Hole in the Wall

What would you look like if you were given a foreign piece of technology, in an entirely different language, and then left alone to explore it. Would you even try? When would you give up? Well, for a group of students in a 3rd world slum in India, this same thing happened, only, the end results are quite surprising.
Sugata Mitra and his team decided to expose Indian children to a standard computer with standard windows software, in English. The team placed the computer inside of a whole in one of the walls bordering the slum. They left it there along with a hidden camera to videotape the children's interactions both with the new technology and each other. It turns out that every time Mitra and his teammates went back to watch the children use the new technology, they improved exponentially. Mitra and his team studied the speed at which they learned certain tasks and also the language used by the children.
This study fascinated me and slightly reminded me of myself the first time my coworkers and I attempted to use a Smartboard haha At first, we all had no idea how to go about using it, but through our suggestions and own innovative ideas, we were able to slowly but surely become more comfortable with the new technology, similar to the Indian children.
Below is a link to the full story. you can also find the video on tis website that show the children interacting with the computer. Pretty awesome stuff!
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html

PRECAUTIONS NEED BE TAKEN- EVERYWHERE!

This week while finalizing my TIP Unit plan, I took a lot of time to consider a certain aspect of the project that we were required to focus on. In the template, we were asked to not only describe the ways in which we planned on presenting the subject matter that we would be teaching, but we were also asked to take a look at the many steps that must happen BEFORE we do indeed deliver the material. Keeping relevant to the class at hand, I realized that there are MANY precautions that we as educators must take before using technology in our classroom. In the unit itself, I focus on the legality of the use of the certain technologies that I chose to include in my unit, such as attaining permission from the superintendent, parents, etc., which can be seen in all of our Parent Letters. However, despite the fact that all of these precautions are, or at least should be, being taken, there is still one perpetual problem that still exists.

While searching for blogs online, I came across this one- http://sandeelee.blogs.com/ . In this blog, the concept of bullying is looked at through an extremely close lens. While scoping out the many links and stories that she included within her blog, I came across the film entitled Rats and Bullies, a true story of a 14 year old girl who was continually bullied both in school and online, which ultimately resulted in her suicide.  I looked more into cases of online bullying after watching the movie’s trailer and reading up on the story, and found that a lot of bullying cases are now happening online because students are able to create alternative identities, and feel as though they will not get caught as easily. Further, some students who bully online went on to say that “they know the law and can’t get in trouble at school because they aren’t using the school computers” to bully their peers. While we are helping to broaden students’ 21^st Century Skills, we are also enabling them to potentially be threats to their peers as well. Therefore, perhaps the precautions that are supposed to be taken with using technology within the classroom should be mentioned to parents so that these terrible situations can be avoided at home as well. The age of the student should be taken into consideration, as well as their history with being bullied or bullying others. Regardless, it is our responsibility as educators to look after the well being of our students, both inside AND outside of the classroom.

Below are links which include factual information on cyber bullying, as well as videos and lesson ideas:

http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html

http://topics.cnn.com/topics/bullying

http://kamaron.org/Cyber-Bullying-Lesson-Plans

Web Designers Welcome!

While recently watching the movie "Friends with Benefits" starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, I couldn't help but laugh at the fact that what I read about for this class was slightly touched on in the film. Timberlake plays a Web Art Designer for major magazine companies throughout the US. Although he focuses more on style, sports and where the pretty picture of the girl in the bikini should be placed, he still speaks about things such as proximity, font color and style, etc. There are certain websites that you visit and think "wow, this is really awesome", while others make you think, "this is pretty lackluster." But WHY? While reading Louise's blog and taking a look at the link she provided, this questions became more apparent to me. Certain aspects of web design can make or break a web page. For example, color contrasting between font and background are KEY to having a well managed and received website. Certain colors do not promote easy readability, and you must keep in mind colorblind people as well. Black on white is the easiest text to read, but this can get boring. Colors that contrast successfully include colors that do not add to perception problems, unlike red and blue, colors that have enough contrast- do not use light and dark blue, etc., and colors that are used often together, like black and yellow. Further, when posting pictures or videos, proximity is a key factor to relating the things you post to the text that you have placed with it. The closer the objects and text together, the more accented the relationship. Other prominent things to keep in mind when creating a website or a blog is alignment of the text AND visuals, as well as font size and word count. The above stated tips should be kept in mind during certain aspects of teaching as well.

When creating Powerpoint presentations for your class, keep in mind the details- font, proximity, alignment, etc. Also, keep in mind your students and their needs-i.e.- visually impaired students, color blind students, ESL students, ADD/ADHD students, etc. Having a student like this in your class should and will change the way in which you prepare your Powerpoint presentations. - Bigger font, different color combinations, less text, more visual stimulators, etc.

Also, when choosing websites to use within your classroom, be sure that they include the appropriate web design details so that both you and your students can get the most out of the website and the lesson.

Here are some links to web pages and videos that will help clarify good web design, for both adults and children sites:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/27/designing-websites-for-kids-trends-and-best-practices/
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/09/best-practices-for-designing-usable-websites-for-kids/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPO7lDZbcfA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP3IQZkeYkg&feature=related

Reflection on Education- Blog 1

If anything, this class has helped open my eyes to just how important technology is to ehancing students' educational opportunities. Please let me know if you feel this way as well. To speak on the collaborative and communicable components of technology, in my opinion, is to be speaking on the MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF TECHNOLOGY in reference to its educational purposes. I feel as though the interactive and collaborative components of certain technologies, such as blogs, livejournals, video chats, even email, can be highly educational, effective, and beneficial to ones learning experience.
As stated in the following article ( http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0450.pdf ) blogging is considered one of the most beautiful tools in the world beacsue it provides us with and allows us to have the "most magical thing", communication with others. When you think about it, if we were not able to communicate with one another, no one would be able to learn ANYTHING. The technological advances of our time have allowed for an endless amount of communicable opportunities, both near and far. Now that these opportunities are being brought into the classroom, students will be able to use their knowledge of technology to explore concepts, state opinions, discuss ideas and further their education with their peers.
When I think back to my own educational experience, there was little inclusion of technology, with an even lesser emphasis on cooperative learning and communication. I believe that this has hindered me somewhat because I am not as tech savvy as I should be. Also, I feel as though I was out of the loop for quite sometimes with certain social networking sites. I also may go as far as to say that I never got a lot of practice with typing, and thus my words per minute score could use some work. Therefore, I think that technology should always try to be included in the classroom. This class has made me realize the imprtant factors that technology has to offer in an ecucational context. Using blogging as a way for students to reflect on a lesson, or as a mode of cooperative learning will most definitely be used in my classroom, and should be included in ALL classrooms. With all that technology has to offer, there is no reason that a capable educator should NOT be able to find a way to incorporate it into a majority of his or her lessons.

Check out these links for a laugh or two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIiZ6_yGm6M
http://cyn-thenutshell.blogspot.com/2011/05/blog-funnies.html

And check this out for an awesome blogging lesson plan idea that I have actually used in a classroom and the kids love it!:
http://langwitches.org/blog/2008/12/27/blogging-lesson-plan-writing/