Thursday, March 27, 2008

Articles: The Use of New Educational Media Technology

Here are a few articles worth investigating for their ideas and comments on the use of all this new "educational media" technology:

School Library Journal's Technology Survey 2006
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6338687.html?q=SLJ%27s+TEchnology+survey+2006
An interesting collection of data from over 1600 media specialists from 49 states. Main limitations in the use of technology included lack of money (to purchase everything they need) and lack of time (to train students and teachers to use the technology). Despite that, most respondents agreed: you can't have too many tools. Because of the emphasis on information literacy, teachers' number one priority was training students to locate information using electronic resources. Most felt that media specialists were naturally the ones to do this training, especially since technology is such a "vital" part of school libraries. Check out this article to see how your media center compares to schools across the country.

Education World: The Best Tech Tools for Teachers
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech234.shtml
Education World.com covers all sorts of technology related issues in schools, in the home, and in early childhood. Their team of experts reports on the most useful technology tools available today, including hardware, software, applications and Web sites. Elementary school teachers, my particular field of interest, are using interactive whiteboards to absolutely transform their lessons. Laptops have become indispensible, and favorite software includes Kidspiration and Inspiration. (The article provides links to every program or equipment mentioned.) Personally, teachers benefit from Skyping, from Wikispaces, and from Blogs. Middle school teachers also name their favorites, and there are several links to teacher education options. Browse this article to see if you can find a new program or idea!

eSchoolNews.com: Analysis: How Multimedia can improve learning
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=53243&page=1
Put on your thinking cap for this article. Based on research conducted by the Metiri Group, an educational consulting firm, and presented in a report entitled "Multimodal Learning through Media: What research says", the article basically proves that technology can help your students learn better, provided you use it right! If you're interested, the article explains how we acquire knowledge, how the brain works, and the different kinds of memory. If you remember one thing, remember this: Students retain information better when it is presented through words and pictures rather than through words alone. Other tips mentioned in the article might help you in presenting your lesson to students.

PBS Teachers: Technology Integration
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/librarymedia/tech-integration/index.html
This is one of the most incredible sources of information I have run across in a long time. While this site could qualify as a portal, it is worth mentioning here because of the breath and depth of topics. The articles address "how the integration of technology and media improve instruction and student learning". The editors of this site have collected recent research and best practices to help answer that question. The site is rich with information covering these topics: Access and the Digital Divide, Accessible/Assistive Technology, Distance Education, Emerging Technologies, Evaluating Programs and Practices, Internet Safety, Leadership and Technology, Research Clearinghouse and Publications, Student Learning, Teacher Practice and Professional Development, and Visual Media. Research comes from sources such as the US Department of Education, the Consortium for School Networking, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Cable in the Classroom. Plan to spend some time here! A companion site,
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/media_lit/getting_started.html, gets you started and provides lots of activity ideas.

Education Week: Voluntary Online-Teaching Standards Come Amid Concerns Over Quality
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/03/05/26online_ep.h27.html
Online teaching, just like anything else you find online, can be good...or not so good. How do you know whether something is of good quality? Hopefully, a new set of "National Standards", released Feb. 21 by the North American Council for Online Learning, will provide a guideline for good online teaching. While still voluntary, the standards include guidelines for teacher prerequisites such as licensure, subject-area proficiency, technology skills and experience. Other practices addressed are strategies for learning and collaboration, intellectual-property rights, interaction between parents, students and instructor, and addressing special needs. With this new way of learning comes new issues and concerns.









Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Purchasing Media-Related Equipment

What would you do if you had $1000 to spend on media-related equipment for your school media center? What would you buy? First, consider: what do you want to do? What is your goal for the media center? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want your students to accomplish?

Information literacy has been emphasized lately, as has the role of the media specialist in educating students to be information literate. How do you teach a child to recognize a need for information, know where to look for that information, evaluate the quality/appropriateness of the information, and then put it to use?? What tools (i.e.: equipment, other than knowledge, experience and wisdom!) does the student need?

A very popular source of information lately has been the internet. To access the internet, you need, of course, a computer. While it is possible to show students how to locate, navigate and evaluate websites by means of an interactive whiteboard (Smartboard, E-beam, Promethean board, etc), they don't really get it until they do it themselves (the old "hands-on" method). So, show them, but then put them in front of a computer screen and see what they can do.

To do this, you need as many computers as possible. Our media center has computers, but we need more computers. Therefore, with some of my (imaginary) $1000, I am buying computers (2 laptops to be exact). After looking at several reviews, I found the Asus Eee PC 4G.
It's nothing fancy, just something for the students to surf the web. It is small, with an admittedly "cramped" keyboard, but it is sturdy. Besides, our students are fourth and fifth graders, so their hands are smaller anyway.
These laptops can be found at Red Barn Computers for $398.97 each, plus $26 shipping and handling. (Total $823.94).

Now, the flip side of the library computer is the library BOOK! Hopefully, we will always need and love to read BOOKS. But just as you can't make a horse drink the water you've lead him to, sometimes you can't make the child read the book in his hands that you know is wonderful. So, make the book catchy. Make it more techno. Load it onto an MP3 player and let the child listen while he also reads the words. We have done this with some of our students on a rather trial basis, and it's been a great success. (You will actually hear them laughing out loud as they read Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

A review of a good MP3 player, the Creative Zen V Plus (4 GB), can be found here. With my remaining money I will purchase two of these MP3 players. Amazon has a good price on the Creative Zen V Plus (4 GB), which is described as "a cute, pocket-friendly design which doesn't sacrifice screen real estate, and the vivid OLED display is viewable from any angle. The player is packed to the gills with features, including an FM radio, voice and line-in recording, photo and video playback, and compatibility with subscription WMA tracks. The sound quality and battery life are great too." (It's also available in up to 16 GB). Amazon offers free shipping, and each audio book player runs $82.99, so two can be bought for $165.98.

That leaves me $10.08. Audiobooks.org offers free books to download, although the children's book selection at Audio Books for free.com is much more extensive, and they offer reviews and content analysis as well (lets you know what you're getting into....or not). Amazon's companion site for audio books is Audible.com, but there is a monthly subscription fee for these books.

Keep reading!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Our Week March 10-14


March: Women's History Month
Celebrate Famous Women and their contributions to America!
Check out Time for Kids Women'sHistory page
Check out: Just Curious, Women's History

Our Week March 3-7


The Iditarod! A Sleddog Race in Alaska!
Here's the website we viewed in class:
http://www.iditarod.com/

Here's a list of books about the Iditarod that you might enjoy:
http://www.ci.keene.nh.us/library/youth/booklist_iditarod.htm