Research

            In the article, "Synchronous and Asynchronous Text-Based CMC in Educational Contexts: A Review of Recent Research", Johnson (2006) mainly illustrates how interaction between students and teacher to higher education has an impact on course satisfaction in all instructional contexts, both traditional and distance education. She discusses that the classes in higher education classes divide into two kinds: Synchronous and Asynchronous. Asynchronous based education has some limitations like “lack of immediate feedback, feeling a sense of isolation”, she (2006) says “… asynchronous online discussion was reportedly useful for “encouraging in-depth, more thoughtful discussion; communicating with temporally diverse students; holding ongoing discussions where archiving is required; and allowing all students to respond to a topic” (pg.1). As for instructional applications of synchronous technology, she indicates how it is useful in audio conferencing, video-conferencing, and white boards. As known, they are gradually significant modules of online learning.  To give details she (2006) alleges synchronous chat was reportedly useful for “holding virtual office hours, team decision-making, brainstorming, community building, and dealing with technical issues”. (pg.2) I have experienced its usefulness in Web Expression 4 class and this class. During Web Expression 4 Class, a class creating a website related to an educational purpose, I faced different kinds of technical issues. Professor Lambert and I set a time to meet on Skype to solve the problems. She used the software named team viewer to see the problems and solve the problems. We discussed about the issues synchronously. This helped and encouraged me a lot. In this class, we met on Skype for our group project related to mapping and mash ups. These meetings were really helpful and encouraging for assigning the duties each of us would be responsible and understand what we will do as a team. 

            Furthermore, author (2006) states “Individuals who used both synchronous and asynchronous forms of online discussion were the most likely to complete required course activities” (pg. 3) I agree with her idea because both of forms have a different usefulness for teachers in terms of having diverse students.

            In the article, “Using Synchronous Communication to Facilitate Graduate Students’ Online Collaboration”, the authors named Nancy J. Maushak and Chaohua Ou (2008) depict how synchronous communication has an impact on graduate students in terms of their online collaboration and perceptions of instant messages. The authors say that because online courses do not provide physically present both instructors and students, they should provide a good communication between them through real-time or delayed time. The authors mostly compare the differences between real-time or delayed time instructions. Even though delayed time (asynchronous) communication form has some advantageous over real time (synchronous) communication like allowing participants to discuss in anytime and anywhere, the article mainly focus on benefits of synchronous communication.

            To give more details, authors mention where educators should use synchronous communication of instruction. One of them is for students’ group projects to collaborate them. According to the surveys mentioned in the article, real time communication has a significant effect on team based projects in positive side. 

            Besides this comparing and benefits of synchronous communication, authors also give some tips to instructors using synchronous communication in their instruction like keeping the group size small and assigning a group leader. At the end of article, authors mention about some surveys compared these two different forms of communication. They (2008) state about these surveys that “They suggested both discussion modes should be used in distance learning but for different purposes.” (pg. 2) Therefore, this article highlights the almost same thing just like first article: Educators should use both of communication forms in their instruction because both of them have characteristic benefits for different purposes of learning.

            Personally, I have experienced all examples that are mentioned in two articles during taking classes during all master period and first two semester of my doctoral study. I believe if instructors apply both synchronous and asynchronous communication in instructions based on the purposes of the instruction properly, the instruction would be enriched more than ever.

For instance, instruction might use delayed time communication for text-based assignments which is required lots of time to complete, while they might use real time communication for group projects and helping learners for the issues they faced.

            As for the last article named, “Adult Learner Participation in an Online Degree Program: A program-level study of voluntary computer-mediated communication”,  it is mostly examined which factors impact participation levels in the voluntary CMC setting mentioned in the article.  CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) is one of the components used in distance learning environments. According to the results of the examinations, these factors are previous online course experience, course, and instructor.  Thompson and Savenye (2007) also mention about synchronous and asynchronous communication to decide which one is better in online learning. They say it depends on the learners as answer. They allege that synchronous communication is the fittest form for particular learners, while asynchronous communication is the best for other learners. Lastly, at the end of the article it is mentioned that there are some surveys to find a relationship between participation level and subsequent performance. However, a clear relationship is not found between them. Authors suggest more work to clarify the effect of participation level in online discussions on subsequent learner performance.

