Chapter 5

Focus Question: What is the meaning of Information literacy for teacher and students?

     Information literacy should be a learning goal and should be the need for current, interesting, and revelent information that's constant. Information is instantly available on the internet and it's constantly changing the work of teachers who have the need to teach students how to access and assess all of the materials and resources on the web.  Teaching students how to do internet research is very important to literacy and involves how to recogniz and use such high quality electronic information. All of the information on literacy and the information online creates curiousity and enable students to be active readers and thoughtful researcher in a web-based enviornment.

Tech Tool link: LibriVox 
This is a pretty cool website; It's very multi-cultural because it has language options on the page. It has the lastest news on LibriVox world tour and the community podcast, new releases on books, and even provides free autobooks. I recommend anyone who wants to read online to try this website out. It looks boring but it has so much to offer. Here's a tutorial video that shows you exactly what LibriVox is all about. Click it:)

Summary & Connection

This chapter is all about researching and evaluating internet information. The internet where you go to learn, teach, and experience the power of technology through search engines and interactive materials and resources. It's a very important chapter because it lets us know how crucial and how exciting it is to have the internet right at our finger tips. If you're going to become a new teacher, this chapter is really helpful because you learn about search engines, plagiarism, and the Florida Sunhine Standards. I'm really looking forward to learning more about them and you should too! 

Marly's A-Bio

Marly's BIO*

     My life began on September 11, 1986 in Medellin, Colombia. From what I remember, my early years were peaceful and happily spent with my family and close friends. When I was three, my family moved to Florida in search of a better life and a higher degree of economic stability. My dad was the first to come to America and my mother and I followed two long years after. You can imagine how wonderful a reunion it was to have my mom, my dad, and myself all back under one roof again.

     I mention the above to convey how influential my family's immigration has been to the shaping of my life. I feel very fortunate to now live in the United States while also having my extended Colombian family nearby. This has provided me an amazing opportunity to grow up in a bi-cultural environment.    

     Now that my family is firmly rooted in the United States, we have the opportunity to take advantage of the liberties afforded to the citizens of this country. My dad obtained his full citizenship and my mother and I have Green Cards. Although a Green Card might not sound like freedom, to me it really is. One of my greatest passions in life is travel and had I never left Colombia, I would not at this moment have the chance to travel. Over the next few years I plan to take full advantage of this freedom. As you can see, I included a picture of the Eiffel Tower - a symbol of one of my favorite cities in the world.

Photo credit to Moyan Brenn on Flickr

Chapter 4

Focus Question: How does technology promote educational change?

     Change is something that we all have to accept at point in our lives and also accept that the use of technology is growing everyday. All of us have to stay on top of technology in order for us to evolve in a better future. Change is not with the hardware, it's not in the computer; Change is within the person who wants to influence, guide, and decide that technology impacts many lives everyday. Change helps us decide who we are, and technology is a powerful tool to help raise our belief level on education. Technology reasures us of a secure education for all who wants to learn it. Technology makes our situations become very simple, including classrooms. The potential change of technology helps guide teachers and students with the needs and the imagination to realize their dreams and goals, especially, their main priorities. There are educational tools for teachers to help them choose one technology tool over another, such as "automate" and "infomate", "type 1 and type 11 technology apps", and "Learning from, about, and with computers."

Tech Tool link: Edutopia
     This website is so cool! I love how this site makes available all of the resouces you need to have an amazing classroom experiecnce. So many ideas and so many activities to talk about. Edutopia provides video of the week with educational advice and information, group discussions, education news, opinions, and school freebies. You can even "discover successful schools and strategies across the country- using their best practices, training materials, and rubrics! This is awesome, it makes a new teacher's life a bit easier. It puts me at ease."I highly recommend this site.
Source: http://www.edutopia.org/

Summary and Connection:
     This chapter on Integrating Technology and Creating Change is overwhelming- considering that almost all the issues relate to change and using technology in many different ways in the classroom. So many interesting links and tools about technology i have never even heard about. How the chapter talks about the digital pen, a wrtiting device that records what someone has written or spoken so it can be accessed on a computer that converts content into typed text to be copied, emailed, printed, and edited. (Tranforming Learning with New Technologies, pg. 103) The expections to learn technology in the classroom are so high, that im very exitied about this new change in education and hoping it will help us grow for the better.

