Emerging Technologies Continued

Tom Daccord is now presenting and has brought up a few good topics. Here are a few books he recommended:

Daniel pink: A Whole New Mind
Ben Shneiderman: Leonardo’s Laptop

Daccord has been mentioning a few concepts and how they apply to the use of technology:

Collect – Relate – Creative – Donate

Collect – Fact acquisition and research
Relate – Team efforts that develop communication
Creative – Individual and team projects create to learn and learn to create
Donate – Authentic, service-oriented projects. The project should benefit others.

He has been discussing how the technology the students use can enable them to contribute and the classroom not only becomes student centered but can leave a legacy for future classes or others around the world.

Daccord has also mentioned how technology is engaging but rather what is more important is to create critical thinking skills by using that technology.

Innovation and information should be the focus not the acquisition or use of technology. We should use technology but ensure that the students create and innovate as they learn and truly understand the content that you as a teacher are disseminating. Through this process we should also cross disciplines and must become more flexible as the world becomes more flat.

Prior to Daccord presenting, a few of the Nobles teachers presented the school’s wiki.  This is the template they have been working with, it might provide you with some good ideas.

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a fantastic source of multimedia resources.  They have audio and video on a wide range of topics.  There is a entire education section as well as the Prelinger Archives which has over 4,000 videos that as the site states, “Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven’t been collected elsewhere.” 

I hope you find this resource as useful as I have.

Dyslexia and Textbooks

We use Peter Stearns’ World Civilizations: The Global Experience in our World Civilizations classes for both 9th and 10th graders. This is a college level text. Some of the students have difficulty getting through the text. To combat such an issue, especially for dyslexic students, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic publishes common textbooks on audio CD. I believe this is a great resource and believe that every library should have recordings of their textbooks so that students have access to resources that would assist them. Well, at least I’m going to try to get a recording for our department.

The only downside is that the membership and the special cd player that is required are not cheap. I guess you have to be wealthy to afford access to these reading aid materials.

TeacherTube

There is a new resource available for teachers called TeacherTube. It is following the premise of YouTube but provides educational content. Sounds like it may prove useful as not only a data bank for videos but also a means to promote your or your classes work.

Digital Campus

George Mason University and the Center for History and New Media Studies have created the Digital Campus, a podcast created to spark discussion on “how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums”.

I believe you will find this useful as it may shed some light on a subject that can be hazy for some.