So today is our last day of class and I just wanted to write this blog to reflect on all that we have done this year. I'm thinking back to our first assignment the Picassa web album and how hard it seemed at the time and now I just laugh. I thought I was pretty tech savvy, but there was so much that this class taught me. I'm pretty sure I won't use everything we did in this class, but there are some things that I will definitely use such as Google Docs. I love Google Docs because since we were introduced to that I have sworn off powerpoint. It is so much easier to use Google Docs because you don't have to carry around a flash drive and hope that your presentation works. Google Docs is right on the Internet. I also love it because in powerpoint you have to use their boring templates while in Google Docs yo can customize the backgrounds. I also really like Google Earth because that can definitely be used in the classroom to teach Geography. This class really opened up my eyes to all that we can teach our students through technology. Not only that, but it has made me realize how important teaching our students how to use technology will benefit them in the long run. We may not be that reliant on computers now, but we will be and it is great that there are classes like this to help educate the educators. There were so many more things that I learned from this class then I have time to list so I'll just sign off being thankful that I took this class.

Webquest

Yeah my webquest is done!!! Whew that was a lot of work!! I don't know how people can go around creating them all the time because doing one is exhausting! I am happy with it though. I do feel that it is definitely a project-based learning task. I think that webquests are a little ridiculous for second grade and under because I think that it would be their parent that would doing it not them. My project involves a lot of research, but I think that the way it is implemented is fun. I felt very overwhelmed when this was assigned as our final, but I really appreciate having so much time to do it. Now that it is finished, I don't think that it was hard, but it is extremely time consuming. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's webquests so I can hopefully use them in the future.

PBL

So I just received my grade for my project-based learning paper. I re-read it and it got my thinking again how fantastic project based learning is. Teachers need to learn new ways of teaching their students. The old methods of teaching need to change and there has been a lot of changed, but there needs to be more. Technology is going to become an even more vital part of our society then it already is and we must prepare our students for that future. I truly believe that it is beneficial for students to work in groups because many students are afraid to talk with the teacher so working with their peers will help them learn. I hope to spread the word about it because I feel that it is so essential for the students today. Technology needs to be taught because a lot of the old teaching is not going to be used in the near future. Students need technology in order to get jobs and function in this ever-changing society.

Professional Website

I have to be honest the day that we were assigned the website I felt sick because I was so overwhelmed. It seemed like creating a website was so much to complete in a week. When I actually sat down to do it I realized that Google sites makes it really easy! At first I was thinking that there was no way I could incorporate this into an elementary school classroom, but when I saw how easy it was I realized that I could. It was also a good project because we new have a professional website in which we can actually used to get us a job. Learning this skill obviously prepared us for our Webquest which definitely is something that we can incorporate into any of our classrooms.

Commercial

So I now saw that we are supposed to complete ten blogs in this semester so I decided that I will reflect on some of the activities that we did this semester. I really enjoyed the commercial that we completed on copyright. We decided to do one on pirating videos. It was inspired by those pirating commercials that we see in front of most of the DVD's we buy at the stores. Even though it was fun it made the information stick which was really helpful. I think it will help me in the long run and keep me out of trouble. I sort of wish that we used Animoto instead of Jumpcut because we had a lot of problems with it. We did the almost the whole commercial in class and then it only saved half of it and throughout the rest of the process we had problems getting it to save right. The other thing that I liked about Animoto better was that it looked cooler because they animated it for you. All in all it was a fun assignment.

Technology and Cheating

I just finished reading the article about internet cheating and I found it very interesting. The story about the teacher blaming technology for her student cheating is just ridiculous. If her students are going to cheat they are going to cheat. The internet has simply provided new ways for students to cheat. Honestly, if students cheat they are not very intelligent. Most teachers now know most if not all of the sites in which students steal papers and information from. Just because there is new technology and there are a lot of answers at the students fingertips, does not mean that technology is to blame for cheating. There has always been cheating and there will continue to be cheating. Teachers need to adapt to the new changes and find ways to let their students know that they are aware of the so-called "cheating" sites. What a lot of students do not realize is that a teacher does somewhat know after awhile what your writing style is and what
your level of comprehension is. They can probably tell when you turn a paper in if you wrote it or not. I had a personal experience with something similar to this at ULV. I did a report/presentation on a book with two other group members in my literature class. I did most of the work in the group, but one member of my group did absolutely nothing. I had only been in that class for a few weeks, but this teacher already knew my work ethic and when we did our presentation she pulled me aside afterword and asked me if I did that report all by myself. I told her that one group member helped a little and one did nothing. She already knew because she could tell that i was the only one that really worked on it. My point is, is that teachers know when you cheat. They are smart. It does no good to cheat because especially in college our professors know about all of the cheating sites. I do not think that technology should ever be blamed for teaching. I really liked that in the article it suggested giving open book assignments. When an open book assignmnet is given the questions are usually harder and require you to think and then there is no way to fake knowing and understanding that knowledge. If students know it is going to be an open book test there is no reason to cheat because you can use the book. A lot of students who do not like to study will think great now I don't have to study, but I myself have put a test on the back burner thinking that I would not have to study because it is an open book test, but it actually ended being harder because I had no knowledge of the subject and I thought I could just flip through the book and get the answers. I got a really bad grade on that test. It is almost as if you need to have really good knowledge to take an open book test because there will be deeper thinking involved. I also really liked the suggestion about the book reports. That was a great idea to sort of say that you can either write a paper or you can pick five from those cheating sites and evaluate them. This would really catch your students off guard. It tells them that you are aware of these sites. The students that are prone to cheating would probably choose to revise the five reports thinking that will be easier instead of coming up with their own ideas, but really it would take a lot more time. It would probably be a good lesson to teach them and they would probably take the other assignment next time. I like that we have problems like these today because it forces teachers to come up with new and better ideas to keep students from cheating. It forces them to use this new technology in a positive way and by giving assignments like these it is getting the students used to using the computer and technology as a whole. I feel that introducing them to those types of sites at an early age will make them less likely to cheat when they get into upper grade levels. In closing, I do not believe that technology should be blamed for cheating, I just think that teachers need to adapt to these new changes and incorporate them into the classroom rather than condemning them.

This is super confusing

Well i read the article about the semantic web and i cannot even begin to understand what ontologies and XML language is and a lot of the other technical terms, but I do have somewhat of an understanding of what the semantic web is. From what my understanding was, the semantic web is software communicating with software, webpages communicating with web pages, etc. It seems like once we have the semantic web it will make searching a lot easier in the way that it will be able to, through the XML language, understand the difference between a post office box number and a street address. I liked that scenario about sending the flowers to the clients because that would be really cool to be able to send a message like that and have the computer know which are the correct kind of addresses to send the flowers to. The semantic web seems to have its advantages such as being able to use your "agent" to go through and schedule your appointments by connecting to the doctor's computer to see when he/she is available and then compare it to your schedule to see when your available. I do think it's going to make people really lazy that we won't actually be calling to make our appointments rather our computers will be doing it. The other thing they mentioned in the beginning of the article is that all the devices in our home will eventually be connected and that when we answer our phone the volume will automatically turn down on everything. That is just mind boggling. However, I don't know if it's related, but that type of thing already happens in some vehicles. In newer cars when the vehicle slows down the radio will automatically turn down. I do think that the semantic web does form a threat because it is one step closer to artificial intelligence. I do not want to live in a terminator world. It is scary to think that technology will get that advanced someday. I may not understand all of the special lingo explaining how the semantic web works, but I do understand what it is going to do to our world and there are a lot of good things that it will bring to us, but there is also in my opinion some bad things.