Ecummings

Future of Technology in Education

Emily Cummings My personal favorite, blogs, as not only are students discussing with one another, but they’re learning something about writing for a wider audience who may or may not be listening in. This is a great asynchronous tool that can be used among classmates in your class or with students around the world.

A blog is an on-line journal that can be made public or private. Students can use blogs to create an online portfolio, post reflections, turn in projects or assignments and receive feedback from the instructor or other students. Blogs promote collaboration and allow the instructor to invite experts, community leaders, and others to review student literary works and projects. The open nature of blogs also allows for communication between students in other classes at other institutions who are studying the same topics. You might have to make “comment on blogs” count for a grade in order for some students to do it, but such is the nature of the beast—those students probably wouldn’t talk in class, either. Here is a blog I posted for this wiki. [|http://aneducationinthe21stcenturyblog.blogspot.com]

GO MOBILE! I found a free app called VideoScience, and I love it. Anyone with an iPhone or an Android can go to their app page and download it in seconds. Students can use it to do experiments and to learn science tools. Students can also use it to study more science in their free time. It is a free app and I would use this app in my science class as a future educator. I love it.

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Of course I have to mention google + hangouts as a great synchronous tool. Julie Lindsey uses them and I loved getting to talk to her across the world for free.  Google Hangouts is a free video chat service from Google that enables both one-on-one chats and group chats with up to ten people at a time. Google Hangouts focuses more on “face-to-face-to-face” group interaction as opposed to one-on-one video chats, and utilizes sophisticated technology to seamlessly switch the focus to the person currently chatting. I have used google hangouts with my classmates and I love it, it is so easy and it works great!

Week 6 Chapter 5 Tuesday, February 25

Our assignment was to select a popular social media that students were using and educate ourselves on it. Then we were to interview a student that was already using the media. I interviewed a 6th grade girl named Reece Ann using the popular social media called Pinterest. I found it amazing and very addicting. I educated myself on it very easily. In the interview I asked Reece Ann if she has had any problems with Pinterest and she said she did not like when she pinned something then the page no longer existed. Which I did encounter that problem a lot with recipes. Another problem she said was her mom did not think it was child friendly because some children may still believe in santa clause and if you got on Pinerest during christmas you would know santa was not real because of all the elf on the shelf pins. The site has a lot to offer for men, women, and children. I had fun talking with Reece Ann! She said she loved Pinterest and I do too.