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What specific technologies I learned about and why I think they will be valuable

Through the course of the semester I learned many new things about technological tools and their use and I am excited that I managed to use them properly and create examples of activities that I will later be able to use in my teaching. 

The tools that I value the most are productivity and non-linear multimedia, from PowerPoint presentations to creating spreadsheets and newsletters, I believe that the use of non-linear multimedia promotes non-linear thinking. That is not to be interpreted as bouncing from topic to topic and being distracted, but rather being abstract yet learning to connect the pieces of information one finds useful for his or her own learning.

Although linear PowerPoint presentations can be very useful to transmit a fixed message, they do have some limitations. For example, the whole message must be presented even if someone already knows most of it. In some cases, it is nice to allow a person to choose only those parts of the message that are of interest.

 There are many benefits about non-linear presentations and using them as part of the introduction and instruction. 

Nonlinear PowerPoint presentations can present you with slides that have many links to explore, and you decide which links you want to explore first. In other words, you can be more interactive with a nonlinear PowerPoint than you can be with a linear PowerPoint.

Through the non-liner presentations you can teach your students to THINK in a non-linear manner. 

Why is this important? Thinking in a non-linear manner basically implies that one can think "multidimensionally".  Being able to make connections to various resources and having the freedom and autonomy to access the information you are looking for from various places, be it on the web or in your brain, especially the later, helps promote your mnemonics and higher-level cognitive skills. It also encourages thinking critically and assessing the value and relevance of pieces of information from various sources and compiling them together to form you own and unique opinion allows you to apply your acquired knowledge for various purposes. And that is a much desired effect as it enables us to find real-world applications, becoming more creative and insightful, to keep growing personally and professionally.

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Hello everyone! I am Angel. Nice to meet you. I love art,culture and nature. What about you?

Do you think you would use blogging in your future classroom? Why or why not?

As the Internet becomes an increasingly pervasive and persistent influence in people's lives, the phenomenon of the blog stands out as a fine example of the way in which the Web enables individual participation in the marketplace of ideas.

Teachers have picked up on the creative use of this Internet technology and put the blog to work in the classroom. The education blog can be a powerful and effective technology tool for students and teachers alike. It does require some research and coordination to make the most of it and reap all possible benefits of the blogging experience. It is also the responsibility of the teacher and the school to create a user friendly and safe environment for the student learning to take place.  

Blogging is a highly motivational and interesting way to get students to write, and this is being a fast growing area of research. It doesn't take much research, however, to know that using technology is a motivator for many kids. Students nowadays are “digital natives”. Technology tools are an innate part of their lives and it is to our advantage as teachers to use the tools they are comfortable with to achieve educational goals.

Students can write blog posts from school, their home computer… or from anywhere they have an internet connection, using tablets or smartphones, and that flexibility allows them to mange their time for the completion of projects while discouraging excuses for not doing their work. Another consideration is students with limited social and/or verbal skills, and who are often unwilling to contribute original ideas in class, may have a more equal footing in online conversations conducted through the written comment responses on a blog.The process of blogging addresses the problem of “wait time” between question and response. All students, regardless of learning style, have the time to consider the prompt and formulate a response.

Also the very nature of writing comments to a blog post, including the ability to preview your own post, encourages self-editing and re-writing. Students have an opportunity of becoming more aware of their writing skills and feel more responsibility for their own learning. This can promote learner autonomy. Blogs also foster interaction between students. They can read and review what their fellow classmates write, which can encourage critical thinking as students defend or refute the comment posts of others. This way students have a way to compare the quality of their comments, form and content, to other comments and posts. This provides an interesting twist on peer-assisted learning, using student work to model writing skills.

Teachers who also blog are modeling the writing process in their posts and comments. This allows more time to be devoted to the creative process than the instruction, however it is probably best to provide students with clear instructions and evaluation rubrics alongside the model/example. Another important benefit for teachers, is that student written work as blog posts is easier to read and respond to. The teacher also can work at home or from any internet access point. The material is more legible and the font size in a browser can even be adjusted, making reading student work easier on the eyes, literally.

Conclusively, I believe that the blogging process encourages literacy, problem solving as well as critical thinking skills and mastery. Students must learn to carefully read what others have written in order to make meaningful comments. They can also come across information or aspects they had not initially considered.In addition, students also learn to research and read from a wide variety of sources in order to write meaningful posts of their own. Finally, student work is automatically saved and archived, creating a portfolio of their work over a period of time. It is then easy to go back and compare the quality of the posts and comments from early to late in the school year thus giving an opportunity for students to evaluate their own progress, pursue their development of their own learning strategies and set their own goals concerning their education.

