Blog Post # 3

1.

For this weeks post my first assignment was to watch and read presentations about peer editing. These are the links; Paige Ellis' Blog , What is Peer Editing? , Peer Edit Perfection Tutorial , Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes . All of these links are very helpful for explaining how you should and should't peer review. Always give complements, nobody likes to be put down.

2.

Watching Technology in Special Education showed me that technology really is making a huge difference in our world. In this video we see how computers have help the way these students learn. Some have problems speaking, writing, and reading a computer can help with some of these things. The teachers who teach children with disabilities do an amazing job!

Technology is a wonderful tool! With any class you have to know what the struggles are in your class. Every child acts and learns differently. I cannot explain how I would use computers in my class because I need to understand them first. Overall I would use it in a way to embrace the learning and lots of pictures and colors.

How the IPad Works with Academics for Autism is such an amazing video. Braden is in 3rd grade with autism and he uses the IPad for more than playing games. The iPad is like todays LeapFrog. Braden can count shapes and see and hear the number at the same time. He also uses the iPad for writing. His parents can write a word and he can write it below just like on paper. The disadvantage with paper sometimes is you scratch words out and the paper begins to look messy. With the iPad you can simply click on the eraser and you have a clean sheet. In the video Braden demonstrates how to use the following apps; Toddler Counting, My First Words, and Kids Writing Pad.

For my classroom I would use the Word Wizard app. This app will let children hear the sounds of letters and words with text to speech capabilities. You can also make spelling test on this app which I think would be wonderful to use in a classroom. Some of the apps can be expensive but this one is only three dollars!

3.

Gary Hayes Social Media Count changes every second and the numbers keep increasing! It's amazing how many people every second are expanding their use of technology. On this site you can view the options of social, mobile, games, and heritage use of technology. It also gives you timeline of now, +1day, +1 week, +1 month, +1 year. Literally every second some use of technology is increasing. Is this a good or bad thing? We spend hundreds of hours viewing pointless websites that doesn't have any contribution to our life. We simply waist time when we could be doing other things to make us motivated.

Technology will no doubt be a main source for not only mine but any classroom. I have said many times that technology should be used as a tool and I still firmly believe that. The booming of technology is just starting and I am excited and nerves to see what new things will be created. It will be hard for students to grasp the concept of the old world. Life before technology was invented. In history will we still teach students about Indians or anything before the 1900's? This is a question I will have an answer too when I begin to teach. We are creating history every day, what will be created tomorrow?

4.

In the video, Vision of Students Today students of Kansas State University show us facts about how we spend our time and money. Two of them stood out to me 18% of my teachers know my name and I have an average class size of 115. Will class sizes increase? In college I have found out that it is completely different from high school. From elementary to high school the teachers are there for you. They give specific assignments and pretty much give you everything you just have to do the actual work. In college you don't go to the same classes Monday-Friday you make your schedule for what's best for you and it's up to you to go to class or not. You no longer have someone holding your hand guiding you the way. Students have a hard time adjusting to these changes.

Why should students spend hundreds of dollars on books that we don't even use? I have spent over $800 in the two years I have been a student and while they do offer buybacks it's a ripoff. They come out with new editions that cannot be sold back and then what do you do with the book? When you do sell them back they do not give you much at all.

With a computer you have an enormous amount of distractions. It is hard staying on task when you can simply open a new window and not do your work. How can we fix this problem? It will probably be fixed by will power. Technology is extremely helpful but it is so hard to determine if it's good or bad.