Virtual Reality

In this article, "Walk, Fly, or Teleport to Learning" by Maureen Brown Yoder focuses on the use of the Internet- based multiuser virtual environment (MUVEs). It is mentioned that by 2011, 20 million children will be members of this group. From my understanding this is a kind of game that is meant to give people a learning experience of the “real world”. Here you create an avatar and roam through the virtual world. There are different “worlds” people can experience that have different kinds of real life learning situations. For example, there is one that takes place in New Orleans and you have to find your mom and along the way you earn points by talking to heroes.

I don’t know exactly how I would use this in my classroom. I like the idea that students would be entertained and probably very interested in interacting with their peers in this “SIMS” kind of program. I know that it is important as educator s to make learning interesting for students but I am debating as to if I would use this in class.

A Learning Activity

The article “Let it Snow” by Kathy Sanders and Gwen Pavelski is from the February 2009 magazine. I really liked the fact that in this class, students had an opportunity to learn while enjoying learning. I think this always helps the students and the teacher. In this case, students seemed to have a good response on the activity. This activity was relevant to the students since it was based on snow. Living in Wisconsin and witnessing history of the greatest snowfalls in their city, these students were ready to learn more. Snow was integrated in their learning in research, reading, and science. Technology was effective in their research for the calculations of the amount of snowfall. These students also used technology to take photographs, digital video interviews, computer art, and more. Students had positive results and seemed to learn more than what was expected.

I would love to incorporate activities for students that are relevant in their lives. For example, this could be used in southern California with rainfall. I think this could help students learn so much about where they live and how they can help to make a difference while learning skills in science and technology. This once again shows the importance of getting the students interested and capturing their attention for better learning. Most students love technology and it is our duty to find was to use it and allow them to learn while using it.

Spicy Spanish

Spicing Up Spanish Class by Cawood Cornelius and Terry Vest

This article emphasizes the importance of spicing things up in a common assignment. This assignment was to give a report on a Spanish speaking country in order to engage students learning Spanish. They were able to make the students’ learning experience a little more interesting by involving technology in their project. For example, students were to gather information from books and online resources. What I liked about this assignment was that students were able to sign up to get a secure e-mail address in which they were able to communicate with each other to provide details about their country. They also had the opportunity to email their country’s embassy to receive even more information pretty much instantly. As we saw in the article we read as a class, timing is very important for students. This engaging assignment allowed for students to gather information and also make a presentation on it. Presenting to the class and to their teacher was for their improvement in speaking Spanish and well as learning about the different countries.

I this is a perfect example of what I would do in my class. I don’t know if I would change anything about the assignment. The teachers showed how well prepared they were with technology for the students, in order for their learning experience to be a great one. I really liked how there was a cart of computers that were taken into the classroom for the students to use. I think we need to give students the opportunity to use computers in class just in case they don’t have access at home. I think that in addition to this assignment I would allow some of their work to go up on the walls, like posters, etc. I know that this is common for elementary school but I think this would also be good for students in high school since it would give them pride of their work and seeing constant information may actually stay in their minds for a good time. This technology would be useful in order to gather information as well as to learn and practice a new language.

Engaging Students through Chatting

Chatting It Up Online
Students Talk to a Favorite Author
By Pamela Livingston

This article gives an example of how a teacher gets her school to work together to create a learning experience for a group of students. This article demonstrates how using the internet, more specifically chatting, enabled some students to have an opportunity to talk to an author and ask questions that they could not find the answers to simply anywhere. This helped the students be more excited about the books they read by this author. This was not an easy task, teachers had to work together and get the school’s support to make this happen. Since there are so many things that need to be prepared, teachers had to plan things well in advance and test things to make sure all worked properly. This included things from making curtains to cover the windows to choosing questions ahead of time to keep up with the pace of online chatting. Fortunately many of the questions asked were answered by the author. This shows how all the effort was worth it because this was a way to engage the students to think about their readings and think critically as to the purposes of the author. This is a great example that demonstrates how technology is useful in a lesson even for small children. I think this takes commitment and teachers need to work cooperatively to make things happen for students that can be memorable for students.

I would like to be a Spanish teacher and I would be working with older students but the ideas given in this article would very much be useful to me. I think that I would be able to get students online to chat with each other to practice their Spanish through written conversation. I think this would give those students that are more timid a chance to participate since chatting is through the computer. In addition to online chatting with each other, I think since they are older students, they could go online and ask me questions regarding the use of vocabulary, etc. I think chatting could help improve their spelling along with other benefits. I think I could also engage students by having to talk to each other and practice, kind of peer learning.

NETS 4. (See http://cnets.iste.org for more information on the NETS Project.)

I am confused.

So...I don't know how to work this yet.