For any of you out there that attended the podcasting presentation in class the other week(eek time flies), you know what I mean when I say that it was SOO informative! Hello audio tools I never knew how to use, its nice to finally learn about your existence! But really I was actually incredibly grateful to the presenters for giving an engaging but very educational presentation.
All of the coolness of their presentations aside however, I have to wonder what this tool could really do to improve student learning in a Biology class. I can see how creativity and functionality could flow from these in the humanities and I think that the sample podcasts that the presenters gave were awesome (I think that the podcasts convinced me to actually do those fictional assignments) but us Biology kids could only come up with half hearted uses in our discipline.
One idea that I did think was really cool would be to use podcasting as a note taking device during a lab, especially a lab that requires a lot of hands on maneuvering, however I wonder if this would take away from the valuable lesson of teaching students how to keep proper scientific records. Also a lab is not typically the most desirable location for doing a podcast, as multiple groups will be up around and talking as well.
With all of that said I would like to invite the ideas of the audience, what do you think a science teacher could do to bring this cool piece of technology into the classroom in a meaningful way?
In the meantime I am content with the knowledge of how to use cool tools like garageband for myself, even if I can't bring it into the classroom yet.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tech in my placement
I found that the tech in my placement assignment was a really good way for me to begin to get to know not only my own classroom better, but also the school that I will be spending the next year learning in.
I am not placed in a wealthy school district for my student teaching, so I was unsure of what kinds of technologies I would encounter. I must say that the discoveries that I made about my school were surprising on both ends of the technology spectrum, there were somethings that I was surprised and impressed to hear that we had available at my school, while other things I was disappointed to hear weren't available.
One fun peace of technology that the students at my school have access to is video and video editing equipment, while this does not take place in my classroom I think it is great that our announcements are put together by a group of students. Using that kind of equipment and getting that kind of experience is something unique that I think could be really valuable to students in the future, I wish we had that in my high school! Another awesome thing that is available in some classrooms in my school are Google Chrome Books and Smartboards! Woo! While almost all of the teachers in my school do not have access to these technologies, I think that it's pretty awesome that some students get to experience using them!
Some of the other technologies that I learned about were pretty standard, there are computer labs that teachers can reserve for a class period if they want to do online research, and my mentor teacher has taken advantage of this more than once already this year.
What I could NOT believe was that my mentor teacher had to pay for her own projector!! Doing power points in class is a pretty standard way of getting dense scientific information across to students before we move on to the hands on learning.
So while there are so cool flashy technologies at my school it is easy to see that there is still a serious funding issues at play here that are creating a large gap.
I am not placed in a wealthy school district for my student teaching, so I was unsure of what kinds of technologies I would encounter. I must say that the discoveries that I made about my school were surprising on both ends of the technology spectrum, there were somethings that I was surprised and impressed to hear that we had available at my school, while other things I was disappointed to hear weren't available.
One fun peace of technology that the students at my school have access to is video and video editing equipment, while this does not take place in my classroom I think it is great that our announcements are put together by a group of students. Using that kind of equipment and getting that kind of experience is something unique that I think could be really valuable to students in the future, I wish we had that in my high school! Another awesome thing that is available in some classrooms in my school are Google Chrome Books and Smartboards! Woo! While almost all of the teachers in my school do not have access to these technologies, I think that it's pretty awesome that some students get to experience using them!
Some of the other technologies that I learned about were pretty standard, there are computer labs that teachers can reserve for a class period if they want to do online research, and my mentor teacher has taken advantage of this more than once already this year.
What I could NOT believe was that my mentor teacher had to pay for her own projector!! Doing power points in class is a pretty standard way of getting dense scientific information across to students before we move on to the hands on learning.
So while there are so cool flashy technologies at my school it is easy to see that there is still a serious funding issues at play here that are creating a large gap.
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