Computers in the Classroom

When I become a teacher, I can only hope that I will be able to have access to some great technology. I hope that I will be given computers to use in my classroom. My ideal classroom would have access to enough computers so that as a class I would be able to have two students at each computer. As a math teacher I want to incorporate having my students work together, and I think two is a perfect number for each computer. The students would both be able to use the computer to complete projects and work together to do so. I would also allow students to work on Math games that I find online for practice. I would only assign the computers to the students after I have explained everything and/or they are finished with their work, so that they are not distracted. A problem I might encounter is with having so many computers running at one time it could slow the internet down. This may be a hard issue to address, but one way is that if it was running slow I could combine groups, cutting down on the amount of computers that were trying to be connected to the internet. Another issue would be that there would be a lot of cords with so many computers being used. The way in which I would address this issue is make sure the computers are charged each day, therefore, we would not need the cords to plug in the computers.

Podcasts

I chose to listen to a podcast on Grammar Girl, discussing adverbs ending in –ily. I will most likely not use this specific podcast in my classroom because I will be teaching Math. However, I can see myself using podcasts in my classroom. I think this is a good way to back up what you are teaching, and give students another resource for learning. I can see myself using a Podcast when I think a particular subject or topic in Math is hard and the students are struggling. I will encourage my students listen to this Podcast at home to help them with homework and studying. It could also benefit students who were ill, and missed the class lecture; they could catch up on missing information using a Podcast. podcasts could also help those students who may take notes slowly or have a hard time keeping up. I also think it is a way to help a teacher, and have proof of what they are teaching. Also, especially in Math most of the concepts and what is taught is never really changed so these podcasts could be used each year without really having to change them. I think it may take some students a little bit to get use to listening to podcasts, but in the end they would really find them beneficial and helpful.

Online Security

I really enjoyed watching this video. I thought he did a very good job of relating all of the illegal online activities, into real life examples. An example was stealing music online, and how it is the same as going to Best Buy and stealing a CD. I think when students hear this then they can actually see how wrong it is. It also seemed as he made the audience feel comfortable with what he was talking about by keeping things light. I believe that all incoming freshmen at all universities should be required to view this lecture. It definitely gives rise to many issues that any college student could encounter that they may have never known about. I think informing the students before they engage in illegal internet activity could help eliminate some of these problems. I think one of the biggest pieces of advice I received from watching this is that nothing one posts is really private. I did not realize that pictures on one’s Facebook could be used against them in court. When I was in my undergrad in college we were required to be friends on Facebook with our coaches, which I think was one way for student athletes to keep from posting incriminating or bad photos. However, it is hard to control what others post of you, so I think this is something we all need to take into consideration.