            To give more details, at the end of the article, Thompson and Savenye (2007) state that:

            “…our results indicate that prior experience with courses in

            the online environment does indeed impact the level of participation in CMC. The

            finding that the level of participation increased as students gained experience with the

            course environment suggests that there may be a learning curve involved in CMC

            discussion and that participation may increase as students become more expert in the

            CMC environment.” (pg. 10)

            What I understand form this result is that learners should be taught in their first online courses properly because of prior experiences are crucial in their participation in online environments later. The first thing about this issue coming to my mind is that how students could be taught in their first experiences of online environment before they reach to higher education level. Which factor does play the biggest role in integration of technology in classroom properly in primary, middle and high school? Training of teachers? Money? Limited time of teachers? Or something else?

            Firstly, I would like to mention about a common challenge: Money. Many districts do not have funding to purchase adequate equipment for certain types of telecommunications. Efforts to engage students in activities are limited by the lack of available technology and the funds to obtain them. I then went back to one of the teachers to get her opinion on BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). This could be one way to accomplish their telecommunication goals.

            A second challenge is finding time for teachers to look critically at their teaching practices to determine their teaching philosophy and style, including methods, in order to implement technology that will support their efforts, not replace them or interfere with them. Schools (administration and teachers) have to be willing to invest the time to needed to understand their curricular goals and then integrate the technology to accomplish those goals.

            For the third challenge, I would like to share my experience. In my experience I have noticed that a huge barrier preventing advancement of technology in education is first lack of teachers' time to learn how to use the equipment and lack of adequate training to make teachers feel empowered to jump in and use the equipment. The reasons we don't have adequate training seems to be a combination of not enough money to provide dedicated paid inservices where all teachers are required to attend, and perhaps an administrative lack of understanding of the importance of including this training in the budget at the point when the technology is purchased.   

Theory

Even though I believe Social-constructivist theory should be used as a part of using the internet in the classroom especially for group project where interaction and discussion are needed to facilitate learning, my personal preference is cognitive theory.

            As known, cognitivist theory takes place in the knowledge of the classes. According to this theory, the amount of information should not be overwhelming. Therefore, if instructors think the amount of the class’ information to be able to do the assignment is too much, they might turn it to a simply practice.

To give an example in applying cognitive theory to instruction that incorporates Internet-based applications, instructions could design a class making students to watch a video to think about what they will learn and how to use this information in their last project/ assignment before each class. In this class, weekly practice based on these videos and a required text-book could be included. After all weeks, learners can have a project/assignment that is clearly aligned to the class’ educational purposes. During these practices, there might be a little part of social/constructive learning through online discussions between group members because instructions could need to make learners paired in some weeks’ assignment.

