Laurannu's Blog

What Have I Learned From This Class?

laurannu — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:19:20 +0000

I don’t even know where to start. I have learned so much that my mind is swirling with all the information and I’m trying to sort it all out to figure out the best applications and programs to use with my students. I always thought of myself as a teacher who using a lot of technology, but there was so much more to be learned. My students are already benefitting from me taking this class. I have incorporated many of the ideas that we have learned in class into my lessons. My students are currently working on podcasts of their favorite books and are designing a glogster page to go along with their podcasts. This is the what I am showing as my final project, I would like to have the students design at least 3 more pages this year and I would like to use it as my assessment for the learning objective. Other lessons I am currently thinking about doing include VoiceThread, Wordle, more podcasts, flip video project, and PhotoBooth using the video capability.
This was my first graduate class and I plan on using many of the web-based applications and information I have learned in my following classes. One program that we didn’t get a chance to learn a lot about was Mendeley. I hope to explore this program more since it will be beneficial during my thesis or project. Diigo is an amazing tool to organize all of your bookmarks and to do some social networking with other teachers in the state and world. It is a resource I definately plan on continuing to use.
This class was amazing and I learned so much – now all I need to do is put it all into practice!!

Technology Rich Classrooms

laurannu — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:35:53 +0000

I have the amazing opportunity to work for Minot Public Schools and have access to an abundant supply of technology resources. If we don’t have it in our classroom, we can usually get access to it.
Before taking this class I didn’t take the time to realize how lucky we are here in Minot. Even the larger schools districts of Fargo and Grand Forks do not have the resources that we have. I cannot imagine teaching without a SMARTboard, document camera, sound fields, and the web resources that the Minot Tech Department provides for us. I use all of these resources on a daily basis. My students are much more engaged in the lessons that are prepared using the Notebook software for the SMARTboard and I frequently add in either United Streaming or YouTube videos into the lesson.
We have to realize that students these days are used to learning with technology and are constantly using it in their daily lives. At our school, many students do not have Internet access at their homes but they do use technology in other ways. Most students have either their own cell phones, video game devices, iPods, or some other device. By incorporating technology into our lessons, the students are more engaged and ready to learn.
I have gotten many ideas from this class to use in my classroom: I have already had my students working on their own Glogster pages, they are creating podcasts and we want to start using flip videos to make their own movies. These projects excited them and they can’t wait to get started on the lesson.

laurannu — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:18:14 +0000

I can see podcasts as being a great educational tool in the classroom. As I was searching for episodes of podcasts to listen to I came across a lot that would be beneficial to me as a teacher. There are tons of podcasts out there for professional development and ones to listen to for ideas and lessons in today’s Web 2.0 world. Although, as I was looking at all the different podcasts I got to wondering if having students listen to podcasts as part of the lesson would be beneficial. I found myself not as engaged just because I didn’t have anything to watch or focus on. I caught myself with a wandering mind and having trouble getting much out of the lesson. I can see this as a problem, especially with my students this year. If they don’t have anything to look at or discuss I have lost them and it takes a while to get them back on track. Requiring students to just sit and listen to a podcast, in my opinion, would just lead to them being distracted and not engaged. Some podcasts were video and I believe that those might keep them more engaged.
On the other hand, I think students would be very eager to learn and showcase their work if they were involved with the production of the podcast. We know that students’ desire to learn and express themselves increases exponentially when they know they have an audience to write for and when they understand that their work is not just for their teacher. I believe podcasts increases student’s desire to express themselves and is fun and creative for students.
I would love to start producing podcasts with my students and hope to start implementing them in the next few weeks. Some ideas that we might use are podcasts for weekly classroom news, field trips, book reviews, our writing projects, and interviewing our Junior Achievement person. I can’t wait to get started and get students motivated to learn how to produce a podcast and write for an audience.

Three podcasts I listened to:
e-Learning Daily
Radio WillowWeb
Poetry Cafe

What role does the librarian and the library play in the 21st Century?

laurannu — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:41:21 +0000

We now live in a world of instant information. If you want to know about anything and everything what do you do? Look it up on the Internet of course. How does this affect our students and their learning? Libraries are not only a place to find information, but are often used by some as a place to get away to some peace and quiet to relax. I don’t think this will change, but because information is so readily available to us we now often rely on the Internet rather than take a trip to the library. What role does the library and librarian now take on? I believe that they are just as important as they have ever been, except their role is now changing.
According to the blog by Hey Jude, teachers and media specialist must work together to help students become informationally savvy. We need to work together to give students the skills they need to find, share, discuss, and create information. Students have the ability to search, work, or publish at will using text, audio, and video. Information is instantly available and free to use. Learning and teaching has now become a multimodal, multi-literacy conversation – where participation is an everyday reality. I found this quote by Mitchell Kapor so true, he says “Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.” Often you will go searching for one topic and an hour later you have gotten either completely off topic or you are so overwhelmed with the amount of information you don’t know where to start. I believe it is the teacher’s and the librarian’s job to teach students how to effectively use the information and how to access quality information more efficiently.
As I was doing my research for this blog I came across an article by Joyce Valenza entitled “You Know you’re a 21st Century Librarian if…” This article clearly laid out the important skills necessary to be a librarian in the 21st Century. Here are just a few that were mentioned.

