Technology Philosophy

New technologies need to be used whenever it is appropriate.  Teachers need to be able to use new technologies in the classroom in order to keep up with the students in their classroom.  Lessons and learning opportunities need to be made informative and engaging for the students.  Students today are in a society of instant gratification in which attention can and does change with every breath.  Teachers need to be able to stay ahead of their students and be able to grab their attention with innovative and compelling lessons in which the student is both entertained and taught.

In short: Providing student with entertaining and informative lessons encourages higher student understanding.

Energy Awareness Project: Consumption of White Paper by the Average Juneau High School Student

Why is this important?  Paper products are the largest contributors into our landfill, they are a major factor in deforestation, and make up a large part of the budget in our schools.  Cutting down our use of white office paper will have a large impact on the size of our rubbish heap, the cost to our environment in trees cut down as well as fossil fuels burned to harvest the trees, and will also save our public school system a large amount of money.  

The Big Picture:  We are wasting millions of sheets of paper and far too many tax payer dollars on poor technologies.  By reducing the amount of paper consumed great impacts can be made in the consumption of paper and money spent.  

Specifically: When the quantity of paper consumed by the average high school student at JDHS is multiplied by the number of days in a school year then by the number of years at the high school, then multiplied to represent national trends the figures are astounding.  We could make great advances in environmental protection and save tax payer dollars.

Methodology:  I will follow the average high school student at JDHS through a typical week and count the sheets of paper that are being doled out in this week.  This figure will then be used to find the number of sheets consumed per week, per month, per year, per school, etc.  The number of sheets of paper and the monetary costs of this will be taken into account.  Alternatives such as font size, paper margins, front to back printing, and accepting digital work will be examined and presented in contrast to the current system.  For example looking at a typical document:

• 12 pt font
• 1.25" margin
• double spaced
• one sided
• 100 page document 
  

Then change to:

• 10 pt font, .75" margins
• single spaced
• double sided

This document then turns into a 15 page document...100 pages to 15 pages!  Can you imagine when this is multiplied by all high school students across the country today.

How to animate a rolling ball.

In this short clip fourth graders showed us how to animate a rolling ball.  On the surface this seems like a relatively easy task.  When I saw these kids demonstrate that they not only were able to create a computer generated animated clip of a rolling ball, but were also able to address the math computations needed to describe how a ball rolls along a plane.  The students first provided a prologue setting the stage with the physical description of the ball and where it would be they then went on describing the mathematical equations.  The student then went through the process of rolling the ball, they showed that they made a mistake in their animation as well.  The first time that they showed the ball moving it seemed to hover in space.  Then they went back and fixed their error.  

PROS:

• Encourages peer teaching.
• Multidisciplinary
• Demonstrates Grasping of Concepts

As for the teacher/student impact, I think that this sort of assignment has many advantages in a multidisciplinary approach as well as in a single subject.  This project demonstrated skills in math, science, english, and technology.  I understand that this project was used primarily in a math class.  This works as well if all of the students that are working on the project are knowledgeable in the content.  From my understanding the students are in groups for different concepts in math.  Each group designs this sort of project and the group then is responsible for helping their peers who are struggling in the area that they are now experts.  The video and peer teaching can be utilized to ensure total student success.  

EPIC 2015

Epic 2015 is a short movie about the future of Internet technology and connectivity.  The film starts with the history of the modern Internet age with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.  The film continues in telling the history of mergers, purchases, and updates with and between these companies and others like them as though the film was made after 2015.  It leaves us enjoying a bluebird day in the comfort of our home, listening to pod casts of our neighbors as they plan for a sunny day BBQ.  

A major impact for teachers and students will be the breadth and depth of which we and they are able to find information on past and current events.  No longer will teachers be able to remain stumped on questions, "just Google it."  In theory it could leave us with a news source that will have accomplished what thousands of years of human trials have not been able to accomplish...unbiased news media.  On the other hand human input and the monopoly effect on the reporting of the news may cause the opposite.  

My MAT Blog

This is my new blog for the UAS Masters in Teaching program 2008-09.  I have never blogged before and am looking forward to informing all of my viewers about my weekly happenings in the classroom and at the university.