Harris_Sharon_2009116_Week 1 Zoomerang Survey

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB229TWXCBH6E

Harris_Sharon_2009101_Week 2 Media Literacy Discussion Board 2

Historically, literacy dealt with being able to reading with understanding and fluency, writing letters while progressing to words and the sentences using correct syntax, and write a composition to sway the reader to compare, contrast, debate and so much more (Barish, 2002).

That is no longer the case in today’s society, original literacy has now also come to include manipulating media. Students must now be able to learn to use computers, apply software applications, and strategically show mastery of concept mandated by state standards for the appropriate grade level. Technology is continuously changing and always on the move; therefore, educators must help children to become proficient in the area of technology to be able to advance in the future employment market. Students need to be taught concepts regarding media technology and be given the tools to show understanding of the concepts in the real world such as designing and/or updating: web pages, blogs, and the ability to search as they research online for information for projects that are assigned by educators. Teachers much have access to resources while helping children (Media For Advanced Technology in Education-University of Oregon, 2007).

Most students today spend a vast amount of time using technology on a daily basis and are becoming more cognicent of technology because they are using ipod, advanced cell phones with the ability to surf the web and a great deal more; therefore, educators must teach and entice those same children to stretch beyond their comfort zone with technology to get ready. This is to facilitate an easier transition into a highly technological field of employment and society in the future. Students are offered programs to utilize other concepts in their education such as brainstorming programs to apply what they are learning on higher order level of thinking (SlideShare, 2009).

Students must be taught hat they be active in their own learning and to participate in their own learn; whereby, allowing students to take possession of and responsibility for their own learn (Wesch, 2009).

Considering the quote above, what exactly does it mean to be literate in today’s society? How are we, as educators, going to ensure the students we are sending out into the world have an understanding of the messages they are receiving as well as what messages are being sent to others as they create new media and communicate with the world around them?

Sources

Center for Advanced Technology in Education-University of Oregon (2007) Media

Literacy Inline Project. Received on October 24, 2009 from

http://interact.uoregon.edu/medialit/mlr/home/

SlideShare. (2009) Media Literacy Video Brainstorm. Received on October 24, 2009

from http://www.clideshare.net/Sylct/media-Literacy-video-brainstorm

Wesch, Prof. (2009) Participatory Media Literacy: Why it Matters. Received on

October 25, 2009 from http://mediatedcultures.net/ksidigg/?p=192

http://specialeducationandtechnologymedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/harrissharon2009101-week-2c_research_iGoogle

iGoogle is an excellent site for tracking and organizing projects, links, blogs and so much more. As an educator, I would use it in the classroom and collaboration with other educators and parents. The website could be set so that it is possible to have lesson plans, accept the students assignments for grading, professional development, resources, and so much more.

As a Web 2.0 Tool there are so many aspects that teachers can utilize that have yet to be discovered; however, it is obvious that they students can input information that is relevant to what they have actually learned.

As a teacher, students would be assigned a series of group projects as concepts are taught and produce videos, Podcasts, Garage Band and other media. This will help the students to learn on their individual levels and still produce work that they are proud of will while taking responsibility and ownership to a higher level. It will also show the educators that concepts are being mastered in such a manner that the students are using higher levels of thinking and organizing their thoughts as the work is formulated. This process starts at the beginning of the assignment and must research and develop a project that not only demonstrates knowledge of the concept taught but also completing the project for an audience that has never been exposed to their proposals with the idea of helping other to accept or think through what they experiencing. Forcing the audience to accept or reject the proposal and hopefully have a clear understanding of why and how it was accepted or rejected.

The teacher will set up a site that will not only show the work of the students but other important resources and the ability to respond and critique the work of their peers. For this reason if no other, is a very important and monumental reason to use iGoogle, a Web 2.0 Tool.

Harris_Sharon_2009101 Week 2B_Research Blogging About Web 2.0 Tools_TeamWork Live (2nd attempt)

TeamWork Live is a Web 2.0 Tool that is not free; however, it seems to be a high quality site that is web-based and is a tool for collaboration and project management that is an excellent tool to utilize in the educational environment.

As an educator, I can use this site to extend the teaching of the use of web pages year two of web pages design year and also to keep intact with parents regarding their children’s progress and other possible concerns. As a teaching tool, Teamwork Live is one of the best places to track milestones, tasks, and events using activity logs. This site allows for and helps individuals to work together and stay on track. It helps with time management and keeps productivity on track by allowing administrative or lead person to project formally at timeline.

