Building Skills and Student Discovery of Technology

I was reading the blog The 21st Century School House and came across a post about using different tools in technology in literacy programs. This person in particular is a high school school teacher and had been teaching about 21st century journalism. He used a number of tools to get students researching and understanding more about the world around them. The point that I really liked that he made was that students don't realize that there is a realm of information out there other than their social networking sites. I think that this is a great thing to teach students, even at a younger age. Many students may not realize the resources they are able to tap into, and as a future elementary school teacher, I plan on having students discover these many resources. I think that giving students the knowledge and understanding of setting up PLN's, looking at blogs, and using wikis to communicate is vital information and will help students highly succeed for years to come.

DJ Bloomie gives some really great example of what I mean when I talk about endless resources. Being able to access multiple libraries and many other types of information is just one way to show students that they are able to access any information that they need to know.

Seems like every week I am learning something new about how to organize information, and how to seek out information, which is making my life a lot easier, and I can't wait to share my knowledge with my future students.

Global Oppurtunities in Schools

When I think about the topic of global opportunities that could be used in the classroom, the first think I think of is cultural learning. With the technology that we poses today, it is possible to connect with other schools across the country and around the world. I think that this would advance students thinking. Rather than reading cultural information out of a book, or watching video, connecting to an actual culture would engage students and give them a unforgettable experience.





pic from www.flickr.com

I also think about global technology in terms of people being connect with each other, and that information is at anyone's fingertips. Students
can look up any kind of information and find an abundance of ideas and
facts about a particular topic. This shows how student learning is changed today due to technology. Even when I was in high school, we had the internet and it was able to give you information about certain topics, but today it is a totally different world of information..Its gigantic! Today students don't go to the encyclopedia to find out about a topic, they go online..and I don't blame them one bit. I love our technology and the way that it keeps us all connected globally.

My Social Networking Habits..

Social networking is pretty important to me. I love using Facebook because I am able to be connected to different friends and family that are scattered all around the world. From reading other blogs I see that many of my classmates agree with me (DJ Bloomie). I love being able to go to the Facebook homepage and read peoples status updates..It allows me to see how peoples days are going and see what my friends are up to. I also like Facebook because I am able to share pictures with others, and vise versa, which is much easier than emailing and then downloading on to the computer. pic from www.flickr.com

When myspace started, I also used that social networking site, but nowadays I feel as though it is obsolete. I used myspace for the same purposes as facebook, except I used it more to listen to music on myspace because thousands of famous and emerging artists have pages along with a couple songs to sample. I have since then been too busy to really mess with that anymore and so I hardly ever use myspace. In fact, I plan on deleting my account on myspace in the next couple days.


I love social networking because it keeps me up to date with my friends and family that I don't always see or talk to. Whenever I am at a computer I check my page, and even when I'm between classes I can access it from my phone and check it. It is defiantly my most visited website..

While reading some other blogs, I found this.. Social Networking..A help or harm that I thought was interesting because it brings up questions about being behind a computer to communicate and also about what we did before we had these social networks. It is a fairly interesting piece.

Blogging in Education

One of my favorite ways that blogging is being used in education is when teacher create blogs that students and parents alike can go read about what is going on in the class. As a future teacher, I plan on using this type of blog so parents can come to it everyday and see what students will be doing in class today. Also I will post homework assignments, permission slips, parent reminders, etc. so they will be readily available to students and parents.




Picture from www.flickr.com