One-to-One Computing From My Perspective

To me, in theory one-to-one computing systems seem like a great idea for classroom use. I have no problem with getting laptops into the hands of students because by the time they gradate high school, because many of their future careers will be computer based. Also with Apple making useful and quality education apps what seems like every five minutes, and the fact that laptops look a lot like gaming systems, which really engage kids to want to learn, I have to say that I would like to work in a school where this is happening. However, what I see as a potentially large problem with one-to-one computing is the fact that school districts are so money conscious, that they would spend a lot of money on all of the technology, but be cheap with providing teachers with the professional development, and employing a technology-help staff member (such as the ties office helpers) to be able to teach a technology integrated class everyday with computers, so that it is beneficial rather than distracting to the students and teachers. As the article stated, “Buying laptops is the easiest part of the process, but too often school districts neglect such fundamental items as providing initial and ongoing professional development for the teachers and providing sufficient tech support,” What I feel that that school's will not consider is investing money in preventive and proactive variables such as computer's getting viruses, student's breaking the computers, compatibility issues, privacy and home access, and individual teacher's personal experience/confidence/preference/teaching style when it comes to integrating technology into the majority of their class day.

Google Docs AHHHH

Ok so Googledocs was hard for me. I found the last Youtube video with the guy who actually walked through Googledocs on his computer the best tutorial for showing how to open a doc, edit a doc, and share the doc with other people. However, none of the tutorials showed how to view the revision history (which I found myself on the file tool bar), and none of the tutorials showed how to publish the doc to the web, or how to download a copy of the document, (which I also figured out from messing around with the technology). Really the hardest part of this module for me was putting the completed resume into my Weeby web page because of size formatting issues, and whenever I uploaded the document to my web page, the tabs and margins in my resume went all crazy. I finally ended up going to class, and having Chris walk me through how to place a public link to my Googledoc resume, because Weebly wasn't going to show the resume in it's correct formatting any other way. I also put a copy of my resume in PDF form on my webpage because Chris mentioned, in class, that PDF form allows the viewer to download the resume with any type of computer without having to worry about compatibility issues. Oh yeah! Another issue I ran into was when I invited all of my housemates to view and edit my Googledoc. One of my housemate Caroline said she could see my doc but could not edit it. We later found that the issue was that she was not logged into her gmail account, which she needed to do before Googledocs would allow her to be able to edit the document. As far as use in the classroom, I do think that Googledocs would be very usable as long as there was, for example, one computer lab hour dedicated to getting every student a Gmail account and a showing all of the students to make their classmates full collaborators in the group's presentation/document. I also think that the teacher should do a survey of the class's home technology equipment to see what students have home computer systems (and what kind) and which do not, so that the teacher is not assigning work that cannot be completed by every group member, because of a lack of access to technology.Lastly, the fact that Googledocs allows the teacher to see the revision history, the teacher could see which student contributed the most, or least. But the instructor should also see that if one student did the lion share because they could work at home while another student could not because of no home computer.

Education Topic: What I don't Get about My Own Education

I am not seeing a whole lot of science education in my current placement. In fact, in talking with my classmates, really none of them are either. I think the main problem with education today is that elementary teachers are expected to teach every subject area, even when they have little to no pre-service education in that subject area. If I were in charge, I would improve elementary education in the US by making it mandatory for students to “switch classrooms for subject (such as science) area teaching” in the grades as early as the first grade. Along with this practice, I would also change the way pre-service teachers are educated. What I mean is that pre-service teachers would get more education in their subject area they have chosen, (three years instead of two), and that all of the subject area classes would be based on learning the material and THEN ALSO making lesson plans for teaching the material in a classroom. Take my ‘Language Arts’ classes I am currently taking to fulfill a LA subject area credit, as an example of how I am NOT mastering HOW to teach language arts, but just learning about it. I am currently in English 140- Scottish literature. This class is a great class and I am learning a lot about the Scottish culture and I took it because it both sounded interesting and fit my schedule, BUT in my future real career world, this information is practically useless. I will never use anything I have learned from this class in teaching special education or regular education to K through 5th grade. So why is this class fulfilling a LA credit for me then????? This is where the problem starts. So if we changed all of the subject area courses that pre-service teachers had to take, to make them useful for K-5 teaching, and also made sure that teachers were only hired in as “science teachers” if they were certified to teach that subject area, and if first through fifth grade students were switched to a real science teacher’s classroom during science instruction, THEN I feel elementary science (and really all subject area) teaching and learning, would improve in US elementary schools.

