Week 4- What's in a name?

Stereotypical title, I know, but what else can be said for one of the most face paced and ever changing field to exist in education. Instructional Design and Technology is a fitting title but it comes with enough baggage to be stopped at most airports. How can we ever agree on what we do if we cannot find a common label for our field? Why do we need such extensive ways to label ourselves when the only people that are served by it is ourselves?

I do like how Chapter 1 is laid out but I also found way to many words for what we do. Showing a progression that also includes a document that is over 120 pages long seems to be a way to distract those who are curious from being curious. I found this chapter to be a detractor as well because it took something as simple as a name and streched it paper thin.

I agree that we need validation for what we study and do, but having the AECT continually finding new ways to describe it seems like a waste of time. We have to remember that what we do does matter and giving validation through definition only turns others off of our cause which is to create ethical and educational ways to learn for our students that uses technology and is not a flash in the pan. Media has a purpose and so does technology, but does validating ourselves to no one else but ourselves help.

Times change and so do the meanings of words. As a history teacher, I face this everyday. I just need to remind myself that technology changes faster and keeping up with it should remain goal number 1 and that is how we will be known to those wish to hire us, give us new tasks, seek our advice, and/or need our talents to create valuable curriculum.

De-Lite Value

The most valuable thing about the del.icio.us is the ability to search for a link that you are curious about and it also provides a short description that you don't get from Yahoo or Google. I know that those search engines try, but having an open system that is user created allows for easier to understand descriptions.

It would be a value in the classroom because the interests of the students can be explored and linked up to their own del.icio.us. I could use this to gauge what they know about a particular topic of study or what their outside interests are. I could share some history websites of interests also and try to engage the students in independent learning. It would be a great hook for a new lesson as well.

In conjunction with other technologies (blogs, podcasts, wikis) this site sharing would be the icing on the educational cake and yes you may take a piece home with you.

De-Lite

Well, what a novel idea to have all my favorites in one place online and share them.

here is the link. http://del.icio.us/FraleyB

please enjoy at will.

Try this feed

Here is another to get my RSS feed. This one should allow you to subscribe to my feed.

thanks.

http://fraleyburgett.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Fun with Tech

I love technology, but hate it when it fails. My laptop screen is not working but I can still use another monitor in its place. This sucks. I have to hook up something else to use my laptop. That sucks. I now have to use more electricity to do one application. That to, sucks. I want the power to fix things with my thoughts. Which, in itself, is a pleasant thought. Let my brain do the talking and my anger sit on the sidelines.

Week 3- What to do with a Wiki

First of all, the Wiki is so easy and it has impressed me because my first opinion was low of wiki's only because I am history teacher who discourages Wikipedia. Now that I have had the opportunity to use one and see the applications in action, I cannot wait to involve my students.

I do know that some of my students have their own wiki's and are quite handy with them. They have turned in projects using their wiki and that was amazing to me because most mention using a portion of their myspace to hand in assignments. Myspace, of course, is frustrating to me because if you are not a member you cannot visit some pages or their is always way to much junk to sift through to get to some real content.

So as far as usage in my class, I would set up a site dedicated to what we are studying in class at this moment and create an open invitation for editing with my students. I would ask them to share resources in the form of links and create pages that are associated with our field of study in class. I would caution them from using their real names and to come up with a user name that is unique to them and one that I would know because I know them. I would establish this wiki as a safe place and also make the parents aware of the goal of this wiki.

Information is best shared when the students are involved. I love learning from them and I hope the same holds true in return. A wiki makes is possible from the comfort of our homes.
Class- its share time!

The RSS feed

Here is an easier way to keep up.

thanks, http://fraleyburgett.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Hectic

Well, life is hectic. A given right. I could be busier but I am waiting for something to fall into the last five minutes I have for free time. I like to have a life filled with things to do, but vegging out has not fallen into place. So I veg out by procrastinating and delaying what really needs to be done.

veg activities- the Wii, Boondocks, Family Guy, surfing the internet, my dvr shows.

these make it extremely easy for me to veg out.

