The Future of Learning

If you are not reading my blog you may want to visit The Tech Savvy Educator’sblog. Out of the blogs I read I found this one to provide some of the more interesting and informative articles I have read. The articles are by date and can also be sorted by topic, which make it easy to find an article about a certain topic. The articles are also of varying relevant topics which will keep me interested. One of the reasons I found this blog easy to read was that it was written by a teacher for teachers.

The writer of this blog has been consistently writing this blog since 2005 so it should continue to be around for awhile. Unfortunately the writer of this blog has had a personal tragedy recently and may not continue the blog.

Another good blog I found was Teaching with Technology. While this blog wasn’t updated as frequently I found this blog to have some really interesting posts as well. Topics include Ancient Rome Google Earth  in 3D, info about a Google Teacher Academy, Digital Stories, and much more. This blog also provides an easy way for its users to navigate the site.

There are many good blogs out there. If you know of any other education/technology related blogs please leave a comment!

Ron

I have been experimenting with using a wiki in my class for the last month or so. I have made web pages in the past for my classroom so I never really saw the need to use a wiki. I was really surprised as how easy it was to use and how useful it became. A few other teachers at my school are also interested and have created pages of their own.

Examples of things that I have used my wiki for are this past month are as a page for students to share ideas, a place for me to leave links for my students to go to,  and a place to embed videos for my students to watch. Embedding videos worked well because it was easy to use and the students were able to pause the videos and go back to see a part over again. The students really enjoyed this compared to watching videos in class as a group.

I was able to easily create usernames and passwords for my students without e-mail addresses. This is an especially useful feature because it allowed me to create usernames in mass for my students using only thier initials.

The ability to go back to a previous version has already been a useful feature of this wiki. I deleted some links that I needed and was able to retreive them. This was much easier than a traditional web page.

I plan to continue to use my wiki and would appreciate any ideas for uses in the classroom. Currently I have been reorganizing it so it looks a litte light, but it will certainly be a permanent part of my classroom.

Please visit my wiki.

Ron

For this project I created a video for the staff at my school. They will be able to watch the video and change a setting in their Microsoft Outlook so that their e-mails will remain on the server. This has been a problem for some of the staff who use their e-mail at home and then come to work only to find they can’t access a particular email. I thought this was a good opportunity to learn how to make a video and save myself a trip to a staff member’s home or provide phone support in the evening.

I found creating the video using Jing to be very easy. It took my many takes, but this was more from me tripping over my words rather than the software being difficult to use. In the future I would write a script so I wouldn’t trip over my words as much. This program was something I felt that most of the staff at my school could easily use.

I also asked my wife for some help to try to edit the file. While we were unable to edit the swf file we were able to create a flash intro. Flash seemed difficult for me the novice, but my wife was able to help quite a bit. Although it was difficult, I don’t think that Flash was impossible for me to learn so I may take a class in the future. My wife also created the play buttons in the main page and the MS Outlook background on the main page. In all we couldn’t get Flash to do exactly what we wanted, but it was a good learning experience, making me want to learn more.

Initially I was unsure as to how useful this assignment was for me. There are many applications where I could see making instructional video’s useful. In online classes where you would want the students to see something at their own pace. Providing technical support for staff and students would be another useful application of this software. I could also see providing students with an additional means of learning. I can see myself making further videos and other teachers at my school using this as well.

Watch my Instructional Video.

For my Digital Story I choose to do a story about my pet. I choose this topic because I knew I had many of the pictures that I would need and I would share this video with my friends. I am happy with the final product for the most part. I didn’t narrate this story with my voice because I felt it would be redundant, and I found many funny dog songs that I wanted to include. I got the songs from itunes, Freeplaymusic, and the Freesound Project. I attempted to sync the music to what was happening in the movie at the time. This worked well for some slides. I did all the slides that had just text with a particular transition effect and I added a text effect to some of the slides with pictures on them.

