Is Classroom Computer Applications Worth the Time and Money?

Photo from personal collection

Is Classroom Computer Applications (CCA) going to be worth your time and money? I think the answer to that is an overwhelming yes! I have had Dr. Z before last semester for an online class, which was a little tricky for me, but very worthwhile. Dr. Z definitely knows his stuff, and he is really easy going and fun to work with. He is very helpful if you don't understand something, and he doesn't usually like to move on until everyone is on the same page. This is something that I expect won't change for this class.

Technology is something that I've been learning a lot about from my minor classes, but it's still something I'm not totally comfortable with. I know how to do a lot of things... Or so I think anyways! I expect this class to give me more practice with the things I already do know how to do, as well as teach me new things. One thing that I hope we get to do is discuss opportunities for integrating technology into the classroom. So far, in each of my Ed Tech classes we have only talked about the WHAT of technology, but not the HOW or WHY. I mean, I have my opinion, but I would love to find out how Dr. Z would integrate the things he's teaching us into an elementary classroom, and why it is beneficial. 

I expect a lot of great things to come from this class. As far as my understanding it seems like a lot of time spent will be doing projects, which is the best way to learn. I expect Dr. Z to challenge us to think outside the box, and to push us to create some amazing things. I'm getting a minor in Educational Technology because I want to learn what technology I can integrate into my classroom, as well as how I can do it, and why it is important. I think this class is really going to help answer those questions. 

Flat Classroom Final Write-Up

Throughout the semester I participated as an expert advisor, and a judge for the Flat Classroom Project. I also had to create a Ning for the Flat Classroom Project, which allows further collaboration for the FCP.

Before becoming a part of the FCP, I watched Thomas Friedman's video about the world being flat. It fascinated me. What I found so interesting is how global our world has become. It's just amazing the things we can do now that we couldn't do before. I liked the part about steroids the most because it's so true. Virtual Communication is what is making globalization possible. It offers real time collaboration between anyone at anytime. As far as it preparing me for the FCP, it did not. I guess I didn't realize that the projects in the FCP would directly correlate with Friedman's work. I guess I was under the assumption that the students would be working on something completely unrelated having Friedman's flattners in mind.

The first thing I did was become an expert advisor for group 6, Outsourcing and Globalization. As far as I knew my job was to observe the students' work and critique the errors that I found in hopes that they would take my instruction into consideration. Unfortunately, they didn't. I guess I don't understand why they have expert advisors for this project because I felt like I was repeating myself each time I posted something in the discussion. I knew they were reading my comments, but the changes were never made. The types of things I kept suggesting were grammatical issues, verb tenses, and citing work. Hardly ever was the work cited. I just felt like I was kind of wasting my time because the students weren't taking what I had to say into consideration, so it got hard for me to get into it and check it regularly.

The next thing I did was become a judge for the FCP final videos. I understand that these are just high school students, but I did expect a little bit more from the videos. They were either really good and well executed, or they were evidence of last minute preparation. I found it hard to select even four videos I thought were good enough for judging. There were two that I really liked, and another two that were almost there, but lacked some effort. Overall, the judging experience was much much better than the advising experience because I finally got to see what they were working for. I enjoyed the judging part.

Thinking back on the FCP project I wish it were more organized. I felt like it was sort of all over the place in the fact that my group's wiki page had no structure. I felt like there wasn't a lot of collaboration going on, and each student involved was just putting new information anywhere on the page. I am still really confused about the purpose of the Ning, but at the same time I didn't try very hard to figure it out. It didn't seem like a very important part of the FCP. Collaboration through the wiki as an expert advisor would be the best way if the students would actually collaborate with us and taking our feedback into consideration.

