Course Reflection

Course Reflection

This  course was a great  learning experience for me.  I’ve learned many different things about technology that I can use in my everyday life and also incorporate it in my classroom.  One of my favorites was blogging.  I had heard of blogging before this class, but I really never tried it out.  I like the idea of posting my thoughts and other people are able to comment on it.  This could be great for the classroom if I wanted to post a question for an assignment.  Blogging could allow the entire class to comment on it.  I also found podcasting to be very neat.  I actually enjoyed creating  one.  It could be a fun and effective way for teachers and students to create school projects.  Overall I really enjoyed this class and I learned a lot.

Assessment Tools

Assessment Tools 

I gained knowledge of a few assessment tools through this course.  I feel that by learning about these tools it will benefit me as a future teacher and as a college student.  The electronic portfolio is an assessment tool.  My electronic portfolio will take the place of a normal standardized test.  I think this type of assessment is good because it allows me to work on my grade over time, it allows the teacher to see what I’ve been working on all year.   Rubrics are a really good assessment tool as well.   When using rubrics it allows the students to know exactly what you expect of them.   A lot of assignments in this course were graded with rubrics.  I liked this idea because I was able to see exactly what my assignment was worth and how the points were broken down.  

Technology Application Standards

Technology Application Standards

Technology Applications, Kindergarten-Grade 2.

TEK

(5) Information acquisition. The student acquires electronic information in a variety of formats, with

appropriate supervision. The student is expected to:

(A) acquire information including text, audio, video, and graphics

English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 1

TEKS

(16) Reading/Media Literacy. Students use comprehension skills to analyze how words, images,

graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning. Students continue to apply

earlier standards with greater depth in increasingly more complex texts. Students are expected to:

(A) recognize different purposes of media (e.g., informational, entertainment) (with adult

assistance); and

(B) identify techniques used in media (e.g., sound, movement).

This could be a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom.  It will also help cover parts of the Technology Application TEK that is listed above.  The students will be able to recognize different purposes of media by searching the internet for different reasons.  They could learn the difference between informational text, and text that’s used for entertainment. They could create different  documents or slideshows.  They could add videos, audio, and graphics to their assignment. Technology is really important in todays day and age anytime technology can be merged together with another curriculum it is great for the teacher and students. 

In my opinion all the TEKS are important and educators should try their best to cover them all. I would really like to start my career as a physical education teacher.  After looking at the TEKS for physical education I chose to concentrate on the skills for high school and my focus was Team Sports.   The TEK states that the student exhibits a physically active lifestyle that improves health and provides opportunities for enjoyment and challenge through team sports.  The students are expected to select and participate in individual sports that provide for enjoyment and challenge, describe the health and fitness benefits derived from participating in selected team sports, and develop and participate in a personal fitness program that has the potential to provide identified goals. To me sports were important and it’s something I really enjoyed.  I would like to put that same love for sports into my students, but also let them know they can become healthy while enjoying their favorite sport. 

Technology Education

Bobby Washington

bwashington7@leo.tamu-commerce.edu

ETEC 424

November 19, 2011

Technology Education

CITATION:

Lee, Kerry. (2011). Looking Back, to Look Forward: Using Traditional Cultural Examples to Explain Contemporary Ideas in Technology Education.

Digital Library and Archives.  Journal Technology Education

42-52.Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v22n2/pdf/lee.pdf

This article is about a research that was conducted in different countries.  It provides justification and examples emphasizing how historical, societal, cultural, and environmental emphases can be used to design and create a technology program.  Over the last decade, change has been constant in education.  Technology education is the same way.  Providing justification and examples educators can see the strength and the ease with which they should include technology into their curriculum. 

The study showed that the Swedish technology curriculum requires students to be able to describe important factors in technology development, both in the past and present.  The South African technology curriculum requires a third grade learner to find out about the historical context when given a problem, need or opportunity related to structures, processing or systems and control.  The New Zealand curriculum requires students to appreciate the nature of technology and become familiar with current and historical issues.

An authentic learning environment allows students to develop knowledge using real world examples.  In doing that teachers are able to close the gap between technology in the real world and technology education in schools.  Children will be able to see that yes, technology is used in the real world such as viewing the latest I-phone or playing online games.   They will also be able to see they could use it in education by looking up news articles online or browsing the web to find something they need for class.

When it comes to my vision with education and technology I view it as a very beneficial tool.  In my opinion teaching reflects these changes. 

Providing historical and cultural examples will not only value students’ cultural understanding, but also it will also help them develop a broader understanding of technology. Education is constantly changing.  They are either adding to the curriculum or taking away.  I feel the same when it comes to technology.  More technology is being incorporated into the classrooms.  When I think about the online classes I am now taking the importance of education speaks for itself.   This would not be possible with out technology.  I work and have a life outside of school.  My online classes are allowing me to finish up school and not give up my outside activities.  Technology will continue to grow.

As teachers and students of today’s world we need to look at yesterday in order to design a better tomorrow. 

Copyright and Fairuse

I feel that you should give people their credit when you use their work. I've learned that the blog I created  is copyrighted. Anything that someone creates, being the original work is copyrighted. I also learned that Fairuse is not legal. Taking someone original work and using it as you own is plagarism. Whose to say that the author would be content with you using their work, without someone acknowledging that the fact that it's not their work if you use it. If not you will be engaged in the act of plagarism.

Internet Resource

  Before doing the Mapping Activities for Week 4, I already know how to search information on search engine. Google and Yahoo are the only search engines that I knew as a searching resource. Finally, I usually put in to much information in the search engine.
  After the Mapping Activities I learned about the search engines that existed. Each search engine has its own webbing information.
  In conclusion, I search engines as a resource tool to use I will not use web searching for my future teaching because my major is Kinesiology. Searching information online will affect my future students because they will rely on the internet to retrieve all their information.

Bobby Washington: Teaching with Tomorrow Technology

Bobby Washington: Teaching with Tomorrow Technology: My name is Bobby Washington, I major in All Level kinesiology. My birthday is December 24, also I have one sibling, which is 21 years of ag...