Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Journal #6

Teaching with Educational Websites and Other Online Resources

 
 
Focus Question- How are information management technologies such as bookmarking, social bookmarking, and information alerts useful to teachers?
 
 
Educators have several responsibilities to uphold and organize. Teachers of earlier generations used file folders, notebooks, and other types of paper organizing systems to maintain order, but this type of system is inefficient because they become too large, depend on constant refiling of material used, new material must be continually copied and stored. Simply put, managing paper flow becomes hugely time consuming (teachers don't have much spare time). This is why new generation teachers are provided with information management technologies such as bookmarking, social bookmarking, and information alerts.
 
Bookmarking(Bookmarks)-  Offers teachers an easier way to locate information and organize it effectively using computers and the Web. Bookmarking refers to the capacity of computers through Web browsers to remember the website addresses that you visit most frequently. Bookmarks allow you to electronically catalog and access Web pages with just one simple command. With the help of Bookmarking, teachers are able to focus more time on teaching then searching. For teachers,  locating and bookmarking Web resources is just part of information management. The next step involves learning how to use Web Resources with students while teaching.
 
Social Bookmarking- Expands the concept of individual bookmarking from one user to a community of users on many computers. One individual's favorite "bookmark" sites become available on a public site where they can be accessed and added to by others interested in the same topics. By posting your bookmark on a social bookmarking site, you provide other users of that site with access to your resource. In return, you get access to all the resources that everyone else has posted on the site. The advantages for teachers are immense because you are becoming  apart of a community of users who are continually identifying their own structure of resources about key areas of school curriculum. Online tools such as Delicious, Backflip, and Connotea are useful social bookmarking tools for teachers.  Bookmarking services for teacher-student interactions are provided. Such as, Portaportal and Filamentality which allow teachers to bookmark a group of Web sites in a secure space for use by students.
 
Information Alerts- An electronic notice that new information about a topic has just become available in some electronic publication format. Information Alerts provide busy teachers with a convenient system of announcements about new information online.Google Alerts, a free service for Google accounts, is one type of information alert. For information alerts using Google, you enter a keyword and the Google search engine automatically sends you an email whenever there are new results for your term. Using Google Alerts saves a great amount of time for teachers. Rather than searching yourself, Google does the job for you, generating five types of alerts: news, Web, blog, group, and comprehensive. Another source of information alerts is called ProQuest, which offers search options (e-library), dealing with current issues in society (SIRS), and reports on different countries from a cultural and historical perspective (CultureGrams). The EdITLib Education Information Technology Library also provides email alerts for teachers interested in technology-related topics. This fee-based service will notify you whenever peer-reviewed papers and articles on topics you select are published in one of AACE's journals. RSS feeds are another way for teachers to access information they need for curriculum and instruction. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a term for Web content that is being frequently updated. To read RSS feed reader you will need a RSS feed reader or news aggregator.
 
 
Tech Tool Link: GoodReads
 
GoodReads is a interaction website that requires you to sign up free of cost in order to participate. This website offers several genres of books and allows you to see what is the "Top Ten" most read books are. I like that this website is interactive so you can see what books your friends have read and what they recommend. Choosing a good book can be difficult, and with the help of GoodReads finding a book I will like won't be nearly as difficult. I think this Web site is more for personal pleasure than educationally focused.  I do think students and teachers would find this Web site resourceful if they need to find a book online or are looking for an appropriate book.
 
 
 
Chapter Summary & Connection
 
 

Chapter 6 was by far the most resourceful to me personally.  I loved how it offered useful information about Bookmarking and Information Alerts. I will use this today as a college student and continue to use as a educator. Saving time on searching so I can focus  my energy on learning and teaching is a gift from the teaching gods!Being currently enrolled in online classes I was curious to learn more about WebQuests and virtual field trips. WebQuests are virtual journeys where students can visit a group of preselected websites in order to explore academic topics by accessing online digital text, pictures, audio, and video. While Virtual field trips allow teachers and students to visit places around the world as part of their academic studies!
 
References:
Maloy, Robert W. "Chapter 6/ Engaging Learners with Digital Tools." Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson, 2014. N. pag. Print.
 
 
 


1 comment:

  1. Good to hear your positive reactions about the 'treasures' of this chapter - there are many, aren't there? I hope you bookmarked many of them in your delicious account for future use! ;)

    GoodReads has become pretty popular and though it may not be seen a lot in the classroom, I know that many media centers make good use of it and you can have a virtual book club discussion with it which is great if you don't have another LMS that provides online discussion forums.

    ReplyDelete