National Academic Standards and technology objectives will be utilized to build lesson plans throughout the school year. The students will be given a login and password. They will be given the opportunity to build their own website that the teacher will have the opportunity to monitor closely. Assignments, homework, individual and group projects will assigned and completed; whereby, as they are finished they will be uploaded in to one specific location on and graded then recorded.

The students should show mastery of the website portion for which they are responsible as they work through each individual assignment and be able to show understanding as they manipulate what they have learned. The utilization of TeamWork Live will give the students the ability to take control of their own learning and be held accountable of their own grades.

TeamWork Live should prove to be a valuable asset as teachers strive to teach students the necessary concepts that they will need in the adult world for time management, collaboration, and to complete projects much like they would need to be completed in the adult world.

Source

Team Work Live TM. (2009) TeamWork: Live-Easy and Effective Project Collaboration. Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from http://www.teamworklive.com/TeamWork.htm

Harris_Sharon_2009101 Week 2A_Research Blogging About Web 2.0 Tools_Comfy Page (2nd attempt)

Comfy Page is a user-friendly web tool that makes it very easy to build a website. The fact that it is easy to sign up, free, and easy to manipulate would be perfect to teach children the basics of setting up their own web page for homework and tutorials or build a project for school or set up a location to discuss things that are important to “kids”.

I would build a lesson plans so that students would have the opportunity to think about what career that they might be interested in for their future. This would last over the course of several months in which I would us a smart board in a computer lab to walk the students through setting up their own website for their futuristic careers.

A small troubleshoot manual will be developed prior to the lessons so that the students could have something to use in case there are problems and to have available necessary terminology and definitions. If not, the teacher should know how to respond to the student regarding issues that may arise and if not use the technical support offered through Comfy Page.

This is a great start to help students determine whether or not they like web building and if they do then the teacher could help them to research more about it and talk to the academic or planning counselor to find the resources in the community.

I believe that Comfy Page is an excellent Web 2.0 Tool that will help students as they work toward setting goals for future careers with parent involvement and approval.

As an educator, it is my job to guide students toward achieving a productive and positive experience in the workforce. The use of the Comfy Page Web 2.0 Tool will embolden them to research their careers and possibly use it in as part or all of a portfolio to show how the decision was made and researched to decide on a particular career for their own futures.

Source

ComfyPage.COM. (2006-2008) ComfyPage Site. Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from http://comfypage.com/index.php?content_id=36

Harris_Sharon_2009101 BP2_Anti-Teaching (2nd attempt)

Not all students of today are able to learn in the typical way of listening, memorizing, and regurgitating the concepts that are required in the current educational system teaching methodology; therefore a new and different way of teaching needs to be formulated and put in onto practice so that children can learn as soon as possible as this a become a pandemic in the education as we know it today.

The idea of virtual learning could be the answer to the problem with enough forethought and insight. In regards to the way students’ brains learn and retain data will be the piece of the puzzle that will be necessary to determine whether or not the virtual world classroom can be the ultimate saving grace for students and their learning capabilities.

In the Personal Learning Environment or PLE, students’ ability to learn may be affected and effected due noise levels, lighting in the area for which they are studying; however the main stay of the whole scenario is the fact that the PLE gives the children the right and ability to take ownership of their learning by using the information and research to get to the bottom of a concept. The students are able to utilize tools that were unavailable 10 years ago such as the Web 2.0 Tools.

Web 2.0 Tools allow students easy access to information that in many cases cannot be found in an encyclopedia or other paper format and if a child has difficulty reading fluently there are many programs that may be purchased to help the child by reading the material aloud to them.

I believe that blogs, web tools, and virtual worlds such as second life and others like it will be a great influence over the learning of the majority of children and maybe in the future there will be holographic lectures with access to even more reliable technology in the educational systems.

© Sharon Lee Harris

Sources

Educause Learning Initiative. (2009) Personal Learning Environments. Retrieved on October 4, 2009 from http://www.educause.edu.eli

Meerts, J. (2003, OCtober 20). Course Management Systems (CMS). Retrieved from Educause Websites http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/DEC03602.pdf

Solomon, Gwen & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools. Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.

Wesch, Michael. (2009) Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance.

Harris_Sharon_2009101_BP_Week 3_iGoogle Screen Shot

Harris_Sharon_BP_Week 3_WEB 2.0 Entry 3_NCRTEC

Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher is an excellent site to go to search for sites that can be used in the field of education and compliments educators to help their classrooms with accurate updated information.

