My experience with these new tools

Sometimes I can get a bit overwhelmed with all of the technology being introduced to me. With that being said, if I can just figure out a way to organize it all, it could make my life easier and more functional as a teacher. I tried three different tools this week: The Survey Monkey, Whyville, and picture and video sharing. I will outline my experience with them in the following paragraphs.

First I visited the world of Survey Monkey. This was a very useful activity as it is a simple and quick way to get feedback from students, staff and parents. I found Survey Monkey to be pretty user friendly but I feel that the Google Docs survey that I created (and have been using) was more user friendly and easier to work with. In general these survey tools are great not only because of the feedback you get, but also how the feedback is organized for you. This makes it much easier to utilize the data that you gather, rather than just stuffing it away into a file cabinet.

I was skeptical about Whyville before I visited the site. My first thoughts were reassured as I played with this tool. I do not doubt that there is educational value with this immersive world website; I just do not enjoy using these and do not think my student population (9-12 alternative school) would enjoy these activities. Although it was fairly easy to navigate through, it was a bit confusing as to where to go and what to do next. Faces kept on popping up in front of mine and it became a little frustrating. With all of that negativity, I do see that there could be educational value in a tool like this. With younger students and more time to play with it, I can see this tool engaging students in an educational activity in a creative and technological way.

Last I chose picture and video sharing. I did choose it because I am addicted to YouTube. No, not just to watch entertaining videos of people making fools of themselves; rather I have found that YouTube has endless information and references on it. I do understand there can be copyright issues with using the videos in class (at least that is what our library tech told me); but if I need quick information about a certain topic, I can find it on YouTube. Also, having students post videos on YouTube for a project has been successful for me in the past. The kids really seem to enjoy making a movie and then posting it for the world to see.

Overall, I have added a few more tools to my tool box by participating in this activity. Now I just need to find a way to better organize all of this information.

Tech in the classroom

Working with students in my alternative school has raised many challenges when it comes to using technology in the classroom. Just recently I have started projects that involve students making short films and posting them on youtube. This has been a collaborative project with the media education teacher at our high school, but the kids have been very engaged in this project. While the topic must be research based, the format and style is wide open to the students.

The students have done some of their videos on their personal time and we collaborate in the classroom to share ideas and give constant feedback to how their projects are going. I have yet to find a website to use which they can post there unfinished project. This would allow me to give more constant feedback, but our current format seems to work pretty good.

I feel the students have enjoyed this project because it gives them freedom. I have always said when kids don’t know that they are being taught; they learn the best. It has also been great for them to learn how to get more consistent feedback and in return make adjustments and changes to their projects. Since learning new technologies of the course of the last 5 weeks, I will be implementing a new web 2.0 technology into this project next year to improve the overall collaboration.