I used Microsoft Movie Maker to do this project. I choose this because it seemed fairly easy to use for the students and teachers that I work with. Once I got going, I was impressed by how easy it was to use this program. If it were complicated they may not be willing to spend the time to learn. After seeing a draft of my story one of the literature teachers at my school are already interested in learning how to use this program to write stories with her students.

Another potential for digital stories at my school could be to use them with the Special Ed students when they are moving from one placement to another. The students could do a digital story to show at their IEP meeting that would describe their behavior and accommodations they might have and show work samples. This would be a unique way to show their new teachers what works for them and what they struggle with. Many students have difficulties or are intimidated to speak during the meeting in front of a bunch of adults. This would give them an opportunity for their voice to be heard without the stage fright.

Enjoy the video! I look forward to your comments!

Digital Video

Visit my Webquest http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/rfolken2/webquest 

I teach a variety of subjects so I had a variety of options when choosing the topic of my webquest. I choose to do an individual webquest where the students do research on purchasing a car. The business course this webquest is designed to go with has typically has students who are 15 to 16 years old so this topic is very relevant to this age group. While there are many webquests that cover this topic already, I had trouble finding ones that I felt were relevant to my students. This lead me to design one that would work for my students and also have the potential for other teachers in my school to use with their students.

I was very pleased with the final product. The students will get valuable experience using the internet for research. They will also utilize skills in word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation software.  This will help them in this class, as well as their other classes, and prepare them for their futures.

All in all this was a good experience for me and I am looking forward to using this webquest later in the semester with my students.

Ron

Recently I updated my e-portfolio. This turned out to be more work than I anticipated at first. I had the most difficulty finding a template that was both professinoal looking and easy to format. There were many templates that I found that were not suitable for a portfoilio and some that were difficult to format. I found the template I used at http://www.opendesigns.org .  This site provided a wide vartiey of templates that were easy to format. They all came in a zip format that when uncompressed provided all the images and css sheets that were necessary for the web site.

I used NVU to edit the page and it did have some problems with the css and occasionally shut the program down. I saved frequently. The css also caused occasional formatting problems with font size and color and I needed to look at the code and make some small edits to keep everything consistent.

I made sure to include as many work samples as possible. I redid some of my work samples and made them PDF’s to keep a consistent look and feel. A couple of projects I left in thier original format becuase they were designed using another HTML editor and the assignment was to use that HTML editor.

Overall I am happy with the finished product. It is professional looking and will be easy to edit in the future to add things like a resume, links to other projects, and work samples easily.

Follow this link to see my new e-portfolio. http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/rfolken2/Roneportfolio.htm

My old e-portfolio is located at http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/rfolken2/Roneportfolioold.htm

As an educator I think that we need to be able to meet the ever changing needs of our students. It is important to meet the individual needs of our students and give them a quality education that will prepare them for their future. Our students will be entering a world in which they will be competing with students from all over the world for employment.

A large part of the future of learning is the integration of technology into the classroom. Our students need to be exposed to and proficient in the technologies that they will see in the workplace. For those who are college bound they need to be prepared to use technology not only for productivity, but also for communication and collaboration. Not only will out students need to be capable of operating current technologies to be successful in their futures, but they will also need to be prepared to learn future technologies that they will encounter in the workplace.

The internet is a tool that we should be using in the classroom to facilitate learning. Opportunities in the classroom for research and up to date information to make learning more relevant to learning than traditional textbooks currently exists and is becoming more available.  Many tools currently exist such as blogging, forums, and Wikis. These tools, when used properly allow our students to collaborate more efficiently than they would have in the past. Classroom management systems such as Moodle provide teachers with a method of organizing their course work in an organized manner that is easy for teachers and students alike.

It is difficult to determine what the next technology will be. Technologies that increase student productivity allowing them to focus more on learning have possibilities. Other technologies that allow students to collaborate, publish and share their work more easily will also be useful.  Handheld computing technologies that will allow students to take the classroom with them also have great potential.  Regardless of what future technologies will be available all of them will help make learning more efficient, interesting, and relevant to our students.