CEd0520 week 4

This week it has been very difficult to keep my head focused on my graduate work.  To be honest I’ve given a lot of thought to whether or not I should leave this program before I incur too much debt.  Not because I don’t want my graduate degree, but because I don’t know if I’ll have a future in teaching or if I’ll be returning to the business world.   At this time I’ve decided to ride out the uncertainty and see what happens.

This week’s work has been about privacy issues, Internet safety, and copyright laws.  These days I feel it’s really hard for copyright laws.  For examples of this all you have to do is look all around you.  People are constantly taking parts of words, videos, etc. to serve their purpose.  As teachers we “borrow” things all the time.  Since I don’t have textbooks, I’m constantly pulling information off the Internet so copyright laws directly affect me. 

In regards to students safely using the Internet, our school does an all school presentation during the school year.  We cover such things as cyber bullying and sexting.  Unfortunately I think that many times this information falls on deaf ears.  Until students know someone that it has happened to, they don’t realize the seriousness of it. 

Privacy issues are something I think of all the time.  I choose not to do a lot of activities on the Internet that require me to provide personal information.  It’s not that difficult to do without, and I’d like to think I’m contributing to the economy since I don’t shop or bank online.  I don’t think it’s completely irrational since I know people who have had their identities stolen.

CEdO520 Week 3

This week we compared Elluminate and Adobe Connect and their value as online teaching tools.  Our group found these two programs to be very similar, with the exception that Adobe Connect can be used with various media devices and Elluminate doesn’t seem to be able to.  Both have interactive whiteboards, conferencing,  break out rooms, etc. 

We also compared various learning resources such as polling programs, cartoon creators, etc.  As usual some of these are interesting but come up with questionable material on the home page making them inappropriate for school.  This week I noticed we are looking at some programs we already looked at in previous courses.  At first I thought it was strange, but when I got to thinking about it I thought it was by design.  Every week we look at so much material that only a few really stick with me.  However, the more I’m exposed to the same programs the more it will stick with me and become part of my repertoire and go to programs.  It’s amazing how many programs are available; it really is hard to keep up with all the resources available.  My favorites are the free programs especially in lieu of recent events with our educational system.  

CEdO520 Week 2

In this course we are looking at Internet Learning Resources and their validity.  To me Internet learning resources are any site that anyone can learn from or use.  I use learning resources in my teaching for my students, but I too use the Internet to learn from.  The problem with the Internet is that there is SO much information that it is often difficult to find what you're looking for.  This week we used Google Advance Search.  If I remember to use it, this will become a good tool for me.  Google advance search is easier to use than Boolean Logic, and although we learned about Boolean Logic in another course bad habits are hard to break.

We also read an article debating Wikipedia's significance in learning.  I have only used Wikipedia a couple of times, and I've never had my students use it.  Not for the reasons in the article, but it's just not a site that I give students to use.  I provide my students with the URL's they are able to go to.  Is wikipedia a reliable source?  I guess it depends on the subject, however, students (people) should never use only one source for information when doing research.  I don't think wikipedia should be completely discredited.  The most important thing to remember when doing research on the Internet is that there is a lot of inaccurate information out there.  Choose wisely and carefully.

This week I was introduced to Google Alerts.  I don't think this is something that I will use.  Sometimes technology just inundates us with too much information.  Personally that's how I feel about Google Alerts.  When using Google Alerts you select a subject and then it will email you with information on it.  Who reads all those emails?  Not me.  There is only so much time in a day, and I don't want to spend all of it on the computer or working.  Regularly I watch local and world news so I feel on top of current events.  If I want to know more I'll research it.  If there's a subject I want to know more about, whether it be for school or personal, I'd rather research it myself.

CEdO520 What is the Value of Blogging?

During our first class Jim asked if we liked doing the weekly blogs.  Quickly I responded with a "no".  Then he gave us the assignment to come up with ways to use blogging. 

Personally I don't mind blogging, but I find the weekly assignment repetitive and tedious.  I find it very difficult to answer the same question “How can you apply what you’ve learned” every week, when many times we are working on similar types of material from one week to the next.  Unfortunately not everything that we do can be used in my classroom or school at this time, or at that moment I haven’t had enough experience with the tool to be able to really answer that question yet.  It doesn’t mean that I didn’t find the experience beneficial though.  The other part is reading and providing thought provoking questions to our classmates.  This is difficult for me to do when I’m just learning it myself. 

Since I understand that at the end of this graduate program I will have to create a capstone, I think my blog will prove to be invaluable.  I think of blogging as a “journal”.  With that being said, I think it is important to do an overview of what I learned and my experience with it.  I would like to blog more about what did I learn, how well did it work, can I use it in my teaching environment, why or why not, and what issues or challenges did I have if any.  When I look back a year from now, I believe this type of information might be more valuable to me.  With this being said, I don’t know what our capstone has to be about or like.  Perhaps that type of weekly blogging wouldn’t be as beneficial.

In regards to reading and responding to my classmates’ blogs, I do think there’s value in it.  I like reading each other’s blogs because it provides other peoples insights.  Some things I’ve learned by reading the other blogs is that person’s experience.  Did they have difficulty with it or were they able to easily manipulate the program?  From their blog, I’ve also read about ways that they might be able to use the material in their professional life and how they would use it.  Instead of trying to come up with questions on material I’m just learning, I’d like to write about something I learned or was able to take away from their blog.