Discussion Contributions

Lesson Plan Critique

• Jill- your lesson plan critique is very easy to read. I like the format you used. The italicized words made it easy for me to see your thoughts verses the actual lesson plan. I also agree that the WebQuest is the best way to make sure your students are on task when they search the Internet. I know that my school has blocks on webpages with inappropriate materials. A teacher made WebQuest will assure the student appropriate Internet material! I think the lesson is great- my only concern is having access to a computer lab. I know most schools have one. I noticed that you said this lesson could be adaptable to First through Third grades, but what is the target grade level for the lesson?
  Great job!
• Candace, as I was reading your critique, I was reminded of a software program I use with my students. It is called Art Explosion. The software comes with 7 CDs, each with THOUSANDS of photographs. The photographs are categorized on each CD into categories such as Zoo Animals, Food, Basketball, etc. I think the kids could also use this software instead of the Internet to find pictures or clipart of the three types of bears and copy and paste these pictures into MicroSoft Word. It could also be a form of assessment, to see if the students could pick out the correct bears (brown, black, and polar) from a group of zoo animal photographs. I prefer Art Explosion over browsing the Internet for pictures because you NEVER know what you will get if you type "bear" into the image search engine.
  I also found two APA reference errors. I am not sure if Dr. Wong wants us to use APA format, but this is what I found in your critique:
  “there is so much to learn about the Internet in education that many educators find it difficult to know where to begin”(226). I think the (226) is the page number? If so, it should be correctly written as (p. 226) since you are using a direct quote.
  
  “The (Internet) activity should accomplish some objective or purpose in required school curriculum” (252). Same- (252) should be (p. 252).

Comments on other groups' lists - categories of digital technologies

• At first glance, group 2's venn diagram definitely shows me that students do not get to use technology as much as teachers or administrators do. Isn't this true though, that we as teachers are afraid that the children may break things and don't want them to touch 'our' equipment!!! I teach first grade and I had 2 LeapFrogs in my classroom this year, as I always have in the past 3 years. I thought that I had taught and reviewed with my students on how to properly turn them on and turn them off and how to treat the LeapFrog correctly. However, during the 3rd week of letting my students use them independently, both of them broke! One of my students volunteered to bring us his LeapFrog that he had at home, but I was too afraid to let anyone use it since the other 2 had not been taken care of. Needless to say, my broken LeapFrogs are no longer used by my students, and they are stored away in my closet. I want my students to be able to use technology in the classroom, but how do I get over my fear of them breaking expensive equipment?!?!?
  
• I had a hard time reading all of the graphs unless I printed them. Group 3's graph was a bit overwhelming at first, but it really shows that the Hoover School system uses technology as an Instructional Tool! This is great!!! Also, none of the schools listed on the Group 3 Sort had as much Software as Paula's work at ADP-Dealers Services. When I think of technology, I normally do not consider software as a category. Maybe our next survey should be what software do your schools use.
  
• Group 5's Sort was very easy to read, but I do not think it was as thorough as Group 3. One reason is that Group 3 listed technology that could be used with special needs children. If I did not know what technology to use with special needs children, I could not pick it out on Group 5's list. I teach special needs children, so I think that's why I look for it on the group sorts. I think that Group 3 did a great job on showing how each technology is used by listing the subgroups. For someone not up to date on technology knowledge, this would be a great tool to use.
  
• Group 4's sort was very easy to read. I think that this would be a great handout to parents at an Open House, to let them know what type of technology is available in the school. The Distance Learning Section is very important, because it is an alternative communication method between the home and the school.

Technology Affordance

• I think this may help for your affordance list:
  Email is a confidential form of communication
  Email is free (as opposed to paying $0.41 for a stamp).
  Email is quick (as opposed to waiting 2-3 days for a letter to arrive to its destination).
  Blog is a public form of written communication on the internet.
  Blog is an online journal, kept in reverse chronological order from most recent entry to oldest.
  Blog excels at easily adding new posts or new entries with minimal editing skills.
  
• Stephanie, you are very creative and good at making things visually pleasing! Great graphics on your table. I see that you have ‘book reports’ as learning activities on both Microsoft Word and Paper/Pencil. Which of these tools is a better use for making book reports? I think the whole idea of having ‘affordances’ is to show that one is a better tool for an activity than the other. Maybe this activity can be narrowed down to grade specific activities. I think K-2 would have a harder time typing a book report than 3-12; K-2 does book reports with paper/pencil and 3-12 does book reports with Microsoft Word. Does this make sense?
  
• I read your Blog and I thought of an affordance for using a Poster. You can hang posters on the wall, and posters are very lightweight. :)
  
• Nice pictures! One thing: swap your affordances- your chart shows affordances for email under blog and vice versa.