EDCI 5825 - Week 6

The Big 10 shifts in education would have been surprising to me before starting this class but after working on the various projects, using blogs and wikis and reading the texts, the shifts make sense. I think that shift #5 and shift #6 are the least surprising to me (Richardson, 2010).

Shift #5 is that it is becoming more important to know where to find an answer than the actual answer. Searching websites and blogs takes some practice to really know how to find the information that you are looking for. If the right combination of search words is not used, the search site will find plenty of matches but you could also waste a lot of time looking through websites and blogs that do not have what you are looking for (Richardson, 2010).

Shift #6 is that readers have to be critical of what they find on the web. Information on the web could have been posted by anyone. So the information may not be correct and the user has to verify it (Richardson, 2010).

Since I will be teaching High School math, I think that one of the harder shifts to implement would be #9, that mastery is no longer measured by a test. I do not think that math tests are going away anytime soon. Students are still going to have to take standardized tests in math so they will need to learn math skills and how to solve specific types of problems. Projects linked to real world applications would help solidify concepts but I think that the 'mastery' measure will still be a math test for some time to come.

I think that Big Shift#2 is already happening and would be almost impossible to stop. Shift #2 is many teachers and 24/7 learning. I see this in that there are many "homework" or "problem help" websites. Students can enter their problem any time any place and have someone working on a solution and explanation for them. They can even search previous questions to see if any of the responses would help them. So students can find help anytime from anywhere by using the internet. One example of a math help website is Math Guide at this link: MathGuide. The teacher is not the only resource for the student any longer.

EDCI 5825 - Video Editing Project

If I were to start this project all over again, I think that I would go with a different approach. We filmed the clips that we did with more of the idea of a movie but given the topic and the editing available, I think that more of small clip acting followed by slides or voice overs would have been more effective. A clip of one or two people talking closer up than trying to film 4 people would be clearer to see and hear. My family did not have any suggestions, they were fairly impressed since they did not think that I knew how to do anything like this.

I am amazed at how many editing techniques are available in iMovie. It is very intimidating at first but once you start using it and realize how easy it is to experiment and try the different options it is fun. The recording and loading of the videos clips is very easy too. Reading the instructions for this project I was thinking that I could not imagine being able to do what was required but all it takes is time to get used to the way iMovie works.

I don't know if there will be time to do a movie project in the high school classroom. I would like to be able to but I think that it would probably have to be more of a class project since I don't think that everyone would have video equipment and I don't know if the software would be readily available. So if I could get past any equipment constraints, a video project would be something that I would like to be able to do with the class. I think that I do have enough skill to assign a video project.

From this project I learned both about the topic of cyber-bullying and the mechanics of editing the video clips. I have a much better idea of how videos can enhance the classroom learning and that it is not as hard as I had thought to make a decent video.

EDCI 5825 - Final Project Blog

Link to Laura's Blog

I hope that I will be able to use the Blog that I have created in the classroom. When I know what I am teaching I would be able to add course specific information to the blog. This would hopefully make it more personal and meaningful for the class. Once there was more class specific information such as homework or project assignments, the students and parents would hopefully start visiting the blog, using it for information and posting questions and thoughts there.

I would like to be able to have students create their own blogs for the classroom. It will depend on the school system that am teaching in, the maturity of the students and the technology available. Many students may have the capability to go online at home but we would only be able do this as a class if there are adequate resources in school as well. I also would want to make sure that the students are mature enough to understand the point of having their own blog and that is was for school work not a social site.

My view of instructional technology has changed very much over the last few weeks. At the start of the class I thought that Facebook, blogs and wikis were really only social or political sites and had not idea that they had uses for education. I had also never listened to a podcast or heard of Jing so I had not thought of that technology as educational either. I hope to use many of the technologies that I have learned in this class, including all the new power point techniques too.

I think that since this was the first time I had used most of the technology in this class (jing, garageband, imovie, blogs and wikis) that I will only get better as I use the technology more. I think that the items that I created were okay for first attempts. They are generally usable but not as dynamic or slick as they could be. I think that I could use most of it in a high school environment but will look to keep improving.

The wiki alone for this class was very intimidating when I first looked at it. As I looked at the projects included, it was very scary. But that was worse than actually working on any of the projects. There always seems to be one thing that is hard to figure out on each project but overall I am excited about using the techniques and more comfortable using the technology than I ever thought I would be after a few weeks.