A 21st Century Librarian using social networking tools, they have their students blog or tweet about books they are reading and they blog.

Librarians realize that the library is not just a place to get stuff, it is a place to make and share stuff.

Librarians welcome media production – podcasting, video production, storytelling, and you welcome telecommunications.

As a librarian you need to organize the web for learners and have the necessary skills to create a website or wiki to pull together resources to meet the information needs of your learning community.

I think this article states everything a librarian needs to be in the 21st Century, visit the article by Valenza for more skills that she thinks is needed as a librarian in today’s world.
The last article I read was in the FDU newspaper and it stated that Librarians should guide learners to various resources in different media; they need to provide support for learning individually and in groups; and they must offer technological support systems. Students must be taught website literacy – they need to realize that not everything they find on the internet is true. They need to be taught how to find the factual information and be able to apply this crucial skill for their daily life.
As social bookmarking, blogs, youtube, podcasts, twitter, rss feeds, and wikis become the norm in the Web 2.0 world, librarians need to realize that this is the way students are now learning and be ready with the necessary tools to help the 21st Century learners succeed and be ready for today’s society.

21st Century Learners

laurannu — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 05:13:38 +0000

Every year the number of hours spent using technology is steadily increasing. Students are spending hours and hours using the computer, texting, on their cell phone, using gaming stations, and listening to their ipod. It is part of who they are to be connected with the outside world. How do we engage these students when all they want to do is to be using technology? We incorporate technology into our teaching of course!! Everyday there is an ever growing abundance of ideas to incorporate technology into our lessons and assignments. The Innovative Educator says that we should not ask student to hand in assignments but we should ask them to “Publish It”. I agree to some degree, but I do not believe that every assignment should be centered around technology. Not all assignments should be or could be turned into a published piece. Although, as educators we know that when students are working for a real audience that are highly motivated and will take the extra time on an assignment to make it creative and look amazing. We also need to take into account our students’ safety when publishing work for the world to see.
What does it mean to be literate in the 21st Century? As educators we still need to focus on the basics or reading and math, but how are we going to put our students ahead of other countries who will eventually be outperforming us? Technology is the key. Technology is a part of our students everyday life. They are inundated with technology – every aspect of their being is being connected with others. As teachers, we need to have the training and expertise to be able to reach these students and use what they know and love to help them become successful in the 21st Century.
Students want to be engaged and part of the learning experience. They are no longer content with sitting in their desks listening to the teacher “lecture” the entire time. We need to find ways to engage our students. They learn by doing and creating – let’s use it to our advantage and incorporate technology into our teaching as much as possible! 21st Century learners need us to allow them to create, publish, and produce work for a real audience, by using technology we can and will give students the opportunity to succeed in today’s world.

School tube video

E-Textbooks: Yes or No??

laurannu — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 04:57:22 +0000

At first I would have definately answered no to that question, but I didn’t know much about e-textbooks either. As I spent more time researching and reading articles about them I realized that maybe I could be swayed to now answer yes. I realize that just like everything else there are pros and cons to using e-textbooks. When I think of myself as a learner I know that I usually need to have a paper copy of the article or book that I am reading in front of me. I like to highlight, write in the margins, and mark up my book to help me get the most from my reading. Not only that, but I find that my eyes get very tired and sore from staring at the computer screen and trying to focus on the writing. I can’t imagine doing all of my learning from the computer and not ever having a paper copy in front of me.
Putting all of that aside though, I found out some really interesting features that e-textbooks can have. The obvious advantage is that they are lighter and more environmentally friendly than traditional textbooks. They also have video capability, the chance to interact with peers through peer chats, keyword searches, and sound files. The ability to highlight text and make annotations are now becoming the norm with the new e-textbooks that are being published. We know that when the information is interactive and engaging students will learn more and become an active participate. Another benefit of e-textbooks is the price, according to the articles I read these sell for half the price of traditional textbooks. This of course is a huge deal to many of us; when you’re in college you are usually living off of financial aid and just scraping by to make ends meet. Being able to buy books at half the price is an advantage that many students will like. Unfortunately I did learn that e-textbooks often limit the number of times you view a page and after the course is done you no longer have access to the textbook. In some classes this would be a huge drawback if you want to be able to reread some of the information later on in your career.
I can see e-textbooks becoming very popular in the college setting and eventually in the high schools, but I think it will be many years before they are used in the elementary classrooms. Students are just learning to read and then are making the transition to reading to learn and they need to have the actual book and paper in front of them to learn the necessary skills to succeed in their education.
Will the traditional textbook eventually become obsolete? I guess only time will tell.

Electronic Textbooks

http://www.universityaffairs.ca/electronic-textbooks-set-to-take-over.aspx

E-textbooks

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10235937-1.html

Electronic Textbooks: A Pilot Study of Student E-Reading Habits

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:wl1_DqRxQjYJ:www.ericjsimon.com/papers/papers/ebook.pdf+Electronic+textbooks+a+pilot+study&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Hello world!

laurannu — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:34:29 +0000

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