If I were to be completely honest, I am a little disappointed in the FCP. Not because I don't think that it is a great thing because I do think it has a lot of potential. I'm disappointed because I didn't get anything out of it as an educator, and I don't feel like the high school students involved got much out of it either. Take a look at my group's page. You will see that there are a few things that are repeated, there are some grammatical errors, and some work isn't cited accurately. I'm not trying to say that the students involved didn't work hard because there is some really great work, for example section B, current news, included some fantastic images and research. Maybe I'm completely wrong, maybe the high school students had a great, meaningful experience. I sincerely hope they did. I guess I shouldn't assume they didn't, I don't know exactly how they get their research and collaborate with others. As for myself, I don't feel like I got the opportunity to benefit because the feedback I did give wasn't recognized. However, it was still an experience I am happy that I was a part of. It was worth it. It's neat to see what kinds of thing are possible in teaching today.

Like I said, I think the FCP has loads of potential. It will get there, and maybe my experience is much different than the other expert advisors. I am rooting for the FCP to keep improving. I think what they have started is going to have a ripple effect. Finally, teachers not only hear about the possibilities of globalizing education, but they can experience it. Overall, it was a nice experience and if I ever get the chance to do it again I will.

I chose to keep a written journal about the FCP. Whenever I would comment as an expert advisor I would jot down a few notes about what I observed, but even doing that became a struggle because I was only writing down the same things over and over again. It was a lot of voicing my frustration that the students weren't really listening to my advice. It's hard to take something seriously and really get into it when I felt like I wasn't really needed. So, if I were to be honest I don't have much of a journal to turn report to you. That doesn't mean that I didn't take it seriously, though. I hope that you are still able to see my efforts.

Second Life Tour

I recently created a tour using Second Life. I'll admit that it wasn't a very pleasant experience. It was really stressful trying to find ten places around a central theme. Originally I wanted to only do famous US landmarks, but could only find six. Instead of restarting I just added some other famous landmarks around the world. Here is where I traveled:

The Eiffel Tower
Rio de Janeiro
The Alamo
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Statue of Liberty
The Grand Canyon
Mount Rushmore
The St. Louis Arch
The Sistine Chapel
The Great Wall of China

Visit these locations and enjoy my Second Life Tour!

Raiding The SL Closet

I have experimented changing my appearance in SL before, and let me tell you - I hate it. It takes me about 3 times longer to get ready in SL than it does in real life. There are just so many things to choose from. Changing appearance in SL is a challenge for me because I can't seem to get it to look how I want it to. When I first started using SL I changed my facial and body features, which took FOREVER. In the end, though, I ended up pretty happy with the results. I tweaked most of my facial features like my nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. I also changed by hair color and gave myself some glasses. I didn't change my avatar's initial clothing because I really liked what he was already wearing.

Today I changed the outfit, hair, and exchanged the glasses for sunglasses. He looks ugly, but it was still getting me more used to knowing how to change the appearance of my avatar. As soon as I changed the appearance I went back to the original because I really like it. Just these simple changes took be forever. Yes, I was a little side tracked, but still changing appearances takes forever!!

The last thing I did was change my avatar completely. The original avatar had a ridiculous leather jacket on, so that had to go right away. The next thing I did was change the jeans to a darker color. I didn't change any of his facial features, but his clothes are quite different. Changing this new avatar's clothes didn't take as long, but it was still time consuming. Once I find an outfit and avatar that I really like I will stick with it!

Overall, once you get good at the navigation part about changing appearances it is quite easy and user friendly. One thing that I like is that you can play around with different combinations and then save an entire outfit. A word of caution, if you are perfectionist then editing your appearance can be quite overwhelming and stressful.

Taking Flight In Second Life

So, after my last post I have played around with second a little bit more. I found it to be a much better experience. My browser was working better and I finally learned how to get from one place to another. I also learned how to run and fly. I roamed around Iowa Island and found the UNI Campanile, an art gallery, and a covered bridge. After I saw the covered bridge I felt like I was in Iowa for sure.

