The article I read this week is called "Blogging goes mainstream." I located the article on CNN.com and found it was very interesting. Up until this class I never had a blog before, I had only herd of them. The more I read into this article the more interested I became. The article talked about many different aspects of blogging, some of which were how blogging is inexpensive and easy, and how blogging can have huge potential for advertisers. The article states that blogs can be very diverse, meaning, blogs are created by all different types of people including teenagers talking about what is popular or "in", celebrities who dont mind talking about their day to day life and putting themselves out there, and even nerds who want to swap information and advice about the latest technology. Blogs are basically online journals for people to post whatever they want on the internet for huge masses of people to read. The article also states that if better blog search engines were formed then the best bloggers would be easier to find, making them into trendsetters who could shape the public's opinion which is a role usually taken care of by the mass media. The article goes on to mention different companies and software the aid in and promote blogging. It mentions that more companies such as AOL (America Online) are becoming more and more involved with blogging and are soon going to be offering it to all of their users.
I think that the technology of blogging relates to both teaching and learning in that they are available to everyone and are very inexpensive. Teachers may use them as a way to post weekly and daily assignments for their students. They also may use blogging just to post daily and weekely class announcments to their students out of the classroom. I believe that blogs can benefit students as well and this class is a perfect example of just how it can. Teachers can use blogs as a way to make their students exercise their writing skills. They can give them weekly assignments to do posts much like the ones that we do in this class. Giving the students these weekly assignments can also help them to learn discipline seeming as how since it is an online task the students would be responsible for keeping up with their work on their own.
I personally think that blogging is a great form of technology. It helps many students to exercise their writing sills as well as teaches them discipline. It gives teachers a way to post information to their students on a 24/7 basis. Also, blogging is very inexpensive and user friendly which makes it attractive technology to many different people. I feel that I would probably use blogging in my own teaching career someday. If I could make any further suggestions about this article it would probably be to add more information about where to find blogging software and websites where you can create your own blog. Other than that I feel that the article had good content and covered all necessary information.
Article Link: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/03/10/bloggers.ap/index.html
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Virtual Field Trips
This week our assignment was to research virtual field trips. For this assignment is researched two articles that go hand in hand. I researched about a company called Tramline who developed software called TourMaker© in the year 1996. This software provides teachers from grades K-12 with a free source for creating virtual field trips for their students. Since TourMaker© has been around it has grown to have a great reputation for being the best software used to create virtual field trips because it has features and elements that other software lacks. Later, AT&T funded Tramline in the creation of another site called Virtual Blackboard that allowed the virtual field trips to cover more than just science. Eventually the sites merged together to make things more simple.
The article also talks about Kim Foley who was one of the first founding members of the company Tramline. The article mentions that Tramline is always welcome to and searching for sponsorships to live on their mission of keeping Tramline free for its users.
The second article I read this week went hand in hand with the first one. However, this one was more about the use of the software rather than the background information of it. It compares and lists the difference between virtual field trips and web quests. The article says that "Both VFTs (virtual field trips) and WebQuests are typically designed to make efficient use of a learner's time and to spend time focusing on using information rather than searching the Internet." I think this is great because It pains me to even consider how much time I have wasted searching endlessly on the internet to find information. Any tool that aids us to use information rather than just waste time searching for it is a winner in my book. The article talks about how the software it simple to use for both the educators who are creating the field trips as well as the students who are experiencing them. The teachers using the TourMaker software can create their own field trips for use in the classroom as well as globally. The article expreses the main function of this software in saying that, "Tramline developed TourMaker with the very specific goal of creating an educational tool that would help to organize and focus Web resources into a simple, useable package."
In my personal opinion, I think this software is highly beneficial to both teaching and learning. Teachers benefit from having a free resource right at their fingertips that will aid thier students in the learning process. Students benefit from having an interesting and different way of experiencing new information that can help them get enthusiasticc and passionate about the things that they are learning. This is important because lets face it, all students will eventually get bored of learning the same way everyday. I think a great teacher is one who uses a number of techniques for teaching their students in order to keep the classroom exciting.
I would definatly like to furter research the topic of virtual field trips in the future and possibly even experience one myself. I would have liked if the article had had a link to an example virtual field trip so I could have observed it and seen how it works in real life not just in theory. I would definatly consider using virtual field trips in my teaching career someday in the future.
Link to the first article: http://www.field-guides.com/abouttram.htm
Link to the second article: http://www.tramline.com/lounge/vft-wquest.htm
The article also talks about Kim Foley who was one of the first founding members of the company Tramline. The article mentions that Tramline is always welcome to and searching for sponsorships to live on their mission of keeping Tramline free for its users.
The second article I read this week went hand in hand with the first one. However, this one was more about the use of the software rather than the background information of it. It compares and lists the difference between virtual field trips and web quests. The article says that "Both VFTs (virtual field trips) and WebQuests are typically designed to make efficient use of a learner's time and to spend time focusing on using information rather than searching the Internet." I think this is great because It pains me to even consider how much time I have wasted searching endlessly on the internet to find information. Any tool that aids us to use information rather than just waste time searching for it is a winner in my book. The article talks about how the software it simple to use for both the educators who are creating the field trips as well as the students who are experiencing them. The teachers using the TourMaker software can create their own field trips for use in the classroom as well as globally. The article expreses the main function of this software in saying that, "Tramline developed TourMaker with the very specific goal of creating an educational tool that would help to organize and focus Web resources into a simple, useable package."
In my personal opinion, I think this software is highly beneficial to both teaching and learning. Teachers benefit from having a free resource right at their fingertips that will aid thier students in the learning process. Students benefit from having an interesting and different way of experiencing new information that can help them get enthusiasticc and passionate about the things that they are learning. This is important because lets face it, all students will eventually get bored of learning the same way everyday. I think a great teacher is one who uses a number of techniques for teaching their students in order to keep the classroom exciting.
I would definatly like to furter research the topic of virtual field trips in the future and possibly even experience one myself. I would have liked if the article had had a link to an example virtual field trip so I could have observed it and seen how it works in real life not just in theory. I would definatly consider using virtual field trips in my teaching career someday in the future.
Link to the first article: http://www.field-guides.com/abouttram.htm
Link to the second article: http://www.tramline.com/lounge/vft-wquest.htm
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