July 14th Class

July 14, 2010

Professional Development can be an excellent way for teachers to learn how to utilize technology. In order for this to be effective, I think we may have to rethink what our ideas of professional development have been in the past. Instead of signing up for a workshop months in advance, attending the class, and finally bringing the information back to school and trying to apply it, we must have weekly professional development that is led by teachers or staff in the school setting. At my school we started doing this last year in regards to technology. At our weekly professional learning community meetings, we assigned different

teachers to display certain technologies that they use in their classroom. For example teachers gave short displays of how they use their smart board, elmo, writing slates, mobile labs, and dual display monitors. Not only does this set up allow for teachers to get professional development without missing a day of school, but it also allows them to get support from their co-workers. In a perfect world, every campus would have a technology specialist who could assist our teachers in an attempt to incorporate technology into every lesson. These ideas and professional development opportunities fit into the data/computer portion of the technology framework, which states "provides interactivity and control. Data technology provides interactive (input/output) functionality to previously linear and/or passive processes. Interactivity dramatically alters knowledge construction and acquisition" (Framework for the technology cognate at baylor university, (2010).

Today's class was very informative about technologies that have just come into existence and some that are right around the corner. This quick video mentions a couple of things we talked about in class. I also enjoyed two thing that Addy showed us how to do. I am especially looking forward to embedding videos into my school and principal website. This portion of the class that I plan to use addresses the Video Technology cognate which states,"provides - presence‖ and -affect. The ability to simultaneously capture, modify, store, and transmit visual images is video technology‘s potent contribution to the technology spectrum" Framework for the technology cognate at baylor university, (2010).

The web-quests were also very interesting and I am definitely going to share them with my teachers during our inservice in August. One more thing that was beneficial was the Principal Office blog. There are several interesting and informative things that I will be able to use from this blog. Great class today Addy!!!

July 13th Class

July 13, 2010

I am very thankful to now have somewhat of a background knowledge of where computers and the Internet were born. The Bush and Engelbart's articles have really enlightened me on the concept of augmentation of human intelligence. It amazes me that these two men were able to conceptualize technologies that did not even exist, yet they seem to have drawn the blueprint and business plan for companies like Apple, IBM, and Intel. Other than the inventions of the printing press and electricity, the invention of computers and the Internet have arguably changed the world more than any other inventions. Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat articulates how the rapid expansion of technology and ease collaboration has created a true global economy.

Technology has forced educators to prepare students for competition in a global economy. One could easily argue that while America offers it citizens the highest quality of life in the world, our economic regulations, unions, and high wages are making it difficult to compete with countries such as India and China. As educators, we must take this into consideration when we are preparing our students for the workforce. In order for America to remain a superpower and a competitor in the global economy, we must continue to lead the world in innovative technology.

In closing, a comment made during our class discussion made be think; since collaboration and information accessibility are so easily attained, will this eventually lead us down a path where we stop utilizing our brain for independent thought? Have we already done this in some ways? While it is obvious that we must teach our students how to utilize, access, and master technology, it is imperative that we continue to teach them how to think.

In many ways I already use communication technologies everyday. For instance, I use 3 different e-mail accounts, which all converge to my iphone., text messaging, blog daily announcements, update the campus website, update my website, and update the digital marquee. After this class, I have been inspired to create a tweeter account for my school and encourage my teachers to check out google documents to increase their collaboration. This portion of the blog relates to the communication technology framework, which provides connectivity and shared meaning (A framework for the technology cognate at baylor university, 2010).

July 12th Class

January 12, 2010

Today's class was very thought-provoking and interesting. I cannot help but wonder what the perfect balance is between utilizing technology in the classroom and teaching the required standards. I guess another question to consider is what is the perfect balance between preparing students for the state-mandated test or preparing them to be a contributing member of the workforce. At China Spring Intermediate my students have many opportunities to utilize technology on a daily basis; but in retrospect I believe we may not be preparing them for the Web 2.0 world. We have mobile labs, multiple computer labs, and wireless Internet throughout the campus, but we are not capturing our technology's full potential. We need to enhance our students' understanding of multiple avenues of technology and equip them with the necessary skills to be competitive in the global market place. We need to move away from the 20th century ways of thinking about technology and embrace Web 2.0 and all it has to offer. Currently our students exposure to technology consists of activities such as practicing keyboarding skills through Mavis Beacon or simply writing an essay using Microsoft Word.

