Technology Integration
I found a little blurb on the Education World website about tech integration.
Integrating technology into the curriculum is a priority — if not a
mandate — in most schools today. Most educational technology experts
agree, however, that technology should be integrated, not as a separate
subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as a tool to promote and
extend student learning on a daily basis. The challenge, of course, is
in finding ways to use technology — and to help students use it –
that don’t take time away from core subjects.
This couldn’t be more true. I strive to accomplish this everyday. As a huge technology fan, I find that it’s hard to get others excited and motivated to integrate it.
Why blogging? & How can we control it?
A few teachers have stopped me in the hall and asked “why the push for blogs?” I say, why not? What have blogs done to earn such a bad reputation thus far? Sure, a few employees (OK, maybe 36) have been fired over the content found within their blogs. But why? Probably because they were not following the rules and regulations set-forth by an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy). These employees were posting confidential information, gripes about co-workers, and innapproriate photographs. Sure, all of these offenses warrant the given punishment. It would be no different than a student posting answers to an exam (confidential information), bad-mouthing a teacher or other students (gripes about a co-worker), or posting crude images (innapropriate photographs). If done, students would face immediate consequences and likely a pretty harsh punishment. So why is it a surprise that these employees were fired? Just as we need to make sure our students understand the severity of publishing for the world to see, so do corporate employees. How do we accomplish this? Through the use of an AUP. If a student were to post innapropriate pictures on his or her blog, how would we be able to appropriately punish if the offense was never deemed an official violation? Through the use of an AUP.
What would a blogging AUP do for Williamson?
It would list all accepetable and unacceptable uses of blogs in the district. It would also lay a framework for infractions and their respective punishments. The WCS Classroom Blog Policy would require both parents and students to sign before being allowed to actually blog within the district.
Blog Policies
After a month of deliberation, we have decided to open up edublogs.org to the faculty and students at Williamson. We realized that it was important for teachers and students to use a more popular blogging service. Yes, we can use in-house systems and things such as Elgg, but it just isn’t the same. We are looking forward to moving ahead with edublogs and the policy writing that must happen before we “open” it up.
Anyone with blog policy writing experience, please post a comment! We are looking for ideas from experienced educational bloggers!
Blogging!
Finally! Blogging has come to Williamson! We will be working with BOCES and using Elgg to blog within the district. I am looking forward to working with the teachers and implementing blogs into the curriculum.
SMARTBoards!!
SMARTBoards! They’re here! We now have a total of 16 SMARTBoards in the district. What is a SMARTBoard, you ask? It is an
interactive whiteboard that is connected to a computer and a data projector.
Once the computer image is projected on the board, the SMARTBoard can be
used as a computer. By just using your finger you can control the computer.
Below are several excellent sites explaining the SMARTboard and many interactive
sites that are great for students to use on the SMARTboard.
Elementary
Education Resources: Kindergarten
SchoolExpress.com
Fun Time Activities
EdCompass
Learning Resources, Lesson Activities
Please peruse the sites and let me know what you think!!
What is Educational Technology?
According to the Encyclopedia of Educational Technology,
ONE DEFINITION of Educational Technology is that it is a systematic, iterative process for designing instruction or training used to improve performance.
Confusing? It should be! Educational technology is vast, encompassing all disciplines. One major focus of educational technologists, however, is learning. Check out the Encyclopedia of Educational Technology and learn a few new terms and/or concepts.
technorati tags:Ed+Tech, learning
RSS, yet again…
I can’t stress enough how incredibly cool RSS has become. Sure, it’s been around for a while, but until recently, I didn’t know anyone who used it – including myself. Now, it almost impossible to find a website that doesn’t have an RSS subscription.
They all have links that look similar to: 
Just by a mere click of the link, you can subscribe to their feed and have content delivered to your desktop, palm, or cell, almost immediately. YOU MUST TRY IT!
If you’d like to read more, check out AcademHack:
“Seriously, if you have not tried this out do it, download one of these readers. I do not overstate the point when I say RSS is the most significant webdevelopment in information processing/communication in the last few years (I know RSS has been around longer, but it has only lately becomewidely used). Forget Web 2.0, wikis, etc., this is the one that is ofthe most use to the average person who just wants to read about things.”
academhack » Blog Archive » The Joy of RSS, or an Explanation I Have Been Putting off Far too Long.
RSS in your Classroom
Interested in RSS? Want to know more? Will Richardson spoke briefly about what RSS is and how you can use it. Here is a document that lists 50 ways to use RSS in YOUR classroom. RSS Ideas for Educators
Word of the Year 2005: Podcast
PR Newswire – A United Business Media Company
It looks like PODCAST was chosen as the word of the year! Looks like we need to start using it in the classrooms! Any takers? Anyone want to try it?
Personal Learning Environments
Have you heard of PLEs? Me neither. But, while doing a little research, I read about Personal Learning Environments and really like the concept. Traditionally, educational environments have used Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Blackboard, WebCT, and Moodle for a way for students, teachers, and community members to “congregate” on the web. (I speak of LMSs as traditional… Yet, most K-12 schools have barely heard of them – look at how quickly technology changes.)
PLEs, as Stephen Downes explains, can be places where teacher and learner are peers. They are lifelong learning environments that *belong* to the learner. So what does this mean?
In current LMSs, users use tools such as “chat” and collaborative environments to communicate. Such a system would look like this:
PLEs would change the way in which we structure our teaching, learning, and communication. According to James Farmer, [traditionally] “users would ‘re-invent’ themselves in each new online context they work in.” Other than the occasional photo or email addresses, users lacked a presence or persona. Their files were deleted at the end of the term. There was no “real” ownership. PLEs change this – users are able to represent themselves. Communication used to be centralized around discussion, rather than the individual. PLEs afford communication between individuals and make that communication centered around them.
So what does this have to do with WCS? Maybe nothing today. But as you begin to explore blogging, Moodle, and other educational technologies (LMSs, PLEs or others…), please be aware of the user. Think about your students, who they are in class, and who they are online.
