Technology Integration Project

Create a page on your web portfolio for the technology integration project.

This web page should contain the following elements:

(1) The goal of this project

(2) A brief introduction of your plan

• content area
• pedagogical goals
• technology used and its benefits
• the length of the project

(3) Your major steps

• When describing each steps, insert links to your artifacts or examples

(4) A brief summary of your plan

• Your thoughts, expectations, or concerns?
• Anything else you want to say here.

(5) References

• A link to your technology integration plan (a visitor can always go to your tech plan for details)
• Links to the online tools you are using
• Other resources

The reason for me to ask you to present your project in this way is when people visit your site, they will quickly know what this page is about, and they will easily make sense out of it.

If you think there are ways more appropriate for presenting your work, you are definitely allowed to try that, for example, doing a powerpoint presentation, or a digital storytelling. Just be sure to talk with me about that if you choose to do so.

Be sure to send the URL of your final work to me by Sunday (Nov. 18), so that I can take a look in advance. If you like, we can use Skype and Vyew to talk about your project and presentation on Tuesday (Nov. 20), as I guess some of you would be too excited about the coming Thanksgiving to come to class and meet me!

Technology Integration Plan

To help you get in the proper mindset for this project, think ahead to the near future when you call a meeting with your mentor teacher and field instructor to discuss what you hope to accomplish during your lead teaching time. Generically, you are interested in “integrating technology” into your teaching, but your mentor teacher and field instructor will press you to more clearly lay out what this looks like and why they should be convinced that this in the best interest of your students. You can probably imagine several questions that your mentor teacher and field instructor might bring with them to the meeting:

• What do you hope to accomplish technologically?
• Why do you feel strongly that this is in the best interest of students?
• What steps do you need to take to accomplish your goals?
• How are you going to assess whether you are succeeding?
• How are you going to document this process for future job interviews?

So, in your technology integration plan, you should answer:

(1) What technology/technologies you would choose to use? Why do you choose to use the technology/technologies?

(2) What specific content would you like to teach with the technology/technologies? What specific pedagogical goals would you like to achieve?

(3) What is your specific lesson or unit plan? (This may run the gamut from a time-intensive 2-week unit to something that may develop over the course of the year.)

Within this specific lesson or unit plan:

• you can plan on carrying out your plan in several steps so that students can gradually get immersed in intensive use of one or more technologies
• you can plan on using a certain technology in several different ways to achieve different pedagogical goals
• you can plan on weaving two or more technologies together to help achieve one or two specific pedagogical goals
• Of course, you can decide to include all of the three elements above in your plan.

Be sure to talk explicitly about how the technology/technologies are used in a way to help you to achieve your goals.

The plan should be a succinct 2-3 pages double-spaced. Be clear, but be precise. The due date is next Monday at noon.

We haven’t got a chance to talk about Wikis yet. But I would definitely encourage you to consider using Wikis in your tech plan as well. You can find some examples of using Wikis at Examples of educational wikis, and http://te958nclb.wikispaces.com/ (This is a wiki that I and some other graduate students designed for a classroom activity).

I am not expecting mediocre work!

Throw out ideas that someone else can easily think of!!

Come up with a plan that excites and inspires the rest of us!!!

I hope this would be a piece of work that you are truly proud of!!!!

Week 10: Assignments

1. Create a post on your blog that discuss how you might draw on collaborative technologies.
2. Work on your technology integration plan (Submit your tech integration plan by Sunday 11:59pm).

Week 10 Collaborative Applications

1 Learn about Collaborative Applications

• Write collaboratively on the educational implications of Podcast with Notemesh and Google Docs
• Watch demos on Yugma and Vyew websites
  
• Watch a ppt presentation about a collaborative application with Yugma or Vyew
• Watch examples of Wikis

2. Work in groups and create a sample wiki using wikispace. Create a link to your wiki on our wiki gallery.

3. Read articles and discuss the educational implications of these tools in groups:

• Notemesh and Google Docs
• Yugma and Vyew
• Wikis

• 7 things you should know about collaborative editing
• 7 things you should know about virtual meeting
• 7 things you should know about Wikis

Week 9 Web Portfolio Presentation

1. Work on or further polish your web portfolios

2. Prepare a 15-min presentation on your web portfolios

Presenter: (15 mins)

(1)General Introduction: What is in your portfolio?

(2)Three features: If you go to a job interview, what are three most important things you want the interviewers know about you? Try to use your web portfolio to highlight the three things.

Interviewers and Audience: (5 mins)

(1) Raising questions

(2) Providing suggestions: from the colors, fonts to content

Note: You will record your presentation, and put it on your website and blog.

