Session 4

Dr. Robert did an excellent job presenting the number of hours adolescents spend in front of different kinds of technology. My biggest concern coming from this presentation was how to keep students best on task with so many distractions and how to teach children that is more to socializing then technology based communication. I fear that students are going to miss out on learning how to communicate with people face to face. I want my students to know that there is more to a relationship that being able to Facebook or text message someone. I want them to learn that living involves much more than just being the must up to date on Twitter. The only way students can grow is through real social interaction. Not communication through social media networks. This is something I will be reminding my students constantly. It will also be something that I will be implementing in my classroom constantly.  

Personally, I have never liked the idea of online education courses especially for K-12 students. Many argue that online education courses can help save money and help students who need courses to graduate on time. Even though these arguments are valid I think that there is much more learned from attending classes and school on a regular basis then there is from taking a course in front of a computer screen. There is much more to learning in school then just learning the content knowledge. For example, students learn how to have the correct behavior norms in certain social situations. Behaving correctly in class is something that can carry over into the real world. Respect learned in the classroom can transfer into respect for all peoples outside of the classroom. Social interaction between peers and teachers is another huge aspect of education that students would just not be getting online. Communication, which in my mind is one of the most important skills learned in school, is something that students would be getting very little of through an online course. Personally, I would despise having to teach an online course if I ever had to. I love teaching because I can interact with my students. Interaction online is not nearly the same. As for the students, I feel like they are being truly robbed of the education they need to be successful in life later on.

One website I explored more is the application called Dropbox. Dropbox is a great tool and one that is awesome to have especially if a department collaborates on curriculum. It is easy to download and is perfect for sharing documents of any kind. Having Dropbox seems to make everything easier for planning and allows any teacher to access documents even while at home. I definitely hope to implement Dropbox in the future. I would even consider setting it up for my students to use if there was a way so that only I could drop and add certain documents.

Another useful website is open office. I remember being in college and cringing at how much Microsoft Word was. This website is quite helpful for all those students who just can’t afford to purchase Microsoft Word.  I will definitely be recommending this website to all of my students so that they can have access to a word processer at home.

Another great website is Twitter. Personally I don’t have a Twitter and have never used it. Even though this site is used more for social media it is a great easy way to remind students of deadlines and homework assignments. Since many students have Twitter it is a great way to keep in contact with them. Not to mention that many students have Twitter on their cell phones which reminds them even quicker than if they had to check through a computer.

I really like the chatzy website where students can be in a live chatroom with each other to discuss readings or assignments. That is definitely something I would love to implement in my classes in the future. I would love to set up a time where students have to be in the chatroom and discuss with each other for a certain amount of time. Even though it take a lot of planning to implement I would really like to try it out in the future.