Essential question Week 7 continuation

How can technology enhance learning when students aren’t the ones accessing it? How can we create effective assessments using technology? Also respond to the video that we watched about standardized testing-where is the balance and what should we strive for?
Effective assessments through technology can be done by asking students to create presentations. Presentation is a great tool where students can review their work and also others can gain information from it.  
Blogs are great for classroom discussions and this can help the teacher to understand how much students have understood about the subject matter. 
Also , when the tests and quizzes are taken online the students can get immediate results thus helping them to improve themselves for the future without wasting time. 


Our curriculum needs to be based on standardized tests.  Only then, we can insists on our students the importance to these tests.  Our classroom teaching , test should be connected to what is being asked in these tests.  Only then, students will give more importance to these tests and we can better prepare our students for the test. 

Essential question week 5 continuation

Essential question week 5 continuation

How can tools be used to increase understanding? Why can digital storytelling be an authentic assessment? Could digital storytelling be used in your classroom as an assessment? Should students publish their work? 


I believe digital story telling can be considered as an authentic assessment because it can be used to assess student's understanding of the subject matter.  Digital story telling can be used as a part of the final exam . By explaining the concepts they have understood over the semester students can prove what they have learned from the class.  Thus, it can be used as a summative assessment at the end. 


I think , students can or should publish their work only after a careful review of the work by the teacher .  As the work can be seen by anybody after it has been published , lot of effort and hard work has to be put in before the work is published.  But, if the work done by the students is good enough and if others can learn  from it , then it can be definitely published for others to use.

Essential question week 5 continuation

How can tools be used to increase understanding? Why can digital storytelling be an authentic assessment? Could digital storytelling be used in your classroom as an assessment? Should students publish their work? 


I believe digital story telling can be considered as an authentic assessment because it can be used to assess student's understanding of the subject matter.  Digital story telling can be used as a part of the final exam . By explaining the concepts they have understood over the semester students can prove what they have learned from the class.  Thus, it can be used as a summative assessment at the end. 


I think , students can or should publish their work only after a careful review of the work by the teacher .  As the work can be seen by anybody after it has been published , lot of effort and hard work has to be put in before the work is published.  But, if the work done by the students is good enough and if others can learn  from it , then it can be definitely published for others to use.

Essential question week 4 continuation

What is your ideal technology "set up" in your classroom? How would technology impact student achievement and engagement in your classroom?

Ideal technology "set up" is something when every student in the classroom have access to technology.  Not only does these kids need to have access but they should also know how to use the tech tools provided to them.  Then only it becomes ideal and fair on teacher's part to assign work based on technology.  
To achieve this, the teacher first of all need to make sure that all the students know how to use the tech tools.  He or she can spend some time in the beginning of the semester and give students small training classes and then start giving work. 


The other ideal set up is when all the students have the computer or any other mobile device to use .  When the number of computers or laptops available is less in quantity students are forced to work in groups.  As much students like to work in groups there are lot of chances where they can get distracted into other things, while working in groups.  
Thus the quantity should be optimum where every student has a personal computer to work on. 


As technology makes things more creative, students will definitely be more engaged in what they want to learn or suppose to learn.  Also, technology provides updated information which also gains attention.  


When students can see their progress consistently they can work on those areas where they need more practice and effort.   Thus, they can improve their grades progressively. 
Technology through presentations, and videos make students think and also makes them to ask questions about a particular topic which improves their thinking process. 


All this will help students to be a better listener and ultimately have an positive impact on student achievement.

Essential question Week 5

How can tools be used to increase understanding?

As a teacher I believe that understanding can be improved by making the subject matter more interesting and meaningful for the students.  This can be achieved by technology and its tools. 

Blogger:

When students write blogs about a topic which was taught the writing process motivates them to think.  When students think, they are able to realize what they understood out of a class and what they did not.  This will help them to concentrate on the areas where they need more help and better understand the topic.  Also , a student might also can also get a better idea about a certain topic by reading other student blog when the blog is written in a more simpler way .  

Google presentations:

Google presentations provides an environment for the students to collaborate and do the work together.  This will assist students to ask questions to each other and answers can be obtained thereby improving the understanding process.  

