Standard+One

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
==== Teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face-to-face and virtual environments. Teachers: ====

d. model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and others in face-to-face and virtual environments
Society is becoming more dependent upon technology as it becomes integrated even more heavily into our lives. It is important that teachers and students be able to interface with others in society where they are at. It could be on blogs, across email, or a multitude of others, as well as face-to face. I got my first computer in 1993. It was a Mac LC II. The more I used it the more I was convinced there was nothing it couldn't do if properly programed. I had decided I wanted to be involved with how computers were involved in classes. I started making tutorials on my classroom pc. I started taking some computer repair courses in order to make my self more competent with my computer. I learned in this class the reason computer techs seem so good at fixing computers isn't necessarily that they know every problem; but instead, they know where to go look for the answer to most problems. This falls in line with what Standard 1.d states about modeling collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning in both face-to-face and virtual environments. This is a small step away from modeling this with my colleagues and students using various tools, devices and websites. When I entered this program I had very little knowledge of the difference between wikis and websites. As I worked through the different things that were offered through the internet I became more comfortable using the devices. I learned a new type of collaboration through programs like VoiceThread where I would converse with others in the class over various topics. Below is the Voicethread introduction used as a collaborative tool. media type="custom" key="9101272" align="center"

This was a video of sorts to introduce myself to the rest of the class. The class was assigned to comment on each others videos using text or voice comments. Commenting on each others videos was a form of collaboration where we as students got to know each other and how to get involved in various websites as we explored and shared our successes with each other. I created a blog to have students use the internet to hold discussions. The original blog was with edublog.org. It can be found at [|Earth_Science_Blog.mht]. This blog was assigned to explore the use of blogs in the classroom. I talk about some of the blogs I've found some things I liked about blogs; like, the ability to have students hold a discussion about a topic, they can ask questions, or can serve as a type of control center for class. This would allow me to hand out assignments and do many other things electronically. The largest problem with the blog sites is I don't have control of when they are down. There were many times the students tried to go to the site; but, they couldn't get logged in for some reason. Sometimes they forgot their password, they forgot their email address, or user name. If they were doing this from home they would not be able to figure out how to get to the blog so they just wouldn't do it. In some cases they don't have a computer at home or such a antiquated computer it wouldn't work. They might need to have various plug-ins installed. This was a problem for some parents. If I could find a way to streamline the administration of the blog there would have been less resistance from the students. When asked to comment on questions most students gave simple answers. or used answers from other classmates. There was little thought given to the question by many students. I also found another site dealing with the electronic administration of a class. It seemed to be done fairly successfully. It was found at http://reich-chemistry.wikispaces.com/. This is the one I decided the emulate. My wikispaces page was set up to make files availible to the students. I also wanted to allow a staging area to make links to various websites I want them to have access to and a few small videos. There is also a page to allow for questions from students or other teachers. to collaborate with each other. Some of the wikispaces I used were to collaborate with other classmates in other classes related to this program.