Choice Technology: Prezi

I heard about Prezi being talked about in class so I decided to explore this new technology. First off there is a free version of Prezi you can sign up for which is a big plus. Also on the Prezi homepage there is a free video tutorial that shows you step- by-step how add text/image/video, orient the text/image/video, and size the text/image/video. Prezi also uses a zoom feature in its presentations that lets the author zoom in on a detail of an inserted picture/video, for the watcher to focus on. Prezi’s zoom out feature is also cool because it can show the whole ‘flowchart’ of ideas so the watcher can see the ‘big picture’ of the presentation. Prezi also has a navigation button (that’s what I am going to call it) that allows the author to make the presentation move left, right, up, down, spin, or follow a winding path of information. I really feel that since PowerPoint hasn’t really changed much in the last 15 years, that Prezi has a real chance of outselling PowerPoint, and could become the new presentation computer program that is a staple on all laptops and computers.
The disadvantages that I see with Prezi is that when I watched the Introduction to Prezi Tutorial and the Your First Prezi Tutorial I felt that Prezi was going to be very fast and easy to create and publish with. But when I opened my first blank Prezi to work with, I felt that creating a Prezi was much harder and takes a lot longer than the tutorials portrayed. Also another disadvantage that I saw with Prezi is that to get all of the features that Prezi offers, you have to pay for the ‘platinum Prezi’ version. To me, realistically, I know that PowerPoint is free and can be found on thousands of computers in schools, the library, and computers labs, so in this category PowerPoint does win. Also I think that Prezi can be used for any subject area because the gist of Prezi is that it just shows the flow of ideas, which is a component of math, literacy, science, and social studies. Furthermore, I think that Prezi should be used for short lectures versus long lectures because Prezi seems like it will be more time consuming per section/idea. Lastly, I think that Prezi could be a teacher tool to make short presentations for any grade level of students, and could be a presentation tool for older students to use as long as they understand the sometimes-difficult directions and how to upload pictures and videos to Prezi.

Here is a an introduction video as to what Prezi is

Preparation for First Major Project

For my first major project in this class, the integrated technology lesson plan, I am planning on using digital story technology for an elementary social studies lesson plan. I am planning on having students make their own personal time line using a program like PhotoPeach to use pictures from their lives growing up and their own life experiences to explain in the text portion of the slide show, how they grew up. My content goals will be to have students learn about a new free digital story technology, what a time line is, and how time lines differ depending on the events that are a part of the spectrum. This technology goes well with the content I would like to teach because it allows students to use copies of their photos instead of the originals. The technology is also free and can be saved on the PhotoPeach website and worked on at school, the public library, or any computer the student has access to. The technology also gives the students the creative freedom to set up the digital sideshow, pictures, text, and audio however they want to get the goal of the assignment accomplished. Some misconceptions that the students may have about the technology is that the technology is hard to use, costly, and it will hard for the entire class/teacher to see the finished project. When in fact if I held a PhotoPeach learning session in the school's computer lab, I would show my students how it is easy to use, that the programs is free, and how sharing/viewing the finished projects is very easy to do.

