Friday, December 10, 2010

Bloggo Fiveo

Reflecting on the various technologies / software we have explored this semester, pick the three (3) that will most effectively help you create a learner-centered classroom where students would be actively engaged this their learning. At the beginning of your final blog entry mention the content area and the age level of the students with whom you intend to work.
Briefly explain how you would integrate these choices into your teaching and your future students' learning.
As I mentioned numerous times throughout the semester, not every technology is appropriate for every learning situation. As such, which technologies/software are not appropriate for your content area and/or student level. (Discuss at least one.)



I'm hoping to teach fine art in the high school level, and I had a really hard time with this class.  Art is so much a studio based class, so many of the technologies we discussed in class I found very difficult to create lessons around them.  Luckily, art has been made for thousands of years, so most of my lessons had to do with art history.  I think that an interactive whiteboard, newsletters and PowerPoint games could really have a place in my future classrooms. 
I would use concept maps on an interactive whiteboard to help show the progression of art and how it has changed over the centuries. 
I think a newsletter would be a more interesting way of doing a research paper.  It could get kids to research and learn about artists, and it would stimulate the students because it wouldn't be a normal paper.  It would have pictures and graphs and hopefully engage the kids. 
A PowerPoint style game would be a good way to test the students' knowledge in a way that isn't a sit-down test.  I would use it as a study tool.  Hopefully, the students would get into the sense of competition and be more interested in learning.
One technology that I really couldn't see in my future classroom was using excel.  Excel seems so connected with numbers and. in my opinion, art is more about emotion and visuals, and numbers are about as far from that as you can get.  I'm sure Excel could have a place in an art classroom, but right now I can't see it.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Blog Number Four

After exploring outside of class the following Emerging Technologies: a) Games, b) Interactive Whiteboard Activities, c) Simulations/Role Playing, & d) Virtual Reality/ Worlds, discuss whether or not you see a use for each of these four technologies. Then, pick two different, specific activities (a game, a simulation, an interactive whiteboard activity, or a Virtual Reality or World) and discuss in detail how it engages students in their own learning.


       Technologies can be a great tool in the classroom, but I am often sceptical on whether or not every technology has a place in a classroom.  I probably feel that way because I am a high school art education major and I find it difficult to integrate technology into a classroom that is predominantly a studio based class.  However, I do see how an interactive whiteboard and games could be useful in the classroom. 
            An interactive whiteboard could allow the students to be a part of their own learning by having the students interact with what they are learning more so than photograph slides or reading from a textbook.  Instead of hearing or seeing what the teacher is talking about, they can decide for themselves whether or not a work of art is what the teacher is saying.  
         I also think games could be an important tool in a classroom.  I'd probably use it mostly with an art history lesson where I'd put the student in groups.  That way they could discuss the answer with each other and hopefully the students could basically teach each other if a conflict of answers arises.  I think putting the students into groups would provoke a sense of competition which would hopefully get the students more interested in their own learning.