Electronic Interaction

For my electronic interaction project I did not choose a teacher from another city and state I chose a college student, my cousin Christina Payne, who is also an Education Major (Special Education) at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The most common way I talk to her is through Facebook, so we decided on the simple solution of having our conversation through Facebook messages. I started by asking her the basic questions:

J: Where do you attend school and what is your major?

C: I go to St. Cloud State University and I'm actually a Special Education Major with a license in learning disabilities, then I'm planning on getting my autism certificate

J: Ok, and at St. Cloud are there many aspects of technology used in the classroom? I know we use things like clickers and online classes at South Alabama but I want to know some of the things being used in classroom everywhere. I wonder if they are similar?

C: In psychology classes and a lot of chemistry classes at St. Cloud, we use these things called clickers, you have to buy them, then you have to buy a separate pin number for each class and sign up online. We used clickers for attendance and quizzes that we had every week. Then later you can go online and check your grades. It was kind of nice because they let us know if we got the question right or wrong after we submitted our answers. Lets see, what else do we have? We have online classes as well. I don't take them thought, so I can't tell you what they're like. I guess they are supposed to be easier than in class classes. If you need more information I have other things to talk about.

J: Yes, any other information would be helpful because I am trying to learn as much possible about the technology used there so that I can compare it to what we use at South. We used the clickers in Psychology and Biology, mainly because they're both pretty big classes.

C: Ok, well we have this thing online called D2L (desire to learn) and this is where our teachers can post assignments, quizzes, grades, homework, their objectives, and anything else online for us to see and then we can keep track of our grades and when everything is due. There's also this thing that teachers do for their resume called E-PORTFOLIO and it's basically a resume but online and split into different categories of what you have accomplished so far with any experiences, essays you wrote for college along with other work accomplished in college. So for almost all of my teaching classes I have to do an assignment for my E-portfolio. It's very hard and I have to do mine through this program called Dream Weaver.

J: Because I'm an Education major we have e-portfolios too. We use a system called foliotek though and it's not too confusing but I wonder if they are the same thing. All this information is very helpful but I have a few more questions.
1.This D2L? Does every teacher have their own page or does it only show you the teachers you are taking right now?
2. You're e-portfolio, are they in categories like content knowledge, teach and learning, diversity, literacy, and professionalism?
3. and then those categories are broken down into like technology, ethics, and things like that?
4. Give me a couple of examples of stuff that you've had to put in your E-portfolio.

C: Being a special education major is nice because I work at a group home for people with disabilities so I'm getting experience to put in the e-portfolio. I would have no problem answering these questions...
1. Every teacher has there own page set up for every one of their classes on D2L and they can either choose if they want to use it or not. If they want to use it, we have a D2L page ad the class shows up and w just click on that and it has all of our information for that class.
2. Our E-portfolios are more like experience, where we live, our classes, IEP examples, and what we would like to deal with as a Special Education teacher... Learning Disabilities, Emotional Behavior Disorders, or CBD. I think special education e-portfolios are a little different because we have IEP's to deal with.
4. Some examples that I have had to put in my E-portfolio are IEP examples, so that they know that I know how to write them out for a student, Experiences with special education, my personality, and stuff like that. It's just like a resume but it's easier for job places to look at. It's tough though cause you can't just copy and paste stuff, everything is in a file.
I'm glad I can help. I know how tough education projects can be because you always have to contact people for information and stuff. I only have a year and a half left so if you have any questions what so ever about education let me know cause I can help you out. I got lucky, I just decided my major last semester and I'm still going to graduate in four years!

ACCESS Project

Matt and I chose to visit Robertsdale Highschool to check out their ACCESS lab. I learned more about ACCESS from their vice principal, Mr. Mitchell, than I have learned all year. He started by explaining to us that they physical aspects to a lab were just as important as the technology used. Some things that we found out that are neccessary that you don't read about on web sites are the walls and the lights. Mr. Mitchell told us that the walls of the room they chose had to painted because the gloss makes it harder to see on the camara. Also, they used something called grid lights which helps keep off the reflection for students watching in another location. Another thing they did to keep their lab up to date is putting slides on the chair as opposed to wheels, which helps the carpet stay nice.