A Tour of the Harry Potter Park on PhotoPeach



I used PhotoPeach Slideshare and photos from my own Mac Iphoto to make a slideshow of my trip to the Harry Potter Park last year. When I went to the park it had only been open for 63 days!! In the slideshow the text portrays the speaker as a tour guide for the park. I thought my slideshow would be useful for my teaching because, I could use it in two ways. One way I could use the slideshow is as a treat to my students, like if they are good then I will show them my slideshow of a trip their teacher took once. Or I could make a lesson using a digital slideshow, where I first show my slideshow, and then tell my students that I want them to pick an event, trip, or place they have been to and make a slideshow using pictures from their personal database. The students would become “tour guides” to their personal event, trip, or place, and will explain or give tips in every slide as to what there is to do in the destination they have chosen to talk about. A digital story slide show might be useful for students to do story telling this way because they can personalize their story using their own personal photos/experiences. Students will also feel satisfaction that a project they made on the computer is able to be projected on the screen in class for classmates to see, or can be embedded in a blog so that parents can see the work a student made in school. Digital stories can also be worked on in class at the school computer lab or finished up at home on the student’s personal computer because all of the information is on a website. Also digital story telling can be useful because students do not have to take the project apart like other previous photo projects (such as putting the photos back into the photo album) because the digital stories just use copies of the photos versus the actual photos.
When it comes to talking about my likes/dislikes about PhotoPeach Slideshare, I have to say that I really loved the technology. With PhotoPeach you can upload pictures straight from you laptop’s photo database and do not have to go through the extra step of uploading your pictures to a Flikr like database. Also PhotoPeach allows you to add music by searching Youtube for songs and instrumentals to use so that you have more of a range of songs to choose from rather than the tunes they provide. PhotoPeach also has a page where you can very easily put the photos in the correct order and add text in different formats to each slide. After you have finished the slide show PhotoPeach is also very easy when it comes to publishing and sharing your slideshow. There are icons at the side of the slideshow that offer step-by-step ways to share your slideshow on twitter, myspace, facebook, e-mail, and others online communications. PhotoPeach also allows you to make your slideshow public on the PhotoPeach website so other members can view your work! The only thing I did not like about PhotoPeach was that it automatically saved your work versus there being a save button for the user to manually save work. Personally I just feel more safe if there is a save button there for me to hit.

Week 5 New technology Google Earth

The newest version of Google Earth is really amazing. GoogleEarth is an online program that allows the user to visually search any place in the world and to see this destination in real life photography taken from satellites in space. The program is like a photographic GPS that you can use for any place in the world. Using the search engine you can type in any city, any address or destination and GoogleEarth will take you there! There is also a street view option on GoogleEarth where the satellite image can maneuvered so the user can literally walk the streets of the destination they have chosen. GoogleEarth also has an app for smart phones which is great for when the user is actually in the destination they have chosen because then they can instantly maneuver their way through a new town or city. GoogleEarth also has navigation tools such as a compass and the ability to zoom in or zoom out for the user to get their bearings as to the layout of the destination. The fact that GoogleEarth is 3D is also great because the visuals offer a more realistic view of what the terrain looks like. GoogleEarth is much more efficient and useful than traditional methods of people finding out about a travel destination before they decide to go. I remember my mom calling a hotel in a certain area we were going for vacation and asking them to send her information on the attractions in the area. My mom would also buy traveling guides and videos to places like Disneyworld because they offered tips like how far away good hotels were, where to eat, park your car, etc. Now with GoogleEarth finding this information is free, with no phone calls, and you do not even need to leave your house. A limitation that GoogleEarth has is that it does not give detailed information about the places the user is viewing on the screen. I think GoogleEarth could be improved by offering hyperlinks to things such as hotel websites, restaurant menus, etc. This way a user can learn a lot more about the area they are researching before they get there!
GoogleEarth can also be used in lesson plans for students to learn about other countries, cities, etc. The students will be able to find out things such as the terrain, climate, whether area is rural, urban, developed, or underdeveloped. Students will find the program easy to use and will have fun searching things such as their own address.
Lastly, another limitation I saw with GoogleEarth is when I put in my own address I only saw an empty lot instead of my house. My parents house is less than 10 years old so I can tell that this is an old picture, so I also think that GoogleEarth needs to update their satellite images more often because the earth's terrain change a lot in less than 10 years.