Technology tools for Assessment and Evaluation

This article talked a lot about ways to use assessment and evaluation in technology and what teachers need to be aware of when doing the assessment and evaluation. the article mentions that it is important to make sure that teachers first know how to use assessment and what assessment really is. This is a really key point to me because I am taking Dr. Ken Howell's assessment class right now and we are learning that if teachers don't know how to use assessment correctly the data can be pointless because it could be completely wrong.I think that this article does a great job giving that information on assessment and the procedures we should use. After reading this article I feel a lot better that I don't have to come up with my own assessments and that I could find ones already made and not waste energy.

I-Generation-From Toddlers to Teenagers

The article was an interesting read about computers in the classroom. I remember in elementary school I was briefly introduced to computers, but not until around 4Th grade. On the other hand I did know before hand a tiny bit about computers from the Boys and Girls club because they had a computer lab were students were able to play educational games on the computer and how they set it up was were students could only play that game on the computer, the game would already be up and the student couldn't exit the game, they could stop playing the game by going to another computer that had a different game. The Boys and Girls Club even used the computer to do reading tests, were you pick a book to read, read it, then tell a person that worked there you wanted to take the test and then they would get everything set up and all the student would do was take an multiple choice test dealing with the book. I found it fun and some of the games were educational, but like Healy mentioned it is hard to decipher if I was actually learning something or just having fun. In summary, I agree with Healy, when she says we should wait for technology until students are older, but I don't think it is a bad idea to introduce computers to students when they are young, so when they get older they won't just get thrown into using them, the students will just be advancing the previous knowledge they already have.

Oregon Trail

I remember playing Oregon Trail before when I was a kid and I have to agree with Bill Bigelow says in his article, the CD-ROM is culturally bias. The game doesn’t teach all the facts about the journey and you are only allowed to see from a Caucasian male’s perspective while playing the game. I vaguely remember playing the game when I was younger mainly because I was disinterested in it and at my elementary school we didn’t play the game because I went to a elementary school were Native Americans were the majority, because I lived on a reservation, and so the teachers are more aware of the culture of Native Americans and found the Oregon Trail game not an effective way to teach I actually found out about the game through the Boys and Girls Club. What I liked about this article was the method you can use the Oregon Trail game at the end of the article after talking about it first and then looking at the game to see things that are hidden or incorrectly told about the Oregon Trail.

Digital Edge Project

An Immigrant’s Journey by Laura Best, Joanne Roler, and Ruth Tinley
An Immigrant’s Journal is about a junior high school in Lincolnshire, Illinois that is having their students do a project regarding immigration to the U.S. in 1907. The students are assigned in groups and are required to write about a certain part of immigration and each student is required to write a journal entry. In the journal entry the student talks about a fictional person and relates that person to what they have been researching, regarding the part of immigration they were assigned. Then the students in the group edit the combined journals and are required to create an iMovie project, which will be shared with other groups/classes that are studying immigration.
The role of technology in the lesson is being used to learn how to research specific information using the internet, learn how to use technology to display information learned and “create a personalized document of a historical experience.” (Best, Roler, Tinley [from article]). Mostly in this article technology is being described as a tool students can use to get and display information.
My thoughts about the article were on the fence because I like that the school is creating a different outlet to grade students but I would think that it would get confusion on what the teachers are grading on, the information the students got using research or how they presented the information. Grading both the information and how the students displayed their information, I don’t think is a good idea because trying to have students focus on two things, in my opinion, will cause them to not grasp the full understanding of either one. I think it is good to separate the two, for example, teach the students before the project how to create iMovies and do research on the internet and when the teachers do this project they should focus on the information displayed not how well the students created the iMovie.

Rethingking Learning in the Digital Age

When reading the article I found out a lot of interesting information, for example seeing "computers more like finger paint" as said by Michel Resnick; and how computers can be used for designing and creating things. When the article was talking about digital fluency, to me personally I thought I was pretty fluent in computers and after reading the article I realized that is not true. I know the how to use the computer but I don’t know how to construct things using the computer. Reading the article I found out that most people have this misconception of being fluent in computers and it’s a little frustrating because I think it is important to become fluent in computers, especially in this new era were computers are used by almost everyone.
In the article Michel talks about learning centers called “Computer clubhouses,” which he says are centers were young people become designers and creators with new digital technologies. In my opinion this is what we need to be teaching in schools along with how to use the computer. In these centers, people get the chance to really explore computers and see a variety of ways you can use computers allowing them to become fluent.
At the end of the article, Michel makes a good point in having teachers “step down” in a way allowing students to learn more actively and freely; as well as allowing students to do work digitally to strengthen their skills with technologies, but there is one thing I don’t agree with, which is rethinking where and when people learn. I mean I think it’s a good idea with giving students more opportunities to learn outside of school, but I have a concern which is why I don’t agree. For one, families may have computers in their homes but not all of them have internet or other software that allows the student to learn. Second is that you don’t know if it is actually the student doing the learning or if it another family member doing the learning for the child. In conclusion, I learned a lot reading this article and I think that we should have more computer clubhouses to allow people of all ages to become more fluent in computers.