According to cognitive theory, the more deeply the information is processed, the more it will be committed to memory. Therefore, I believe there are many course works in need to be changed or modified.  In cognitive theory the idea about recalling the information is important. There is a principle about recalling information we learned before. If we cannot move information to long term memory, we are not able to keep it in our memory after 20-30 seconds. Some students need to hear or see just 2 times to hold information, whereas others need to hear 20 times to hold it, to replace it to long term memory. I experienced that while memorizing the English words 3 years ago. Repeating is not enough. Only repeating information in a particular time period is also crucial in memorizing something. During my English learning process 3 years ago, I bought a book in my language named Mega Memory. This book, its website and online practices taught me 300 new English words and their synonyms. Therefore, I have memorized totally 600 new English words. I never forget them now, even if I would like to forget them. This book, the website, and online practices are prepared by using the learning, memorizing and recalling theories of the information. There were flash cards and a story for each of word on this website. Moreover there were 2 different music CDs and the websites to visit for while memorizing and for while practicing. There were 20 words for each day. In each day I had to memorize 20 words in first 10 minutes. Right after 10 minutes, there were some practices like playing some online games about these 20 words on this website. In other days, before memorizing the new words, I had to the practice the all words I memorized until this day in practice part of this book. At the end of 15^th day, the book and the other online sources provides 300 new words and their synonyms memorized by you. After 15 days, that is 1 month later of the first day. I had to do first general practice of all words with flash cards which are on the website. Until being sure about I know every word’s meaning and their stories, I had to do this first general practice again and again. After 5 months, which is the 6 months later of first day, I had to do second general practice with an online cross puzzle. I had to solve 1 puzzle each of day that includes just 20 words as answers. After completing this online puzzle 15 days later, there was nothing to do to avoid forgetting them. I still remember all of them. I cannot forget them, even if I would like to forget them because I have learned these words with some stories about these words’ pronunciation which means different things in my native language. And these stories are meaningful for me and they present strong emotions to me.

In summary, time is really important in learning. I experienced this exactly in memorizing of the words as I mentioned above. So we need to aware of this reality in our teaching processes. 10 minutes, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, and 6 months are really crucial points especially in recalling some information. I am precisely sure about this reality should be used in foreign language classes as a teaching method in memorizing foreign words, especially in the classes used cognitivist theory. As for other classes, it can be used that this scientific reality repeating some key points about all domain each year of the specific dates like after 1 week or after 6 months for the same students through some internet-based sources. This could also be efficient for transferring their knowledge from one set of concepts to another, one school subject to another, one year of school to another, and across school and every day, non-school activities

 

 

 

Social Media

1. What group did you join in diigo and why?

I joined a group named Google in Education in Diigo. I believe Google applications have a strong potential application in formal learning environments. If I talk about especially Google+, using Google+ initiates the classroom integration in a way that provides communication, project management, and full collaboration. To use its communication feature, teachers can publish test and due dates, clarify learning targets, review complicated topics, and offer extension activities for Gifted Learners. Thanks to “Google+’s project management quality, educators can distribute rubrics, clarify due dates, share critical handouts or disseminate multimedia content. As for its last educational feature, it is full collaboration. By using Google+, learners can collaboratively brainstorm a problem. With using it groups can compete against one another in a way that saying “circles” in a public forum.

 I think I can get lots of ideas from this group about why and how teachers should use Google applications in their teaching processes. I can find the using ways of Google+, Google docs, and other Google applications in education from this group.  Moreover, I can keep following innovative ways of using Google apps thanks to joining this group in order to keep myself updated. That’s why I joined it.

2. What is the appeal for the young and old to network in online places like the ones you examined this week?

Personal web was a little different before than today. As described in 2009 Horizon report, “… part of a trend that began with simple innovations like personalized start pages, RSS aggregation, and customizable widgets, the personal web…” Today it is more than this. Personal web can be organized and built according to an indivual’s personal needs and interests.

Using social media makes all learners and educators’ needs in updating software and finding technological support less than before. Therefore, people being willing to teach or learn do not have to waste time and money so much. This opportunity is also important to access the older educators or learners who do not have enough knowledge about using computer technology like updating some software or setting some devices on their computer. People in older ages can be more motivated by using social media because it does not require an expertise on computer to use it. Moreover, if these people need some specific information for their computer’s problems, they can get them easily because people in social media help each other. Therefore, the people prefer to spend more time in these social media. 

3. If used in a classroom, how might networking websites positively and negatively affect teaching and learning?

Social media is an important educational tool in terms of teaching, researching and communicating because social software can be access thanks to the web. So the need of updating software on individuals’ computers and local services for new tools is decreased. Social media makes communications of professionals in education strong via especially blogs that have deep dialogs. There is an intense interest of students on social Medias. It should be used to keep students’ attention on the contents of education as an attractive tool by educators. As for personal learning environments, I can say that they offer all learners a unique learning style based on people’s preferences. In the 2011 Horizon report, authors states that “PLESs serve a dual purpose: They enable students to determine the style and pace at which they learn while exposing them to technology that they may not otherwise encounter in traditional classroom.” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, pg.30, para.2) Therefore, using them in a classroom affects teaching and learning positively in order to meet all students’ unique needs.

