Technology For Students

As I had to present Google Earth I learnt a lot about this great inivation.  The amount of things you can do on Google Earth are hard to present in a 40 minutes.  Some of the things you can do on Google Earth are look at 3d buildings, explore the world land marks, street views, when where to catch a bus, how to get from somewhere to somewhere, look at the stars and planes and even fligh a plane.  These are just some of the great things you can do on Google Earth.  When looking at things on Google Earth it has information button to click on with lots of information to view and read.  There is even education tools to use to help teachers and students use Google Earth for education benifits.  I found you can use this tool for most subjects taught in schools.  Being easy to download the free version, I think it is a must for every class to have available for use.

The search engines that we looked at where child friendly search engines.  I found some of the sites where not as safe as they say they are.  I think some of the sites may seem a little childish for them.  When I searched through Zoeybot.com it was very limited with answers to the search topic.  I still think an adult is needed to monitor what the child is viewing on most of the sites I looked at.  So this is still a concern for parents and teachers even with some sites helping in this monitoring.

I like the sound of doing a test by just clicking a few buttons a few times and the test is done.  This saves time and paper which looks after the environment.  I don’t know how they can be used to do a written test, but for multipule choice answer test they seem good.  I was always taught to check my work which is not possible with the clickers.  So once you lock your answer in there is no chace of changing it.  I guess the cost factor will play a part of being able to use them in class or not.  Who can afford them, parents or the education Department.  The other skill this technology it takes away is writing and the skill of using a pen/pencil.

I think the two pogrames (Flickr and Photo Bucket) to share photos on the internet both seemed easy for students to use.  I like flickr for the easy way to find photos as flickr has lots of photos to chose from.  I found that Bucket had great free services like creating an onlike scrape book of photos.  As you can make unlimited online albums of photos you upload to them everyone in your class can have one.  These both can be good tools to use in the classroom with student.

I use a ipod sometimes when I go for run.  This helps me forget the pain of running and enjoy the music I like.  I can not see this technology being a very helpful tool in the classroom.  Most students I have had experience with mainly play music on their ipod or mp3 players.  So stoping students playing music on them and monitoring what music is played on them in class will be hard for the teacher.  I can see the benifits of these tools in the classroom, but not at the cost to the teacher monitoring and price of buying the items.

I think it is one of the best technology devices to be in a classroom.  It is easy for the students to use it at any age at school.  Its is very hard to brake, so no need to worry when students are using it.  No more unreadable writing on the board with a few clicks all can read everyones writing in the same style.  I really like the way I can put up a document or picture on the board from my pc.  This helps all students to see it and work with it on the board.  Being able to print what is on the board is a grate way of giving students a copy of any work done on the board.  So no excuse if a student is away, because you can print the work from the board for them to have a copy.  Any work not completed from the board can be printed and taken home to finished by the students (for those teachers that like giving homework).  There are endless ways to use the Smartboard in the classroom.  I am still learn all the ways and am happy to do so.

Mspace and facebook are some of the popular sites on the internet at the moment.  I know if I teach upper primary students that they most likely going to be using these or would like too.  Because they are mainly a chat to friends programe I don’t see how I could use these in my classroom unless it was in a computer leason and closely monitored.  A very good programe for home use to keep incontacted with friends etc.

I felt that google docs is too knew to use.  There seems to be too many applications still being developed.  If you use the microsoft versions of it and only transfer it to google docs seems the best way at the moment.  I would not use this technology in the classroom untill it is improved a lot.  If I did use it in the classroom, it may confuse and frustrate students with them over the microsoft equivalence. 

 I have never used podcasting before this class but I have heard.  It will take me a while to get to know it well enough to use it in the classroom.  I learnt enough to show students what it is if they want to learn the other features themself and use it.  This would be a good programe for people that are dejaying or makeing rap songs.  I will have to explore this technology more in my time off from university.

The class on YouTube, Teacher TV & Keepvd.com was very formative and helpful.  I learnt a lot of good information to help me become a better teacher.  The presenters Simon & Mathieu keept the class well engaged in the topic and taught use lots of helpful informations on YouTube, Teacher TV & Keepvd.com.  They showed me how to make teaching fun and enjoyable for all students and teachers.