Thursday, September 15, 2011
Week One Reading-Professional Learning
Did the article (Professional Learning 2.0) change your view point about a specific technology or technology in general, being used in the schools? Do you think it would be effective? ( A typical school requires all teachers to meet for a staff meeting once a week for a minimum of an hour )
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This article, (Professional Learning 2.0) has allowed me to see the many benefits technology would have in the school system. I think these tools would be very effective within school systems to keep faculty informed, connected, and would in turn improve students learning. As much as I still see the importance of face to face meetings within the school systems as well, this would be a great tool to use as a combination. This will spark questions and answers, and help understanding of topics through explanations and examples.
ReplyDelete-Kathy P.
I do agree that face to face meetings still need to happen, but the technology can be a great tool to extend on these meetings! You are correct that questions and answers will arise on these tools and would be a great way to keep the faculty informed.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found particularly interesting from this article was the idea that, while the use of technology in the classroom as a teaching tool to the students if often discussed, it seems like there is often little discussion as to how technology can particularly enhance professional teacher development. From my field experiences and experience as a substitute teacher often times, technology use in professional development does not go beyond e-mail. This article presented a number of creative, useful and perhaps most importantly relevant ways of using the new wave of web technologies to improve communication and improve teacher development.
ReplyDeleteOne area in particular I hadn't given much thought to in both the context of teaching students and developing professionals is the use of twitter. I figured how can something where you can only write so much be useful? I liked the idea of this article had of using twitter as a way to follow certain professionals, writers, scholars etc that are relevant to the field as a way of staying up to date with the latest thinking. So I suppose that is a particular technology that this article changed my opinion about in regards to its usefulness to me as a teacher.
This article opened my eyes to how much technology is now out there and available for the use of school systems. Being able to effectively communicate through out the staff of a school is very important and with the use of technology those messages will be delivered quicker and get into circulation a lot faster. I think it would be affective to a certain point, I agree with Kathy that face to face meetings are still important to keep a good work environment and level of being personal throughout the school and with the staff.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of technology used in schools today is absolutely incredible, even from when I was a kid if we had a overhead projector with a blank sheet you can write on it was cool. Now you have smartboards and PowerPoints for notes it's unreal. A big thing now is how email is the best way to talk to teachers or administrators, this is great for getting a quick response on a question and it is a great way to track you Childs progress in school. Try also have websites for you to go on and check your kids grades online before report cards come out. However technology has in a way ruined face to face contact for people in the school place and I feel that is something that is very impotency to have.
ReplyDeleteThis article gave me a better insight on how effective technology can be in schools; it can also serve as a resource for teachers to access additional information on certain topics and reflect on others' viewpoints while also being able to make connections in order to incorporate what they have learned into their teaching assessments. I find it to be interesting that teachers can post questions and be answered quite quickly by other professionals because this helps them formulate new ideas and promotes conversations among staff members, which is very important. Although the Internet has had its share in ruining how students access their information, it can also serve as a tool for professionals by providing access to new information and ideas that can potentially change the way teachers instruct in a positive and engaging way.
ReplyDeleteThe article definitely made me more aware of the amount of technology and technology resources used now in the education system other than college. The resources used and mentioned in the article that school systems use to share ideas and communicate I thought were only used in universities. Reading about the ways teachers can use wikis and twitter along with other technology my view of them changed quite a bit. I only thought of twitter as a social networking means or a way to know about celebrities or other famous people. I never thought of using it for education purposes or spreading ideas through a department at a school. Also when I thought of wikis I only really thought of wikipedia and how it really is not the best academic resource. I did not even know that wikis could be used for multiple other educational reasons. The article made me more aware of the numerous resources I can tap into to stay connected with other teachers in a school. Also it helped to give me ideas on how to stay connected with other education people and how to share and collaborate on ideas to help students.
ReplyDeleteI think many of the ideas talked about in the article are effective. I can easily many times where a piece of paper distributed to teachers may be misplaced or put to the side for something related to a specific class or assignment. Having a place where all teachers can access information and communicate to each other seems like a great idea. The only problem I can see is getting all people to join and contribute to the community. Overall the ideas seem great and will probably improve over time.
