Classroom Gone Online

As technology is being implemented into classrooms, classrooms are also becoming totally online.  With our eLearning site at UNI, instructors can post assignments, syllabi, and even tests online.  Most of these classes have a physical classroom as well, but the space online is helpful and easier.

Something else that is happening is social networking and Skyping in class.  No, this isn't just to pass the time.  Students and teachers are using these services to connect with people they might not be able to hear from in person.  Students in classrooms like these can connect with each other and can have speakers video conference with them.  Students in Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania are experiencing these types of physical and virtual classrooms. 

A Web 2.0 Class: Students Learn 21st Century Skills, Collaboration, and Digital Citizenship elaborates on these realities.

iPods in the Classroom

iPods became very popular while I was in high school.  They were only to be used during passing time and study halls.  iPods were especially banned from test time, because a student could have loaded the answers and such onto their iPod.  Louisa-Muscatine (I went to Muscatine schools) special education students are allowed to use their iPods to listen to a voice reading test questions to them.  This began as early as 2005, when I was a high school freshman!  I am proud that some districts are adopting technologies such as this.

I hope that iPods will be used more widely in our futures as teachers and students!

Iowa School District Pioneers iPods for Special-Ed Testing

10 Ways to Make Your iPod a Better Learning Gadget

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Laptops for All

I am excited to use all this technology that I am learning about in my future classroom.  Computers are a major part of convenient technology.

We can have our dream classroom where ever student has a laptop available to them, but is that a reality?  In the school district where I grew up, it is not.  Our libraries had maybe thirty computers at most; enough for one class at a time.  I am also worried about computers at home.  I would not feel right giving computer work or research homework to students who do not have computers or Internet access at home.

India is working on a tablet that would cost $35 or less.  If this inexpensive technology would be available in the US, technology access would be very easy.

NPR has a short article about the tablet.  "A $35 Tablet? India Is on the Case."


Image: Bin im Garten

Students and Smart Boards

I am completing Level 1 right now.  There is a Smart Board in the classroom that I am in.  Before I saw it in the class, I had never seen a Smart Board in action.  I think this thing is really cool!

I hope that my future school will have Smart Boards available to teachers and students.  My high school had one or two.

I am also impressed by the students' ability to use the board.  They just write on it like a normal dry erase board but it's neat that at 5, 6, and 7 years old, they understand how the Smart Board works.

Scholastic has a page of activities and ideas for the Smart Boards.    

    Scholastic SMART resources







Image: Some rights reserved by djainslie