Post #3

Jason Gaylord
February 8, 2009
Educ. 422 MW 1-2:15
Instructor McCulloch

Posting #3:

This week in class, I learned a few important things that I believe will help me in my pursuit of becoming a great teacher. For instance, like I covered in the post before, . will be a great tool for helping my students stay on track when researching and getting extra help for assignments, as well as, be a great source for me to view other teachers' bookmarked sites. In addition to the Delicious website, I also got a brief tutorial on how to use Rubistar, which allows users to view and post rubrics for class assignments. This will be particularly useful for me as a future teacher because it will allow me to post the criteria for a project, and then, grade a student's work accordingly. Not to mention, however, that this will also allow my future students a reference and guide of expectations for projects they will have to execute in the course.

In the article "Then, Now, and Beyond, Oh the Changes We've Seen" by Maureen Brown Yoder, there are several examples of how technology has changed over the past thirty years. For instance, the first significant thing Yoder points out is that technology in the classroom was first thought of as a passing feature; however, as Yoder articulates quoting a peer, "Technology was not a fad, but a tool providing possibilities that we could only imagine 30 years ago"(2). Technology has been effectively utilized by several teachers to add collaboration, communication, speed, problem solving, and confidence in students and their learning. By working in groups on the computer, as is later pointed out in the supplemental reading about the Integrated Technology Classroom, students are able to teach each other, as well as, the computer is able to help tutor students when the teacher is not available. Through this collaboration, students are, then, becoming more confident with using the computer and teaching themselves. As the article suggests, "Teachers encouraged students to make mistakes, revise, and rethink their original hypotheses, respecting their ability to learn without formal, one-way instruction"(3). Interestingly enough, Yoder points out several software programs and interactive learning guides, such as, the "Compelling Real-World Stories" like The Voyage of the Mimi, which is a video story complemented by interactive software, that are allowing and encouraging students to participate in real world scenarios and problem solving the explorers themselves had to go through to accomplish a goal(5). I, for one, did have a class where this story was used, and it did force me to think about real situations and how I would solve the problems the crew faced on the vessel of the Mimi (Ben Affleck was one of the crew members).

However, the more compelling feature technology has helped change in the classroom, may be the more simple utilities of the computer. As is pointed out in Yoder's article, "Learners are freed from the tedium of paper and pencil efforts that are time consuming and unforgiving"(4). For example, with the computer, students are now able to produce a project that is well organized and easy to read. Instead of having to hand write papers and formulate new templates, students can now type and use templates to accomplish and produce assingments. This feature, alone, has made technology a time saving tool which has allowed students to focus more on content than making sure their products are legible.