Glogster:

When students do their own posters about a particular topic, they are being given the opportunity to explore the topic by themselves and find links, videos, images about the topic.  By creating the poster by themselves, they can learn the concepts or topics themselves visually. 

Animoto:

By providing short videos during class lectures, the visual understanding of the topic can be established. This helps them to grasp the topics which are hard to understand through imagination. 

Skype:

Skype promotes online learning .  Through webcams students and teachers can view each other and one on one attention can be provided to the students by teachers which help the student to clarify all their questions on time. 

Prezi:

It act as a great tool where students can create their own short presentations. As this involves, images, videos, and other information gathered by the student, it improves their learning process by self learning the ideas and concepts online through internet. 

Podcasts:

When a teacher records and publishes his/her podcast online it is available for the students all the time.  Even if the student did not pay full attention in class, he or she can always come home and listen to the podcast again and again.  Repetition of concepts through podcast will help students to memorize and understand the topics in a better way. 

Webquest:

Webquest is a great activity where students are forced to think, apply and learn.  As this involves activities students will definitely have passion to perform it and understanding of the subject matter will be achieved indirectly.  

Twitter:

Twitter is a great area where students can find friends who are interested in the same topics as taught in class.  By following them, they an find great articles where they can find information about the latest developments and applications in the area of interest. 

Thus, understanding can definitely be improved by the proper use of technology and its tools.

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Essential question Week 4

How can you engage all students?

By assigning group work:

Students generally like to do their work in groups as they can share ideas and learn new ideas and thoughts from their friends.  Teachers can form buddy groups in the beginning of the semester and create project ideas where the entire group is involved.  If the project is done if form of groups every student will have an opportunity to get themselves involved in the work as the teacher is not directly involved.  Google presentation is a great tool for this purpose where students can all work on the same topic from their own homes.

By understanding the needs of variety of students in class:

It is the responsibility of the teacher to analyze the pattern of students in the class and prepare lesson plans accordingly.  If the class has lot of visual learners, then along with presentations, teachers can show videos through you tube or they can make their own videos through animoto.  This will help students to pay more attention in class and will remember the concepts through visual clips .

By asking students to blog and tweet each other:

When students blog about a particular topic in class other students can read it and share their comments on it.  This will help students to express their opinions and ideas about the question asked in class and at the same time, it helps other students to learn new ideas which they never thought of.  Every comment being posted can be given a grade for encouragement.  By creating twitter accounts students can follow one another and get lot of useful information through articles that are posted on web.  Students can be given extra credit points if they share one useful article they found on the web every week.  This will engage them in a way that they do their work but at the same time get extra grades for it.

But, in order to achieve everything said above first of all we need to make sure that all the students present in class are comfortable in using technology.  If the majority of the class is not, then special training sessions can be conducted in school followed by using these tools in class. 

Thus, by encouraging the students , awarding them with extra credit points, by performing collaborative group work and finally by making sure that all students know how to use technology , students can be engaged in the learning process. 

Essential question Week 9

Why are there more issues with cheating, plagiarism, and related incidents now than before the web?  Or are there?

I would agree  that there is more cheating and plagiarism going on especially with students these days due to technology and resources it offers. 

Children of this age are brought up with technology around them and they exactly know how to use them to solve their problems either in school or in their houses. Though the search engines give us lot of useful  information about various topics , it also provides information which can be misused for lot of other purposes. 

As much as we want our kids to make use of technology and its tools we should also take the responsibility of keeping a check on them and what are they exactly doing on the web so that they are not pulled into wrong directions.  

When web was not in picture, students only had school provided books, notes etc from which they study and prepare for exams.  But once the web came into picture, students choices increased and everything can be accessed through internet.  This does not mean that web is the only reason for cheating or plagiarism.  Both of them did exists  but after the web, the issues have increased because more information through lot of websites is available readily. 

To avoid cheating and other related issues strict guidelines have to be followed when using the web by students.  School rules have to be specific and particular websites can be blocked. Parents should keep a constant check on their kids and make sure that the work done by them, is purely produced by them. 

Teachers can guide the students by giving them specific websites to do their research on , so that the issues rising out of cheating and plagiarism can be avoided. 

Students should also be encouraged to provide specific citations for their work so that plagiarism can be avoided.