End-of-Term Reflection

1. Have you opinions about technology integration in education changed since the beginning of the term? Why or why not?
   My opinions about technology integrated into the classroom have certainly changed. I guess I had always thought that technology was used more so to hold students interest in whatever subject was being taught but now I understand it's importance on multiple levels. Aside from retaining interest of students, technology is a way to give our students a higher education. Because the majority of future jobs appear to be based around technology, it is important to give our students early practice with state of the art technology and materials. Technology in the class can also reflect how the school feels about the student. If schools continue to provide inadequate technological materials to students it will send a message to the students that they are not good enough to use those types of materials. Most of this information I learned through course videos and articles.

2. Identify one or more programs/web apps introduced this term you believe you'll use in your future classroom. Why will you use these programs/apps?
   I feel that I will use the program Wikispaces in the future. It is an easy to use site which allows the teacher to set up a web page with links, perfect as a home page for a class project. Wikispaces is also a great way to get students designing pages within the website. This site brings student and teacher collaboration together as they all work on these Wikipages. Another program I would use in the classroom is Prezi. A Prezi slide show  is also easy and fun to construct. This slide show utilized a zoom effect which helps "pull" students into the presentation. It is easier to learn how to use than power point (in my opinion) and would be a great class project to have students create their own Prezi and presenting it. Print Page in IE

Students Using Technology

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StoryJumper Assignment

History of Hawaii Print Page in IE

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Integrating Web Sites into the Classroom

Art History Resources on the Web

 This site provides a plethora of information on art history in diverse cultures and cover a wide time range of over 2000 years. The site seems to be aimed towards college or high school students interested in art history research. Students can learn about cultures from all over the world at different periods in time as well as look at examples of art in that period.
 The site has so many links that it can be a bit overwhelming and it is easy to get lost. Once you get used to clicking around it gets easier to navagate to where you are trying to go. The organization of the site is also a bit questionable. After you choose which culture/country you would like to research it brings you to a list of famous places in that country rather than organized by time periods which might be more useful.

- This site could be used in the classroom to learn about specific cultures art throughout history. This site could also be used in the classroom by the teacher to show students examples of art throughout history. The site seems to be most useful for History and Art classes.

- This site could be used for people who are simply interested in art, history or even traveling. You might want to research a culture you are about to visit and find it interesting to see how the art of the culture has changed over time. Print Page in IE

Wikispaces assignment

EDST 220 Wikispaces Print Page in IE

My Favorite PBL Project

  My Favorite Project-based learning project is the "Design a state-of-the-art high school". The web site gives directions in the process of student groups who collaborate to create a high school that fulfills the needs of students in the year 2050. I enjoyed this project the most because it required the use of many different subjects. Math was important to use in the budget and geometric design of the blue prints, critical thinking was involved to decide the necessities of future students, and students would practice their speech and presentation skills when their project was displayed.
  By using multiple intelligences this PBL assignment provokes critical thinking skills such as the application of previous knowledge to create something new, using analysis to improve the design, and synthesizing different ideas to collaborate on the project.
  I think it's great that at the bottom of the instructions for designing a school includes a forum with feedback from other observers. It is nice to see what other peoples experiences were after trying this project. The only problem is that there wasn't a forum post giving critical feedback. It would be nice to have the authors notes at the end to give examples of problems that happen along the way of the project. Other than that the project site is great! Print Page in IE