It is truly amazing how much technology has impacted our society as a whole, and it is really good that the school systems are now getting involved using the technology to enhance the school systems. I have to agree with Tim Roarty, with how twitter can be used in the school system. I thought when it first came out that it was only way to keep up with the celeb gossip and never really thought that a school system could get involved using it to post important updates about the school and other things among the community. The one thing I have to say about the technology is that it does kind of keep you away from meeting with people (face to face). I do feel that going to the conferences when you have a chance are in fact beneficial, and that we shouldn't rely on your colleagues tweeting about it or posting about it on school blogs. Overall I feel that technology has come so far and will continue to grow and help us become better teachers.
ReplyDeleteAlan:
ReplyDeleteI think that article gave me a broader view of different tecnhologies that are used. Comming from a phsyical education background. I believe the less time spent on the computer the better. I do agree with this artcile that it seems to be easy to get a hold of a larger group of people using the oddle , wiki etc. There are various amounts of new ways to connect with students and professionals. I think that we should use the new ways of communicating with a limit. The usage of both strategies I think would be best. Especially if students do not always have the acess to new tecnhology because of the demographics. All and all I think yes that we as a society are gaining new, exciting, useful, interactive, social ways of communicating but we should also consider the ability of each students ability and access. For professionals, what ever is faster and easier usually is acknowledged but again too much time with technology is not healthy.
Samantha Cool
ReplyDeleteReading Response:
The Professional Learning 2.0 article leads me to believe that there are many ways of using technology in schools than I had previously thought before. I had always assumed that when incorporating technology into the classroom it would be assumed for the purpose of students. I guess I never had realized how much of a positive impact that technology can have not only for the purpose of students but for teachers as well. I have to say I agree with Brad, that the idea of using technology in order to benefit the teacher just as much as the student is not heard as often. The idea of using Web 2.0 in order to collaborate and share different content through sites such as Moodle or Wikis in order to get fellow colleagues input on lesson plans or strategies seems like it would be extremely beneficial to teachers. I think using technology such as this would be beneficial to teachers because it allows them to get input from a variety of people that come from different backgrounds. This variety of people would allow teachers to not only broaden their horizons but to even get input from students in some cases.
I personally think that if such technology is stressed in a school district that it has the potential to be extremely effective for teachers and their colleagues. I think that while it may be beneficial to have one hour meetings a week, that teachers would benefit even more from the use of such sites through Web 2.0 such as Wikis or even Twitter. These sites will allow teachers to ask questions and get a diverse amount of answers which allows the teacher to continue to broad their views. I think getting a diverse amount of ideas allows teachers to continue to create an interactive learning environment.
There is great advantage to using technology in the class room it is important to not just rely on technology for everything in the classroom. It is also important to have teachers and school officials to talk about how they are using technology in the classroom. There are teachers that do not use technology and they do not see the benefit of it being used in the classroom. They also need to understand how their students are gaining information.
ReplyDeleteThere are some things though that technology should not be used for in the classroom as they take away from the necessary skills that are useful for life in general. It is also important because as teachers get older the less likely they will be able to stop their students from using technology for cheating.
I personally feel like you lose something in translation with using technology. people are losing their personal and communication skills, decreasing their ability to have a conversation and talk to someone else. I do think technology is very useful and makes things way more convenient when it comes to meetings or getting in contact with someone asap. With technology now, if you need to send information you can via email, google docs, or moodle to post anything you may want to share with your classmates or students. Although i do agree technology is greatly helping the ways we learn and teach, it also can take away from our experience if it is used too much. although it is exciting to see what kind of technology could be coming out soon because of the leaps and bounds we make every year.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Tim's post because although you may be losing "face time" with other professionals, the article demonstrated that most staff meetings become useless because teachers forget the information given to them or put it at the bottom of their to-do list. If a group of teachers becomes part of a social network or a wiki it is an easier way to get ideas across and it offers a permanent resource for the teacher to go back to. The idea can't get lost at the bottom of a pile of papers because it is permanently on the website, offering easy access to the teacher wherever they are. I have always thought that the use of technology in schools has been a great idea, we are in a technology boom and I think that it is important that teachers as well as students are up to date on different aspects of technology.
ReplyDelete