Equal Access

I think it is the schools, parents and teachers responsibility to equal access to the digital world to all learners. Equal access is a big responsibility and I think it is too big of a role to put on a teacher. I do feel the bigger portion of the responsibility is the teachers but the school needs to offer technology and resources to the classrooms and the parent or guardian needs to help extend the knowledge in their home. Some students may not have the technology at home and I think it is the school responsibility to provide those resources so that every student has the same opportunity.

It is hard to give equal access to each student everyday but it needs to be a goal of each teacher to meet. For example if a class room has a computer station make sure every student gets the opportunity to use it. In my lit review they used the clickers to answer questions this will help the teachers see who gets what is being taught and who doesn’t. The teacher then can help those that do not. There are many techniques of trying to make sure every student gets the same opportunity and help.

Lit Review

Instant Class Feedback

With the push of a button By- Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Journal - Education Week - 2009

The student response system known as the clicker is becoming a popular tool in the classroom. The one in this article is like a garage door opener featuring buttons with numbers or letters and student press the one they think correspond with the question. There are many types. The use of this device started in colleges and they worked so well they migrated into district school systems. Some teachers love them as others do not.

This article was interesting because I can compare with it from our first day of class using the clickers to respond to questions. I really liked using them because no one knew my response, so if I was wrong it was not embarrassing. I think it is the best way to see if student understands the material being taught. If a teacher asked a question and has one student answer and gets it right, doesn’t mean everyone understands. It is like having one student answering for everyone else. When using the clickers the teacher is getting full feedback from each student. Students feel much more comfortable giving an answer if they don’t have to answer in front of everyone. Most of the time the kids that do answer out loud know they are right are not afraid.

The article didn’t mention anything about if they know which students get the right or not. That would be a very helpful tool. This would be helpful because if most of the students get the material and the teacher feels they can move on but a few don’t, the teachers can work with those students after. I strongly agree with the use of this tool in the classroom. It gives positive feedback that can help the student and teacher. I wish this was out when I was in school!

The Classroom Social Network - Reflection

 The Classroom Social Network: It’s not just Fun, It’s Fundamental to Modern Learning

http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=705

This K12 conference about social networing gave some insight on some ways to become more social Network friendly. Adrianne had talked about two main website to use with your kids, which are twitter and facebook. Twitter I was already familiar with me by using in our classroom now, but until this class I did not have a account with twitter. I do have a facebook account but until this presentation I wasn’t quite sure how you would involve facebook with your classroom students. I looked at facebook as be more of a non school social network but she proved me wrong. All though I do think you still need to be careful using facebook with your classroom.

The way she used these social networking site were more for outside the classroom assignments and to post reminders of when assignments are due. She also uses it for discussion. What I thought was great about twitter, which I didn’t know was you can receive the messages on your phone even if you do not have an iphone you can still get the message as a text. This way everyone gets the message. She brought up a good point she found that sending e-mails are harder because not everyone checks them all the time this way by using twitter everyone get the message the same time.

Facebook was the interesting part about her presentation. When using facebook you can create pages. She has a page for each class that she teaches. The pages she creates are not link to her personal page, so it still gives the teacher and student privacy. The student cannot see her page and she cannot see the students personal page in less it is public. Using facebook you can post pictures and link web pages. She had taking pictures of her white board with the notes and diagrams she drew for the class and posted them on facebook, so student can refer back to them and it is great for any student that missed class. I also think that is great for student that have a hard time listening and taking notes at the same time. They now can refer back to them as a backup.

             I never used blogs or twitter until this class and I feel is a great tool and gets students involved more in classroom participate and it is good for the teacher to see if students get the material that is being taught. I want to be a first or second grade teacher and it is a little bit harder to use these types of tools. What I would try to use is Skype, which was my previous blog.