Google Program

For the google program review, I chose to look at Google’s Picassa, a photo editing program. This program is a simplified, free version of PhotoShop. It obviously is free, so this helps cut costs for schools if they have traditionally used PhotoShop, which is a good thing considering the predicament the state is in now.

Because Picassa is simplified, it has both its benefits and its drawbacks in the classroom. One of the benefits is that it is pretty easy to use. Students can easily upload and share photos over a blog or email using a little tool bar at the bottom of the window. They can also easily apply basic changes to an image. These basic settings include cropping and color adjustment, which is exactly what we usually use in journalism, so I think this could be beneficial for my students. It is unethical for students to change much else in their photos for the newspaper. Another benefit is that time it will take a teacher to learn and teach students how to use the program. It doesn’t look like it would take long to show students how to use it, and there aren’t as many adjustment options for them as in PhotoShop, so it would be easier. Because there aren’t as many options though, students aren’t able to create art using Picassa, like they can in PhotoShop. My sidebar editor would be pretty disappointed if we got rid of PhotoShop and used Picassa instead.

If a teacher wants students to be creative when using photos, they most likely will prefer PhotoShop to Picassa because of some of the advanced features PhotoShop offers. For example, if a teacher is having students create digital stories and wants the stories to be accurate, without many manual changes made to the image, Picassa may be the easy route to go. If the teacher wants students to manipulate the photo though, Picassa will probably not be the best program for them.

As for organization and sharing, Picassa does have some pretty cool features. It allows people to be tagged in photos, so it will be easy for students (which is especially good in journalism) to find photos of certain individuals. They can also apply places to the photos and even place the photos on Google Earth, which could serve a teacher well depending on the assignment. As I also mentioned before, there are easy click buttons that allows the user to send photos via email or upload them to a blog.

Using Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom

I have decided to list the questions that have been posed in my master's class and include my answers after them:

• What instructional strategies would fit well with using blogs in the classroom? Why?

The project-based approach and the inductive strategies would work well while using blogs in the classroom. If students are given a project they must complete, they could blog with one another to share ideas and design their projects.

Using the inductive approach, a teacher could give the student a concept and the students could then generate their own thoughts and ideas using a blog and blogging with others, thereby creating a learning community.

The “guide on the side” approach probably works best here, since the students are able to construct their own meaning by collaborating with others and sharing their ideas with not only their classmates, but the public.

• What instructional strategies would not fit well with using blogs in the classroom? Why?

The deductive approach would not work well with blogging. If a teacher lectures and is known as the “expert,” then students won’t have much to explore while blogging. They will most likely just regurgitate the information the teacher told the student in order to make the teacher happy and fulfill the assignment. This does not encourage the student to collaborate or exchange ideas with others, since the teacher knows best.

• How could you see Blogs being used in your classroom with your subject matter?

In the journalism classroom, I could see them being used as a way for students to respond to current events that they watch or read. They could also share ideas about topics to be covered in upcoming issues of the newspaper.

For English, blogs could be used in a variety of ways, depending on the unit students are studying. I often have class discussions, but it seems that the same students like to dominate the discussions, whereas some students like to take a backseat. These same students who take a backseat seem to share more in their writing. I don’t want to lose the discussion aspect in the classroom because I think it is important that students gain comfort in sharing ideas vocally, but I do think this would offer those more reserved kids the chance to have their voices “heard” by other students as well as the public. I also have my students journal a lot in class, so I suppose blogging could also be used as an online journal of sorts. I like to have conversations via journals, and this would be a much faster way for me to converse with students.

• Bonus Question: Sometimes it is not the technology that imposes the limitations but our own imaginations and ability to adapt technology to fit our needs-- How could you adapt a Web 2.0 technology to support an instructional strategy that you feel it doesn't easily support? (e.g., using a blog to help students understand their math facts.)

Hmmm…probably the aspect of English that Web 2.0 technologies would support the least is vocabulary. It is pretty difficult to think of something I could do with vocabulary words besides quizzes that are provided online. One of the things my students struggle with is using new words in sentences in the correct way. I could have students create wikis, writing their own sentences using words and then editing the sentences of others if they do not make sense the way they are written. I don’t think this is a great idea, but it was the only thing that came to mind. I guess that my imagination is limiting me right now!