Week 1 relfection tech integration

The challenges in the information age are immense. Since this article was written in 2002, not many advancements have been made in funding, curriculum, or teacher education. The article still holds true because of these reasons.
Paradigm shifts have to be made and are being made. They are being made under different names with similar words attached. Differentiated instruction, assessment based learning, standards based learning have all been used to make shifts happen. These newer methodologies have been around for some time but are now being fully implemented within the high school that I currently teach at and the district that I am currently rewriting curriculum for. Are they technology based or even implementing technology? No, they are not.
What these new methodologies are being used for are performance based assessments, peer-assisted learning, teacher as coach, etc... All of these methodologies have created more work on the front end of implementation and are meant to be easier as time goes on. Does this mean that I fully have a grasp of these things or that I have implemented them all? No, because it is the first year of implementation and for a curriculum to show a change in results there must be a period of 3 to 5 years.
Many administrators and school board members, this is to long. One thing that is neglected in the information age is the wait time. Patience disappears with each new technology because that new techonology is faster than the old. We are a want society where immediate results are desired by all of us. Remember this the next time your computer takes longer than usual to print, startup or to download a file. We need to be more attainment-based and less time-based as stated by the author.Overall, the article makes excellent points about how technology should be embraced and used to better independent learning. In the end, we as educators, want students to learn on their own and make it a lifelong pursuit much like us.

Week 1 Luddites

The embrace of technology has been confronted on many levels, but I agree with Neil Postman when he asks "to which problem is technology the answer to." I have never given this much thought before this simply because I accept the new and disregard the old without thought. My lifetime has shown extreme progress in technology and none of it was an answer for a problem that I was made aware of.Technology in education has been embraced but not to its full capacity. I think this is because of the non existent problem that it is meant to fix. It does bring more accurate information into my classroom. It also gives me new venues for distributing information to my students. So, by this logic, I am doing what Postman believes a teacher should do which is show the students how to get through the mess that is an overload of information. I agree with Postman that this new information is not changing the world because information only works when someone puts it to use through actions. I know a great deal about the problems of the world, but that does not mean that I am doing something about it. I believe that my spreading of this information helps only with the hope that one of my students continues to think about it and takes action.Postman's grim look is primarily based on socialogical outlook for what technology has accomplished for all. Knowledge is power is no longer the norm if we all know the same thing. It is what we do with that information and how we discover it among everything else that technology brings us that will seperate the haves and have nots. (can't tell that i teach history/social studies :-0)So is my job in education worth the time I put into it, well according to Postman, it is. I try to give my students the tools to figure out what is worth their time and useless when it comes to the news, information, and technology that the come into contact with. So, maybe Postman is not all that grim if he can see a more prescribed reason for our educational system.

Week 2 Reflection

As far as impressions go, I am not too impressed by the blog and RSS. I say this because I have had similar experiences with these telecomunications. Right now, for curriculum purposes, my district has started an online meeting place for all participants to share content, documents, comments, and ideas. The name escapes me at this point, but it is very useful and does have an RSS feed option.This meeting place has been extremely easy to use and very similar to these tools that we are currently using for this class. I like that my district is finally gone a little and beyond the normal protocol for technology and trusted us with it. We are free to use it at anytime and it has real purpose for us.This online meeting place and our blogs fall within the direct puposeful experience because they require me to interact for a purpose. I have to take part in order to gain meaningful knowledge about my curriculum and my online class.Having stated that, do these new technologies lend themselves to the "imaginiative?" The answer would be simple if I only reflect on what I do, but what I do is confined by the engineers' limitations. The blogs and RSS feeds have defined uses and can be manipulated only slightly. So the imagination comes from what I can do within the confines of the software. It is not open source, nor do I have a knowledge base large enough to rewrite the software. So, do the confines make it passive? No, because a blog's purpose is to give and recieve information/beliefs/ideas. The give and recieve process is never passive, so in that instance it does become "imaginative." Simple answer, no not really.Simple answer? Problem solved? What was the problem? It's hard not to think about blogs and RSS feaders in a way other than a convenience for information. If the problem was finding your information faster and responding faster, then these would be the solutions, but there was no problem until the technology created it. Postman would say that the information overload was created with a blog and RSS feader. Could this overload be used by my students and me? Yes, it would keep me up to date on their postings and other online activities associated with any web content that I decide to use with them and it would also create a faster way for us to interact outside of the classroom.