There are many channels of technology available to students to express
their many modes of individuality. A great example is
Microsoft’s Photostory. Like a more advanced Powerpoint, this
program allows students to assemble a digital photo album that plays,
from picture to picture. The creativity factor in this is the ability
to record, to add music, to alter transitions, and create banners.
Another great program that allows vast individual creativity is
Apple’s iMovie.
After filming, a student can take their work
into the program and alter it editing and adding effects to create a
high-quality project. Creativity and innovation can be used in just
about any classroom, where an assignment or project calls for any bit
of opinion, creative touch, or artistic expression. For teachers,
there are masses of resources on the net to offer insight and ideas for
creating or altering lesson plans to make them more effective, fun,
interactive, etc. Sites like DiscoveryEducation
are an asset to teachers by allowing them to edit class movies and
documentaries for only covering key points instead of wasting valuable
class time watching the whole thing.
Current
technology is allowing us to move well beyond the old-fashioned email.
Today, we are able to communicate instantly via programs like Skype.
Skype is a free program via the internet that allows people who have an
internet connection to converse instantly. Websites like Gcast allow
teachers to record anything from a phone and have students listen to it
from an internet connection. Google documents is also phenomenal
program for efficient instant communication. With this, people can work
on projects with others at the same time, yet be in different locations
on the globe. With the ability of being globally connected, students
will have the ability to get global perspectives for anything. Besides
cell phones, all that is needed for communication today is an internet
connection. Anytime a group project is assigned, communication is key
for the group members. This new technology also functions quite well
with keeping in contact with staff and parents of students.
It
is important for students to know how to use a search engine and how to
be able to write effective search strings to find exactly what they are
looking for. For research purposes, it’s essential to understand
the differenced between fact and opinion, and be able to distinguish
sources that are reliable and sources that aren’t. In this age of
digital communication and collaboration, there are is almost always a
site, group or organization out there that has done research on
almost any known topic. Also, online data-bases hold a plethora of
information and scholarly
articles from many sides or many topics. As
educators in this information age, it’s our job to teach how to
find
it. In almost any debate or topic, there is almost always scholars or
professionals documenting theories, opinions, or experience online
somewhere. Using technology as a research tool is largely understated
and has applications is every subject a school can teach.
Working
with technology inevitably brings up problems from time to time.
Although few of us are IT experts, there are many ways of finding out
how to solve the problem. Basically, what is necessary is not how much
you know, but how proficient you are in the ability to find what you
need to know. The internet is loaded with online tutorials from how to
save a file to the best way to create an interactive website. Search
engine can find anything, the key is the ability to create just the
right search string. There are now more ways than ever to communicate
via the internet. Email, IM’s, and Skype are just a few ways to
get in touch with your instructors when assignment-related problems
arise.
Digital
Citizenship means that you are a citizen of an online community. This
then means that there is a code of ethics you should abide by, (which
can be found by searching ‘online etiquette’). It should be
understood that the internet is a privilege, not a right. As a user of
the global society, instead of only using and taking, you should also
add to it, where and when appropriate. It is also important to giving
credit where it’s due, to give recognition to those that deserve
it; there are even websites like knightcite
that produce proper citation just from a user inputting the proper
elements. Educating young people about morals and character is a
crucial
concept today, and the same behavior should be stressed when
participating online.
First
and foremost, keyboarding is a must in today’s classrooms. One
could argue that keyboarding will become one of the major stepping
stones after spelling right along with and handwriting development.
There are a few basic universal programs that can be used for almost
anything like word processing. There are also a few basic concepts that
transcends all of computer technology. Some of which are file saving, files, programs,
USB devices, etc. I think that it’s also important to know the
basic parts of a computer as well as some universal troubleshooting
techniques.