My wikispace

Here is the link to my wikispace: http://lakeshoreclasscouncil2011.wikispaces.com/

We hired a new choir teacher this year, Katie Rohwer. The choir director prior to this was Adam Wurst, and there was another choir director two years before him. I couldn't figure out how to put a screen shot on my blog, so I will post it to the msu site instead. :)

wiki spaces

My first year, some of my charming students (who wanted As) told me, "Hey Ms. Lorey, look what the definition for 'Athena' is on this site! When I walked over, my name appeared on the screen. As flattered as I was to receive the title "goddess of wisdom," I knew it was some sort of trick. My students were trying to get As and were flattering me...but how were they doing it? After I sat staring in confusion for some time, my students finally decided to enlighten me about wikis. This was my first experience with wikipedia.

Since that day, I have learned a little about wikipedia, however, I did not build my own wiki until tonight. The wiki I decided to build was one for my class council. We are in charge of planning prom this year and have mock rock, winterfest, and other activities at the same time. My students are supposed to meet every Thursday morning, and my principal graciously allowed our students to meet for a half day last month, but we are still having difficulty communicating with one another all of the time. I am excited to share my wiki with my students and co-advisor tomorrow, because I think it will be a highly affective way to communicate and get some things done for prom!

After having read the article and watched the tutorials over wiki's, I have come to realize that they could definitely be used for educational purposes other than organization. I think I will try having students work on a wiki in collaboration with a couple other students to develop a review guide for the Odyssey this unit. I also think this will be a great way for my journalism students to communicate when we have snow days or when we are not in class. Email is outdated and half my students don't check their emails on a regular basis. Texting proves to be easier for them because they can directly communicate with one another and get immediate feedback. The wikispace will allow students to communicate with one another as well. In combination with flickr, RSS feeds, and social networking sites, the process of acquiring materials for the newspaper has become much easier!

computer-based learning- things to ponder

When creating computer-based instructional objects such as WebQuests and StAIRs, it is important for educators to consider multiple things, including the type of learning they want their students to be conducting, abilities of students, and the technology students have access to.

To begin with, teachers should think about the strategies they would like to employ when designing and/or using computer-based activities. After having looked at a few WebQuests, I have found that those centering around project- or problem-based methods seem to have the most value. There are WebQuests that simply ask students to visit sites, record the information they learn from the sites, and then apply this information to tasks. This deductive approach to learning works well if you are purely using the WebQuest as a medium through which to deliver information. However, it does not require students to do much more than what they could have done without a computer. If a teacher wishes for students to construct their own understanding, I feel it is imperative that things such as StAIRs and WebQuests be centered around ideas students construct and/or problems that students must develop their own answers to based on learning. For example, one WebQuest I visited, To Choose Freedom: A WebQuest http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Emerson_MS/levin_wq/, asks students to answer the question “If you had been a slave, would you have tried to reach freedom using the Underground Railroad?” Students are then asked to visit sites to learn about slavery, Harriet Tubman, and the Underground Railroad. They then formulate their response to the question from the research they have done and write a paper supporting their decision. This WebQuest asks students to learn by reading; however, they are also asked to analyze the information in a team and construct their own opinions based on the information they have learned. This uses both the constructivist and the problem-based approach to teaching and provides students with the opportunity to develop their own understanding because the teacher is acting as the “guide on the side,” coaching them, while they are held accountable for their own learning.

Another factor educators must consider when developing or using computer-based activities is the abilities of the students. In a co-taught special education classroom, the teacher will most likely need to keep in mind that some students will finish before others will and it may take some students with learning disabilities a longer amount of time to complete an exercise where they must extract information from a variety of sources on the Internet and come up with their own solutions. At the same time though, teachers can easily adapt the requirements for students based on their individual needs.

Yet another thing educators must consider when using computer-based instructional objects is whether or not students have access to computers. I know that the laptop carts are limited and difficult to get at our school and normally are booked up to a month or two months in advance. This makes it difficult to implement computer-based activities. If students are asked to do a WebQuest at home because of the lack of technology in schools, a teacher must consider whether or not this student has a computer and/or the Internet or whether or not the student can access it through a local library or come after school to complete the assignment.

Two WebQuests I saw that I would consider using in my classroom include the one previously mentioned: To Choose Freedom: A WebQuest http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/Emerson_MS/levin_wq/ and World War II: In Defense of Freedom http://www.lifestreamcenter.net/DrB/Lessons/WW2/index.htm. The first one I would use in the freshman nonfiction unit, where students read part of a slave narrative. The other, about World War II, I could use with my freshmen before they read Night, by Elie Wiesel, which is about one boy’s experience in a concentration camp. This could be used to introduce the Holocaust and World War II prior to reading.