Virtual Classrooms

Well, this week my blog is on virtual classrooms. Since I'm actually taking 4 virtual classes currently and I have taken one in the past, I know a lot about them. One thing I didn't know, that I learned through reading the article "Africa's First Virtual Classroom" is that they are now setting up virtual classrooms in Africa and probably other places as well. Also, the virtual classroom they described in the article seemed to be a bit more high tech and advanced than the online classes you can take in high school and college.

It is so great that they are setting up classrooms like this for children in Africa, experiences like that can probably do much for any student no matter the location. And what is great to learn is that a major phone company, Motorola, is helping all of this happen! I mean, I know you hear every day that major companies are helping do things that are needed to be done or whatever but I don't really think you can believe much of that. But Motorola actually is helping the communication for these virtual classrooms.

I think, and possibly if more major companies were to get involved it could happen, that they should set up virtual classrooms everywhere for every country's school children so that they can experience learning like this. Imagine what all this could lead to!

Streaming videos

As with many other topics I have discussed, I never really considered streaming video to be a tool that could be very useful in education. This is not because I think it would not be useful, just simply due to the fact that I had never actually thought about it. I read an article that talked about streaming video and how it can be very useful to help the educational process. This article is called "Rhode Island PBS Video Streaming Program."

The article began by explaining exactly what video streaming is, how many clips and full length videos it can give students and teachers access to, and how it works. They then go on to explain the benefits of video streaming, like access to other lesson plans, guides for teachers, ability to access other lesson plans while at home, and access to over 650 high resolution photos.

I think this is very useful indeed and it's not just something to help the students, it could be a great help to the teachers as well. When a teacher is stuck not really knowing what he/she should do for a lesson, they could type in "lesson plan" in keywords for streaming videos and get some good ideas! I think that would be great so long as the teacher would not copy the plan directly in case a student in their class had already gone through that same lesson the way the teacher found it. Each teacher would need to learn to but a new edge or spin on the lessons they find.

Podcasting educationally?

I'd heard of podcasting before but I'd never really considered it being used for learning. I looked up articles on this subject and actually found podcasts on learning different languages and literacy and all sorts of educational things! It was amazing! I did eventually find a good article titled "There's Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education."

They give an example of a girl named Jenny waking up to check iTunes and seeing entertainment podcasts and educational podcasts side by side and doesn't really get surprised by this because she's so used to it. I don't use iTunes or check podcasts but I can see how someone wouldn't be surprised, technology is being used for practically everything nowadays, including education.

They talk about assignments of the students making podcasts, which I think is a great idea. What better to show that you're learning something than using technology to post it where anyone who is learning the same thing, teaching it, or interested in learning it can see. That could possibly teach people who want to learn about it but can't take a class for it or help teachers who don't know what to use for a certain class period.

I think that podcasting to show what you've learned or viewing podcasts to learn something new is definitely a way of the future and I'm sure it will be catching on in all the classrooms soon. Who knows where this could lead next? That would be an interesting journey!

Digital Imagery

The article I read this week was called "Increasing Visual Literacy Skills With Digital Imagery" and it was about a College of Education program that used digital photography to help their students with their visual literacy. They said that the camera cart that they set up was used over 50 times by 16 teachers. There was even a class that were showing future teachers how they can use cameras when they start teaching. They discussed using cameras to capture a field trip they took to create a photo journal.

I think that a photo journal is a wonderful way of seeing what students learn and possibly even teaching future students through the journal examples. Digital imagery is definitely a good tool to use for teaching, since there are many students who learn through seeing, not just hearing.

Maybe a way to bring this to a new level could be by having students take home cameras, as long as they can be responsible enough with them, and creating a journal of their lives or a collage of their family.

Storyboarding

This week the blog topic is storyboarding. I never really thought of storyboarding in any way other than making animated movies, but I learned that that is only one of their uses. Storyboarding can be used for any type of presentation. I learned how it can be used through the article entitled "Presentation Storyboarding" which was a very simple article explaining how to use storyboards to create a presentation.

They began by explaining that storyboarding should not be the first step to doing a presentation, rather, it should be done after coming up with ideas. They then went into saying how you can decide between using a computer or using paper for your storyboarding and the advantages to each. They also explained some alternatives to paper and computers. The article ended by explaining how what elements to put in the storyboard and how to complete the assignment after you are done with the storyboard.

