Week1

I spent my first week understanding [|the 21st century classroom scenario] and changing my existing view of Information Technologies in a classroom. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, there were hardly any computer/information technologies usages outside of the Drafting, Computer Science and Accounting classes. I never had any access to the Internet, and the more sophisticated analytical applications like Maple and MatLab until I was at university. I listened to CD, watched videos on huge Laser Disc and the VHS tape. I was studying all the audio and video compression algorithms and was visualizing with my classmates how we could create a portable MP3 device in the future. Unlike the Digital Native students, I migrated to the digital technologies as I was growing up. Definitely, I can not teach information technologies in the same way I learn technologies.

I was glad to notice my view was shared by many of the fellow teachers/classmates in our group discussion on May 5. We concluded that despite the changes in the digital world and the society, intellectual development, psychological struggles and relationship problems of our students remain unchanged. Students still need teacher to facilitate their learning. My fear of the huge gap in the exposure to digital technology was shattered after the discussion.

I also learned that educational focus in the Math and Info Tech classrooms is also different in the 21st century classroom. Educators are advocating the importance of collaboration and self-reflection in these two subject areas nowadays. I need to remember I was used to the traditional Math and Computer Science classrooms, which only comprised of direct teaching and individual work time. I didn't know the values of these two skills in the two subjects until I started taking Education classes at SFU. I need to breakaway from my own experience in Math and Computer Science classes.

After reading the assigned reading: [|Mapping the Journey - Seeing the Big Picture] and experiencing the power of collaboration in my university years, I was determined to use technologies deliberately to enhance my collaboration skill and develop a habit of regular self-reflection. I started using the three technologies introduced by Kevin in my first week immediately.

=1. Delicious Page=

media type="custom" key="3959887" I was happy to say goodbye to the hard to maintain bookmarks on the web browsers after I was introduced to "Delicious". Other than using emails to share links with my friends and future students, I can ask them to follow my Delicious page. I can also search for quality websites by searching within the Delicious community. I can embed a link roll in my web page or a blog page. Well, I added my Delicious ID Badge here as well.

I spent my first few days getting used to the tool and porting old links from my web browser bookmarks. I used the tool to collect all of the cool Math lesson plans I obtained for my other classes as well.

=2. Blog= I never had the patience to read and write blogs regularly before I began the class. I changed my mind after I received a comment from [|Oliver] on my first blog. Oliver's response encouraged me to comment on others' blog. I participated with an online discussion of the relevance of our dflit class with teaching programming in our future classroom with [|Josh]. I was surprised to see the development of our disucssion on students' struggles in technology on [|Shannon's blog].

On top of that, I also develop a habit for using my blog to take [|class notes] and to write journals for my other classes. I setup a Blogger app on my iPhone so that I can blog when I am away from a computer. I have replaced my paper notebook with the blog page.

I also plan to ask my students to use blogs to collaborate to others and reflect on their learning. I can ask them to limit access to their blog pages by asking them to make their blogs visible to me or their classmates only. Privacy among students can be maintained if we use this technology mindfully.

=3. Wiki pages= The dflit class wikispaces page for the dflit class makes it easier for me to follow the course material in EDUC 482. I am also happy to help maintain the page; the process gives me a stronger sense of community within the classroom. This portfolio page is my first Wiki development. I may consider using the tool to develop my future EDUC 405 class websites.

With the dominance of web pages in the 21st century, I find it natural to ask students to share their ideas through the medium. However, I am always hesitant to include web development project outside of an Info Tech classroom because I find the development process too time consuming. Wiki, GoogleSites and other technologies are great alternatives to traditional web development process. Unlike traditional web design tools, like Dreamweaver, one doesn't need to obtain webspaces from a Internet Service Provider when he/she is setting up a Wikispace pages. It definitely makes web publishing more accessible to students. More focus can be put on the content, not on the structure and design of the websites.

Outside of the above three technologies, I also explored the "Twitter" technology this week. I don't really see its value in the classroom yet. Neither my students and I need to update our status with each other 24/7 a week so I won't use it as a form of communications with my students. I also don't want to encourage my students to follow celebrities, particular organizations, politicians, etc on Twitter. Information overloading is prevalent in Twitter. I don't want my students to be bombarded by too much information before they have learned to process information critically.