In a nutshell here are some factors to consider if you decide to use blogging in your classroom:

Benefits of Blogging

• Highly motivating to students, especially those who otherwise might not become participants in classrooms.
• Excellent opportunities for students to read and write.
• Effective forums for collaboration and discussion. 
• Powerful tools to enable scaffolded learning

Risks of Blogging

• Blogs may be viewed publicly, as any other Web site. Students must be trained on issues regarding access, privacy, security, and free expression. As blogs have no publisher, producer, or editor, students must carefully consider the content of postings to avoid anything defamatory, libelous, or an infringement upon the rights of others.
• Blogs are created by individuals for various and assorted purposes. Content should be recognized as the opinion of the blogger, and, therefore, may not necessarily be factual.

*Some references:

http://stu.westga.edu/~tcooper1/Profdevtmc/index.html

http://stu.westga.edu/~tcooper1/Profdevtmc/blogs3.html

The impact of multitasking on teaching, learning and thinking

Multitasking, friend or foe?

Even before entering the 21st century people had been talking about the Information Age. What does this mean for today's students and the generations that follow? 

In the Age of Information the number of resources that are at hand with the development of computer technology, the Internet and social networking, hurry, bustle, and increasing expectations have become a regular way of life for many people — so much so that we have embraced a word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing demands on our time: multitasking. 

What is multitasking? Multitasking is the best performance by an individual of appearing to handle more than one task at the same time. Imagine being a student and being able to learn new information in your classes while talking with your friends, listening to your favorite music and working on your homework assignments for your other classes. 

Today's students are equipped with top notch gadgets that are rapidly improving in a matter of months; even far less is some cases. Furthermore, today's students are networking. Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler and several other social networks have emerged creating an entirely new environment for people to interact and share experiences. Blackberries and smartphones have replaced cell phones and pagers. Laptops and netbooks have replaced notebooks. Interactive white boards have replaced blackboards in many classrooms and the recognition of technology integration, in and out the classroom or work environment, as a growing part of our daily lives are all the ingredients that formed the need to multitask.

Technology integration and its potentials and outcomes is something I have analyzed in previous blogs and I am an advocate of technology as a tool to promote a new approach to learning.

However, there is a question of whether we, as human beings and not computers with extensive information processing hardware and infinite information storage capacities, can operate according to the demands formed by the new technologies. The Information Processing Theory and the research and experiments performed by developmental psychologists and neurologists suggests that our brain functions similarly to a computer; recognizing the information input and deciphering and organizing the information as well as storing it and later retrieving it from long-term memory. However, the human brain in all its magnificence is not a computer, a mechanic device. And that nature imposes some limitations. According to research, the number of objects (information, also known as cognitive load) an average human can hold in working memory is seven plus or minus two. Why does this number matter? Recent research has shown that when someone is multitasking, their ability to withhold the increased cognitive load provided in the tasks presented does not change. In fact, what the brain does is "switching" from task to task and in that process it "restarts" in order to identify afresh the task given.

What happens when you are working on a desktop and in order to start a new program or window you have to restart the computer, often without even saving your information and settings before doing so? Yes, you lose time and more importantly lose information. Research and experiments have proved that "multitaskers" are not as effective as their "single-tasker" peers, they actually take longer to complete tasks and are more prone to making errors. 

The implications on teaching, learning and thinking:

As mentioned earlier, today’s students enter the classroom equipped with a cellphone/smartphone, mp3 music devices and laptops in growing numbers. During class sessions they are likely to be texting, listening to music or browsing on the Internet, if not instant messaging their friends on social networks. However these processes do not impair their ability to listen to the instruction and even respond to teachers’ questions. We could assume that next generations are developing multitasking skills that are truly superior. Indeed, that  changes everything we know about multitasking, learning and the brain functions. Unfortunately that is not the case.

In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.” Other researchers came to similar results/conclusions stating that “it is not impossible to learn when multitasking, but it is unlikely that the information input will reach the higher level thinking parts of the brain.” Essentially, learning skills can become impaired as thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. One simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube. Speaking of Youtube (*coughs*) :

As a far as the implications on teaching, I believe it is once again  the teacher's role to inform of and instruct students the proper use of the new technologies. That is, using technology to open a window to a world of information and possibilities without shutting the door to the brain and it's unique cognitive thinking abilities that need time and training. 

For additional information :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking

http://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasmerrill/2012/08/17/why-multitasking-doesnt-work/

How will the next generation read and write?

In an era where teacher education and training involves learning how to incorporate 21st century skills in the classroom it is not far-fetched to say that THE FUTURE IS HERE.

