Monday, February 21, 2011

Polleverywhere.com in the Classroom


For my technology tool this week I choose to investigate the website polleverywhere.com. This website is a virtual polling station that requires the responders to use their cell phones in order to respond. The teacher can create an account of on the website for free, which allows them to save polls they have made, the responses to pasts ones, and any new polls that they would like to use in future lessons. Within the account the teacher can even see who responded to each poll, which will help the teacher know which students are participating.  It is also possible on the website to create polls without an account, but then the save function is not available and all polls are lost once the browser is closed. Best of all; this entire website is free for everyone for make and account, and as long as 30 people respond to a poll they are also free.
This piece of technology is very simple to use, and doesn’t require the user to be technologically savvy. Creating polls is a breeze, and responding to them is as simple as sending a text message. There has been a recent push to have students use their cell phones productively in the classroom, instead of as a distraction. Now you can engage the students by having them participate in discussions, and following along with lectures. There are several ways that using this classroom would be beneficial to students. The first way would be to integrate the polls into a lecture so that the students could follow along with the lecture. The polls could be then used by the teacher as a type of formative assessment, which would provide the teacher with feedback on what the students understand and what they are still confused with. This information will help the teacher create lessons that will better cater to the students needs.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Diigo and Social Bookmarking

This week Kyle and I decided to investigate the website Diigo. This website is a social bookmarking page, which used “cloud” technology. Basically this means that anything you do on your account on the website you can access from anywhere and any computer. This is made possible because every time you save something to your account it is saved to Diigo’s servers, nothing is actually saved on your computer. “Cloud” computing is becoming more and more popular, which is evident by Microsoft’s relentless advertising campaign, but I digress. More importantly this technology is revolutionizing the easy through which people access information through technology.
 Diigo stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups, and Other stuff. To get started all you have to do is create an account on Diigo. Once you have an account you can now access your cloud based profile, where you can bookmark websites, and even access anything that other users are sharing with the public. To further the functionality of you need to download the diigo toolbar for your web browser. This toolbar allows you to highlight text on websites and even leave comments on post it notes, and as long as your signed into your account they will always show up on that webpage. This tool would become very useful in the classroom. For instance I could bring up a website on my classroom projector that I had visited with diigo. I could have pre-highlighted passages that I want the students to focus on. This tool would make it very easy for me to present websites to my students. I could then teach the students how to use diigo so that they could research from home, and then continue in school because of social bookmarking.  This website would also allow students to filter through all of their information, and highlight only what was important to them! I am sure there are plenty of other ideas on how to use this tool in the classroom, so I am inviting you to post your thought in the comment section for this blog!

Monday, February 7, 2011

iTunes U in the Secondary Classroom


            Apple’s iTunes is one of the largest digital media on the planet. The program allows users to purchase movies, music, much more straight to their computers and mobile devices. What makes this technology truly amazing is the fact that it can be accessed anywhere and anytime. One of the newest features to the online store is iTunes U, this section of iTunes, allows colleges, universities, and recently departments of education to post educational podcasts and videos. The best part about it is that all of the information is free for everyone. Many colleges and universities have posted lectures, lessons, and instructional videos. All of this information can even be useful for students at different institutions, and even for students in middle/high school.
            While researching iTunes U, I came across a website from the Department of Education of Florida. This website contained links to all of the information that they have uploaded to Apple’s servers. This website is very helpful because it contained likes to information for all disciplines, which makes it valuable for all teachers.
            I can see several ways that I would be able to use iTunes U in my classroom. I feel that students learn science the best my practicing science. Labs are important because they demonstrate all of the principles in action. In many cases students have never had labs before so preparing them for proper lab procedures and techniques is important. I can use videos of lab procedures that were posted on iTunes U. These videos will help prepare the students for their lab exercises. When I have my own classroom I also plan on maintaining my own website, where students can check assignments, test dates, and supplementary materials. If possible I would download relevant lectures from college professors off of iTunes U and post them to my website. Since they would be on my website the students would be able to listen to them online if they wanted to review class material. I think this might be very beneficial for the students, because there have been studies done that suggest that students who listen to downloaded lectures on average perform better on exams. iTunes U will allow me to better serve the needs of my students, an enhance learning in my classroom.