Alma's blog
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Wiki Reflection 3
Although I
liked working in the wiki environment and I had a great team to work with, I am
ecstatic to be done with this assignment. No matter how hard we tried to be
timely with all our work, it seemed we could not avoid working through the
weekend. I not only learned the expected things (i.e. my research topic), but I
learned the most I ever have about references and citations. Since that was the
section of Galvan’s checklist (Galvan, 2009, p.
117) that I was responsible to cover in our peer edit, it only seemed right
that I should also work on the citations and references in our paper. I feel a
little more confident in that area after working on this wiki. The wiki is easy
to edit. However, since this was a team project, I did not set it up, so that
is something I still haven’t experienced. When you work in a group, you rely on
the more experienced team members to do the tasks you feel less comfortable
performing yourself. After teaching middle school writing for several years, I
am adept at finding mechanical and spelling mistakes. However, when my Word
document changed formatting in the middle of an edit, I did not know what
caused it, nor could I seem to restore the original formatting, leaving me with
something new to learn.
This was a valuable
experience, even though it got very intense at my house these last three days.
There were too many different threads that all needed to come together at the
same time - editing a peer’s paper, receiving
my edited paper, changing my paper according to comments, getting all five
documents ready to submit in exactly the same format as my teammates’ papers. I
have survived, and I believe the experience as a whole was constructive.
Reference:
Galvan, J. L.
(2009). Writing literature reviews: A guide for students of the social and
behavioral sciences. Glendale, CA: Pyrczak Publishing.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wiki Reflection 2
I am beginning
to see how working on a wiki with classmates can help me learn. For one thing,
I have to think of my teammates’ schedules as well as mine. Since one of the
things I like about asynchronous learning is the freedom from most schedule
demands, this requires a mindset shift. It also prevents me from
procrastinating, even on other assignments, since I have to set aside time to
work on the group project. We had an excellent group leader who helped keep us
on task. We communicated regularly via various online communication venues,
allowing us to try several different options. In our conversations, we talked
about deadlines, responsibilities, and interpretations of assignment
instructions. This was very useful, since we did not all understand the
assignment instructions the same way. Since we divided up the sections of the
paper, we got to see each other’s strengths and help with each other’s
weaknesses. Since I not only read but helped edit the whole paper, I learned
from my teammates’ input in the sections I had not had to research. Seeing how a
classmate presented her material made me rethink my style in my contribution.
Since I would like to eventually teach online classes, using a wiki will
definitely be on my list of options for class lessons.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Wiki Reflection 1
Before taking
this class, the principal interface I had experienced with a wiki was to access
Wikipedia. I had heard wikis were a great way to encourage collaboration among
students thereby increasing learning. Now I was going to experience it for
myself. Because I was unavailable for my team’s first skype meeting, I chose a
different topic for my webibliography than the one I would research for the
wiki project. This meant I started working on the wiki feeling behind in my
research. However, I was very interested in the topic, both the topic of the
whole wiki – Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – and my particular page –
Professional Development (PD). Since I consider myself a teacher, I was very
interested with the methods used to encourage and teach educators to
incorporate technology in the classroom. The problem for me was that there wasn’t
much research available because professional development for technology
inclusion is a fairly new phenomenon and extending it to BYOD professional
development means the research is almost non-existent. So I had to begin my
project by deciding to settle for the research done on PD for technology
inclusion, knowing that most of it would probably transfer from one type of PD
to the other. I had been in classes with two of the three classmates in my
group, so I was looking forward to working with them.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Muddiest Point
The muddiest point for me is the issue of copyrights and distance
education. Because of the explosion of technology, the waters of copyright
issues have become very muddy. In the past, if I purchased a book I was allowed
to loan it to any friend I desired. If they forgot to return it, that was OK,
too. Today, if I purchase any e-book for my Kindle, only some of them can be
loaned to my husband’s Kindle. Most of them will be deleted from his device
after a certain period of time. These copyright protections are done
automatically, but this does not always happen in the field of distance
education. It would be very convenient if textbooks could be accessed online, even for students in a traditional classroom so their book bags wouldn't be so heavy. However, this is highly unlikely at this time because of copyright limitations. It is very easy to violate copyrights because the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH) seems to put the greater burden on the users to interpret the law. In spite of the
many words used in the language of the Act, most of them are negative – what can’t
be done (Seadle, 2003). Does this mean
that whatever is not listed can be done? Unfortunately, the true understanding
of the amendment to our copyright laws will only come when violations are discovered
and the courts interpret the TEACH Act for us in their rulings (Nelson, 2009).
References:
Nelson, E. (2009). Copyright and distance education:
The impact of the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization Act. AACE
Journal, 83 - 101.
Seadle, M. (2003). Copyright in a networked world:
Digital distance education. Library Hi Tech, 253 - 256.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Most Important Theory
We teachers
are neglecting the technology tools our students use daily. However, the “Bring
Your Own Device” (BYOD) movement is gaining ground. This is a theory that plans
to use devices that our students already have to enhance learning in the
classroom. If we allow our students to access the internet with their own smartphones
or tablets, we can transform the classroom into a better learning environment. Some
of the advantages inherent in this plan are that students are already familiar
with the devices they own, the cost to the schools is reduced, and students are
more likely to keep their devices updated. Some of the problems associated with
this theory are that the devices are likely to be different (making consistency
for the teacher a problem), students can more easily breach the schools’
security, and unwanted features may be available to the students during class
time such as texting or phone. Since this plan is such a change from the “Park
your phone at the door, or expect it to be confiscated,” times of the near
past, we teachers have to make a shift in our thinking and planning for our
lesson plans. However, it is a plan that makes sense and overcomes some of the
difficulties of putting technology into our students’ hands with a much lower
input of cash from the school.
References:
Brown, A. H., Green, T. D., & Robinson, L. K. (2010). Security vs. access. Washington, DC: ISTE.
References:
Brown, A. H., Green, T. D., & Robinson, L. K. (2010). Security vs. access. Washington, DC: ISTE.
Norris, C., & Soloway, E. (June 2012). The $100
computer is here today: one-to-one across the nation by 2015 is inevitable. District
Administration, 70.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Most Important Point
Since we teachers tend to focus on changing our students, we
tend to be resistant to changing ourselves. Combine this attitude with busy
schedules, and teachers have a hard time changing with the times. Add to this
problem schools which are resistant to mobile technology being brought into the
classrooms, and we have students who separate their daily lives from their
lives at school. They don’t see much relevance in their school learning.
Because of these things, I believe the trend toward mobile
devices is one of the most important issues in education today. Our students
use them all the time, and some of us do, too. However, these devices usually
only make it into our classrooms when students break the rules. Educators and administrators
need to find ways to allow the use of mobile devices in schools, so school
networks remain relatively safe and students learn to use their mobile devices
for more than communication. Students need to learn academic material in the
same way they are used to learning other things so learning will be more
intuitive and less painful for them. This changes the direction for technology
resource staff. Instead of just managing the networks and troubleshooting the equipment,
the main thrusts of the job will be app research, management of security for
networks and devices, and instruction for teachers in how to best use the
technology available.
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