The UNI Campanile

I am beginning to take a  liking to Second Life, even if it is a little bit frustrating at times. I always feel a little
weird while I am moving around in Second Life, but that is just because it's not familiar quite yet. I think the more I get to know the program the more at ease I will feel about using it. Like I said in my previous post I can see myself using this in my professional life, but I can't see myself using this for personal use. It just doesn't seem "fun" to me. Don't get me wrong, I think that it's an awesome concept. I just think that for me personally, it would be used as a meeting place for professional collaboration if anything. Overall, I am glad I'm getting used to (and learning) the basics of Second Life. I think that watching short video tutorials about how to take pictures, fly, run, and view is just what I need to learn it better.

Who Would You Be If You Had A Second Life?

Let me begin by saying that Second Life is stressful! The first time that I experimented with it I got extremely frustrated for three reasons:

1) My browser was sticking

2) I'm too much of a perfectionist

3) I wanted to be good at it right away

I spent almost an hour trying to get my outfit just right the first time I signed on to Second Life, which was a mistake. I was getting upset because I couldn't get myself to look how I wanted. On top of that my browser was STICKING!!! UGHH! The browser speed was what made me log off and not turn back to it until I absolutely had to. Lastly, I have a love/hate relationship with learning. I love learning new things, but not if they take me ages and ages to master. Second Life is going to take me ages and ages. It's a very complex program. I do think, though, if I do get the basics mastered that it could be really fun.

When Dr. Z gave us the opportunity to go sit with him while meeting in Second Life I knew I had to. I had to because I didn't understand it. I didn't really know how to teleport from place to place. My browser wasn't running very well, and I didn't get the overall purpose of Second Life. I must admit that after meeting in Second Life while physically being with someone who understood it, I kind of liked it. I wasn't getting frustrated anymore, and I was starting to look at it a little differently. The idea of holding a meeting with my classmates in a virtual world is kind of exciting. We met in Dr. Z's room, which had a table and if we wanted we could have all sat down and talked with each other. That is one of the coolest things I have ever heard of. A meeting without actually meeting. 

I could see myself using Second Life in the future to meet with other educators across the world for collaboration. Even though I'm not totally sure how to run it just yet I do believe that it is pretty user friendly. It's just one of those things that takes time to learn, but I think I am up for the challenge! Second Life offers a lot more than just being a game. It's a place for learning and collaboration to take place; it can either be used for personal use or professional use. While Second Life and I aren't totally on stable grounds quite yet I believe that one day it will happen. I still don't understand most of the basics, but at least I understand what Second Life is about, which is a step in the right direction. I would encourage everyone to try Second Life out. There's nothing lost in trying it. 

Flat Classroom Project

Over the last several weeks I have been an expert advisor for the Flat Classroom Project. This was the first time I had ever worked with the FCP, and I have to say it wasn't what I was expecting. I can't imagine the amount of work that went into the creation of something so great. Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis have really constructed something remarkable. If I didn't believe that the world was flat before working on this project, I do now.

It was so neat to see students from across the globe working together to compile information, create videos, and create a site rich with information. The wiki space that I was a part of was about globalization and outsourcing, which actually ended up teaching me a thing or two about the subject. Every time I gave feedback about fixing grammar or using correct citations I saw my suggestions being made. It's so neat to think that the entire project is all done by using the internet. Students gathered their information from the internet, their photos, videos, and they got their feedback from collaborating over the internet. The world truly is flat, and this project has made that more apparent than ever.

However, I don't see how this could disrupt class.... KIDDING. No longer are confined to our classroom walls. Think of the possibilities the FCP has given us!! Students are learning how to collaborate with other students and teachers from entirely different backgrounds than their own. Think of how well equipped this generation of students is going to be in terms of social and people skills! Not to mention their computer skills. Students today are living through the new age of education. Education is global. What a great thing, too!

I am so happy that I was able to be a part of the FCP. I have gained a new perspective as a pre-service teacher, and I plan to continue my learning on global education. It has been an exciting thing to be a part of, and it was a true eye-opener.