College Yearbook Collections Go Digital

Making old yearbooks and course catalogs available online is a truly excellent idea. It makes information about the universities much more accessible from an academic standpoint as well as being a great way to preserve memories. If primary sources aren't digitized, they are only available to a very limited number of people at the university. They're usually kept in private collections, and very few people know where to go to access them, or that they even can. In high school, I was on the yearbook staff and one of the coolest things we got to do was to look through the old books, and use them as resources. If you don't have a book available, you can't do that. Last semester my roommate was in a course about the Black Jazz Age and one of their assignments was to write as though they were a person living during that time period. She chose to be a student, but had to jump through numerous hoops to try and track down information about schools during that time. Having resources like yearbooks and course books available would have made it easier then trying to track down phone numbers and send e-mails to get said information; and could even make assignments like that feasible and much easier to achieve with younger students. It could make for a very fun lesson.

Smartboard free write response

Smartboard software is an excellent teaching tool, when it works. I was really excited to learn about all of the interactive features that are already included within the program. I didn’t realize there was quite so much just available right there at your fingertips. The number of tools and interactive activities that you can just plug stuff into was great. It was also fun trying to find online resources that could be fun to do “hands on” by literally clicking on the Smartboard. I think the number of multimedia components that can be used and taken advantage of on a Smartboard is great, but utilizing all of those was quite the feat. I had a number of problems, I feel like it may have been because I tried to include too many elements. I had the whole file wipe out on me at one point, which was really discouraging, but I guess that’s a price to pay when working with technology. On the plus side, the internet is a really great resource for trouble-shooting. It’s very likely that others have had the same problem as you, granted it took me three or so hours to fix one of my problems trying different things, but I was still able to.

Before starting this whole unit, I was a little concerned that smartboards wouldn’t lend themselves very well to teaching subjects like math or music. I kind of just thought it was a fancy, interactive version of power point, and I’d never seen a math or music presentation before so I was really worried. To my surprise it actually worked out quite nicely. Liz’s presentation included a lot of the same ways we learned to conquer those subject areas hands on, but by using technology. Instead of trying to keep track of a hundred small coins, you can do it all on the smartboard etc. As far as music, being able to used sound clips with images is a lot cheaper than having actual instruments to demonstrate. It’s a lot easier and cheaper to have each child try a virtual piano keyboard than to get each student one etc.

Overall, I think smartboard would be a great asset to every classroom. In the long run, the benefits outway the initial costs, I’d say.

Do students need more online privacy education?

I think that online privacy education is something that should be used in every school. It obviously become a huge problem in colleges because of the sexual videos and images being posted. However, I'm becoming concerned for middle and elementary schools having similar problems. In reality, many children are engaging in sexual activity at younger ages. Without proper education, they could easily disclose this same personal information online which could result in the same tragedies that have been prevalent among college campuses. Besides posting inappropriate videos and pictures, online bullying has become a great concern over the past several years. If we are to incorporate e-mail, blogs and other types of online technology in the classroom, we must ensure that our students are properly educated in online conduct.

Smartboard Project Wrap-up (Liz Exo)

Before this project, I was not really familiar with smartboard, other than having heard about the basics uses of it. To me, it just seemed like a more expensive whiteboard. But after doing the project and learning about the endless tools and applications, I've realized that interactive whiteboards are a very efficient way to teach. I really like how online videos can be linked onto the slides,and I think that there are so many interactive/multimedia options available for the teachers to use within their lessons. Not only does it have so many options, but I also really like how it is such an interactive experience for the students themselves- nothing gets students more interested in learning than using the "coolest" and latest technology!
Overall, I think that interactive whiteboard technology is the future of education, and educators should not hesitate to learn the many uses it has to offer.

Notebook Project Wrap- Up

Overall, I have really enjoyed learning to use the notebook software. I like creating these types of presentations because I can be really creative and incorporate many tools that are useful. Prior to this course, I could not have imagined all of the things that can be done on smartboards. For example, the amount of games and activities that already come with the software are truly outstanding. I'm glad that I was able to use videos to demonstrate the ideas I was talking about.
After watching everyone else present their projects, I have gained insight into other tools that I could have used in different ways. In the future I would like to use more of the screen shade and side-by-side screen functions so that students can be doing more than one thing at once and can reference previous slides to help them with an activity. I'm excited to learn about more types of technology and the tools that are available online as resources in the classroom. Prior to this project, I would have never imagined using Panoramio or artPad in a formal presentation.
I'm frustrated, however, with the amount of problems that I encountered while trying to create my project. The combination of notebook and my mac caused the program to shut down and lose my work multiple times. At least I am now fully aware of how these problems can be detrimental when trying to use new technologies.
Overall, I think that I will use the smartboard quite frequently in my future classroom.

Smart Notebook Project Reflection

I'm really glad that we did a project on the SmartBoard software because I think it will be extremely useful and relevant in my future as a teacher. This project not only allowed us an opportunity to practice using the software, but also made me aware of the huge range of resources available on SmartNotebook. I had no idea that there were so many templates and activities at our disposal. It really made me think about how kids will learn the best during a lesson, and I think that it is through interactive activities, which the SmartBoard can provide. There were some technological challenges throughout this project, but they provided opportunities to brainstorm solutions and discover alternate ways of doing things. I think that the time spent on this project will make me more likely to use the SmartBoard in my future classroom and more adept at doing so.

Social media blackout eye-opening, “annoying”

Liz Exo’s Blog Post:
Recently Harrisburg University banned access to any and all social media websites (Facebook, Twitter, AOL…etc.) on the school’s network for an entire week. It was meant to serve as a reminder to students to see just how much they are hooked on these websites and how much time they spend on them during class or instead of focusing on academics.

The point of this experiment was not to show that Facebook or Twitter has a large impact of student grades (because research has shown that it really does not affect grades), but rather to make students more aware of how it distracts them during class. Many college professors have noticed that in lecture classes students just log in to facebook and ignore the lecture.

After the week ended, students reported that the ban was “annoying,” and students still found ways around the ban (using private networks or blackberry phones to log onto facebook). The article also leaves us with something important to think about… should the students’ bad reactions to the ban warn us about how students will adjust in the workplace?