6th Assignment: February 21, 2010

Dr. Alice Christie Website: Educational Technology
I enjoyed Dr. Christie's webisite. She had a lot of good teaching tools listed on her site. I chose to find out more information on Webquest. I chose this tool because I didn't know what Webquest was and wanted to find out more information on it. What is a Webquest? "A Webquest is a well developed curricular unit or lesson that actively engages learners." It almost seems as if a Webquest is similar to just having a website for the classroom where different topics and information is posted by the teacher and the students get to look at the different topics and learn more about that topic. Students who use Webquests can also get feedback on their posted assignments just like when our class use Comments4kids/classmates, it's just the same. I thought I didn't know much about Webquests, but the information that I'm reading seems very similar to what I'm actually experiencing in EDM 310. There are different components to Webquest, such as Introduction, the task, process, resources, evaluation, conclusion, reflection, extension, and lastly notes to the teacher. All of these components make up the Webquest. It seems like a great learning tool that should continued to be used in the classroom.

iTunes University
iTunes U has a lot of different topics and information available for students and teachers and different subjects can be listened to as a podcast. I wouldn't mind using iTunes as a student or teacher, but as a student at the moment I would still like to learn in a classroom environment. Since I'm more of a visual learner it's good to see that iTunes not only has podcast, but also Vodcast. If you don't know much about a certain topic and you want to find out more information then iTunes can be a great source of information with the podcast and vodcast. I read that iTunes is made available to all students including students with disabilities. As a future special education teacher I'm happy to read that iTunes can be a great tool for students that are visually impaired because they have what is called Voiceover for Mac computers and the screen readers for PC's. Different colleges and universities can set up accounts to upload different lecture topics which can be viewed by any users of iTunes. I'm still figuring iTunes out because I have never used it before this class. I didn't know there was a iTunes U or that music wasn't the only that could be downloaded from iTunes. I have so far learned a lot about iTunes that I didn't know before.
http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/what-is.html

The Use of iPods
I don't own an iPod I only own a mp3 player which my only use for that is for music, but I have heard about the different tools that come along by using an iPod. On a techno teachers website, I found an iPod topic where the different iPod discussions were being discussed. Audio books, games, music, video, podcast, and photos can be viewed on an iPod. An audio book is a recording of a book that can be listened to word for word from the iPod. iPods can be a great tool in the classroom. With the audio books the students can listen while looking at a hard copy. It can also help with fluency, expression, and help students want to read more. iPods has educational games that can be helpful towards the different subject areas such as, math, reading, and writing. As far as using the music component in the classroom it can be used in the younger grades for clean up songs and learning songs. Using iPods in the classroom can definitely make students want to come to class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02j0MAgUvo&feature=player_embedded

http://www.technoteacher.org/?p=271

Duke University allows Students to check out iPods for a semester and other types of listening devices. When I read that I was thinking I wished I went to Duke just to be able to check out iPods. Since I have never had one, it would be nice to have that experience of using one for an entire semester. Satti Khanna, a professor at Duke was the first professor to incorporate iPods into his classroom. His class was working on a project where they had to use different technologies. I really enjoyed having to read about Duke and their technology uses.

http://dukedigitalinitiative.duke.edu/examples/page/show?id=3604302%3APage%3A226

http://dukedigitalinitiative.duke.edu/page/technologies-1


Comments4Kids
This week I commented on a boy named Bryan. I commented on his Migration Play Reflection which he had to write a reflection of how he felt his group members performed. He wrote that he felt his group did good on the speech, but not on where his group members were supposed to stand. He felt that they could have done better if they knew how to stand when giving a performance. I enjoyed reading his post, he seems like a very bright young man especially knowing what him and his group members could have done better.