Meaningful Learning

This section taught us more about a form of technology that has been proven to be a good resource in teaching students of all levels. In school systems now frequently use programs that allow the student to give immediate feedback. The teacher projects a graph on the board of a math problem, and each student has a clicker and decides if the answer is A, B, C, or D. Some of these programs even have PDAs with keyboards that the student can give a short response.  These programs can be confidential,  perfect for a shy student. Digital rubrics help grade more clearly and be easier to use while grading students writing, larger high schools have the ability to use tablets, some take tests on them. This is easy to grade and manage for the teacher.  Technology is updating the way we take assignments, tests, and projects.

                I have learned a lot from this course and have enjoyed every second of it.  The programs learned in this class are all beneficial in teaching any age group, the most useful programs in my opinion are Prezi, Blogger, Google sites, and Wordle. Wordle doesn’t fit in with my other choices it is used with the younger age groups to get them familiar with technology and learning in a creative way. Google sites is a free way to put up a class website and is simple to use. Blogger just happens to be useful no matter how you use it, and Prezi takes place of a Powerpoint presentation. Any combination of these programs will make for a great futuristic lesson in a school system.  This class has kept me pretty busy these last few weeks, and am looking forward to implementing these impressive new programs in the near future.

TEKS- Technology Applications

Texas Essential Knowledge for Technology Applications, for this post assume I am referring to grades sixth through eighth. In middle school it is very important to introduce technology as much as possible, In physical education for this age group there are many instances to integrate technology. There are four strands mentioned in TEKS:

• Foundations, In this stage students are to learn the basic functions of software applications and hardware components. An example would be knowing how to use a computer and how to use basic programs like Microsoft Word.

• Information Acquisition, This stage is where students evaluate their ability to gain knowledge from computer based programs.

• Solving Problems, unlike the other stages this stage uses a combination of the other stages to fix problems they come across, If a kid is writing a paper on Physical activity then he realizes that it was suppose to be in a PowerPoint, he needs the knowledge to transfer the words from a program to the other.

• Communication, A student needs to know how to communicate information, something as simple as an email or other programs that make slideshows, multimedia presentations, and documents.

In my opinion, I think the most important Strand determined by the Texas Essential Knowledge for Technology Application is Information Acquisition. Information acquisition is needed in most education fields if not all of them,  It teaches a student to learn for himself instead of being force feed the information. Think of it this way, If a teacher said “put together a video presentation about Basketball” the student could then decide for himself how he was going to do it, and what he was going to do he could choose something as simple as windows movie maker or something more complex such as Final Cut Pro. It doesn’t matter what program the student uses, as long as he makes it about basketball, This way the student learns by himself. Information Acquisition helps the student in the long run, thought it takes longer to think up a project on your own it will prepare them for high school and college.

Visualizing Technologies

Visualizing technology is needed in the education process. Schools in the United States don’t use programs that visualize their projects as much as they should. when I was in High School I was very involved in Theater Technology and Production, we used Google Sketchup to build the set before we truly built it on the stage, this program saved us time and money and when it came down to buying materials and making it safe for the actors to perform on. Throughout high school the most used program was Photoshop, it was used for all the fliers and posters. Technology is constantly evolving, especially in the education field. 20 years ago technology in schools was mediocre at best, over time schools started to bring in simple programs like Microsoft Word in early 2000’s. Now in 2012 we have computer labs in schools with daily use, each equipped with the latest software for students to express themselves with. What will Technology be like in 2020?

 Think of it like an engineering student, If he learns just by reading or even watching videos he will not get a good grasp on the subject If he used some sort of CAD software he would learn engineering faster with more confidence in his abilities. In an art degree a student can learn great by drawing over and over but a huge part of the modern art field is digital, Photoshop can be very helpful in this field for a number of reasons: 1) Paintings are faster in Photoshop, 2) Fixing a mistake in Photoshop is simple, you can erase a layer instead of the entire project, 3) It is easier to make copies or send to friends in Photoshop. No matter where you go in the education field programs that visualize your projects and thoughts will always be better than old fashioned pencil and paper