Prezi

Reflection- Prezi was a very useful tool to learn how to use; the interface was very comfortable to use and it is now my preferred tool for presentations.

Assessment- The interface for Prezi is user-friendly and intuitive. It is an attractive way to convey information.

Integration- I will use Prezi in the future both to demonstrate new concepts to students and to help them better explain their ideas.

Advanced Google Search Techniques

The Advanced Google Search Technique lecture was a little redundant, but I could see how it might have been relevant just a few years ago. As technology advances and becomes more pervasive, it becomes difficult to assess what counts as common knowledge and what doesn't (Reflection). Nowadays, any 7-year-old probably knows how to use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button or Boolean search techniques, but just a few years ago that wouldn't have been true (Assessment). In teaching my classes, I'll be able to assume a greater degree of search-engine sophistication from my students (integration).

Jing

This Jing video makes it easy to explain to students how to perform certain critical tasks. This is especially useful when working in multidisciplinary projects like our Dustbowl Techno project, which this video is meant to prepare students for. Even though I may not be teaching all students involved in the project (some could theoretically have Katie or Chris as teachers but not me), I can still explain certain concepts to them in a consistent manner that they can access at any time when they're home and need tips for research. Additionally, this could allow me to provide ample instructional material for hard-to-communicate concepts on days when I am sick and there is a substitute teacher working.

Jing sample video

Sample video demonstrating competence with Jing.

Podcast

(Assessment) The podcast project is a good one for students because it shakes up students' expectations and lays bare the process that goes into creating much of the audio they encounter on a daily basis. By seeing how audio clips can be split, cut and blended together they can detect tricks that are used to hide the seams in the audio they encounter (Reflection). The format is widely different from the standard 5-paragraph essay; students must be audibly engaging and must condense their points to account for the fact that audiences can't as easily reread when they miss something important (Integration). It stretches their brains so that they can work with ideas in a wider variety of contexts. In the future I will have students make podcasts so that they can better understand media technology (Integration).

Google Earth

(Assessment) The Google Earth technology has great potential to help students contextualize places they've never been to. (Reflection) Not only can they see what two different places look like and the distance between them (as they can with the already potent combination of google image search and google maps), they can also witness the journey from one to the other itself with Google Earth's trip planning features. This gives them a more accurate idea of the relationship between times and distances. I plan to use Google Earth to help students understand the length of the journey the Joads take in the Grapes of Wrath (integration).

iMovie

(Assessment) iMovie is a (relatively) intuitive interface and a vital tool  for expanding students' literacy. Giving students the opportunity to conceptualize, plan, shoot and edit a movie will take them into the minds of those who create the audio-visual experiences that permeate their lives. I believe it can help give students an understanding of what this technology is capable of and the subtle tweaks it can enact upon an image, thereby allowing them to better distinguish fantasy from reality when reviewing images and sounds (Reflection). As an English teacher, I plan to use imovie to teach students how manipulating sound and images is similar to manipulating words, and how both can craft our expectations and thinking (integration).

Concept Map Tool

The concept map tool we used in class seemed to have a relatively intuitive interface, but was so highly specialized that at times it felt impossible to get the program to do anything outside the box. I think the tool would be very useful to those who are new to concept maps, but for more experienced students I might recommend MS Paint so that they could experiment more with forms and ideas.

Photoshop

From an Expanded Literacy point of view the most pertinent use of photoshop lies in making students aware of its influence in their lives. Exploring what the product is capable of and comparing photoshopped images in magazines to non-photoshopped originals can help students better understand the relationship between the media and their perceptions of their bodies  and reality. This could further be used to expose students to the more general concept of "hyper-reality," sparking discussion of other examples of the principle at work.

iweb

I've experimented with a number of WYSIWYG website programs in the past; when I was a kid I used to goof around with Front Page, Angel Fire and Geocities. Like iweb these were great, intuitive programs that allow you to publish material on-line without requiring a great deal of technical know-how.

This is something more students should be made to do; the fact that it wasn't a part of my highschool education indicates that my education was already obsolete. Being able to publish directly to the web gives students the satisfaction of seeing a piece of their own work presented to the world, with the added benefit that their work can then interact and participate with the rest of the massive conversation we call the internet.

Finally, I think programs like this are going to be appealing to contemporary students who are already using applications like Facebook, twitter, etc. to create personalized webspaces for themselves. Encouraging students to use a more free-form web publishing tool allows them more opportunity to express themselves in terms of web design, lay out and the kind of information they wish to provide. It can also free students from the financial structure of sites like Facebook, which by design suck them into a web of targeted advertising, information-mining and privacy violation.

Wikis in the Classroom

I think it's important that we not only expose students to how Wikis work, but how they operate in "the wild" as well. As it stands, the Wiki is one of the most important learning tools of our generation- not for providing the in-depth and comprehensive knowledge available only in classrooms, but for giving easy and intuitive access to a wide range of topics and for making the relationships between those topics explicit with the use of hyperlinks.

Wiki-learning is conversational and self-directed, in the sense that Wiki participants choose the path they take from topic to topic and can contribute their own findings and opinions when appropriate. For that reason I hope to encourage my students not only to use Wikis in specific classroom-directed activities, but also to view the Wiki as a vital tool for sustaining their innate curiosities.

Introductory Post

The interactive whiteboard seems like it'll be really handy once I get the hang of it. The tools available combine the potential of a computer with the intuitiveness of a traditional whiteboard. The technology is more direct and hands-on, and therefore easier to pick up on. This will be an especially important asset in the classroom, since our students are likely going to be interacting with touch-screen technology on a daily basis.

I mean, that, or they're going to be fighting for survival in some sort of post-Apocalyptic wasteland.

Like every generation, ours is getting the vibe we're on the doorstep of the end of this world or the beginning of a new one. And like every generation, we have a much greater chance of being right than all of our predecessors! We should teach our students to operate seamlessly and instinctively with technology for the same reason we should teach them how to identify poison berries and cut down a deer with nothing more than a combat knife and a gut full of hunger.

The future is gonna be weird, messy and awesome. Make sure your students are multi-faceted. (Each of the men above is trained in looting burnt-down factories AND operating information technology!)