Next thing we talked about was the technology of the system. Mr. Mitchell told us they use a system called Tamdberg Audio Science. In the classroom they use lap tops instead of putting up computers at each desk because they students do not use a computer for every class. The lap tops are numbered so that if there is damage done to one they know which students it is. The classroom had two televisions, one in the front and one in the back. He explained that the one in the back is used to see the students in another location and the one in the front is used to see the students in the classroom. Another thing he showed us was something called a document cam. It looked somewhat like a projector but has the power to zoom in and out very, very well. He showed us how it worked and creates a very clear image no matter how close you zoom. Other aspects of technology we saw was the speaker that picks up vibrations, it allows anyone in the class to be heard at the same volume reguardless where they are sitting.

In the front of the classroom next to the printer\fax machine there is a telephone that allows them to call the "super computer" located at Troy. These are the people in charge of everything. If there are any problems with the system they must call them and inform them to fnd out the way to fix it. Troy is also in charge of matchng up the students in another location to the school which have these ACCESS labs. The teachers trained to teach these classes were taught at Troy, but then we learned that the students in the remote locaton don't even have an actual teacher with them sometimes the just use an aid to keep the students under control. So they are literally being taught everything through a camera and some speakers.

We had the opportunity to ask Mr. Mitchell some questions and he discussed with us some of the complications with an ACCESS lab. These included the fact that many schools have different scheduling. Therefore, it is hard to create a master schedule knowing when and what is going to be taught. Some schools may go by block schedule and others by periods , creating the problem of getting students in two different locations to learn the same thing, at the same time, for the same period of time. We asked him how Robertsdale Highschool came around to getting an ACCESS lab. He informed us that it was granted to them because they filled out the paper work and were chosen. The lab cost around $85 thousand dollars and took about a month from start to finish.

It's Time For Technology Talk

The first one of our EDM 310 podcasts that I listened to was my own. Matt and I discussed "Technology Used in our Classes at South". First of all it was very hard to sit through it and get used to hearing my own voice. Some of the things I noticed that we could have worked on is how nervous we sounded. Also, our is a lot shorter than many of the other podcasts. I think we needed to relax a little bit and I'm pretty sure we would do a lot better if we had practiced more. However, we did make a point to make sure we were making conversation instead of sounding monotoned.

The second podcast I chose to listen to is "College of Education Classes and Technology Used in Them" by Kathryn Bentley, Kerri Owens, and Hanna Nolan. One thing that could have made this podcast better is being a little more certain about the facts. They incorporated everyone into the conversation very well but then everyone is uncertain about the question asked. I was very interested to know about the scale of 1-10 and the consequences of scoring a 1 on anything in Foliotek. I think these girls did a wonderful job with their speaking skills though. Everything was heard very clearly.

The next podcast I decided to check out were my good old buddies Brooke Busby, Kimberly Pierce, and Ashley Corley while they talked about Experiences with Blogging. The information used for this podcast was very interesting. The only advice I could give is to make it sound a little more like conversation rather than just reading. I understand though that it was our first podcast and none of us did a spectacular job. I enjoyed watching everyone do them more than listening to them by myself.

The last podcast I listen to was Joye Wiggins, Rachael Beaty, and Keller Weathers. I think this group did the best at making these sound like a real conversation. Again the topic they discussed was very interesting and easy to hold listeners attention. I think this group had the same problem I did, with trying to spit out what they wanted to say. We all could have worked on that a little more. I think it got us off to a very good start doing our podcasts in Mrs. Averitt's class.

Mathematics with Technology

This podcast was put together by Judy Chandler. The topic of the podcast Mathematics with Technology. She discusses some views on ho teachers feel about adding technology in our schools today. Some teachers think it takes to much time, other believe it's too much work to learn. Technology influences what is taught and enhances learning. Some technological advances made in the math department help children with keeping their attention and can be offered immediate feedback and also helps use different examples so that they have more practice.

In the aforementioned I named many ways technology can be used in the Mathematics field, it motivates, it keeps the attention, it helps children see where their mistakes are. On the other hand podcasts like these can be helpful for not only motivating student but also motivating teachers. I believe the podcast I just listened to was recorded in hope of adults listening to it and learning something from it, not just for kids.