Virtual Field Trip

The virtual field trip was another thing that I didn't know about technology until today. I find it amazing how it can have so much information in one program. I was looking at a 1920's virtual tour of Ireland during WW1 and some of my classmates were looking at how the ocean looks like on the other side of the world, all on the same program. I think this would be very helpful in the classroom. You can show the students anything from anywhere during any time period and its at the tip of your fingers. I think when teaching about WW1 I would be able to show this virtual tour and the students would be able to get a real firsthand look on how the people dealt withy the war, and how they eventually moved on. In closing I am excited to get started on the web quest. I learned about digication and I want to get started.

blog 4 chapter 5&6

In chapter 5 we read about how to teach our students how to use search engines on the Internet the correct way. On the Internet we can instantly have all information available to us. We have to teach our students how to get that information and make sure that it is correct and updated information. There are a lot of different ways to access information and some of it is not correct information. Students that just started using the Internet do not understand that, they figure if it's on the computer it has to be right. We want to teach students information literacy and a big part is how to find research correctly. We also have to teach our students about specialized searches which will narrow down the focus of searches and make their search more relevant to their topic. Electronic note taking is also a new exciting way to take notes, it will keep students involved and interested when taking notes during a lesson. They can record the information and save the information they locate online. Also we read that searching the Web involves one of three search strategies, which are free text, keyword/exact match, or a boolean search which I didn't know about. It is very interesting and helpful. Another important thing is to provide age appropriate searches for the students, we all know there are a bunch of things on the Internet that the students or even we have to be see. We have to protect our students as much as we can and make the Internet a fun, and helpful learning experience for them. We also read about the four types of information problems that are found on the web, which are misinformation, malinformation, messed-up information, and mostly useless information. Obviously we want to keep our students away from all of those types of information problems. High quality online information is what we would like our students to always have when finding information on the Internet. The American Library Association says that high quality information meets five criteria which are accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, and coverage. This is very helpful to know because we are going to have to find websites with high quality information for our web quest. We also read about digital ethics which is very important. We spoke a lot about it in class we have to teach our students the right and safe way to use the Internet. The last thing we learned in this chapter is how we can try to stop cyberbullying, which is real and it is a big problem in our world today. If we teach our students digital ethics the correct way hopefully we can stop cyberbullying.
     In chapter 6 we read about how to manage digital information. A key word in this chapter is information management which is the process of organizing, storing, and administering the academic materials and curriculum resources used by teachers and students in schools. It is very important to teach students how to store information on the web correctly, because it is something that will stay useful to them for the rest of their lives. We learned how to find the curriculum standards that we would need online. So after finding that we would be able to store it on our computers and have it for a reference for as long as we need. We also learned about WebQuests, virtual field trips, and videoconferencing as resources that we can educate students with. We read that webquests are virtual journeys in which students visit a group of websites that we select for them to look at different educational topics from texts, videos, pictures, and audio. It makes whatever topic we are trying to teach fun for the students. I have to learn everything about webquests because I am a little nervous knowing that I have to create one. Of course we want our students to learn in the classroom from us teachers, but they can also have a virtual school experience which is taught through online learning. Another thing we learned is that there are six types od educational websites, which are lesson plan, student-to-expert communications, real-time and recorded data, archival and primary source, skills/practice, and exploration and discovery.
 

Take away 10/8

Today we learned a lot. In class we seen a bunch of great videos and it showed how we can use technology to teach about all different subjects. It is very refreshing to see all the different styles that each individual used to create their movie trailer. It just shows how we can change styles for each topic that we decide to incorporate technology into. I am excited and nervous to get started on the web quest. Hopefully I am able to do a great job, and it will help me in the future as a teacher.