I think, in a way, students have learned storyboarding from the time they first start writing essays in school. When you are asked to write your first essay, whether it be on your dog or a family vacation, you are usually told how to do an idea web, or something similar. I learned two ways of doing idea webs and both seem to be like storyboarding, though they never helped me much on my essays. I tended to write my essays with no storyboarding, just letting my ideas flow onto the paper instead. I suppose you could also do presentations like that, but I see how storyboarding can be very helpful for most people.

What are Wikis?

I had no idea what Wikis were, let alone how they could be used educationally, until I read the article "What are Wikis (and How to Use One for Your Projects)." Pretty obvious title for the article, but it did help me a lot with figuring out what they were.

The article began by giving a definition of what a wiki is and then went on to further explain it, for those who didn't understand the definition completely, and explained how it can be used for big class projects and projects done between a group of people. They used the very popular website, Wikipedia, as a good example of what a wiki is. After seeing this I realized I actually did know what a wiki was since I am very familiar with Wikipedia, having used it to look up many things while I was in high school.

They then explained that Wikipedia was only one way to use a wiki and then explained how else a wiki can be used. It was a very interesting article and it even gave a few links to websites that can help you choose a wiki based on what you want to use it for and whatnot. I was left with a few questions after reading this though like; Can you edit any website using a wiki? If not, shouldn't they start allowing that? Also, can't wikis be overused and abused by people and turn websites that used to be useful into junk sites that don't help a bit? How can you stop this from happening? I suppose that people who own these websites have control over what is edited on their pages, as wikipedia does. The idea of a wiki also kind of seems like hacking to me, if you can get in to a website and edit information, can't you see other information that may be personal?

Blogging

I read an article called "Understanding Blogs" and it was very helpful for anyone who had no idea what a blog was before they read the article and it even gave facts that people who may know a lot about blogs would not know. I knew a bit about blogs before this article since I used to blog every once in a while, but I was never a serious blogger. The article stated facts such as when blogs were popularized, around when they were created, and what they were considered to be when they were first created.

The article went on to talk about how blogs can benefit businesses, advantages of blogs, and how and where to create blogs (they meantioned blogger.com as a good website to create a blog actually).

I think that this was a very good informational article about blogs but I believe it should have talked more about how people use it just for every day personal use, not just businesses. I also believe that when they said that the future of blogging is business blogging, that isn't completely true.

What I think is the future of blogging, and it has been done before, is blogging for charities. There is a weekend every year that people will choose a charity and blog to earn money for that charity as long as they blog every hour or so and they keep everything active. I believe that they should have this more than just one weekend a year and that everyone should be involved. Everyone can choose a charity, create their blog or use an existing one, and for every post they make on that blog, they would earn money for their charity. Possibly, if it got popular, people could earn money for the charities based on how many comments they get or how many views their blog gets. People can already earn money for themselves just by having a blog open, why not earn money for charities just by writing about nothing in particular in a blog? I think that would be the future for blogging, something everyone should consider.

Virtual Field Trips

This week I searched the Internet looking for articles on virtual field trips. I was curious not only because it will be the final project but because it is something that can be fun and easy for a teacher to take students anywhere in the world or even beyond and not have to pay for buses or anything else, they would just need a computer for every student and, with how many classrooms are today, that seems like it wouldn't take much effort at all. After searching for a few hours, I finally found an article that I enjoyed about virtual field trips! The article is titled "Rural Washington Students Connect with the World" and it showed how virtual field trips can connect people and possibly help teachers give a more structured lesson.

The article was not only about virtual field trips but also about how technology can now connect students across the world and help them to help each other through hard times they may be going through. Not only that but they have also compared life styles and technology with students around the world. There was a project that a class in Washington and a class in Russia did where they drew a picture and wrote about a family theme. They finished and sent their finished works to each other first through the mail, then through email. A Washington student saw a picture from one of the Russian students and realized it was almost exactly the same as his picture! How amazing is that? Two students across the world from each other drew the same family picture without knowing that they were doing it. Through this we can see how alike people actually can be even when they live across the world from each other, what else could we be able to see through virtual trips and other technology uses in the classroom? This absolutely fascinated me; the concepts and the outcomes.

The article also said that students enjoyed seeing the likenesses in the drawings and liked seeing the differences even more. This must be so wonderful for the students to be involved in. The students also discussed the drawings, what they liked and didn't like, and asked questions about the drawings. The program that they were using says that they are now ready for the next step in this whole technological connection; video conferences. It will be exciting to find out what more they can learn about other countries and people in other countries through this new step!

I think that video conferences will be a great continuation in this technological expansion and I think that more teachers should become involved in this program and continue to evolve these technological advances.