Week 8 Podcast

Podcast

Week 7 Digital images

Digitial images

Assignments:

• Write on your blog about what you have learned regarding the use of images, copyright, mashing, etc. and what this will mean for your own use of images. Also comment on what challenges you think might exist in helping students to think about the use of images more critically.
• Update the links to Flickr, map mashup in the Wiki Gallery
• Continue working on your web portfolios

Week 6: Social bookmarking lab

Explore the social bookmarking tool -- del.icio.us

1. Get Started

• Register and Install Extension

https://secure.del.icio.us/register?step2

2. Add URLs to your del.icio.us

• Add two links from "CEP416Resources"
• Change the name of your bookmarks
• Tag your bookmarks
• Bundle your tags

3. Share Your Bookmarks

• Enable “Private Saving” function
• Add others to your network
• Add Linkroll to your blogs

4. Find resources on del.icio.us

Week 6: Activity 1

How does del.icio.us differ from Aggregator? How does del.icious differ from other search engines?

---A question from Maya---

I have been thinking about Google Reader and Del.icio.us. My understanding is, Del.icio.us is more like a "multi search engine", like "Dogpile" Fei introduced in class. If you search by Del.icio.us, you can only find the "category" instead of "detailed information" (like "Is ... harmful for teeth?").
While Google Reader is something like you order magazines and they will be "delivered" to your home when there are some new released. And again, Google Reader only offer you a big "category" of the information you have chosen.
Neither Del.icio.us nor Google Reader can offer detailed information like Google.

Am I correct about these notions? Please let me know if I have misconceptions. I would like to know your thoughts.

Week 6: Activity 2

Read the following two articles, and discuss how social bookmarking can be used in professional development and teaching.

Ÿ 7 Things You Should Know about Social Bookmarking - EDUCAUSE

Ÿ Sites to See: Social Bookmarking - Education World

Other references

Ÿ Social Bookmarking Showdown

Ÿ What is “folksonomies”

Week 6: Assignments

• Update the “bookmarks” link on the wiki page
• Set up a calendar account, create a couple of sample events, and add some public calendar.
• Update your “calendar” link on the wiki page.
• Create a post on your blog that discusses how you might use bookmarks and calendars a) for your personal/professional use, b) for students to use, and c) for parents to use
• Continue working on your portfolio: Put all your major pages up (even though most pages are under construction). Focus on getting your resume up by Monday.

Week 4: Searching for Resources on the Internet

1 Search Tools

The following six search tools belong to three different categories. Can you group them?

• Google
• Librarians' Index to the Internet
• Dogpile
• AltaVista
• Yahoo Directory
• Ixquick

2 Study the URLs

• http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/index.html
• http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/FindInfo.htm
  

3 How much do you know about Google Search?

• Will Google return only pages that match all your search terms?
• Will Google return pages that match your search terms exactly?
• Will Google return pages that match variants of your search terms?
• Is there any word Google will ignore during search?
• Is there a limit to the number of queries?
• Does the distance between the two queries matter? ( eg. [ snake in the grass ], [ snake grass ])
• Does the order of query matter?Is Google case sensitive?

4 Do you know the function of these operators?

• Quoted Phrases
• The + Operator
• The – Operator
• The ~ Operator
• The OR and | Operators
• The .. Operator
• The * Operator

5 Searching with key words

Find documents on the web that provide the answers to the following questions. What’s your level of comfort with the referring site(s) and why? Is it true that if you touch a cold halogen light bulb with clean fingers, you will shorten its lifespan?

1. Are 75% of Americans chronically dehydrated? Find opposing points of view.
2. Are you less likely to get dental cavities if you drink fluoridated water?
3. Is clumping kitty litter a major health hazard to cats?
4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of a flu (influenza) shot?
5. Does microwaving food in plastic containers or plastic cling wrap release harmful chemicals into the food? Check whether this is an urban legend.

Week 4: Evaluating Web Pages

Read Evaluating Web Pages

Read Nell’s WWWDOT approach on ANGEL site

Evaluate the following sites:

a. All the following sites are about Immigration.

Please evaluate these sites and think about how you decide whether the site is good or not.

a) http://www.historychannel.com/ellisisland/index2.html

b) http://www.aiisf.org/

c) http://www.msu.edu/course/mc/112/1920s/Immigration/Jamiespage.html

d) http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features/immig/introduction.html

e) http://www.ellisisland.com/ellis_home.html

f) http://www.bergen.org/AAST/Projects/Immigration/index.html

g) http://immigration.about.com/

h) http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm

i) http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/population5.html

b. Three websites on Underground Railroad:

Website A: http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/ugrr/home.html

Website B: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/railroad/

Website C: http://www2.lhric.org/POCANTICO/TUBMAN/timeline2/timeline.htm

Week 4: Assignment

1. Find a topic you are interested in. Use Google to search for related information. Don’t just use Wikipedia! Write about what you have learned about this topic and what you have learned about search.

