Personal Digital Assistants, are also called PDA's. It is a mobile device that functions as a personal information manager. Most current PDA's connect to the internet, and have audio capabilities such as portable media players. Smart phones are today's version of a PDA. You can hold them in the palm of your hand, are able to connect to the internet, and its all touch screen. PDA's are able to function as cell phones, fax machines, web browser, and a personal organizer. Personal Digital assistants are more affordable to use within classroom technology budgets and teachers budgets as well. You can use them for all their creative tools or apps that they offer. Teachers are also able to check their email and can have access to the internet. Most students have to go to the computer lab to do most of their work, but computer labs usually limit the students. With PDA's, they are small and light enough to carry around everywhere. You can use these hand held devices in different subject areas. They could be used to chart their nutritional intake and physical activity to see if thy are meeting their fitness goals. Also, you could use them for science, to graph experiments.
Some of the reasons that people do online surveys is because they want to get peoples ideas and insight on whatever they are surveying for. Surveys could help teachers in the classroom because it generates students interests, and you learn what students find confusing before they leave the classroom. Surveys can be highly flexible and the teacher can use data for assessment reporting purposes. I think that surveys are designed to have an outreach for participation. They gain insight, demonstrate innovation, and they have a comparative analysis. I think two good rules to keep in mind when writing surveys, would be to keep it short and base it off of your students. There has been several times where I had to take online surveys and didn't understand most of the words listed. Some surveys would take a very long time and by the end of the survey, I was just filling in answers. The first rule of keeping it short would be a good one because, you want students to be honest on their surveys. If you make the survey too long, then you lose the students focus and by the end of the survey they are just randomly selecting an answer. The second rule would be good to have because you want for your students to be interested in what they are having to do.
Technology has opened so many doors for teachers as well as the students. Having a Personal Digital Assistant in the class, allows the students to expand their knowledge instead of being limited in a computer lab. Most students today already own some type of smartphone, so they would already be used to that kind of technology. With online surveys, this allows teachers to receive feedback from their students on what they like and don't like. You could even put online survey s on their PDA's and have a quick survey done in class. Technologies like these, are being used in more schools now because it is very convenient for both the students and the teachers.
References
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M. & Grismond, D. (2008)
Pearson, Merrill/Prentice Hall, 3rd edition
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Week 3 Assignment
What I found most interesting about these videos, were that they really do challenge students to become better learners. Using Inspiration, allows students to have it all at their finger tips. Instead of having different programs for the maps and diagrams, it's already there and ready to go. One thing that really stuck out to me, was it didn't matter if you had a windows computer or a mac, because it would work with both. After you finish your work, it automatically transferred all the information onto a Google doc or Microsoft Office Word document. I would use Inspiration in the classroom because its main focus is on creating, communicating, and achieving more. It uses maps, diagrams, and presentation manager to help students advance their knowledge and understanding. It is easy to use, and students are able to jump start on projects. Webspiration Classroom helps students writing and thinking skills. It also helps students evaluate and synthesize information, improve performance, and helps students write effectively. There is also collaboration with the teacher and student, and the teacher is able to give feedback and insight into the students work. You can use Webspiration anywhere there is Internet because its a 24/7 service and assignments are automatically saved and always secure.
After reading chapter 6 and thinking about different writing techniques, I think that creative writing techniques would flow well with the Inspiration and Webspiration. Also, collaborative learning would be very useful because it give the students the ability to receive feedback from their teachers and other students. Through using Webspiration classroom, students can do group projects, and are able to share documents which allows them to give responses to different students. I can always remember in my English classes, when we had to get one classmate to review our paper. Technology tools like the Inspiration, allows teachers to see their students work at any time, and they can post their feedback and insight to help the student along the way. In my speech classes, I always had to give a speech and presentation on a certain skill, or teach the rest of the class something new. I had to do lots of research, so I knew what I was talking about, but I never felt fully confident in what I was speaking about. Once I did my presentation and students asked questions at the end, I wasn't hesitant to answer them because I knew what they were about. I think this happens in a lot of students cases.
Using Inspiration and Webspiration Classroom, would be beneficial to use in a educational setting. It not only furthers students knowledge and understanding, but helps their writing and thinking skills.When I become a teacher, I will probably look into using these techniques. I think in today's society, that we need to adapt to this new form of learning. These teaching techniques are very easy to learn, and I think through repetition, it can be a success in every teachers classroom.
Inspiration Software. (2011). Inspiration videos and webcasts for using visual learning in your classroom.
Inspiration software. (2011). Webspiration classroom service improve writing and thinking skills. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.inspiration.com/webspirationclassroom
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M. & Grismond, D. (2008)
Pearson, Merrill/Prentice Hall, 3rd edition
After reading chapter 6 and thinking about different writing techniques, I think that creative writing techniques would flow well with the Inspiration and Webspiration. Also, collaborative learning would be very useful because it give the students the ability to receive feedback from their teachers and other students. Through using Webspiration classroom, students can do group projects, and are able to share documents which allows them to give responses to different students. I can always remember in my English classes, when we had to get one classmate to review our paper. Technology tools like the Inspiration, allows teachers to see their students work at any time, and they can post their feedback and insight to help the student along the way. In my speech classes, I always had to give a speech and presentation on a certain skill, or teach the rest of the class something new. I had to do lots of research, so I knew what I was talking about, but I never felt fully confident in what I was speaking about. Once I did my presentation and students asked questions at the end, I wasn't hesitant to answer them because I knew what they were about. I think this happens in a lot of students cases.
Using Inspiration and Webspiration Classroom, would be beneficial to use in a educational setting. It not only furthers students knowledge and understanding, but helps their writing and thinking skills.When I become a teacher, I will probably look into using these techniques. I think in today's society, that we need to adapt to this new form of learning. These teaching techniques are very easy to learn, and I think through repetition, it can be a success in every teachers classroom.
Inspiration Software. (2011). Inspiration videos and webcasts for using visual learning in your classroom.
[Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.inspiration.com/videos/Inspiration
Inspiration software. (2011). Webspiration classroom service improve writing and thinking skills.
Jonassen, D., Howland, J., Marra, R. M. & Grismond, D. (2008)
Pearson, Merrill/Prentice Hall, 3rd edition
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