Social media is also a way that allows to access information easily to realize independent researches to students. Because students have a keen understanding in creating a website or creating a video to share on social media like youtube, this situation includes a chance making a link between students’ creative enjoyable social activities and educational activities to educators.

As for negative effects of using networking websites in a classroom, if students did not trained and guided about netiquette, using these sites would not be a good idea in classroom. Moreover, there should be an age restriction to use some of networking websites. For instance, there is an age restriction to use Google+. Students should be at least 13 years old to use it. Except those, because social media is created via some software based on internet instead of based on desktop management processes; this situation causes unpredictable problems that students and educators face.

4. In what kind of site might you tend to spend most of your time networking and for what purpose?

There are different kinds of social media tools. They are blogs, synchronous communication tools, status broadcasting, image, audio, and video sharing, document and file sharing, wikis and social games. I am using instant messenger (MSN) to talk with my family. I spend some time for blogging in blogster.com so as to share my experiences. There is a website named TappedIn.com, even if I do not know if it is a social network. I rarely use it to get idea from other teachers by meeting at a particular date and time. However, I can say that I spend most of my time on youtube because there is a huge visual resource in order to find an answer to a question, to just get an idea about an issue, to find the things how they are created, to find tutorials for learning any kind of software, to share my works and to get a feedback from other people, and so on. However, I mostly use facebook. I log in at least every day to share some pictures/videos or an experience with my friends.

5. In what ways will this benefit you and what do you think might be the drawbacks?

Actually, being on facebook keeps me updated about what is going on in the world and among my friends. I believe if it is used for reaching experts or experienced people in any subject while searching something, we can get lots of benefits. It can be also used to communicate with other educators to share our experience in classroom. Our students can be connected with students living all around the world, while doing an assignment which required some interviews of getting different views form other peoples. However, if I use it a lot, I began to feel lazy about everything because I can waste my time, if I focus on some entertainment elements there. The other bad thing in using it, it is dangerous if you share your all information there for robbery or any other illegal attempt from other people.

Youtube also very important to me, even though if it is in the category of a personal web. Using youtube to learn anything has an obvious benefit because it is a visual resource. I am a visual learner so it helps me a lot in learning. As for its drawbacks, we can feel to be threatened by other people after sharing a video which is created by ourselves, if they comment on our video in a way hurting us. As for another its drawbacks, we should not trust in the comments for any video because the comments sometimes do not reflect the reality.

 

References

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from

http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357920/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf 

 

Gaming

"What do I think about gaming in the classroom?"

As we see games everywhere, they are in classroom, too. I believe these games meet standards-based academic content and 21st century thinking skills at the same time. These games create an efficient and fun environment for learning experiments.  Moreover, they provide students communication, collaboration, problem solving, and even thinking in a different way. Maybe, the most important feature of game-based learning is supporting experiential learning. Plan formulation and strategic thinking are also other good qualities of some of games.

Describing at least 3 of the gaming/simulation/VR sites you explored

Math millionaire (Game) http://www.gameclassroom.com/

It looks like the TV program named who wants to be a millionaire. The rules, and appearance of the screen are almost like the TV program. There are some math questions. After choosing a choice, it asks if  I am sure about my answer just like the TV show. I have the rights to wildcard that are 50% chance, phone calling, taking just 500, and asking audiences just like the TV show. By answering them correctly, gamers get money. If I chose the wrong answer, it says “Sorry! That was the wrong answer” Then, I get the check as much as I earned, and leave. There high level of this game, too. There are also logic games and word problems in this website. They are like an essay quiz in math class. For instance, one of the questions was “Terry solved 5 puzzles. Naomi solved more 78 than Terry. Then, how many puzzles did Naomi solve”? They vary levels.

