Week #4 Reflection

Week #4 Reflection

I would first like to start off with a comparison with something we are discussing in another of my graduate classes I am currently taking. This is a Special Education class that deals with student behaviors and how to manage these behaviors. A term we are using a great deal right now is maintenance. If you are not reviewing and using these behavioral changing ideas, then your information or gain in your intervention will be lost.
I feel that to be the same with the things we have used in this class. I know this sounds a bit negative, however I do not want you to think of it like that. I really like using my blog space for communication, and I believe I will use it often, so I should not have any maintenance issues with my blog or anything attached to it. I also really like the idea of social bookmarking, especially as seen from a teachers perspective. I mentioned in an earlier reflection of mine that I have spent hours reviewing websites that were of little use to me, but still countless hours had gone into this. Social bookmarking should take all this away if I can get some of the teachers I share websites with to use the bookmarking techniques. In a very simple form we do use social networking, but none of has yet spent the time to follow through with our site as in “delicious”, and this is just do to plain laziness on our parts. Setting up the delicious account is simple, free and really a no brainer for educators. Any educator that has a link on a district website should have a blog or link where students, parents, other faculty can log on and look at what is going on in class. With social bookmarking, your students and viewers can easily gain relevant information from your class. This should be a great tool. One thing that really jumped out at me from the reading was, “WHAT ARE THE DOWNSIDES?” I would fit right into this description, because my tags would be poor. As I look at some of the others and how they are organized I will do my part to help everyone have clear and relevant searches on my site. As stated in the video…searching for the sites now becomes organized chaos, which I think is an outstanding term. I was quite surprise while reading the first chapter of the Trends and Issues text. When Dr. Horvitz stated it was as fundamental as you can get, I was thinking along a little different line I guess. I was shocked at the time spent in really defining and naming the field. I was also thinking of a very basic chapter explaining how computers and curriculum had crossed paths, or something simple like that. Truthfully, Monday night is the first time I have even picked up the book since its purchase in late December. As the authors stated at one point from an earlier definition, “it does not separated teachers from media, and it focuses on the improvement of learning as the goal of the field, with instruction being viewed as a means to the end. I couldn’t agree more. Take full advantage of the technology, use what is good for you, but don’t waste time on something that might not be helping you or your students reach the goals you have set. Sometimes technology tools are just used as filler and really are not helping or improving your teaching, or helping the students learn the content any better