The main reason that I like this site is because it has tools and resources for teachers to organize their classrooms with tools to build lesson plans that can investigate.

This website has dozens of URLs for teachers under these headings: the internet Resources, Blog-Podcast-VLog-Screencast Resources, Collabration_Wiki Sites, Online Productivity/Organization Tools, Online Teacher Resources & Fun Stuff to Try, Some really good blogs to start reading…, and eLenawee Course Links.

It is impossible to go to this site without spending a minimum of an hour while checking the subjects that deal with tools that are used in the classroom for current and future, as well as, looking back at those that have already been used for different reasons as a help tool in the classroom.

One of the lessons planners that I have noticed on this website was written in 2005, by the North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium which is a actually no longer in operations; however, the NCRTEC Lesson Planner had a lesson plan template that was spelled out quite well. After closer inspection, much of the site and links are still active therefore it is worth looking through because of other articles listed within the site.

As an educator, WEB 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher is a very exciting website to utilize through the school term because the information found on the web pages is very informative. The URLS listed can be used by the teacher to pull together lesson plans on topics while using valid media and technology.

Source

Summerford, Sue. (2009) Web 2.0 for the Classroom Teacher: an Internet Hotlist on Web 2.0. Retrieved on October 18, 2009 form http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/pages/listweb20s.html

Harris_Sharon_BP_Week 3_WEB 2.0 Entry 2

“Web 2.0 will be a significant part of the future of learning, …” is a very informed and yet scary statement regarding the education of children now and into the future. Education is moving further into the media and technological world and it does so it is changing the way that children learn and how society views the industry as the children are prepared for the future and employment. (Hargadon, 2008)

WEB 2.O is the method by which the children of today learn and process information and then apply that knowledge while showing progress toward mastery as they compile it in the real world today. No one knows what the future actually holds for the children today or in future generations; but, what is obvious is the fact that these generations have a long way to go in technology and we as educators must help them to main, grow, and apply the knowledge in real time use as they grow into the future technology. Web 2.0 is forcing the use of paper learning to become obsolete and at the same time allowing Web 2.0 to become the avenue by which humans are communicating.

The children of today are actually more academically learned than children were 30 years ago; although, politicians and alarmists attempt to make it seem like we are failing all children. Even though, children today are able to operate technology systems with ease that most of the adults struggle with on a daily basis.

As educators, it is important to allow children to converse using the new media through: engagement in the use of technology, authentic practice, have full access to open software types and information, expect to use collaboration and creativity, allowed to have a passionate interest and use personal expression, be proactive and to discuss topics that may seems overtly harsh when so that the ability to use critical thinking becomes second nature.

If these things are allowed to happen, children in this age and in the future will change education, learning, and the application of their knowledge in new ways that will build technology and society at a faster pace than what we see today.

Education in the future is going to be exciting and fast paced therefore educators must be ready to change as technology and learning methods change using technology.

Hargadon, Steve. (2008) Moving Toward WEB 2.0 on K-12 Education. Retrieved on

October 18, 2009 from http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/,oving-

toward-wen-20-k-12-education/

Harris_Sharon_BP_Media Asset-Story Something

Harris_Sharon_BP_Week3Blog_Part1_StorySomthing

After Searching Go2Web20, I have found several Web 2.0Tools. One of those tools is called Story Something. Story Something seems to be directed toward parents that want to spend quality time with their children. The actual program allows parents to personalize stories for their children by customizing them with the child’s name or other pertinent information. In order to utilize this program, parents must sign up and then wait for a response back from the company. All in all, the program seems to be excellent and it is possible to utilize this program in a lesson plan whereby teachers can get help building the classroom library and then send those books back home with the children for the summer. (G02Web2.0.net, 2009)

When a program offers anyone the chance to be able to write a children’s story and have it available to read to children and accessible no matter where you are even on the telephone, it is worth investigating and utilizing. The possibilities to apply this software are endless in the classroom. First, the teacher would be able to teach children about all of the different parts of a story: main event or events, title, author, characters, setting, audience, mood, beginning, middle, end, genre, fiction versus no fiction, and so much more. The discussions, ways to teach and organize using different organizers, and building a story from scratch, through the editing process, and finally to publishing the story give students the satisfaction of ownership in the project to possibly present it in the authors chair while he or she reads it to the class room audience. (Google, 2009)

As a teacher and educator, I highly recommend this site and endorse it if for nothing else then for the novelty of finding a new and ingenious opportunity to teach and reinforce writing, comprehension, and self-esteem for the children and quality time for children to be with their parents one-on-one in a safe environment to learn and explore themselves while they build their academics on a higher developmental plane as the teacher monitors and facilitates the learning environment. This would be a great project for a Writer’s Workshop after school or even on a Saturday to build community awareness and bring a local author in to introduce their ideas in this area, as well as, to read one of his or her own creations.

