CEDu581 Computer Architecture: The Final Week

"Top 10 Reasons to use Technology in your Classroom"

10. As a business education teacher, I may be asked to teach a Web Design class in the future. If so, I will need to brush up on my basic HTML and CSS, but more importantly, learn the web design programs used in our district. After fighting our way through CEDu533, I realize how important it is to have a basic understanding of HTML. However, I also understand that knowledge of programs such as Dreamweaver or MS Expression Web is necessary in order to teach a high school web design class.

9. Use search engines other than Google with students. I am amazed at how interested my students are when using metasearches such as IXQuick. It seems as if they have never used anything other than Google. They are instantly fascinated when they discover the power and results of other search tools.

8. Use presentation software other than PowerPoint. My students loved VoiceThread and MS PhotoStory when creating their business plan final exam presentations. I see tremendous potential in using Slide Rocket in the future. If I loved using it for some of our Stritch 581 projects, imagine how my students will love it!

7. Use online news resources for stock market simulations. My students no longer read newspapers or magazines as I do. They get their news from the Internet or television. As a business educator, I need to be aware of this as I design projects and assignments for stock and company research. In addition, this online news is much more timely than print.

6. Use survey sites such as SurveyMonkey or QUIA to get feedback from students regarding course content and methods of learning. As teachers, we continually strive to improve our teaching methods so that our students can learn more effectively with greater engagement. What better way to get that feedback than online surveys! I have used many of these in my business courses in order to find out what students liked and disliked about certain units. Students love to take the online surveys because they can be set up as anonymous (allowing for honesty) and they are online, which students like so much more than a paper/pencil survey.

5. Explore future uses of other classroom technology tools such as RSS feeds, Google SMS (students love their cell phones and using them for a legitimate classroom application such as stock quotes is such an engaging use of technology), Inspiration, SMART Boards, Web quests, Brain Pop, social networking, and Movie Maker. In all cases, these need to be used in meaningful ways that increase student learning and engagement.

4. Use wikis, blogs, or nings in class. Our district is piloting a new and approved wiki called Connect. In addition, we also have a blog available through our district’s student email service from Gaggle.net. I will experiment with these this summer and develop ways to incorporate them into my 7th and 8th grade Financial Life Skills curriculum for next year. I know that my students will get hooked on our stock market simulation as I introduce it through a wiki (maybe even embed a podcast), similar to what I created in Wet Paint Wiki for our 534 course.

3. Use technology to improve student engagement, thereby increasing learning. I cannot begin to count how many times a school day I am asked “Are we in the computer lab today, Mr. Nitz?” Students are so much more absorbed in our topics when they are done with technology. My action research project proved that point when I found increased learning by changing my accounting unit from overheads/pencils/paper to online/Excel/web-based teaching methods.

2. Offer learning options that appeal to my students’ various learning styles. An example of this was in my Consumerism unit. Here students were required to issue an appropriate product complaint. One choice was to write a complaint letter in Word. The second option, which most students took, was to create a cartoon with dialogue using the http://readwritethink.org/materials/comic/ online cartoon creator. The heightened level of student engagement was incredible, especially with those students who learn best visually! The quality of cartoons was equally amazing.

1. Increase LoTi and authenticity in all classes. Integrating technology into the classroom is a method that increases use of problem-solving. It provides an audience for our students and does nothing but increase the engagement of student learning. When students know they have an audience and understand how to present their work, they become so much more involved and take ownership. I have observed this when my students create their business plan presentations. Students work harder and with greater focus when they know others will be viewing their work.

CEDu581 Computer Architecture: Week 4

As I look at CEDu581 and the projects we have done, I believe I have acquired a much stronger appreciation for people involved in computer hardware and software design. I find it difficult to sit in front of a computer for most of the day, working on these assignments. I would imagine that programmers and designers, people similar to who we learned about in "Revenge of the Nerds," are wired differently than me. I cannot stay focused on one topic for more than 1-2 hours before I need to do something different. It is not necessarily the content, but the lack of movement and personal interaction. In retailing and in teaching, I am so accustomed to being on my feet all day long, working with customers, employees, vendors, and now students, teachers, parents, and staff. Blogging, emailing, and nings are great tools for communication but I guess I still prefer one-on-one, face-to-face interaction. Even when I do research on topics I consider hobbies, I still need to break up the tasks into small, manageable chunks of time, with something physical or social in between.

Our projects have made me realize how little I knew about computer software and hardware. I had never heard of Windows 7 before the Components project. Now I understand what a big deal it will be in several months. Reading my peers' Components projects was fascinating as it gave me a taste of the many rapidly-changing hardware and software topics out there. Just doing the research online demonstrates the information overload we can easily fall into.

Other areas of this class that will help me with technology, both at home and at school, include the following:

• Keeping my anti-virus software current
• Using a more effective anti-virus program
  
• Better understanding of what school district system administrators work with and how important their work is, even though we often feel their policies and procedures are annoying or counter-productive to effective learning and teaching
• Nings are vastly superior to blogs and wikis in terms of flexibility and ease of use
• More frequent file back-ups on my home computer
• Impending purchase of a back-up, portable hard drive
• Purchase of a new desktop computer in the near future with greater RAM and larger hard drive than our current 2002 Gateway PC. I now feel more comfortable with my basic knowledge of what to buy.
• There are other operating systems beyond Microsoft and Apple products!
  

CEDu581 Computer Architecture: Week 3

This was a fascinating week (or 4 weeks) because so much of what we worked on in CEDu581 tied in with what we have just done at Falls North Junior High.

First, researching Windows 7 made me wonder about our school's move from Office 2003 to Office 2007 next fall. I had several questions. I wondered if Office 2007 is compatible with Windows XP. The MS website answered that affirmatively. For some reason, I thought that Vista was necessary for Office 2007. This then made me wonder what our district is doing with our operating system. That was promptly answered by our tech people who said that we will stay with XP next year because our application launcher, Zenworks, supports XP. If Zenworks gets updated the following year, then we will move to Windows 7, skipping Vista entirely. My research on Windows 7, however, allowed me to understand that 7 is really just an upgraded version of Vista. Thanks to the Components and Linux projects, I now have a much better understanding of operating systems versus application software programs.

The second area that I learned a great deal about over these past few weeks is presentation software. My students used MS Photo Story, with fantastic results, as a method to present their business plans. Our district just installed Photo Story in our labs at North and I used this program instead of Voice Thread from last year. Our tech people wanted me to "play" with this program and report back to them. My students loved it because it was so easy to use and I loved it because my students were so engaged in creating their presentations! What an effective method for summative assessment when students cover all aspects of our business units in their Photo Story. My review of the MS Photo Story website was intriquing because the program is a free download and is marketed as "make show-and-tell cool again." As a business education teacher, I love this type of bandwagon marketing.

While working on our Components project, I thought it might be fun to try out Slide Rocket. After unsuccessfully trying to access this online program at home, I did achieve success at school. For some reason, my home computer said that every one of my email addresses already existed, preventing me from logging in. At school, no problem. I like Slide Rocket more than Voice Thread because of its superb animations and easier navigation tools. Slide Rocket also was much quicker to make a presentation with and the log-in was easier.

Finally, I enjoyed watching part 3 of Revenge of the Nerds. I find Steven Jobs fascinating, particularly with the introduction of the Mac back in 1984. I had just shown that famous one-time Super Bowl/Big Brother ad in my marketing unit and it was helpful to me to understand the computer innovation background behind the ad. Competition and how it affects companies and their CEOs never ceases to amaze me!