I believe it is time that we start using our mobile lab to connect to other classrooms across the world and begin collaborating with students from different countries. I have briefly looked into the programs that foster collaboration amongst different schools. One promising option I have found is epals. Epals has recently created a partnership with Microsoft that I believe will be an excellent resource to teachers and students across the globe. I cannot wait for my technology teacher to get back from summer vacation to share this exciting possibility with her. If she can get familiarized with the product before schools starts and feels comfortable enough to give support to my teachers, then I can see this program taking off at our school. This portion of the blog refers directly to the communication cognate of the Baylor's Technology Framework.


The following paragraph applies to both the data/computer and communication framework of the Baylor's technology framework.

In closing, I would like to briefly discuss Bush's article "As We May Think". It was amazing to see how futuristic his thoughts were regarding photography, data storage, and voice recognition devices etc. He was clearly a product of what collaboration between our country's most brilliant minds can produce. Thanks to Bush and other great minds, we are still have the freedom to collaborate in the emerging Web 2.0 environment. Can you imagine what the world would look like today if Germany or Japan would have developed a nuclear bomb before the United States? Thanks to the guys pictured below, and several other great Americans, this did not become a reality.
A 1940 meeting at Berkeley with (from left to right) Ernest O. Lawrence, Arthur H. Compton, Bush, James B. Conant, Karl T. Compton, and Alfred L. Loomis

Technology Self-Assessment

I would consider myself to be somewhat technologically literate. I have been playing with computers ever since the commodore 64 came out in the early 1980's. From there my experience from technology basically went from gaming system to gaming system until got into high school and took my first

keyboarding/computer class. I have taken several technology classes over the last 10-15 years, but I am really looking forward to EDC 5370 because I think it will be very applicable to my current position as principal at China Spring Intermediate. I manage the web-site, so if you check out, try and take it easy on me. I just try to keep it up to date as often as I can. I haven't had time to work on it this summer because I am taking 12 hours and studying for prelims.

I utilize technology every day at work. I would venture to say my greatest strength is Microsoft Excel. I love using spreadsheets to schedule students, analyze data, and keep up with my campus budgets. This past year, I started a blog of the school's daily announcements. These announcements automatically update to the school's web-site and scroll on my 55 inch High Definition television that serves as a digital greeting sign. When you enter the intermediate school, the first thing you see is a flat

screen television that scrolls the daily announcements, upcoming events, and pictures of the student body. The students and parents absolutely love it. One thing I would like to add to the digital sign is a welcoming video. I hope to complete this video as one of my assignments in this class so if you are an expert at making videos, I would welcome your assistance. Who knows, our amazing instructor may let us treat it as a group assignment...

Presentation in EDC 5370

The presentation was very informative, but the tweeting throughout raised several questions about how this tool could be used in K-12 public education. Personally, I believe the tweeting during the presentation had many pros and some cons. Overall, I really enjoyed the interaction with classmates that the tweeting allowed. It allowed the learning and topics to be augmented by other mediums (ie. websites, links, pictures). Being able to extend learning during the lesson was very beneficial. The fact that the links and extra information can be accessed after the class is also helpful to keep interest in the topic for such a long period of time. I think students with ADHD could benefit greatly from tweeting during lectures if there was an efficient way to monitor their on-task behavior and appropriateness of their responses. Collaboration with other students in class was so much more efficient than trying to talk to each other while the presenter is talking. The ability to communicate and share ideas during a lecture without interrupting the lecturer encourages students to share their ideas and opinions.

One concern that I have is getting too far off track and missing content that the lecturer is trying to get across. I think this problem would be magnified with K-12 students because some of them do not appreciate class lectures and learning as much as graduate students do. Monitoring the tweets are another concern that I have as an administrator. I could see issues such as bullying, sexual harassment, and socializing as problems that could get in the way of K-12 learning if tweeting was allowed during class. These are already issues that distract from learning, but I tweeting may add to these problems.

In closing, I think if tweeting was correctly monitored and taken seriously by the students, it has the possibility to be an excellent tool for learning...

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