Planet Dinasour (Simulation) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b014m55k/features/planet-dinosaur-game

There was science fictional back ground music in this simulation. It was a little bit scaring for me. With this simulation, people can grow their own dinosaur and watch it explore and flourish in its environment. People should make their own dinosaur collection roared by unlocking dinosaurs, plants and objects for their environment. Before starting the simulation, navigation seem on the screen to introduce what the symbols mean in the simulation. Then, there was a tutorial. To start the game, dropping dinosaur into the world should be done. When I did it, I got a feedback saying “Excellent” with a new duty’s instructions. Then, I fed it by a fish. By feeding it, it grew. After that, I got another feedback saying “Well done!” with an another new duty. With these achievements I would unlock new things throughout Planet Dinosaur like growing new dinosaurs. However, some kinds of dinosaurs took more time than others. I also had to choose a habitat which includes sufficient foods depending on the dinosaurs’ kinds. I got a feedback saying “Your dinosaur doesn’t like this place. Therefore, I needed to find another habitat that which is fit to the kind of my new dinosaur.

 

Virtual Cell (VR) http://vcell.ndsu.nodak.edu/animations/

With this website, learners get a first look, advanced look, and flash movies about cells’ activities depending on their levels. These activities are ATP synthase, protein trafficking, electron transportation chain, protein recycling, insulin signaling, mitosis, regulated secretion, and something like that.  First look base on 3d pictures. Advanced look includes more expanded of first look with detailed information. As for flash movies, they are really cool. They give a general information about the topic first. Then, announcer explains the each elements of the biological action through showing a moving 3D picture of them. I watched the photo-synthesis flash move. It was really cool. I watched the each steps of photo-synthesis. I saw the all elements running in this biological action in moving 3D pictures like ATP transferring in a photo-synthesis. Instead of imagining how these biological actions occurs, these flash movies give us a really helpful understanding

Explaining the benefits that sites such as the ones I explored offer in educational environments

The game named math millionaire is a really good game to allow students to demonstrate themselves about what they leant until now. Authors from the In 2011 Horizon Report K-12 says “The students then take interactive quizzes to demonstrate then knowledge they have gained” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, pg. 20, para. 5) I would like to talk about other perspective of the game named math millionaire. It is really proper not only make learners to play it but also make them to design the game. In 2011 Horizon Report K-12, authors states that “One way to engage students with educational gaming is to give them a hand in designing games….The idea behind the challenge was that it would be build both critical-thinking and creative design skills.” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, pg. 18, para. 5). This game gives instant feedback by giving a chance to earn money and facing a failure. They are important because these provide experiment to learners. From 2011 Horizon Report K-12, writers state that “Proponents also underscore the productive role of play, which allows for experimentation, the exploration of identities, and even failure.” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, pg 18, para. 3)

Even though Simulations are used in Hollywood and surgeries, it is also very good educational material. In the simulation named Planet dinosaur, it was not a gesture-based simulation but it teaches the learners how to grow/evolve of dinosaurs. In the 2011 Horizon Report, authors alleges “Continued experimentation in the development of AR simulations, games, texts, and situated information bode well for the expansion of AR in higher education learning in the coming year.( Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood, 2011, pg. 18, para 2). In the article named Virtual Reality/Simulations, Strangman and Hall state that” Computer simulations and virtual reality offer students the unique opportunity of experiencing and exploring a broad range of environments, objects, and phenomena within the walls of the classroom. Students can observe and manipulate normally inaccessible objects, variables, and processes in real-time.” (Strangman and Hall, 2009, para.5). As it is highlighted in the article, this simulation is a good educational source to help teach K-12 students about Lives of Dinosaurs because learners cannot observe a dinosaurs life in reality as known.