Source

Go2Web.2.0. net. (2009) Story Something for the Hero in All of Us. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://www.gotoweb2.0.net/app/?a=StorySomething

.

Google. (2009) Google Search for Parts of a Story. Retrieved October 18, 2009 from http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=en&q=parts+of+a+story&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=gwvbSs2-Aceo8AbuwK23BQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CB4QsAQwAw

Harris_Sharon_BP_Flickr

This one of the best lesson plan series that I have ever seen utilizing computer much less one website which is named Flickr. This particular thirty minutes lesson plan with numerous sections focuses on tagging using the Flickr website. Susan Polkinghorne has made the teaching of tagging on this website easy to follow and complete; although, the audience is set for librarians, it would be very easy to use this same lesson plan to teach intermediate to adult without difficulty.

The fact that the most schools have a computer lab is great and other materials such as markers, flipcharts, and chalkboard finish out this project to make learning fun. Students are taught the lesson and then use the other materials to plan the project before applying it to Flickr. Time is allotted to teach, plan, and finalize the project in multiple sessions.

As an educator and a computer operator this is a great teaching tool and I will be using now and in the future.

Source
Polinghorn, Sarah. (2007) A Learning Session for Librarians. Retrieved on October 14, 2009 on http://capping.slis.ualberta.ca/cap07/SarahPolkinghorne/lessonplan.html

Harris_Sharon_BP6_Reflective Media WEB 2.0 Tool Blog

© Sharon L. Harris

Harris_Sharon_BP5 WEB 2.0 Tools Entry 3 Auditory and Visual Media

Auditory and visual media has become very important in the world of education, finance, technology, business, and so many more areas. As consumers using technology in every field and aspect of life, we are in undated with ads, websites, training, education, news and the stock market to name just a few things. Each one of these areas are inundated with videos, graphics, and so much more that makes it easy for us to be able to more easily understand the information that we are looking to find. It is almost magical because of the amount of information and related materials available. A quick search using labels or tagging is beneficial as we are always in a hurry and have very little time available to us because of our very busy lives. As an educator, I fall back on auditory and visual information almost daily to reinforce concepts and objectives in the classroom. I will continue to use such products in the future hopefully with apple computers along with other products such using the promethean or smart boards to help teach my students how to research, comprehend, and redefine their own learning in this ever changing world of technology.

The use of iMovie and many of the tools available on the macintosh computer are very helpful for projects and learning.

Source

Mac World. (2009) The Apple, Mac, iPod, and iPhone Experts. Retrieved on October 10, 2009

Harris_Sharon_BP% WEB 2.0 Tools Entry 2 iGoogle

I have found that the use of all of the Google and iGoogle documents has become a very big help to me as a student with my learning at Full Sail University since I started. Personal note though because much of what we are learning has almost become busy work because of the constant barrage of reparatory assignments between the different programs and can be quite boring and sometimes hard to keep up with deadlines due to so much explanation and research over the same things over and over again.

iGoogle allows me to build my own site and profile. The track while using different sites that I use all of the time from the same location. The ability to blog on this site and then get to the official one that is recognized by Full Sail University, as well as, other websites that are mandated to be used by the instructors. Another feature or gadget that we have available to use is Listy which allows us to list and prioritize things that are need to be completed. We are also able to use Google Reader for articles that are beneficial and share them with other people.There are many videos for training that are available to learn to utilize iGoogle efficiently with support in place if needed via email. Also, the ability to ad videos, graphics and other gadgets to the site is also a big plus.

As an educator, I will continue to use these this site.

Source
Harris, Sharon. (2009) iGoogle: harris.slharris.sharon@gmail.com. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/ig?refresh=1

Harris_Sharon_BP5_WEB 2.0 Entry 1

I found a wonderful website that may be used for projects and collaboration regarding progress and ideas that need to be shared. It is called TeamWork and seems to be efficient and useful by allowing for different tasks to be accomplished and tracked by any member of the team, administration only, or individual that set up the site.
The first thing that needs to be done is to set up an account and objective.
Then, set up milestones as team managers; whereby a date is assigned automatically. Edited may be necessary for dates and other things. Messaging may be used to set up the milestones using messaging.
Third, the information may be organized and shared using folders and documents.
The use a project calendar is available and a dashboard much like that of Full Sail University online is also available.
At the beginning, it is a little bit annoying to set up but as I continue working with it I am finding it a comfortable tool and will continue to use it for my research collaboration with my critical team as well as making use of the FSU sites that are mandatory. I feel that this will be an excellent location to work with individuals that are not part of FSU so that they will feel more comfortable sharing and working with me on this project.
The fact that I had never really thought about using a site such as this with all of the access that I have to computers since they the internet first has been available to the public is embarrassing and is fast becoming a very sore note to me. My excuse has always been that I do not have time, energy, or knowledge about such things and actually stood my ground. This is no longer an avenue or outlet for being disorganized when I am working on projects from my love of sewing to teaching to foster care information gathering.

Source
TeamWork Live. (2007) Easy and Effect Project Collaboration. Retrieved on October 10, 2009 from https://www.teamworklive.com/UserProfile.htm

Harris_Sharon_BP3_ScreenShots

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Harris_Sharon_BP4_Social Networking

Social Bookmarking

As an educator, I have never really given social bookmarking much of a chance; except the occasional use of saving in my favorites bookmark section; which eventually overwrote most of my bookmarks due to lack of space and lack of use.

This blogging assignment and as well as previous concepts taught in this course have forced me to re-evaluate my thoughts on this very valuable tool. I t has also caused me to rethink my inability to navigate around different types of media due to what could only be considered a fear of computers and the media technology that I did not have access to as the children of today are able to experience on a daily basis for the most part; therefore, I chose to look at this blog experience with the idea Idea in mind of finding sites that I have never used before and want to bookmark to use in the immediate future and beyond.

The Edublogger is a website for “Tips, tricks, ideas and help using web 2.0 technology and much more. According to this site, social networking is a very important tool for students and educators across the board and there seems to be a plethora of information to feed off of for educators with examples of student bloggers at their best. (Waters, 2009)

I have been checking out several sites to see what this would look like and how it would play out for students and educators, which is a wikispace that I came across that I felt best portrayed the benefits was the Classroom 2.0. There several areas that someone could check out live discussions free workshops, demonstrations collaboration and a great deal more. (Tangeant LLC, 2009)

The third and final, source is the igeog site that seems to absorbed the world of geography on utilizing slideshows, active blogging, Podcast and so much more. This site brings together so much knowledge that it is impossible not to pick up on the fact that such sites if kept active can make a world of difference because of the representation. The site seems to be user friendly and using many forms of technology Wittens & Nagtegaal, 2007-2009)

The fact that I am a teacher is making me take a strong look at myself and make many changes, many of which are immediate out of necessity of the course that I am taking online but they will be permanent changes as I further become used to working with these new methods of social networking.

Sources

Tangeant LLC. (2009) Classroom 2.0. Retrieved on October 7, 2009 from http://wiki.classroom20.com

Waters, Sue (2009) The Edublooger: “Latest News & Updates, Using Bogs with Students. Retrieved on October 7, 2009 from http://theedublogger.org/

Wittens, S. & Nagtegaal, S. (2007-2009) igeiog: Enhancing Teaching and Learning of Geography with ICT. Retrieved on October 7, 2009 from http://igeog.wordpress.com

Harris_Sharon_BP2_Anti-Teaching

© Sharon Lee Harris

Sources

Educause Learning Initiative. (2009) Personal Learning Environments. Retrieved on October 4, 2009 from http://www.educause.edu.eli

Meerts, J. (2003, OCtober 20). Course Management Systems (CMS). Retrieved from Educause Websites (http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/DEC03602.pdf

Solomon, Gwen & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools. Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.

Wesch, Michael. (2009) Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance.

BP1_2009_1004_GoogleReaderStartupBlog

Special Education was chosen because of the many articles that are on the site deal with teaching core subjects using strategies and setting limits using compromise.

The Purpose for Most Behaviors was chosen because it obviously addresses the reason behind good or bad behavior for attention from an audience.

Choosing Questions to Promote Thinking was directed toward higher-level thinking.

The choice to refrain or restrain an individual due to behaviors was the reason for choosing this article.

The fifth article was chosen because it discusses special education and legal issues and is a very important topic with a multitude of ramifications.