Issues and Advances in Technology Week 4 October 27, 2009

As we explore more in the topic of technology and it’s use in the schools, I have come to believe more and more in it’s potential.   The topic for the week was engagement and relevancy.  We were to review the WA Tech standard 1.1

EALR 1

— INTEGRATION

Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems.

Essentially the starting point for integrating technology in the classroom.  There are quite a few simple tools available to start the integration process.  http://www.bubbl.us/index is a free online brainstorming program.  Google Docs:docs.google.com/ provides simple and free word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms that can be accessed from anywhere and anyone with the web address.  It would be interesting, with more time, to see if I could implement some of theses simple tools into a class or unit.  Perhaps next semester when I am bit less swamped by SPU work and more into the teaching side I will have time to try out a new tool.

Work cited:

Washington State Educational Technology Learning Standards K-12. (2008, December) retrieved October 26th 2009, from OSPI Washington website: http://www.k12.wa.us/edtech/pubdocs/K12EdTechStandards6-8_12-08.pdf

Issues and Advances in Education technology Week 2 October 13, 2009

The main reading for this week were the Washington technology standards put out by the OSPI.  These standards were put out in 2008 to address the need for technology skills among high school graduates headed for higher education, the career training or the job market. (OSPI 2008)

Students are growing up with more and more advanced technologies and tools.  Not only are these new tools for social interactions like Facebook, but they can be powerful tools for collecting, organizing, and spreading data.  When I first started using a computer I thought the word processor with the black screen and blinking green cursor and spell check was great.  Today there are calculators that have more power than those computers did.  We can do so much more today than just type up a paper and print it out.  Today’s tools can do anything from remind you what you need to buy at the grocery store to allowing multiple people in multiple locations have a real-time conference with voice, video, presentations.

As teachers in this modern age it becomes our responsibility to try to incorporate this technology into our lessons and help students learn how these tools might possibly be used in their academic and professional lives.

Work cited:

OSPI, Washington State K-12 Educational Technology Learning Standards (2008) from OSPI website: http://www.k12.wa.us/edtech/pubdocs/K12EdTechStandards_12-08_MostRecent.pdf