As for VRs, I would like to mention about Virtual Cells as I explored it. VR may be used in terms of enhancing, motivating and simulating students; understanding of certain events, especially those for which the traditional notion of instructional learning have proven inappropriate or difficult. In the article named Virtual Reality/Simulations, Strangman and Hall  state that “Virtual reality is a technology that allows students to explore and manipulate computer-generated, 3-dimensional, multimedia environments in real time.” (Strangman and Hall, 2009, para.3) Therefore, I think Virtual Reality technology in education opens a door to learners to teach them topics in a style of interaction in order to develop understanding more proper mental models of complex systems and processes. I explored the photo-synthesis with 3D pictures and flash videos from the VR named Virtual Cells. Biology is one of those difficult topics that traditional notion of instructional learning have proven inappropriate.  It involves enriched teaching materials like VR because they are mostly about micro things and processes we cannot watch or afford in daily life. This technology is already used in training and simulation. I believe it will also make a difference to education as we know it during the next decade. 

References

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from

http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357920/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf 

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 horizon report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from  http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357936/2011-Horizon-Report%282%29.pdf

Strangman, N. and Hall, T. (2009). Virtual reality/simulations. Retrieved from

http://aim.cast.org/learn/historyarchive/backgroundpapers/virtual_simulations

 

 

Open Content and Ethics

Emerging technologies have a big effect on teaching and learning environments. These technologies have created their own materials that can be used in education: Open content, Creative Commons, and eBooks. First, let’s talk about their relevance to teaching and learning.

Web-based technologies provide opportunities teachers and students a high quality teaching-learning environment. These technologies are more than a tool. They provide students to create different things, meet other people, explore the world, compose things, express themselves, be a part of online content, find different way to reach knowledge/ literacy and use different free online applications created by people.

Creative Commons is one of these materials. In the video form our class’s PB work page, it is defined as “Creative Commons is design to save the world for failed sharing.” It offers us sharing our creative works with other people’s in control as much as using other people’s works. In the same video, speakers state:

Creative commons give us to ask these questions to other people: Can I reproduce it, can I copy it, can I put it in my textbook, can I use that photo? Creative common gives tools to creators to make a choice about copyright. I take your staff. Do I have to offer to next person in the same terms?

 It creates a culture to share with the all people in the world by preserving identity of the things shared with others. Everything might be mash up with other things there like flickers photo people shared. To give another example, artists make music together thanks to creative commons. It is actually an access to shared things in control. If there is not creative commons, creative works/ things might be stolen easily. It is really important to keep those from cheating. It gives us a chance to use these works legally through its unique tools. The author states from creativecommons.org “The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.” (“None to Claim Their Bones,” 2013).

Electronic books are also a rising interest on especially campuses.  They provide students read required books and even take notes in digital environment thanks to modern electronic readers. (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.9, para.2). Today’s textbooks paper based are not enough for today’s students’ ability and talents. These paper based textbooks cannot belong 21st Century. In the report, it is talked about e-books are not just a text or just devices access with.  They include different things. The authors (2011) alleges that:

What makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology is the new kinds of reading experiences that they make possible. Publishers are beginning to explore richly visual interfaces that include multimedia and collaborative elements. (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.8, para.3).

Some e-books also include featuring quizzes, note-taking, study cards and other features. They are really worthy to be used for every subject and grade level. I would like to just say that they are amazing to increase students' engagements because they provide gorgeous full screen books, interactive animations, diagrams, photos, videos, fast, fluid navigation, highlighting and note-taking, searching and definitions, lesson reviews and study cards.

As for open content, I can say it is a respond to existing expensive published resources. They have also lots of other functions in teaching and learning. One of them is providing different types of information like experience about it. Authors (2011) from 2011 Horizon Report say “Information is everywhere; the challenge is to make effective use of it. Open content embraces not only the sharing of information, but the sharing of instructional practice and experiences as well.” (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, and Haywood, 2011, p.22, para.1). This report also highlights open content as an affordable solution to textbook. Thanks to them, different forms of information can be collected and shared among not only students but also educators. Except these benefits, it is also updateable easily compared with published resources. In summary, they are an answer for many lacks of education system.

