Virtual Classroom

http://education.qld.gov.au/learningplace/onlinelearning/virtual-classroom.html

The article I read explains a virtual classroom as a private online space in Blackboard that teachers can use to better support student learning. The article stresses the convenience of it being accessible via the Internet, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just like your face–to–face classroom, a Virtual Classroom can be a very busy place. The main class activities posed in the virtual classroom are:
-Group and individual learning activities
-Discussions and chats with students, parents and guests
-Quizzes and surveys
-Homework activities and assessment documents
-Full online courses with modules of work
-Forums and synchronous chat sessions
-WebQuests, Hotlists, Scavenger Hunts, etc.
Even though it may seem like an ordinary classroom, it just doesn’t seem to have the same affect on me as a regular on site classroom with a teacher interacting with the class. This tequne would be great for an after lesson project to help fallow up on the learners knowledge. I would like to see more information on the virtual classroom.

Video streaming

http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196605471

Video streaming is an exciting new technology that allows video producers to share their work inexpensively with a worldwide audience. The article I read explains streaming very well. When you download a file the entire file is saved on your computer, which you open and view. This has some advantages, but has the big disadvantage of having to wait for the whole file to download before any of it can be viewed. If the file is quite small this may not be too much of an inconvenience, but for large files and long presentations it can be very time consuming. So providing downloadable video files in a simple hyperlink to the file or embedding the file in a web page using special HTML code is the easiest way to obtain this information in a timely manner. HTTP means Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, and is the same protocol used to deliver web pages. The user can start watching the file almost as soon as it begins downloading. The file is sent to the user in somewhat of a constant stream, and the user watches it as it arrives. This sounds like a great GB saver to me.
Teachers can use this technology to obtain new news for the classroom, or to just include visual with the lesson to help the students retain what they have learned. Throughout my research on this subject I came across a couple articles that made video streaming sound like a thing from the past with the invention of the high capacity mini hard drive, or jump drive. I definitely would want more information on the subject before I used it.

Podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/help/faq/what_is_a_podcast.shtml

The article I chose sports the title “What is a podcast?” on the BBC website. This article explains how a podcast lets you receive the latest episode of your favorite radio programs with you on the move. It allows you to go back and download an older episode, or it will keep downloading selected podcasts as they become available. You can either listen to the cast on your computer with a free piece of software, or download it onto a device such as an mp3 player. This article stresses the point of having your program “whenever you like.” Which I believe is the biggest factor that sets the podcast a cut above the rest, especially in the classroom where a podcast can be very informational and interactive. The software makes the job for a teacher to search, listen, and find the perfect podcast for a lesson. A podcast has the potential to be extremely interactive with the learner and I would definitely want to do some more research to find out just how creative some of the educational podcasts can get, and find out in what type of classes it has shown success.

Web Based Multimedia/Animation

http://www.lifescied.org/cgi/content/full/3/3/181

The article I chose talks about how animation and multimedia adds a new aspect of teaching to the classroom that incorporates the different learning styles of the students. This is most evident in the sciences because the physical aspects of the world are more clearly presented in animation than in fixed illustrations. For example, in a cell biology class with this technology one could watch what happens to a certain cell as it ages, and learn a fact at every stage of its speeded up aging process. Under a microscope this would be nearly impossible without extremely expensive equipment. I believe that this form of exercise tool is very efficient and beneficial, but I would definitely want to see some success to failure rates among teachers that have used this approach.

Storyboards

http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/voice/voice131.shtml

This article explains storyboarding as an excellent strategy for reflecting students' comprehension of a specific type of material. It also stresses how storyboarding can help students to gather and organize their scattered ideas. Storyboarding is most often used by elementary reading teachers. A storyboard is a collection of illustrations that portray the main ideas of each scene or idea in the reading material. Other ways to incorporate storyboarding would be to illustrate various characteristics of a topic, such as such as "How a Bill becomes a Law."