There are people debating over the pros and cons of the usage of technology at an early age and how it can affect learning. Some people believe that next generations will have no use for writing and reading and that the already well known and established acronyms and abbreviations will deteriorate the proper use of language. Others are concerned about the use of cell phones, smartphones or laptops  in the classroom as these technological tools may not be used as intended by educators for learning purposes, but as means to pass the time and not pay attention to the class.

These concerns have some validity, in my opinion however, if students are taught to regard these tools as learning tools and not toys they can benefit a lot from their usage. Let us not forget, and I am pretty sure we have all done it at some point in our school years, when one is uninterested or bored in a class, all it takes is a pen and a piece of paper and "poof!" "What class? What lecture? What meeting? There is some serious doodling going on here!"

As to the effects on language that the use of these technologies and the new found need to update or share anything one finds interesting or plain funny,shocking,sad,cute etc, through popular social networks, there is once again a debate whether it will have detrimental results on how we perceive language in the future and be able to read or write.

"In the age of text messaging, where words are reduced to nonstandard abbreviations and symbols, many people question the future of literacy." Kate Baggott

If we take into account the current views of cognitive development, maybe there is no need to be so alarmed. According to researchers of cognitive development, it is our perception and information processing as well as our problem solving skills that allow us to assemble components into a meaningful pattern.

As an example, try reading this:

Of course, without prior and consolidated knowledge of the alphabet this task would be near impossible. The need to recognize and make sense of this visual stimuli allows us to form new connections and assign new meaning to the number symbols and read them as letters. This has already become a common practice for younger generations and perform such tasks with greater ease. 

I used this specific example to show how the new skills set that  the upcoming generation has been developing does not need to be regarded negatively. It is evident that children and students of the future will still need to be able to read information and make use of a language. 

It is merely the symbolic representation of the language that is changing and all this is said without taking into consideration another skill that has also been developing simultaneously, the identification of the different registers within language. 

Next generation students have already been demonstrating that they can use language properly in terms of spelling and vocabulary and use the new age language where abbreviations have replaced words and phrases at the same time, provided they are aware of who they are addressing and through what kind of medium they do so. 

In conclusion, I believe that it is not up to educators to try and "reform" the students of the future, but to inform them on how to make the best out of the technologies they have at hand. It is not up to the next generation to adapt to the ways of the past but on educators to adapt their teaching to the new technologies and accepting how it is undeniably becoming a part of our lives and consequently part of our learning processes and education.

What do I know and think about technology in the classroom

“What do I know and think about integrating technology in the classroom”

     When I was attending high- school, technology in the classroom would go as far as having a computer lab that we would go to, and for no apparent reason or realistic application, we were introduced to computer programming and technologies. Fortunately since then, technology in the classroom means more than teaching basic computer skills and software programs and programing in a separate computer class. 

     There has been a lot of development in classroom technology and effective technology integration after researches showed that it has to happen across the curriculum in ways that will deepen and enhance the learning process. In particular, it must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world applications.

    Technology integration can be achieved when the use of technology is routine and transparent and when technology supports curricular goals. There is a myriad of resources online that can provide each classroom with more interesting, diverse, and current learning materials. The Web connects students to real world applications of technology that they will need to master depending their choice of profession but more importantly, provides numerous opportunities for understanding through images, sound, and text. 

     Technology in the classroom has great potential in promoting holistic and kinesthetic learning skills. The use of images and videos has been known as “visual aid” for some years. Now with the added dimension provided by the use of Interactive White Boards and computers in classrooms students have the opportunity to manipulate and/or change images, videos, texts, sources of information and participate in their learning process in a way that is more active and makes most of their unique individual learning channels and patterns.

 
I have worked in a Language Institute where we made use of the Interactive White Boards to teach English and I have seen the benefits in comparison with my private tutoring  sessions. Students, especially young children were excited and highly motivated to participate in activities, even such as practicing vocabulary, when they  could get to draw a colored circle around the object on the picture for which they heard the word. Seeing that in my classes led me to assign as homework for my private tutored students, online interactive games that practice vocabulary, math or geography and saw they had much more will to and actually doing their homework.

     There are many interactive websites that provide students with fun ways to learn and practice materials in almost every subject and to view results in graphic ways that aid in understanding. And, as an added benefit, with technology tools and a project-learning approach, students are more likely to stay engaged and on task, reducing behavioral problems in the classroom.

Technology also changes the way teachers teach, offering educators effective ways to reach different types of learners and assess student understanding through multiple means. It also enhances the relationship between teacher and student. When technology is effectively integrated into subject areas, teachers grow into roles of adviser, content expert, and coach. Technology helps make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun.