Projectors

http://technabob.com/blog/2006/09/15/sony-pearl-sxrd-projector-officially-announced/

Projectors are very simple ways of integrating technology into a classroom or lesson. They have a wide range of uses such as movies to just lessons. The non overhead ones are nice because they do not get in the way of the student's view. They do not block and obstruct the view. They are also a cool way to present in a different way and have many uses. When I often think of technology, I think about bigger things or websites, but this is still a simple way to use technology in your classroom:) the little things can make a big difference!

Audio Books

http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=9925


Audio books are a great way to read books for many ranges of students. They can be used for all types of students. They can be used for struggling readers which cannot read very well or do not enjoy it. They can also be used for students which have disabilities. Using audio books also helps because instead of using the skill of reading, you are using the skill of listening which is also very important to language acquisition and to comprehension. These are great resources for teachers which are not used enough but I have had experience with these in a classroom.

Skype

http://bikyamasr.com/wordpress/?p=9925


Skype is something which has become increasingly more popular in the past few years and one of my college professors used it this year. She was not always available on campus to have office hours and she said that if we needed to talk to her that we could have office hours over skype and she would conference us that way. This is a very easy way to meet with a teacher or if you have a quick question than you could call your teacher and instantly get an answer and explain your issue over skype. This is an effective way of communicating and I think that it would be cool to have more teachers that had skype as office hours. What do you think?

AOL AIM in the class?

http://www.intelligentmag.com/aim-express/


I had a friend who told me that he used AOL and AIM in his classroom and I was confused how this could be used for educational uses at first. He told me that his teacher had a screen name and students would contact the teacher if they had questions and it would give them an instant answer back. I thought this was really cool and since AIM is something many people have, it would be pretty accessible to students. This is just one example of teachers getting a social network or id that students have and making themselves accessible to students in that way. This is something I hope to be able to do for my students:)

Jeopardy!

http://jeopardy.edogo.com/

All throughout the years of schooling, when we were reviewing for tests, we would use little buzzers to answer whether it was teams or individual and I loved it! It was such a fun way of learning and reviewing and I actually remembered a lot from it. I think that the buzzers are a great way to integrate technology into reviewing and the classroom and it is enjoyable! This is something that can be used for all grade levels:)

Podcasts

http://www.vegansoapbox.com/vegan-soapbox-podcast-vegan-cookie-monster/

This was a very interesting and new kind of technology that I just learned about. I had heard about it before but I never looked into it and the significance. Podcasts can be both audio and video recordings. The church that I attend uses them and they are really cool! If i miss it or am looking for something to reference, I can click on it and watch it as if I was there. I think that teachers could use something like this in the classroom because it would be beneficial to students and teachers too! Students can look back to help study by referencing and remembering specific incidents which they used to remember a topic and teachers can benefit since they will not have to repeat themselves or reteach a topic. This could be very helpful in a classroom and I think this would be great in a classroom like a lecture! They should try it in my classes:)

Realizing the use of Educational DVDS

http://musiclab.atu.edu/

Before this year, I had not realized how important educational dvds were to me. I did not see any point in them most of the time they were very boring and dull. I hated watching them, but this year I had a professor which taught me a lot from them. They were related to my class and topic and they made sense. They were very specific and I was learning from them because they were actual examples of how things should look and they were very interesting to me. I am hoping one day to use more of these in my classroom but to make sure that they are actually relevent to what I am teaching and not just for fun and no meaning.

My Child Study Student

One of my lessons which I made for this class about suffixes turned out to be very useful! I got to see how technology really could be used and it was great to see it play out! She was very receptive to it and she seemed to understand it and enjoy it! This was further proof to me that I should plan on using technology in my classroom because sometimes I worry that my students will not understand or it will be too advanced for them and they will be confused and get frustrated, but this showed me to not underestimate my students and to try to integrate as much technology as I can, even if it is just a little bit!

Mimeo

http://www.rtc.edu/AboutUs/DSDPGrant/MultiModal/

Mimeo is a new technology to me that I had heard about from a peer which I thought was really interesting and hope to be able to try out and use one day in my own classroom. This is where you write on a board with a special marker and then it basically gets translated into a pdf file which you can use later. This could be great for both teachers and students. Teachers would not have to type up their notes or complain that they cannot put notes up online because they dont want to type them and students can reference the exact notes the teacher used in order to study better. It appears to be a win-win! I think this is a neat technology and maybe one day they will make these for individuals so that when they write notes down then they can have a printed neatly and organized version to use to study off of! How cool!

Labtops

http://www.havenvideo.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40484

I have a lot of teachers who do not like labtops in their classrooms, but some are fine. I see the problems that could exist with students having them because they could get side tracked and not pay attention and perform poorly and not learn anything but at the same time, there is just as large of a positive aspect. I know a lot of people who learn better by having typed notes because they are organized and they can reference them later a lot easier than trying to figure out their written notes and messy handwriting. I get upset at teachers who do not let students decide for themselves, but have a suggestion. I know that sometimes if someone has a computer than they can be distracting for me sitting behind them or next to them but maybe they can have a side of the room in a lecture which is for people that have labtops so they are not distracting. Any ideas to this solution? I think overall though that they can be a great resource for students and they can also look up information in class so you could do class activities which involve research without having to take the time and move to a computer lab. There are pros and cons and I think the pros outweigh the cons in this case. What do you think?

Second Life

At first I had a hard time finding reasons why this website could be of any use in education because it came across to me at first as a video game which I did not want to even look further into but when I did I was surprised. You can pick different areas of the world which you wanna click on and visit, for example, when I visited the website, it talked about how you could use this to show colleges from far away and see them virtually. Also, it talked about businesses having meetings over this website and I was very surprised. If meetings can be had over this, then you could have class or discussions or office hours over this website as well. I think this website could have many uses and has proven itself since major corporations are investing and having meetings over this website.

http://megschmidt.weebly.com/

Twitter

http://technorati.com/blogging/article/trouble-deciding-who-to-follow-on/

Twitter seems very foreign at first, especially to me, but reflecting back on the semester, I am realizing more uses for it than I first did when I first joined Twitter. Students could use Twitter to help one another and respond to another student's tweet. Also, teachers could have students follow blogs and share with one another and the classroom which could be used for things such as research projects. This would be something students could do when they are on their own at home playing around on Twitter and doing homework. It integrates both parts of Twitter since it can be very educational but can be just enjoyable. This is a resource which is not utilized enough but should be explored more.

BlackBoard

https://barry.blackboard.com/webapps/login/

When I first heard about BlackBoard, I thought it was the board which you wrote on in a classroom, but then I found out that it is a network that is similar to ANGEL which a peer of mine used in high school. It is a large and popular network that is commonly used. You can have discussions, can post assignments, answer posts to discuss and compare, teachers can put rubrics up, and teachers can post a page of frequently asked questions so they don't have to answer them over and over again. This would be a really great thing to set up in a classroom because it will keep your classroom more organized and if they are missing from class you could put assignments up and they could get them instead of being late because they did not have the paper. In addition, if you lose an assignment or rubric, you can print if off again so you can work on your project without having to wait to get it from a friend or the teacher the next day. Just like ANGEL, this program could have many beneficial uses for both teachers and students!

YouTube

http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/07/04/youtube-hacked-justin-bieber-videos-targeted/

In one of my language classes, we really used YouTube as a way to teach because we were studying child language acquisition and so we would watch these videos of a little girl whose parents video tape her numerous times and post them for people to watch. They display so much about child language acquisition and when I think back to the class and what I learned, most of the strong connections I made were from those videos. It stuck with me and I could find them again if I needed to. Using something as simple as YouTube could be a great teaching tool for teachers in the same way that my teacher used it for our college classroom!! Plus, YouTube is also entertaining so it makes learning more enjoyable which keeps them more engaged which helps them learn better by making stronger connections.

Facebook

http://www.thethinkingstick.com/facebook

I think that through this class, I have come to realize that you can use most technologies for teaching, you just have to be creative about it. Even Facebook can be used to teach. Most people have a Facebook and they understand how to use it well, and even in our class we used Facebook as a way to communicate with each other and share information. It was the easiest for us because it is something that we always check and we understand so its easy for us to reply or make events for a study group. You can also use Facebook to find other things such as blogs that people keep linked to their Facebook. In general, I have been just thinking of all the ways which technology can be used in the classroom, and while some have more obvious and large use than others, you can be creative and utilize almost anything.

Pageflakes

I chose to look at this site for a new technology. There is so much you can do with this website! You can link your facebook, twitter to this site. It has things like music and weather too! Some really cool things are that you can save your favorite websites and send them to your friends and also you can search your friends tags of favorite websites. It can be made very personal and individual based on the person and you are able to put everything you like in one spot. It looks like a mix between facebook and your email home page and igoogle. Its pretty sweet! It is really easy to see everything at once, and it is not confusing at all. You can search from your pageflake as well. You can include things also like ESPN, stocks, or magazines. You can make different tabs like tabs about blogs for educational blogs or technology and you can just look at it briefly on the the single page and then click on a link if you think it looks interesting. You can have a calendar, music, google, dictionary, clock, or even news on different tabs which are called "flakes". It is really easy to add a page which you can add different links, it is easily editable. You can hook up your email as well. There is a lot that you can do with this website. It can be organized however you want it to and you can easily search through your page quickly. You can make the individual pages as public or as private as you want it to be.
As an educator, this is a great way to have everything you look for in one spot. You can have your blogs you follow in an easy and quick way and additionally you can check your email on the same page. There are so many reasons for a teacher to use this. There is a special edition for teachers which includes a online grade tracker, task lists, and a writing tutor. A teacher could also make a blog for their students on this and they could communicate about a topic this way.
I think in the classroom this could be very useful. I think the class could make a pageflake together, in groups, or individually and they could communicate through this. They could use this to research or to do current event updates. Using this integrates technology which is a little more complex, I wish I had learned about these kind of websites earlier so I would understand and be comfortable organizing them and I think it would be a great thing for students to have at a younger age, aka before college.
This website can be use in numerous ways! Check it out!:)

ps. the website is down for a little but I learned this through research about it and the classroom

