This has been a week in which I have been able to reflect upon what I have learned and accomplished during EDU 651. Through the writing of my final assignment, I was able to refocus on how the tools that we have been looking at can be effectively used in the classroom. Although I have had Delicious and Twitter accounts for some time now, this class prompted me to become more familiar and begin to use them again. We also used the discussion forum to debate Piaget's Theory of Education. It got me a little fired up to see him speak twenty-five years ago about issues in education that we are still struggling with today. Hopefully, aided by the use of new advances in technology, we will begin to teach our students to think and learn critically.

Week 5

This week has been very interesting. We have been studying the implications of using social networking sites in the classroom. I have to say that I fully believe that we need to be including more of them into schools, instead of further restricting their use. We have also been discussing whether technology has rewired our student's brains and created a generation that does not have appropriate social skills. I agree that the social skills of today's youth may have changed, but I believe that the shift is not bad it's just different. As adults, we may not be comfortable with the way teens and younger people communicate, but we cannot just assume that it is wrong and dismiss the new form it comes in.

Reflections of Week 4

I really enjoyed the reading that was required for week four. "Minds on Fire, Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0," was a very interesting article. Much of the content was common sense, but I had not given much thought to it. I particularly enjoyed reading the authors opinions on how the ways in which students learn has changed. I agree wholeheartedly with their assertion that many of our students today work much more effectively in subject specific group settings, and that the internet provides a great opportunity to create these groups. I also enjoyed the time that I spent contemplating the usefulness of social networking sites in education. While I can see that they have obvious benefits, particularly when it comes to student engagement, I do not see them immediately replacing tools such as Moodle or Blackboard.

To Facebook or not to Facebook

This week we looked into the possible uses of Facebook or other social networking sites in the classroom. We discussed the possible benefits that these sites could provide for our students, and specifically how they could be used. I was amazed to see how many educationally centered applications existed on Facebook, and it was fun to imagine ways that they could be implemented into the classroom. I even got to create my own idea for an application that would be useful for the student population that I work with. Unfortunately with the good often comes the bad. We discussed the possible problems that could arise with these tools, and even read an example of a teacher that was fired due to inappropriate comments she made on Facebook. Overall week three got me more excited at the possibilities than worried about the pitfalls.

EDU 651 Week 2 Summary

I have really enjoyed the opportunity to research the use of wikis and blogs in the classroom that was provided in week two of the class. While I understand the concepts of using blogs and wikis in the class, and have used them in the past for trainings that I have provided, I was not aware that there is an already developed train of thought to designing them. I believe that this can be used to my advantage when I begin to create them on a more regular basis. Reading the book "Using Wikis for Online Collaboration," has helped to clarify a lot of the proper techniques when using these tools, that I will incorporate into the wiki project due week four. My wiki can be accessed at http://starrmans.pbworks.com/w/page/43782738/FrontPage.

Although it occurred in last weeks readings, I gave quite a bit of thought when it came to the definition of a blogger. I really enjoyed learning the difference between someone that is just writing a journal of their thoughts and life, and a person that is a true blogger. I tried to keep this in mind while modifying my blogger website, by adding a lot of links to the blogs, wikis and websites that I visit often. In the future I will make an effort to synthesize many of the thoughts the the authors of these sites put forth that I believe will help drive the use of technology in education.