EDUC 554

Wes Fryer recently posted a “KWL on podcasting and levels of adoption and integration of podcast”, but it really applies to all technologies that you are in the process of learning. Being at different stages is a good thing and we can learn from each other.

I hope you will continue to challenge yourself to continue to learn about new, emerging technologies and how you can apply them to your classrooms and share them with colleagues.

How has the technologies we have tried changed your relationship to technology? What level do you think you are on now that the class has finished?

Many of the web technologies we have been trying have can’t be used in many (most?) public schools. We need to keep our students safe. the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), the U.S. government withholds some funding from libraries and public schools that don’t filter their Internet access. With a just 1 vote majority the Supreme Court upheld this law.

Last year the house (but not the Senate) passed legislation (DOPA) that would have defined what must be blocked so strictly that most almost all Wikis, Blogs and other interactive web sites would have to be blocked.

If you had control over the laws and policies, how would you balance safety with the opportunities to teach students using these web technologies?

I teach in a school of 2200 students in a building designed to hold about 1500 (smaller) junior high students. While we are about to under go a a major expansion it still might not be enough. The experience if overcrowded classrooms is not unusual for public school teachers. Most schools don’t have the financial resources to provide a good balanced lunch and don’t get me started on text books. Having set the see scene, how can we justify the millions of dollars it would take to bring our schools up-to-date in technology?

There is a whole lot more we could cover about technologies that can be used effectively in our classrooms. Between the two of us we could spend the whole weekend on web design OR working with images OR pod casting OR PowerPoint OR… well, you get the idea.

We will have to spend much of our time on presentations (keep this in mind in planning yours) so I want you to think about what you want to cover. You can look at the list in the “Educ 554 Content” but we aren’t tied to this list. We could head into new territory or go back and dive deeper in to something we’ve done already. What do you want to learn about?

PS – Staples currently has PNY 1GB Attache USB Flash Drive for $14.98. These are normally $54.98. While supplies last!

I love all these new technologies and can imagine endless ways of using them in my classes. Sometimes I get so excited about the technology that I loose site of what I’m actually teaching. My favorites are the web 2.0 technologies. I’m sharing that excitement by offering workshops for the LVWP and ASD. I’m also doing everything I can to push the district to develop less restrictive policies about filtering these sites.

What technology tool that you’ve learned about so far get you the most excited about how you can use it in the classroom? What are you going to do about that excitement?

Tell us about an article you corrected or added to today.

If you could design your own classroom, and money was no object, what currently existing technologies would you include?

Welcome to the Educ554 class blog! My name is Donna Bragg. I am a Family and Consumer Science teacher at Dieruff High School in Allentown and the Tech Liaison for the Lehigh Valley Writing Project. I have a varied teaching background including teaching at the middle school level in Allentown, teaching at New York School for the Deaf in White Plains, NY, teaching in a public middle school in Norfolk, VA and in a private, residential psychiatric facility in Portsmouth, VA. Additionally, I have taught adults and in day care settings.

I have always been interested in using technology with students to help them understand and apply the concepts presented in class. This past summer I made some great leaps forward in understanding some newer web based applications and am excited to share it with anyone that is interested. I hope I can excite you as well.

Please take a few moments to add a comment to this post and introduce yourself. The class will focus on using technology in teaching with an emphasis on interactive web applications. With that in mind, please share one thing you hope to gain from this course.