tool that I feel helps me learn the most would be the Walden classroom discussions and the teacher blogs that I access on a daily or weekly basis depending on time constraints. I learn and am aware of so many different aspects of not only technology, but how technology can be utilized in the classroom via asynchronous learning. With the Walden classes the topics are specific to the classes we are taking, but the ideas presented by my classmates help me to think outside of my tangible world. These new ideas can help to reshape my thinking and thus a new collaboration process of my thoughts takes place in these classes. The teacher blogs also present a different way of looking at similar situations in the classroom. These teachers have the same or similar challenges as I do and can help to provide answers to situations that arise in my classroom. Many of these teachers utilize more technology in their classroom so it provides a guide for me to continually stretch my understanding of how the students learn bests.
Teaching associations that are bases in educational technology will provide research articles that again will stretch my way of thinking and alter my personal teaching in the classroom to help guide the learners in this digital age. There are also conferences associated with these learning communities where tangible connections can be made for further collaboration with that person and also possibly their students with my students. These situations will be a win-win for all parties involved once the connections have been made.

If I have a question I can acquire new knowledge by texting someone who I think would know the answer, emailing colleagues or friends, or posting a question on my blog or wiki. If I need the information at that moment and none of my friends I texted knew the answer, I would search the web for the answer or a search teacher blogs and compile information. The tags created when someone posts a topic to the web have helped to search for information so quickly. This information might not be exactly what I am looking for, but there will also be additional websites to visit that could answer my question.

These are websites that I have posted in my mindmap and are extremely helpful for using technology in the classroom –
http://adifference.blogspot.com/
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/
http://divergentlearner.com/blog/
http://elearnqueen.blogspot.com/
http://blog.benwildeboer.com/
http://franksblog.edublogs.org/ - off of this site are also many other blogs of teachers who use technology in their classroom and can provide additional ideas.

EDUC 7105 - Module 3

EDUC 7105 - Module 3
I somewhat agree with Rheingold’s (2005) theory that people want to collaborate and work as a group. He brings up very valid arguments concerning collaborating within our species to expand our current knowledge. However, there is still the carnal instinct in humans to win at all costs as well. Look at Fortune 500 companies – they earned this distinction by out competing their competitors. I understand their thinking, but I am also extremely grateful to my fellow teachers who share with me lessons that have worked well in their classroom – free of charge. Rheingold (2005) brings up multiple scenarios where human nature is weary of that evil streak that is in us all. These games include: prisoner’s dilemma, insurance game, and the ultimatum game. All of these scenarios pose risk and reward for all decision made in a business exchange.

Great examples of collaboration include Wikipedia, creating supercomputers, desktops being part of a network, etc, anything where humans or their possessions will work together to build upon knowledge and/or technology to bring about a higher order. The constructivist principles as associated with the learner basically uses prior knowledge and the environment whether it be an instructor, peers, events, or sociocultural (Driscoll, 2005) all contribute when a person learns something new. They use their previous schemas and try to associate new knowledge into these schemas for personal understanding. Technology can be the medium in which students can collaborate with each other, the teacher, or other professionals to build new knowledge.

There is a program called DyKnow that allows a laptop classroom to become a collaboration classroom. Students can take notes on a teacher’s PowerPoint, broadcast a student’s laptop screen so others can learn from a specific student, and create a collaboration screen where students can interact with each other from their seats (Dyknow, 2009). These notes can be saved on a server and the students can access these files outside of the classroom for further review. Pretty cool technology! There is a private school not far from my public school which is using this software next year – I hope to be able to be able to observe this technology first hand!!
Blogs: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2588793/dyknow_review_of_the_classroom_collaboration.html

There is another website which is “for teachers and students interested in global education” (Gray, 2010). This website is pretty interesting and provides an online meeting area to ask questions, give recommendations, provide examples of projects, etc and all of this information is free to those who wish to utilize the information.
http://globaleducation.ning.com/

References:
Dyknow. (2009). Retrieved April 9, 2010, from http://www.dyknow.com/.

Gray, L. (2010). The global education collaborative. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://globaleducation.ning.com/.

Rheingold, H. (2005, February). New-way collaboration. Retrieved April 9, 2010, from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html.