Amazing

WOW - I am so impressed by your blog. I feel like such a zero as far as technology is concerned. Would love to sit down with you sometime and have you show me some tricks. This class is a huge challenge for me.
Enjoyed talking with you the other night. Will let you know what I come up with - I am still in the exploratory stage. susan

Categories and sorts of digital technology (Jan.29)

I will say this assignment seemed easy but it really got me to thinking. First I had to really think about the technology that was in my school. I could have easily gotten a list from our principal but first I wanted to try to generate the list myself. I had to think about what we have and I really surprised myself with how many items I named. I then cross referenced my list with the inventory list from my school. All I can say is we are so fortunate to have all the technology we have at my school! Then my groups started talking about the list and thinking of categories. But as I went back to look at the directions for the assignment I noticed it said "digital" technology so I had to think about what that would be. I'm still not sure I understand the definition of digital technology but I did look up the items on my list to make sure they were digital. After being okay with the digital technology phrase it was time to think of categories. There were many possibilities for categories. Our group tossed around ideas from the simple, hardware or software, to more difficult categories. Realizing that this needed to be categories that would be useful to us we decided on uses. Still more thinking was involved to determine the usage of the technology, but also to recognize how some technology can have several uses. I realize for this "simple" assignment I had to really "think" about technology.

Wow!

Wow! Your blog is sooooo neat. I'm really impressed with all the pictures and the slideshow. You've gotta teach me how to do some of these nice things. I believe you're better at technology than you think. :0)

Your blog is really neat! You have been working hard! I love all of the added features! Your slide show is sweet. I especially LOVE the moms! How cute! See you tomorrow.

Hey Renee!

I'm so glad we are in the same classes! Thanks for adding me to your blog. I love your blog and pictures!

Technology is nothing without the teacher! (Jan.22)

In my reading of Chapter 1 I agree with the point the textbook made about “teachers always will be more important than technology”. I am old enough (unfortunately) to remember people talking about how one day computers would replace humans in the work place. I am sure many people thought this would be true in all areas even teaching. But the computers in the classroom are only equipment, it is the teacher who can making the use of the computer meaningful and useful to a student’s learning. This leads me to another point that I found interesting which deals with the importance of the teacher as well. The chapter stated “Having students use technology does not raise achievement scores…The impact depends on the ways the technology is used.” Some educators are unaware of how to use the technology available to them in the most effective way to enhance student performance. I have seen many students in classrooms on websites that essentially is “game based” and students are not acquiring knowledge from these websites. Sure it may be fun for the students, but it is not the best use of the instructional time we have with students. There are great technology resources available to teachers but teachers have to know how to implement them effectively in their classrooms.

Tonight's class

Only 3 hours of class and I am amazed at how much I learned. Once I got over the problem of being able to log on, everything else went very well. I was so excited about setting up the blog that I went home and started "playing" around with my blog. To me it is just fun to click on something to see what will happen...from changing font colors to posting a entry. If I can be taught how to use the computer to set up blogs, I can only imagine how easy it would be for kids to do this since they grasp things about technology so much faster than I do. One use I could see for a blog would be that students could blog to each other about books they have read. .. almost like electronic book reviews. I am sure other teachers are doing this but since blogging is new to me I was trying to think about how I could use this aspect of technology in the classrooms. Can't wait to see what we learn about next!

First attempt at blogging

Today in class we set up our blogs. Not too difficult but I hope I can remember how to get back to this space tomorrow! :) I have heard about blogs but really didn't realize what is was. I think it will be a valuable tool to use when reflecting on information that I learn.