Student+Engagement+with+Technology

=Student Engagement with Technology= The assignment involves choosing two examples of instructional technology that has had a big impact on our class. Each example was described in a word document based evaluation sheet, and the favored technology was highlighted in a podcast. The podcast involved recording a prewritten script and adding a lead in and trailer of music. The assignment was recorded and mixed using Audacity, a free online audio recording program. The final product was exported as an .mp3 file.

Instructional Technology
Instructional technology is the use of tools beyond the normal classroom tools. At times this meant ballpoint pens and loose leaf paper. Today, it is assumed to mean computer based technology. The classes which have always been the best examples have been shop classes like wood and metal working, art classes, sewing and home economics classes. As it was excellently brought up in class, Instructional Technology is the combination of two distinct terms. The first and most important being instructional. If learning does not take place, the technology part is irrelevant. Technology should make things easier or more efficient to do. Few inventions last which cost more money and require a longer time commitment for an equal amount and quality of output.

The Best of Instructional Technology
The best of instructional technology must make information and learning more accessible to students without doing the work for them. The learning objectives must remain the same. In both English and social studies classes, the purpose of doing research is to explore topics not normally covered in depth during normal class activity. In the best of cases, students will find the small little known students which make both subjects interesting. The students start with broad topics and reduce them until they are more managable. The final report should completely cover the final topic. In the past, this expolration often meant parents trekking their kids to remote libraries in the hope of finding good soarces of information. This was time poorly spent in unsupervised pursuits for books which was often out of date. My first choiceare On-line Library Research Databases. Students can research their papers from any computer with internet access. For students having trouble, research can be supervised from almost anywhere. Students have access to well over 20,000 sources which are all appropriate for the level of papers written by high school students. What does not change with the new technology is the methodology of research.

"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door." Google has done this with Google Earth. The study of history and geagraphy have always been hampered with the inaccuracy of maps. Some of these are caused by less than accurate mapping techniques, and even more by trying to put a round map on a flat page. In one application, students have the most accurate globe ever created. It would take volumes of atlases to contain the information which is instantly available. Google Earth requires all of the map and globe reading skills, but in a much more contained package. The next step is to use the mapping technology and apply it to historical events and times. Create the world as they knew it in different times.

media type="file" key="Dwight McCleery Student Engagement.mp3" width="240" height="20"

Reflection
The two technologies I have discussed can and should be added directly to the curriculum because they are both improvements on the previous way of doing things. Time is saved in the classroom. Time is saved by students when they use these tools away from school. Another advantage both have is that they both save school resources. Google Earth is free, and the large databases have fees for schools to use, but there are space considerations. Both are updated automatically and continuously.

How will the technology improve the instruction? That should be the big questioned asked about all new technology. How will it benefit the classroom and how could it hinder the classroom. Both must be investigated because there are students who will spent 3 hours to figure a way to cheat in order to avoid a 20 minute assignment.

The inclusion of an audio recording is important in the wiki. The internet can do many things, but having a human touch is not one of its strengths. We create wiki pages for use in class, but I think it is just as important for use out of class. Short messages of instruction or encouragement are a way to warm up a site. I don't have much experience with podcasts, but some of the reading we did suggest that people have podcasts which last longer then an hour. I find this scary. the broadcast industry has spent billions of dollars researching the attention span people have with different mediums. There is a reason why songs on the radio are only 3-5 minutes. Commercials and informational segments rarely last more then a minute. We should consider this in our own projects.