For students who have many great ideas, but just can’t seem to get them down on paper with some sort of organization and detail, a storyboard is great for them. When the students break each section or seine up into little parts they are able to tell just that section of a story with extended detail. I feel that these techniques should not only be stressed at the elementary level to organize ideas, but should be stressed at the high school level to emphasize strong detail with in a story or writing. Sometimes the things we learn in our earliest years are the most important, and if we forget these simple kinder techniques then it makes everything much more difficult.

Further research would not be too imperative because storyboarding is more of a broad idea than a strict guide line. I feel that the best executions of storyboarding in the classroom would come spontaneously in a classroom when the teacher just doesn’t feel that the students are up to par on the subject.

Wiki

http://www.sitepoint.com/article/what-is-a-wiki/

A wiki is a software that handles complex problems with simple easy assessable solutions. The first wiki was created 1995 by Cunningham and Bo Leuf, they called it WikiWikieb. These men had in mind an open site that was available for anyone to contribute to. Sounds like a simple idea, and that exactly what it is, simple. Each page on a wiki is able to be changed by anyone at anytime. Wikis are used for a wide variety of tasks, for example: Personal note-taking, Collaborating online, creating an internal knowledge base, assembling an online community, and managing a traditional website.

Wikis allow students to extend their knowledge from the classroom to other classmates or children studying the same subject. They can communicate with these other peers through a journal, like a blog. A wiki created for a curtain course could be very useful to both students and teachers. While serving as the course web site, teachers are able to post notes, diagrams, videos, and even class lectures. The only problem with this, in my opinion is that it wouldn’t be as helpful to the younger students, because their isn’t much instruction to the wiki, its more or less a do it yourself type of learning.

More information would definitely benefit me in my decision on whether or not I approve this as a teaching tool for standard classroom. Some questions I would answer would be: Is this wiki suitable and easy enough for our younger students, and is it too easy for the older grade school students? How is the wiki monitored, and is it completely safe for our children?

Blogging

http://lttf.ieee.org/learn_tech/issues/october2006/index.html


The article covers many aspects of learning through blogging, and the wide verity of students that can benefit from the blogging. Students use blogging technology to expand knowledge by means of collaborating with others. This communication and connection is not limited to the immediate classroom, but rather a whole world of participants on all levels of intelligents and creativity. From a teacher’s point of view communication with others is key to the constructivist theory in education. The Constructivist theory states that we create and apply new knowledge through connection and interaction with others. Blogging technology allows students to gather new information while expanding on existing knowledge by sharing their own thoughts and data with other users.
In my opinion blogging could help many students of all ages, it can also bring together students of all grades and skill levels. For example, an assignment for a seventh grade class could be to explain in their own words how to perform a long division problem and post it on their blog. A fifth grade class would then be able to read the seventh grader’s blogs’ and solve a long division problem. This will assist the younger children in finding out their learning style by finding the seventh grade student that could help them the best. In reading the work of students that are on a slightly higher level than them the younger children will be able to benefit immensely knowing that the seventh graders are just students like them. On the other hand, the seventh grade students improve their writing and operation skills needed for their further education, plus they will benefit from elder classes above them as they helped their younger peers. It is a big cycle of peer education.
Further information about blogging would probably not be too beneficial because it is a very simple concept, although I would like to see further research on the success rates of teachers that have utilized these futuristic tools.

Virtual Field Trip

http://www.homeworkspot.com/features/greatexplorers.htm

“Follow the footsteps of great discoveries.” This article explains one of the greatest aspect of the virtual field trip, and that is to take the same journey that great men before you have. With state of the art graphics and well designed information, this field trip is able to recreate the stories of many intrepid adventurers who explored Apollo like journeys all over the world. The article stresses the immense detail in the information covered, and the wide variety of explorations to choose from, for example, Colonel Percy Fawcett, who charted the wilderness of South America; Matthew Henson, who raced Peary to the North Pole; Amelia Earhart and Dian Fossey. Learning these voyages helps children to better understand where they come from, and why their there. It will also spark the imagination of the young explorers in the classroom to get out and start following that dream of theirs, no matter how huge it might seem. I find this form of learning to be very effective, and interesting to all types of students. I would like to read more about these trips and find out from other teachers how their students reacted to the field trip, and maybe take one for my self.