Chapter 3

Focus Question: What are the "student learning obejectives" and "understanding by design" (backward design) models of lesson planning?
The "student learning objectives" are  1.) tell who  2.) is going to do what  3.) when  4.) how much or how often and  5.) how it will be measured or evaluated. 
Student learning objectives are the intended or planned outcomes of the educators instructional activities - not the activities themseleves. It has many planning, assessment, and instructional methods in the framework of lesson development. (Transforming Learning with New Technologies, p. 64)
The "understanding by design" a.k.a backward design is an approach to curricular development. It has three main components:
Stage 1- Identify desired results  to provide a frame for student  exploration of a topic, the teacher Identifies the lesson's enduring understandings and essential questions. These statements and questions are the big ideas to the information that students will always remember.
Stage 2- Determine accepctable evidence (assessment strategies). Teacher decides what kinds of evidence will show that students have learned the material and can give out ideas and information based on what was taught through understandings and questions.
Stage 3- Plan learning experiences and instruction (obejectives and methods). The teacher chooses learning objectives, identifies teaching methods, and crafts a plan of how a lesson will be conducted. (Transforming Learning with New Technologies, p. 64-65)

Tech Tool link: www.Thinkfinity.org
Here's an online resource page that engages motivated educators who advocate technology through creative use, and inspires us to be actively involved. This site shares resources and shares the best practices for teaching and learning today.

Summary and Connection
This chapter includes a lot of helpful resources to help educators and students reach their goals by interactively learning about technology. With assessments to standards-based assessment using technology to further the students execptations they are able to accurately define a problem, design a strategy for solving problems, how they plan and how well they were able to explain their conclusions.  Supporting students is so important to their growth, that we are very fortunate to have accessable data and resources to help us further their education and ours. 

Chapter 2

Focus Question: How do students use technology for visual learning?

           Students use technology for visual learning in many ways that promote visual literacy and data visualization. 

           As as educators, we are able to use technology to help students use visual learning by giving students the skills need to read language, math, science, and even color. Images can definitely teach students on how to communicate ideas and basic information through visual learning, because any image can be shared from personal experiences thus, allowing them to grow further.

           Data visualization- any graphic which organizes meaningful information in multidimensional spatial form. Having visual display of information such as graphs, data, images increases instructional direction for both the student and the educator. 

           Technology is so useful today and so helpful in the classroom. It makes teaching a challenge and enables us to acquire meaningful information that we would not have been able to use years ago. People are visual learners at heart, because if we're able to see what is being taught, then we will be able to remember a lot faster.  

Tech tool link: http://plantsinmotion.bio.indiana.edu/plantmotion/starthere.html
This website is really interesting! It shows a lot of plant videos to help you learn as they grow and develop. You can see many plants go through:

• Germination
• Photomorphogenesis
• Tropisms
• Nastic Movements
• Circadian Responses
• General Growth
• Flowers
• Cellular Responses

It's so educational and it makes watching plants grow actually fun and interesting. It enhances your visual learning through technology by allowing you see vivid color, shapes, and forms. I would highly recommend this educational website.

Summary & Connection 

This chapter is really interesting, because it talks about how technology is transforming learning with unique and powerful technology. How it advances our visual learning and visual literacy through empowering tech tools. We are able to explore many multiple dimensions and multimedia allowing the the graphics and images look in real time. Technology helps with communication, collaboration, and groupwork. Visual learning through technology makes me look forward to learning more about in the future, where it takes me and what I can do with it as well... i have yet to see.