Lahar Playlist!

In this episode, Mrs. Ferguson pronounces Eyjafjallajokull!

Google for Educators

The tools from Google Educators that I would be most interested in using in my classroom would be lead by Google Earth. It would provide my classroom with the opportunity of seeing large scale geologic features that they would otherwise not have the opportunity to see. I don't see being able to take my students on a field trip to the West-African Rift, but I can take them there through google earth.

Another tool Google Educators offers that I would be interested in using is the Book Search. All text books are expensive. In some classes, you can get away with sharing a book, and in some it is more difficult. If I were able to find study materials on the Book Search, I would be able to offer almost all my students a free way to get their information.

The last tool that I would be most interested in using is Google Groups. With it I would be able to post discussion points online that my students could respond to. I see using it kind of like blackboard, where there is syllabus and assignment information, but there is also a place for collaboration and discussion.

This is my first semester using Google Docs and I am amazed that I have never used it before. A huge advantage of using Google Docs with students is that you can all work on something together at the same time. The students can all work on the same letter, for example, writing and changing what they want in real time with other students. They can also all work on the same assignment on their own time. If one student wasn't able to come to class, that student would be able to go in and see what his peers had done without him and add in his input. I think these are great tools for teachers, and I look forward to using them all.

Jigsaw Method

If I had a classroom that was limited to five computers and was trying to engage the students in a Jigsaw project, I would have to use a little trial and error at first. I think that what would work would somewhat depend on the students themselves. I think that I would start by setting up a timer. Within the groups are "specialists" in their sections of study, and I would try to make it so that each computer could be used by one specialty. Where trial and error would come in, is finding out whether the students preferred to try to share the research within their specialty or work on an individual basis with a timer. The only time I have had personal experience with this type of thing was my first year of college and it did not go well, so I would be interested in seeing how utilizing limited technologies would work out.

The first advantage that I can think of for the Jigsaw Method, is that you can cover more material in less time. If you had a limited time to engage your students in learning about a broad topic, this method would help them all to learn about the subject in a quick way without cutting down the material. Another advantage could be that the students would be simultaneously having a secondary learning experience. They would be learning to work together, as opposed to against each other. They would also learn to count on, and be counted on, for material. Each student would feel equally intelligent when they were able to present what they have learned, as if they were the teachers.

Disadvantages to the method might apply more to older students than younger. Accountability would be an issue in an older group, because if one person doesn't pull their own weight or do their part, then the whole group suffers. In a younger classroom, you can guide what they do, and when they do it, but in a higher grade classroom, you have to deal with students who will not work, as well as students who don't come to class altogether. Another disadvantage might be that, by allowing the students to do their own research and teaching, it could prove difficult to test the students in their knowledge, because they did not all get the same set of information.

Reflections of Assistive Technologies

One of the first things we see in the first AT video is a college aged girl in an electronic wheelchair. Her story, compared to the others, helped me to understand the everyday working life of a person with a disability. She needed her chair and a laptop in order to function alongside the community without disabilities. Without her chair, she wouldn't be able to move around, so that seems like common sense to have, but without her cellphone, laptop, or voice recognition software she would not be able to communicate or participate with her peers. She had a special computer in the classroom that had the voice recognition software she needed to use to write papers and do assignments. It was hard to see that if she hadn't been able to find the extra tools and funds for the tools, she wouldn't have the opportunities that I take for granted.

I had never seen assistive technologies used in a younger or elementary classroom. I had honestly never even thought about it. In the first video, as well as Josh's Story, there were examples of AT being used at a young age, both to overcome physical disabilities and social anxieties. In Josh's story, it was inspiring to see that a tool they initially used to help him communicate basic needs and "smaller" things in the classroom was eventually used to help him gain confidence and skills and be able to read, unassisted, with his teachers and classmates.

Other disabilities we saw addressed were both physical and cognitive. A student who had limited development in his muscles and hands was able to play music because of a piece of assistive technology hardware that pressed the buttons for him as he controlled a joystick. A young boy who could not speak or move used an apparatus that responded to movements in his eyebrows so he could control his own learning. Other students had different types of hardware that allowed them to indicate their choices instead of voicing them, to assist them along their educational paths.

In each of these situations, the student would not have been able to participate at the level they were, if at all, without the technologies they had access to. Without the support of their educators, they would be lost and left in the dust by their peers.

Past and Future Technologies!

I always find it interesting to hear or see the predictions of the past for technology we are using in the present. Seeing shows like Star Trek set up what they thought were impossibilities and science fiction, and then having those things come to fruition in current technologies is amazing. The three videos provided were campy and acted poorly, but they were a great look into what people thought their futures might be like. Some things, of course, were wrong, but others were surprisingly accurate.

The teacher in the videos had a clicker to move between screens and what was on them and three large video screens for different assignments and aspects of her lectures. Her students sat, with no desks, in big chairs, and one was in bed at home with an injury. While we, now, would probably not allow a student to participate in class from their bed because that seems like an invasion of personal space and feels inappropriate, other aspects of it hit home. I know of students who often travel or can’t physically be in the classroom and video conference via Skype in order to work on group projects. The students having no tools or desks seems unlikely to come about, to me, because not everyone thrives in a digital learning classroom, but things like the teacher’s tools didn’t seem odd to me at all. We have slideshows now, our teachers have remotes to move between windows on the computer. We don’t need three different ones, and they are much more complicated than the ones in the video, but these are technologies we are comfortable with and use often.

Even the search methods of the student at home are similar to what we use now. While mine may not be voice activated (though I am sure I could download a program that allowed me to do so) I can search through libraries around the world to find what I need, just like the student in the video. I can work with classmates over a videoconference, and (via email or something like google docs) I can send them my work so that they can integrate it with their own.

I think that technology, especially for education, can only grow. I feel like it will depend on the economic situations of the country and will require stability in them, but I can see cellphones being used more as a tool. There’s very little chance of stopping students from carrying their phones, so why not use them to teach and communicate with them. Maybe alerts sent to them via text that remind them of large assignment due dates. I think, also, there will be a continued increase in the use of online programs to compose and turn in assignments. Schools might be able to save money by using Google Docs as opposed to buying all of their computers copies of Microsoft word.

About Me!

Hello, EdTech! My name is Amanda Ferguson, and I am an aspiring Geoscience Education major. I love rocks. I think that science is interesting and I have always wanted to work in it. School has, also, always been something that interested me; I feel comfortable and confident in schools.

As I said before, my teaching focus is in the geosciences. For those who are unfamiliar with geoscience, it is the study of earth and its physical properties and processes. If you remember learning about the tectonic plates, or making a model volcano in grade school, then you remember a little bit about the geosciences. I want to teach so I can inspire my students to apply their scientific learning to their every day life. When I was growing up, I loved the Bill Nye the Science Guy television show, and that translated into my interest in science classes in middle school. Then in high school, disaster struck. I had not one, but TWO absolutely terrible science teachers. They were boring, uninspired, and seemed to hate their jobs, which made their students start to associate their bad attitude with science. I want to teach high school science because I never want that to happen to someone else. I want my enthusiasm for the topic to be contagious.

I grew up in Western Oregon (McMinnville, to be unnecessarily specific) where I worked in record stores and furniture stores until I went to college in 2005. I attended one year at University of Idaho in Moscow, but I didn’t last there for reasons that really only have to do with my lack of motivation. I worked some crappy jobs up there at a camera store and a grocery store until I moved, with my husband, to Boise. For a year and a half, I worked another low-paying, uninspiring job, and decided that was enough. I started back up here at BSU, where I re-discovered my love of science and education. Now I’m here: working my way to who and what I want to be.