Playing and Staying Safe Online

Digital Story Telling

What is digital storytelling?

Digital Storytelling is a tool used to share an experience or a past event with others through the use of images and sound through technology. According to the website created by the University of Houston called "Educational Uses for Digital Storytelling" this form of sharing ideas, events, and experiences with others is a tool used to capture many senses of a person to make them feel like they experienced what the creator did. I think this is a great tool and a real fun way of grouping images, video clips, and other technological tools together to give the observer a real experience of what you went through. Ways that you can make a digital storytelling skit is by collecting movie clips, using youtube, grouping images, and audio.

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/

Education Blog Following

From the blog entitled 2 cents worth: teaching and learning in the new information landscape, I was brought to the question of what do you call a textbook that is not a book? Bloggers wrote about how future textbooks will not be books. In specific one teacher uses Moodle for the basis of her classroom instruction as her “digital curriculum.” However, the author, David Warlick wrote that the problem with digital books or the sort is that for first year teachers, a textbook is a more uniformly tool. Whereas, a digital curriculum that has been created by the previous teacher may not be as useful to someone that is used to a hardback textbook set of instruction. Many other teachers and people in the education world had comments about the use of digital books, ebooks, kindles, and others and how these tools impact curriculum and classroom environments. I personally find reading articles or chapters off of blackboard to be hard on my eyes, but I would love to have a kindle with all my textbooks downloaded on it to make my pack lighter while on campus.

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Another blog that I checked out was a college blog written by a college student that has completed their first year. Although this is different from the other education blogs that I have been reading I found this to be interesting in that it gives the reader an insight of how education progresses as the years continue on. For instance while reading this blog I just thought about how I have changed since my freshman year in college and how important education is for so many different reasons. I have come to find that when I return how each summer I am so happy that I have been at college because I get intellectual stimulation that I would not get if I were not attending college. When I learn information I feel better about myself because I become more competent in the skills I need to succeed in life. This blog was refreshing because I was reminded of how lucky I am to have completed three years of my college education and to be on track for graduation.

http://blogs.makingitcount.com/yearone/

Education 421a author Staphanie Sandifer brought up good information on technology, coaching, and community. She was reading up on the newly released NETS for Technology Coaches and is so happy with what is included. She states that the NETS-C provides a good framework for the development of educational technology support positions into more effective coaching positions. Apparently the NETS-C includes cognitive coaching, peer coaching, and instructional coaching models, which are highly effective. The author stated that in specific what is needed to be a good technology coach is to know what to ask and how to ask the questions. She emphasis the use of questioning techniques that engage the teacher (being coached) in an environment that does not have judgment, criticism, or evaluation. I find this information to be quit interesting because throughout this class I have found that technology in the classroom is extremely important. However, many teachers are not up to date on the newest and latest technology so they are not sure how to apply the technology to their classroom structure. In order for the students to learn about new technology and be introduced to the technology that they will be using in and outside the classroom for the rest of their lives, the teacher needs to be taught by someone else. I think that technology coaches are a wonderful addition to the education community and I hope that this idea will carry through many districts.

http://ed421.com/

Global Community Education

We connect with global educations in multiple forms now more than ever because of our ever-advancing technological world. I know some ways in particular that I used to connect with children from other places around the globe was through pen pals in Elementary School. I remember specifically having pen pals from Africa that we would write to. In addition, I have found that there are more and more social networking sites where children and teachers can connect with others in an educational reference. For instance, Sun Microsystems has launched two new social networking portals intended to connect the global education community. One is called EduConnection.orgwhich is set up for the Sun’s education sector costumers. However, the Open Source University Meet up is the second social networking site that allows students to communicate between each other about open source programming tools and platforms. According to the website, “Educonnection.org offers a platform for schools to exchange information and best practices that will help them to mitigate the challenges of purchasing and implementing new technology in an era of increasing budgetary pressure. It also provides an opportunity for Sun to directly energize, engage and support the education community.” In addition to social networks, I was able to find a variety of different organizations that are designated for global education. I believe that by reading these websites and blogs, children can learn about schools in other countries and therefore be connected through technology to these schools and places. There is one website that I found for the Global Community for Education which is a website that teaching the public about building schools and changing lives in various countries where schooling is not set up. This website in particular reminded me quite a bit of the book Three Cups of Tea. I believe that because children have so many opportunities to connect themselves with their outside words now through the computer that we can all be connected through blogs, websites, and a traditional form of written print in a book. In addition I think that as a teacher it would be neat to subscribe to some of the newsletter that these various programs have in order to show them to your class. Another tool that I found to be really interesting is called Global EdNet, which is a global education website, blog, discussion board, and email. The website has global education news as well as new ideas, lesson plans, and information on different cultures and education systems globally. Some ways that students can connect are through international video conferences, international education and research network, iEARN. I found that children in rural Washington State were able to connect with international schools through research, art, and ultimately the video conference with thanks to their teacher, Krisi Rennebohm Franz. I found this information athttp://www.edutopia.org/going-global-rural-washington-students-connect-with-world. One place that I found particularly interesting and useful for students to connect with global education is the Student Circle Network. According to author Chika Uwazie, “Students Circle Network, a Kyrenia-area start-up (GirneAmerican University Roots) founded in 2010 - is an educational social network for college and high school students with interests in providing free course resources/materials, live faculty/teacher/lecturer help to students, scholarship offers, study groups and many more students services across the globe for FREE.” Some discussion questions for children can include everything from, “what do other children in other cultures eat, to what books are popular in other cultures and are their translated books that we can read I order to learn about another culture. “ In addition, children should be asked “how are classrooms set up in other countries, what tools do they use, how is our education system similar and different (funding?).

global-ednet@edna.edu.au