Current Issues - Week 8 - Part 2

Chapter 14 is about digital developments, television and video in particular.  As a child of the 80's video and television has been a constant part of my life & a nearly constant part of my education.  So, I don't view TV and video to be as big of a current issue in instructional technologies as others, though I am excited by the advanced that we've made.

As the text discusses, there have been numerous improvements in quality (color, HD, DTV), improved abilities to transport the signal (antenna, cable, fiber optic cable--I have this through AT&T UVerse now) and improvements in our ability to preserve television content (VCRs, DVDs, TiVo's, DVRs).  It also has become far easier to create video--just about anyone can do it now and the equipment is cheaper, more accessible and easier to use than ever before.  The advances in editing--iMovie for Apple-ites like myself--have improved the ability for any of us to make near-professional quality video.  All of these improvements have led to teachers' ability to utilize television and video as a form of presentation/instruction and our ability to archive those videos.

Channel One, a service that I experienced as a high school student in the 90's and now as a teacher in the 00's has provided a welcome source of televisions and student-engaging current events broadcasting.  It also provides the opportunity to easily access PBS educational videos.

Current Issues - Week 8

This week we are discussing an overview of digital technologies.  The first of which is hypermedia (along with hypertexts & hyperlinks).

In the Chapter 13 of the textbook I discovered some things about hypermedia.  First off, hyper means better (just tell that to the parent or teacher of a particularly hyper child).  Secondly, I learned about hypermedia's strong relations to certain learning theories.  I never thought of those little links in this way, but now it's so obvious how strongly it relates to constructivism and associated learning.  As the book says, hypermedia "provides a multiplicity of potential learning paths, rather than just one."  This seemed to pose such exciting possibilities for learning with hyperlinks, until I read further.  I then realized that hypermedia can have negative effects, especially with students with lower cognitive maturities (either by age or intellect or both) and students with attention problems, namely ADD or AD/HD.  It also can be detrimental when the links are poor.  They may link to poorly designed websites, websites of questionable accuracy or no longer existant sites.

This topic reminded me of a program that I learned to use in high school--HyperStudio.  It was a new program at the time and only a few students were enrolled in a class in which we learned how to use it.  I found it to be very fun, but years later felt that PowerPoint was a much better resource.  Now I realized that while HyperStudio was not as visually appealing as PowerPoint at that time, it's ability to work in a nonlinear by limited space was not to be underestimated.

This chapter also reminded me of a learning tool that I have never used, but should consider implementing in the future - an advance organizer.  The idea of having these materials ready at the beginning of every math unit is a wonderful and exciting idea.  It is something that I will surely keep in mind in the future.

Current Issues - Week 7

This week's topic for discussion, our assignment and reading was Fair Use & Copyright.

I selected to do my Issue 4 assignment about Fair Use, as I found it more relevant to my job (in comparison to the interesting situation about the college professor's "Hoaxocaust" website).  I have barely taken copyright laws into consideration when preparing materials for teaching my students.  In the past, I have asked for certain books to be purchased so that I could use them in my lessons.  However, if one copy of the book was purchased, I may have used multiple copies of its contents and if no copies had been purchased, that did not necessarily stop me from using the contents.

For most teachers, it all comes back to two things:

• Time - As the book discusses, teachers don't have the time to figure out what constitutes fair use and if payment should be made or permission should be obtained, how this is to be done.  The situation is like the one in the book pertaining to the video of the KSU shootings.
• Teachable Moments - Most teachers would rather risk the unlikely punishment for copyright infringement in order to obtain those teachable moments.

The continuing developments in technology in recent years are certainly changing the scenario for "fair use."  Last year, I had a student that had moved to America from China just days before starting in my classroom.  He spoke very little English.  His ESL (English as a Second Language) Tutor  had copies of Rosetta Stone--a program that you probably often see advertised when watching late night television--for use in the library.  Unfortunately, the student was often unable to participate in classes because of the language barrier, so his teachers wanted to find some way to help him, without taking instructional time away from the other students.  I won't say what I did or did not do, but . . . Would it be (copy)right or (copy)wrong to copy the Rosetta Stone software CD so that it could be used in the student's classrooms?

Current Issues - Week 5

Well, I wish I was in bed now!  Unfortunately I'm trying to keep up with my coursework rather than my sleep!    My responsibilities at school are starting to wear on me, especially in the time constraints that they are imposing.  Because of this, it is hard to concentrate on my work for this course, but I am doing my best!

This week's issue is Computers in Education.  This is a definite "Current Issue in Educational Technology!"  I selected the Lab or Classroom  topic for my Issue.  In this scenario, I had to write a proposal to my district's (in the scenario) technology committee as to how I feel that 20 new computers should be used in our elementary school, which currently has no computers.  When I first read the scenario, I considered creating a computer lab to be the obvious best choice.  With more thought and consideration, I realized that this school had no computers in any classrooms, nor did the teachers have computer of their own, unlike my real school.  When I realized this, I decided that it was obvious that computers were necessary in the classrooms, even if they were used solely by the teachers for research and instruction.  They would hopefully also be used for student investigation and differentiation.  This is especially relevant in an elementary school classroom where the students stay all day, unlike my middle school classroom where the students are only in the room for 50 minutes at a time.