Brian’s blog

How can technology be used to affirm diversity?  Technology can be used to affirm diversity in many ways.  It can be used as a language interpreter to help out students that don’t use the English language as their primary language.  Technology can also be used to shed light on events or peoples that aren’t well known.  This can be done through websites or through software and is essential to the modern landscape of classrooms.

Give an example of a technology that affirms diversity and be specific in describing HOW it affirms diversity.  The topic that i’m “blogging” about is the website on Native American “Code Talkers.”  (http://www.nmai.si.edu/education/codetalkers/)  These Navajo Indians were essential in helping the U.S. forces in the Pacific against the Japanese during WW II by lending their language as a form of code that was near impossible for the Japanese to decipher.  This website that holds all this information is a great way to affirm diversity, because it talks about a topic that wasn’t and still is well known to many people.

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Choice #2  Respond to the News and Notes podcast: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6715965

How may a lack of access to technology impact a school or classroom?  It could make them fall behind other schools that have the technological advances.  Essentially the students that don’t have the technology don’t have the same advantages that the classrooms that have technology have.  So overall it would most likely hurt that classroom.

What are some ways to increase the technology in your classroom?  You could look for donated parts from nice people getting rid dated materials/technology drive, hope to get a grant, look for free software, look at leasing arrangements, etc.

List some strategies for increasing students’ access to technology in your future classroom:  You could train a few students to become “experts” about the technology in your classroom so that they could help other students troubleshoot any problems.  You could also download free software off of the internet for your students to use.

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How can technology be used to support higher-order thinking?  It can be used by challenging students and make them look at things/problems in a new light.  No longer does the classroom have to be the same mundane environment, it can now be full of technology that helps students grasp new concepts and gain a n excitement about learning.  

Give an example of a technology that supports higher-order thinking and be specific in describing HOW it supports higher-order thinking.  This can be done in a vast amount of ways.  One such way would be creating a role-playing game and putting the student in the shoes of a soldier during the civil war.  The student would then have to manage their gear, learn about battles, etc.  It would fully immerse the student in that time frame to a certain extent.  This is a lot more helpful as a teaching tool rather then having read their text books.

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Here is the link to the website that I used: http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604995

The reason that I chose this website/article is because it talks about how important technology is now in any learning environment and that every student needs the tools to be able to succeed.

According to the article, their is a growing divide in students from different economic backgrounds because of the technological differences in their schools and at home.  Internet is a key component, because of the communication benefit that can be brought to the forefront.  Technology is also a great way to keep students involved in what their doing.  It stops them from become so redundant and it’s more hands on.

Technology is also huge for teachers as well.  For instance, what I’m doing right now (blogging) can be used positively in a clasroom to get your students interacting and getting more involved.  Other tools, (many of which we use in Edu 290) like AIM, flickr, googlemaps, moodle, skype, thinkfree, etc. are also the future of teaching according to this article.  I full heartedly agree to this point because of how technology has grown so vast in the past fifteen years, we must keep up with the changes.

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In my field of history, new technology techniques could be used by representing battle fields in a 3 dimensional way.  This would help the students get a good view of what the battle field looked like.  This would also give the students and the teacher more ways to look at an event, which would make everyone think that much more about the topic on hand.

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After reading this article I learned that technology can be a double edged sword.  One one hand it can help advance and support learning for students, while on the other hand it can hinder learning if done poorly.  Teachers should take the responsibility to learn good techniques for using “new” technology so that their students don’t gain any ill effects from poor teaching.  The article also talked about how technology is opening doors for more of a hands on learning through participation. Connection between students and their (or other professors/teachers) is growing by the day and giving many students opportunities of a more in depth learning experience.

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This is the first post on my blo!

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