Assessing Meaningful Learning

          This blog is about online assessing tools. These are tools that allow for educational assessment online. Tools like quizdom, eportfolios, and inspiration make assessment faster and more accurate thus making it more efficient to assess students. Not only are there assessments online that are graded, there are also things that support assessment such as online rubrics on websites such as rcampus. These online rubrics are like templates to what a students assessment should include for the desired. grade. The type of online assessment that I find the most helpful is online quizzes. The feedback from these quizzes can be given in less than a second to show the teacher and student what should be worked on.
          This course has taught me a lot. Coming in, I thought that I had a very good knowledge of technology and I even thought that I knew how I would use it in the classroom. I believed that there was little for me to learn in this class but I was wrong. I learned about a lot of tools that I can put to use in my near future. I gained a very large amount of knowledge about new technologies that I had never heard of before. I even found out about new ways to learn some of the old technologies that I had already knew about. Overall, I have learned a lot from this class and I believe that it has prepared me for when the time comes where I have to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Technology Application Standards

§116.52. Foundations of Personal Fitness 

(a)  General requirements. This course is the recommended prerequisite for all other physical education courses.

(b)  Introduction.

            (1)  In Physical Education, students acquire the knowledge and skills for movement that provide the foundation for enjoyment, continued social development through physical activity, and access to a physically-active lifestyle. The student exhibits a physically-active lifestyle and understands the relationship between physical activity and health throughout the lifespan.

            (2)  Foundations of Personal Fitness represents a new approach in physical education and the concept of personal fitness. The basic purpose of this course is to motivate students to strive for lifetime personal fitness with an emphasis on the health-related components of physical fitness. The knowledge and skills taught in this course include teaching students about the process of becoming fit as well as achieving some degree of fitness within the class. The concept of wellness, or striving to reach optimal levels of health, is the corner stone of this course and is exemplified by one of the course objectives-students designing their own personal fitness program.

             

            As an educator for physical education, it will be my duty to make sure that students learn about being physically active and being healthy. The best way for students to learn and live by this lifestyle is to make it fun for them. If students learn to enjoy being physically fit and eating healthy, then the students are more likely to continue this behavior outside of the classroom. It will also be my job to have as close to full participation as possible. Student participation should be monitored to ensure that all students are participating in the activity and that no one student is left behind for not being able to complete a skill.

            

           In my opinion, the most important TEKS listed above is in paragraph one where it states that the student should understand the relationship between physical activity and health throughout the lifespan. This is important to me because some information taught in schools may never show up again in a persons lifetime. On the other hand, physical education and health will always be useful in an individuals life. I will make sure that this TEKS is covered by showing low impact exercises that can be done all throughout a lifetime by people of any age. This way, students can always practice staying physically fit and achieve optimal wellness.

Vizualizing with Technologies

                There are different types of people who learn in different types of ways. Some can learn by reading. Some people can learn by hearing information. Some people can also learn by seeing information. This last group of learners is called visualizers. Today I will talk about visualizing with technology, which is especially beneficial to visualizers. Visualization tools are interactive software programs that allow students to see and change information. These programs include Paint programs, sketchcast, Spartan, and many others. I believe that these programs are very beneficial to not only visual learners but all learners. It gives students the opportunity to see information presented in a different manner and can open them up to new ways of learning.

                Visualization tools can cover a broad spectrum of lessons and topics. Due to that broad spectrum, visualization tools have the chance to have an impact in the classroom from head start all the way through college graduate courses. These tools can be used anywhere from letting elementary school students use a paint pad to write the alphabet to a college student using digital storytelling to complete a presentation and everywhere in between. Visualization tools can impact the learning process positively. It allows students to actually see the topic that they are learning and it allows for them to make more connections to the subject and have a better chance at remembering it.

