Technology in the Schools

Last week I attended a conference about using technology as a teaching aide, for student projects, or professional development for teachers at the elementary and secondary school level. Being a technology enthusiast myself, I was excited to look at all the neat tools available through the various vendors, technology has come a long way since I was in school. As I was "geeking" out about the new tools I had a moment of clarity - what schools can afford these tools? Not many. I know this for a fact because I was a teacher and tried to integrate technology and was faced with many roadblocks.

As I attended the morning sessions and put all of my observations together I realized how important my poster session is: Speaking Native (no computers necessary). It's time for my poster session. As I put together my display and waited for people to come and inquire more information I realized this was the moment of truth - do teachers have problems accessing technology? YES!! Many teachers stopped by, wanted more information and took one or more copies of my handouts. This is just the beginning, let's start the adventure of how to use technology without computers.

Webinar: How to do it well

The commercials are everywhere! "Hold a meeting from home!" "Meet with people around the world!" Those claims make it sound easy, well it is not! I believe with proper training and preparation most can do it well - but it takes practices. I have seen the best face-to-face presenters get frightened and bomb during a webinar. I have helped presenters become comfortable and deliver engaging presentations from a remote location. Of course first thing is first, choose the best webinar software for your purposes, target audience, use and platform.

Need help? Send me an email: sarabethu@yahoo.com

Basecamp

I work for a small company with alot of projects. We needed a way to communicate what projects were going on and key milestones. There are many project management software's out there, you pf course like with any software need to figure out your needs before making a commitment. I believe is testing it out with a couple people who will be using it daily before signing a contract.

http://basecamphq.com/

IdeaScale

Sending out survey is so last season. What you really want to know is - do you like or not? IdeaScale can do that for you. It's like getting a bunch of people in a room and getting a bunch of thumbs up or thumbs down. It's great! Now, it is not totally easy - you need to do a little homework, market it and make it super intuitive for your target audience.

Can you do it? Go check out IdeaScale.com.

Podcast Review

Geek!Ed! This is a weekly podcast that talks about technology in school. I downloaded one that is 47 minutes long. I guess the easiest way for me to review this is what I liked and did not like.

Liked - I can see myself downloading this to my shuffle and going for a long walk or run and listening to this discussion. It's interesting because the discussion is playful and fun, well as fun as technology talk can be.

Disliked - Tangents, sometimes they get off the subject and they all start laughing and you can not hear what someone was trying to say. On the other hand, it is nice to hear banter, like you are in the circle with them.

Being introduced to this makes me want a Nano instead of the shuffle I currently have.

Content - I learned alot about what other districts are trying out with technology and issues about kids and internet access. I could see listening to future podcasts.

Review: Wikispaces

Purpose: An open-ended document/html page which that can be changed by wikispace members. Usually a wikispace has a dedicated topic of discussion or statements. The space can contain pictures, html and even blogs.

Use: I think that it would take a lot of time to monitor this type of everchanging document. If this was to be used in the classroom there would have to be plenty of time dedicated to etiquette. I find at the middle school level students will put other students down at a moments notice, this could be dangerous on the web. Although, there is an email notification setting you can use so you know when changes have been made.

It would be interesting to post a personal podcast and have a discussion about it. Getting insight on a project or idea from an outside person would be refreshing for the student.

Design: I have a hard time with the layout of the pages. I am sure there is some customization you can do, but overall it is set up the same way. Lots of text on a page, you have to search around for what you need/want.

Overall: I am undecided on if I would use this product in my classroom. Maybe after getting my curriculum solid I could incorporate it in as a why to document what we are doing. Then the students who has different jobs in my classroom could comment on the way they see other peoples jobs and such.

Review: Shambles.net

Shambles.net
Purpose: A central website for international schools to ban together and share information. Information from school rules, happenings, lesson plans, external resources for certain subjects.

Use: I did find a lot of information for business education which I forwarded onto my colleague. I did not find much in my area, which does not surprise me, but I think everyone should check it out if you are looking for new resources.
Business Resource

Design: Maybe there is a difference between the cultures but I found that the website was overwhelming and I did not know where anything was. Small text and lists of information, I guess for the amount of information trying to be communicated there is not really another way to do it.

Content: I navigated to an Asian website which had an embedded video from the principal.
Shambles Home

Review: iStockphoto

iStockphoto

Purpose: A website that allows people to purchase photography from a variety of photographers who are amateur or professional.

Benefit: This website allows amateur’s to try and get their foot in the door and make money on their photos. Also, it saves companies thousands of dollars in photographer costs.

Quality: This is where it gets interesting. To ensure the quality of photographs on the site there is a multitude of checkpoints one must go through to get photos published. First, you go through an online interview that includes a tutorial and ends with a quiz. You must past the quiz before going forward. Secondly, you have to upload a picture of your drivers license or other government issued ID. Thirdly, you have to upload sample pictures to determine your worthiness on the sight.

Throughout the checkpoints this is some of the information they cover:
- what does a quality picture look like
- getting model release forms
- who needs a model release form (people to buildings)
- compression and noise

Overall, I was impressed with their ability to weed out those who are not serious about sharing quality photos with those who are interested.

Educational tie: Possibly for an advanced digital photography student to test out their work in the “real” world and maybe make some money on the side.
Reference:istockphoto