2. Respond to your classmates’ posts.

3. Continue working on your web portfolio.

4. Update your Aggregator link on the Wiki Gallery.

Week 3 Assignments

• Update your links on the Wiki Gallery so that it links to your blogs, portfolios, and Google Reader.
  
• Start creating your web portfolio (You can start by creating the homepage, and put some text, a picture, and a link to your blog on it.)
  
• Write a short reflection on the affordances and constraints of RSS readers
• Respond to at least one of your classmates’ comments in their blogs
  
• Start creating your online portfolios (See Google Page Tipsheet)

Week 3 Use of RSS Readers

(1) Read the article: Why RSS is crucial for a Blogging Classroom

(2) Discuss in Groups:

• How will RSS help you as a teacher?
• How can your students use RSS readers?
• How can parents use RSS readers?

Week 3 RSS Reader and iGoogle Lab

(1) Try live bookmarks

(2) Use Google Readers

a) Subscribe classroom blog

b) Subscribe your classmates blog

(3) Search for RSS feeds and subscribe them

a) Use Google news search to find RSS feeds on topics your are interested in

b) Use Google blog search or www.technorati.com to find RSS feeds on topics you are interested in

c) Find RSS feeds in websites such as New York Times, NPR, and so on

(4) Organize your Google Readers

a) Put your feeds into folders

(5) Use iGoogle to personalize your Google homepage

a) Add gadgets onto your homepage: such as your Google reader, weather, movie…

b) Move the gadgets around

c) Create multiple tabs

Week 2 Blogging Lab

Basic:

- To create a blog

- To create a post that includes text, a picture, and a link to an outside resource

- To leave a comment

Advanced:

- To tag/label a post (Why do we need this?)

- To create “Important Links”

- To edit "About Me" page

- To add a picture

Bonus:

- To add writers/members

- To restrict the right of commenting only to the members of the blog

Technology, Technology, Technology

Remember When

A Poem About Technology

(from James S. Huggins' Refrigerator Door)

A computer was something on TV
From a sci fi show of note.
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights.
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bytes.

An application was for employment.
A program was a TV show.
A curser used profanity.
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age.
A CD was a bank account.
And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for a while.

Log on was adding wood to the fire.
Hard drive was a long trip on the road.
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived.
And a backup happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue.
A web was a spider's home.
And a virus was the flu

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head.
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash,
But when it happens they wish they were dead.

Sell your blog ideas!

Read the article The Educated Blogger by David Huffaker, and think about the educational implications of blogs through the following group work.

Sell Your Blog Ideas!

Seller: try your best to persuade others to use blogs in your classrooms

• Explain what teachers/students can do with the blogs…(find and explain in detail at least three specific ways of using blogs)
  
• Explain the advantages of using blogs…
• Find out one particular blog to support your arguments, and talk about how this blog can be further improved.
  
  • You can find some examples from http://del.icio.us/CEP416Resources/blog
    
  • You can also search for blogs at: www.technorati.com or http://blogsearch.google.com/)

Consumer: try hard to avoid using blogs in your classrooms

• Better or alternative approaches?
• The disadvantages of using blogs?

Group 1: Teacher's Online Journal – created and maintained by the teacher himself/herself
Group 2: Student Blog – created and maintained by individual student
Group 3: Classroom/Student Group Bog – created and maintained either by the teacher or by a group of students

Tips
How to Persuade

Comparing Blogs and Websites

Directions: Below are 8 links to sites found on the web. As you look at each site, classify each site as either a website or a blog. When you have finished classifying each site, go back and create two lists that outlines the key features of both websites and blogs. That is, what are the defining characteristics of each that allowed you to classify each of the 8 sites as either a website or a blog?

A. http://www.educ.msu.edu/

B. http://www.mackenty.org/index.php/site/index/

C. http://www.assortedstuff.com/

D. http://technosavvy.org/

E. http://school.discovery.com/schrockguide/

F. http://okemos.k12.mi.us/users/garcia/index.html

G. http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

H. http://elps.k12.mi.us/education/school/school.php?sectionid=2

So to review:

1. Classify each site as either a) a website or b) a blog and

2. Make separate lists of the key characteristics of websites and blogs. You will report back to the class on your work, so be sure to take notes.