Dr. Alice Christie is a recently retired Education Technology professor from
Under Dr. Christie’s Research Links, “Linking Technology, Learning and School Change,” the article “ How Middle School Boys and Girls View Todays Computer Culture” was interesting. It focused on the use and meaning of what computers can do and the way they interact with them, for a population with a mean average age of 12.5 years old. I appreciated the findings, in particular the recommendations for being aware of and addressing the gender bias in computer use.
This website may be a good add to a blog in addition to bookmarks as an addition to our PLN. The Education Portal has links to many websites covering educational news and links for educational funding.
iPods in the Classroom
The volume of information available is amazing for this topic.
iLearn : Learning Made Mobile is a publication I found on Judy Brown's (coordinator of the mLearnopedia.com website) blog. The format is interesting, to begin with. The content nicely bridges some learnings from our EDF315 class (Fall 2009). This guide is an aid for learning what the different iPods can do in a learning environment.
iTunesU seems to be the application used by many schools to store their podcasts for all of us to use. Dorothy from Pt. Aukland stores the podcasts for this school on iTunesU because she feels the quality is very good from that site. iTunes can classify the podcasts by grade level or topic, making it easy for us to find what we need.
The Duke University iPod Experiement
Interesting research done here to see if iPods would be useful in the classroom. The first thing that came to mind was "What a great plan to investigate before a mass integration of the new thing!" The results were both for and against, but in general it seemed that the iPod was easy to use. Duke will continue to use iPods in the classroom, where the study showed it to be beneficial.
Some benefits that were seen during the study was that the iPod was most students used it to record lectures and field notes.
Negatives about using the iPod included that some publishers didn't allow recording of protected material and sometimes the recording quality was poor. Professors worried about class attendance, that lecture would be replaced by the recordings.
Jackie, great blog! I couldn't agree with you more about all of the great information given on Dr. Alicia Christie's web site. There was so much wonderful information there that it has become a website that I will continue to use throughout my teaching career. I think that it is great to have such a wonderful resource as her site.
ReplyDeleteI also feel this way about iTunesU. I couldn't believe how much information there was on there for teachers and students. I'm not sure how I feel about using iPods in a classrooms, though it is not something that I am completely against. I think that it is something that I would be willing to experiment with to see if it made teaching and learning more successful! Great blog, and great info!
Attention Everyone. Do you see what Jackie is doing? She is on a search of her own to learn more, to find different things related to this course. She obviously is not content just to do the assignments. She also has added the Social Media counter to her sidebar. And she continues to raise interesting questions.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, she is setting a fantastic example for the rest of you. She is not the only one. But I have been asked about grades and have been thinking a lot about what I am going to say. And here I have an example of what I hope will happen to every student in this class. I am quite pleased that a real learning community is emerging in EDM310. Make sure you are a part of it! Many of you are!
Thanks, Jackie and all of the rest of you who are moving rapidly ahead!