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Ortega Digital Citizenship Wiki: Home
//Did You Know? //

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Response:

This is pretty impressive for a high school project. A comparison of the video's statistics with today's statistics and a mathematical model relating the two would be interesting. Would the model be exponential? Quadratic? Linear? The reason I wonder is because it would tell me how fast the world is changing and what I can expect over the course of my teaching career.

I love the music -- who doesn't love Fatboy Slim? -- and the graphics are attention-grabbing; however, I would not be able to use this in a classroom as it is because a visually impaired student would not be able to benefit from it. It could be adapted to feature a voice-over for visually impaired students. One solution that would be consistent with the feel of the PSA is that of having multicultural voice-overs: a person of a different age, race, culture, sex, etc. could read each statistic aloud to conserve the global feel of the piece.

//Edit: Having now worked on my own videos, I appreciate how much work this one must have been, how well-organized and coherent it is, and what a powerful message these students have managed to broadcast. It's extraordinary work, especially when I stop to think that they were learning while making it.//

Technology in the Classroom: My Opinions and Experiences

As a technology user, my experiences before taking this class had been limited to basic tools such as SmartBoard that I didn't really know how to use, outmoded programming skills, and creative and quick ways of making your calculator a more efficient tool in problem solving. I was dragged rather reluctantly into Web 2.0 while wearing an old school Atari console game t-shirt. As a user I was very much like someone's great-grandmother who was suspicious of microwaves and anything else that worked in a manner she did not understand. As the class progressed, however, I realized that I actually understood more than I'd expected of the behind-the-scenes aspects of what we were doing; that left me with the problem of what to do with the technology, which is why I'd been avoiding it all along. I don't want to use technology for technology's sake, and I had very few ideas regarding its classroom applications.

This class has been a godsend. I now know how to use a SmartBoard (the explanation of the hardware was one of the most important things I learned), I no longer feel bad about not being able to impress my JCPS observer this past spring with SmartBoard demonstrations since neither the screen nor the projector was mounted and it never worked, I understand how collaboration and technology go hand-in-hand using wikis and voice threads, and I have some great ideas about how to use technology to foster inquiry-based learning instead of using the SmartBoard as a projector for vocabulary terms. I feel confident in creating a webpage that allows my students can get to know me as a person and an educator, and in using technology to get to know them as well.

As to the place of technology in the classroom, I feel I have a firm grasp of what is appropriate use in my class and what is not. During observations and student teaching, I saw extremes of technology use; or rather, extremes of calculator use. I saw sixth graders reach for their calculators to find the product of five times three, which horrified me. I saw high school juniors who had no idea how to use 2 nd ANS or 2 nd ENTRY to speed up their calculations and obtain more precise answers, something I rectified during remediation classes which then went viral and I had everyone coming to ask me how to use those two shortcuts. I only ever saw the SmartBoard used as a projector for the document camera and was discouraged from using it in any other way. My SmartBoard experiments were called "silly stuff" by my cooperating teacher, who flatly refused to bring in her tablet.

Now I understand that it is possible to strike a balance between extremes of use that encourages learning rather than fostering dependence. I still cringe at the use of technology for technology's sake but this class has demonstrated ways of using various platforms to enhance the learning experience rather than using technology just to look fancy. I've picked up methods of appealing to different learning styles -- visual, auditory, kinesthetic, logical, musical, artistic, interpersonal -- that dovetail perfectly with my desire to encourage individuality and creativity. Tech can be used collaboratively or individually and assigning technology-based projects simultaneously meets the needs of teaching digital literacy while both relieving some of my workload and avoiding boring my students to death with lecture. When used in conjunction with the correct pedagogy, such as asking students to develop voice threads and explain the concepts to their peers in a jigsaw-type manner, it can deepen knowledge, hit some of the top points of Bloom's Taxonomy, and develop social skills. It has helped me develop my own philosophy of educational technology, as expressed in my Voki: Balancing freedom and safety while using technology as a tool to inform and entertain students, explore creative problem solving and encourage self-expression.

One other extremely important point: I found that I am not alone in my opinions regarding diversity in teaching and learning styles, in my feeling that subjects should be integrated rather than discrete, and in my emphasis on creativity and divergent thinking in the classroom. Before this class I was actually feeling quite hopeless and alone, wondering if I was completely off base and everyone else was right, my lessons really were "silly stuff."

THIS CLASS HAS RESTORED MY CONFIDENCE.


 * Voki: || media type="custom" key="19709752"

"Hello, my name is Lisa Ortega. I am half Mexican and was raised globally. I believe in taking diverse approaches to math and prefer those related to language, music, art and science. I understand that today's learners are primarily visual and do my best to let my students interact with the ideas and with each other rather than lecturing them. I try to balance freedom and safety while using technology as a tool to inform and entertain students, explore creative problem solving and encourage self-expression." || This music reflects me because the percussion is slow and rhythmic and I believe very strongly that a regular rhythm in life and in the classroom is beneficial to everyone, whether your student is average, gifted, ECE, or twice exceptional. Everyday rituals are important and set the tone for the day and the lesson, whether you have one minute of silence at the beginning of every period or have your students pick up their clickers on the way in. When people know what to expect and the pace is not frenetic, it encourages calm and reflection rather than anxiety, and this is very important when your content has a reputation for being anxiety-inducing. ||
 * Myna: || media type="custom" key="19718722"