Starting to wrap up the semester

http://www.cnq.ca/Page.asp?PageID=2065&SiteNodeID=206

It is finally the end of the semester! Crazy how fast it approached, but also crazy to think back on how much I have learned. I have enjoyed learning about all the different types of technology and different resources I have to make my teaching enjoyable for students. I think that is the most important thing I have learned. I learned that yes, there is a very traditional way which things are taught and they do work, but why not try something a little different using technology? Chances are that it will be more fun and motivating for your students, plus, it brings them into the technology century and combines it with school. It integrates more with their normal daily lives and that is awesome! We should take advantage of the resources we have and use them to help teach. There are SO many options and I never realized it before. I knew basics, but nothing like wikis or blogs. These things can be applicable for all sorts of things and I hope that one day as a teacher, I can integrate these. I want to make learning fun and be unique. I want my students to remember what I am teaching them, and hopefully it will be more effective. I hope to make my class more interesting so maybe students will be more interested and motivated! That would be great:) I just hope that I can keep playing around with these resources so that I can become proficient in them in order to use them the best way in my classroom. I would love to find more things like wikis that students can access and is very easy. I have so many options, I just need to keep searching. I cant wait! Its going to be great!!

Elmo

http://macsi.org/shop/elmo-machine/

I recently observed in a classroom at an elementary school and I was curious what kind of technology the teacher would use in her everyday classroom and she used an elmo. I have always liked elmos because they can be used at all ages and they are an easy way for the student to see just what the teacher is trying to show. Instead of wasting time passing around a book for the whole class to see one image, you can flip open and have the class look at it together in a much larger picture when projected. I think these are great ways to integrate technology into a lesson, even if it is something small like an elmo. This observation reminded me that you do not always have to have something large planned to use technology, it can be tiny little things daily.

Wiki's

http://www.ikiw.org/category/wiki-adoption-strategies/


I have used both wikispace and weebly at this point and I like wikispace better. I find it easier to organize and there are a lot of options to make it your own. It also seems very user friendly with new people which weebly took time for me to get used to. In addition, I like that you can invite people to come and edit and be members but anyone can view, with weebly you cannot have members. Lastly, I began using weebly for a large project and had a hard time with keeping formatting and inserting scanned items which I grew frustrated with and disliked. The wikispace seems much easier to use and connect other sites to it. I think overall, wikispaces are just easier to use.
In your classroom, you could have students reference a wiki that you make with helpful information for a project, or depending on the age, you could have them create a wiki instead of a project. Research papers seem awful and boring and there is nothing you can do to visually differentiate yours from others and if you chose to have them format their paper in a wiki, they may enjoy the process of doing it on a computer web page and being able to customize it. They can organize the page as they wish in ways that may make more sense to them. They can add images to this and such which would also possibly make the project more enjoyable for the students. These could also be a great way for a group of students to work together on a project since it is something that they can all access easily. I think this would be a great tool for the classroom if the kids are at appropriate ages.

Smartboards

http://hoofbeat20.edublogs.org/

I have never been in a classroom which used a smart board before but I had heard a lot about them and most of it was all good. My prior knowledge about smart boards is that they are great ways to have student interact and resources for the teacher. The example that comes to mind in which they could be very beneficial is in physics. If you are drawing an diagram of a ball that would hypothetically fall off of the ledge because of the angle, then you could demonstrate that and put the object in motion using the smart board. This would have been very beneficial for me as a student since I struggle to visualize things unless I can physically see it, I am a visual learner and if I am not shown, I have a hard time imagining it. In addition, students can write on the board which would be a great way for students to practice handwriting or cursive in younger classrooms. There are many ways in which these boards can be utilized to help to make an efficient classroom and help maximize students learning. Although there are many positives, there are also down sides. Many older teachers are not proficient in technology like younger generations and they may now know how to use it which is a problem. Trying to figure out technical problems can take up valuable classroom time. Also, it is a relatively new technology and so there could still be new problems with it. I also researched and found out that it takes time to learn to write on the boards since it can be very sensitive to writing, just like learning how to write on a chalkboard. In my opinion, I would love to have a smart board in my classroom one day and I think it could be very beneficial to the students and to help me teach more effectively to my students. Technology is advancing so quickly, I cant wait to see what they come up with next! I just hope I can keep up!