Podcasting

     Podcasting is a web tool that allows people to broadcast  audio and video all over the world. It is like a blog that gives the audience the option to subscribe to the creator of the podcast and even download the file and take it with them on their mobile device. Once you subscribe to a podcast, every time that user makes a new podcast it is automatically downloaded to your mobile device. I think that this is a very useful and efficient tool to use in the classroom. There are a large number of educational topics talked about on podcasts and they can be easily accessed by the instructor.
     Podcasts have both similarities and differences to other Web 2.0 tools that we have talked about. One major differences in podcasts are that they are almost like a YouTube channel. There are poscasts that are educational and some that are just for entertainment. They are similar to other web tools because they give instructors a more efficient way of teaching in the classroom.
     I own an iPod. I mainly use it for entertainment now but I can definitely see myself using it to present educational podcasts in the classroom setting in the future. Podcasts are a very useful tool and should be taken advantage of. Overall, I believe that the advantages of online communication tools defendant out weigh the disadvantages. The disadvantages would be that online communication tools can be misused by students if they are not monitored and some students may have trouble learning to use online tools. But with that being said, online communication tools are faster, more efficient, and easier to use for teachers and students who are familiar with technology.

Web 2.0 Tools

     This activity introduced me to some new useful tools than can be used inside and outside of the classroom. Tools like Wikis, Social Bookmarking, and Voice Thread can be used to improve classroom and web efficiency. A wiki is like a webpage that can be edited by any person. This tool is good for planning trips, making lists, or just getting input from other people on something from other people. Social bookmarking allows for your bookmarks to be shared with other people. This can be helpful to see how other teachers find research on topics that are similar to yours. The last thing I learned about is voice thread. Voice thread allows for online discussions on a topic posted by a teacher.
     I think that all of these tools can be used in an education setting. Wikis can be used by students in a study group or a group of students working on a group project. Social bookmarking can be used by students or teachers. Teachers can use this to gather websites for lesson plans and also share what they find to other teachers. Students can use this to find helpful websites to study for tests or complete assignments. Voice thread is a great website to use as an educator. Teachers can post a discussion topic online and students can go in and respond to that topic. I think that any teacher can use this. Overall all of these tools are very useful and I plan on using them all in the future.

Copyrights, Fair Use, Netiquette, and Cyberbullying

     Before I read the guide and took the quiz on copyrights, I thought that fair use was more limited that what it really is. I did not know that fair use gave educators clearance to basically reproduce some copyrighted material and use it for educational purposes. There are many different things that teachers can do with copyrighted material due to section 107 of title 17 under the Copyright Act of 1976. I also learned about Netiquette today. Netiquette is the etiquette that one should posses while using the internet and interacting with others on social networks. There is a list of netiquette rules that people should follow on the Boston Public Library website stating things such as respect others online rights and be responsible online.If more people follow these rules there would be less cyber bullying and maybe it would not be a problem today.

     I really learned a lot about all of these subjects. I learned about the flexibility of the fair use law. I plan on using this law to my advantage in the classroom setting. If something as strong as copyrights are weakened to help education then I believe that it is our duties as educators to take advantage of this. Cyber bullying can be avoided. It is up to the teachers that are integrating technology into there classroom to teach the students proper netiquette before they use technology. Technology will be around the students even if it is not inside the classroom so I feel that if a student learns the proper netiquette, it will help him or her all through life.

Mapping Information

      Before the information literacy activities, my primary way to find information was to search the topic on Google. I was pretty closed minded about the way that I got to information and I would rarely step outside of my search routine. I found Google to be the most reliable because of the software that I use. It is the fastest and time is everything when completing class work so I felt very comfortable with it.
     I was unaware that Google sorted search results by website hits and not relevancy to the topic. this was something new that I learned. I do not like this about the search engine but I think overall it is a solid search engine. After completing the information literacy activities, I feel like I can improve some small aspects about the way that I search. I think that I can use different search engines from time to time to get better results. Although I think some of my searching habits can be changed, I believe that the majority of my searching habits will remain the same.
     In conclusion, the information literacy had some good points and helpful tips, but the way that I search will most likely remain the same. I look to improve some aspects of the way that I search by using different search engines from time to time. Overall, it is never bad to learn new information and I think that the Mapping Information activities were helpful.