Sunday, April 26, 2009

Blog #5- Technologies in a Future Classroom

In ETPT this semester, we used a lot of different technologies to create a more learner-centered classroom. Although I found a way to integrate each technology into my future high school English classroom, it wasn't always easy. It goes back to using the "right tool for the right job." I think that three of the best technologies to use in a high school English classroom are Inspiration concept maps, InspireData databases, and word processing (such as making newsletters). 

These three technologies are three that I think would be the best to use in a high school English classroom because they allow students to use them to showcase what they've learned to the classroom, which makes all of the students retain the information better and and create a more learner-centered classroom. Concept maps are really good to use in the classroom so that students can make them in groups and present their ideas in an interactive way. They're also good to use so that students can interactively organize their ideas for papers. Databases are good to use for literature because you can easily show the relationships, connections, and correlations between different factors in the book. Word processing is another great way to create a more learner-centered classroom. Having students make newsletters about the information they learned instead of me testing them or having them write a paper. 

Like I said before, it's not always easy to integrate every technology into an English classroom. One of the hardest technologies to use for a lesson plan was the spreadsheet.  In English, there isn't a tremendous amount of numerical data or equations that need to be solved and that's mainly what a spreadsheet is used for. I think that spreadsheets would be much better for a science or a math classroom.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Blog #4- Readings

The article that I chose to read was called Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City, written by Noam Cohen. One of the things that I found really interesting about Wikipedia is that they operate on a 7 million dollar budget, which consists of only donations and grants, unlike some websites who bombard you with advertisements. I also found it interesting that since the website started seven years ago, it has become one of the top ten global websites. In January alone, there was said to be 60 million Americans visiting the online encyclopedia. The article stated that the articles posted on Wikipedia are usually pretty accurate, which I agree with. I agree that Wikipedia is a great source to generate ideas and get a very basic knowledge about a topic. However, being a preprofessional English teacher, I wouldn't suggest wikipedia to be a source for, lets say, a research paper. I would advise my future students to use a more credible source with more expertise than the people who write articles for Wikipedia.