Despite of these benefits of those technologies, there are some challenges facing schools in using these materials. The writers in the 2009 Horizon Report say:

In many grade schools, on the other hand, integrating these kinds of technologies into teaching and learning has proven difficult because of barriers such as policy constraints on using online tools, the fact that many students do not bring laptops to school and policies that restrict internet access in many schools. (Levine, Smith, and Smythe, 2009, p. 6, para.2).

For example, students can read eBooks through their computer, smartphone, tablet or eReader device.  However, using eBooks in education is not affordable because all of textbooks are not free. Moreover, if they do not have these devices, how can they be included to education system?

I believe that these technologies will change the way of education in all context because these technologies use will cause a big shift in how we teach the content to students. For example, one day all classes will have an online content, web-based learning management system and online/e-book required text-book. Some of them might be just online classes. Because online classes materials should be very high quality, educators do/will need to use open content, creative commons and eBooks to reach different types of information.

 

References

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2001 K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from

http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357920/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf 

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K. (2011). The 2011 horizon report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from  http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357936/2011-Horizon-Report%282%29.pdf

Levine, A., Smith, R., and Smythe, T. (2009). The 2009 horizon report: K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from 

http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2009-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf

None to claim their bones: About the Licenses. (2013, February). Retrieved from     http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

 

In the Clouds

3 cloud computing sites

Socrative ( Student / Audience Response System )

This cloud can be used to engage students more. It empowers teachers in the classroom. It is generally a smart student response system. This cloud is called Socrative. It includes a series of educational games and exercises via smartphones an tablets. While students are trying to answer the questions, educator manage the questions and games on students’ laptops.  

ThinkBinder (Online Study Groups) 

This cloud is very good in need of online study group for a class. It empowers educators to realize a beneficial and efficient group study in the classroom. Students can share files, post ideas, collaborate and chat with video thanks to this cloud. It can be used for teachers, too.

English Centeral (Watch. Learn. Speak. Atruly unique way to learn English)

It is very well-designed and well-developed cloud to learn English as a second language because this cloud includes speech recognition system. It records your voice. Moreover, it provides instant feedback about your pronunciation like Rosetta. Except, these features, it has popular videos that are used for the examples pronunciation and the dialogue. It is great to be used by ESL teachers.

 

Diigo

I chose lots of groups related to educational technology to follow. Diigo includes lots of groups that includes not only cool tools on the web, but also useful resources in education and technology. Some of my groups I chose to follow are following:

Sites_for_education

Classroom 2.0

EdTech

Education Technology

LearningwithComputers

Technology Integration in Education

Web2.0 at school

 

I strongly advise all educators the groups to add their group list.

 

Some of my bookmarks I added are following:

44 Smart Ways to Use Smartphones in Class

Top News - Schools use software, warnings to stop illegal file-swapping

More than 7 Million users Work Online with Zoho

Best content in Presentation Tools

edSocialMedia

Use Your iPad as a Document Camera - Instructional Tech Talk

5 Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom

Free Technology for Teachers: How to Manage 3rd Party Apps Accessing Your Google Account

cooltoolsforschools

The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You

The Complete Guide To Twitter Hashtags In Education

 

 

What I've Learned in This Week's Investigations

Cloud computing has lots of benefits in education system. According to Horizon Report 2011, “One of the biggest attractions of cloud computing is that it is saving schools money and resources.” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.12). To give another example of its benefit, it is said in the report, “…for example, YouTube and Google docs began making entrances in schools and fell into a widely accepted pattern of mainstream use. K-12 institutions were motivated by easy to enable students and faculty to share ideas and assignments online” (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.12 )Actually, I think cloud computing includes benefits of all technology-based tools in the classroom. In the same report it is alleged that “The reason cloud computing is so relevant in the near-term horizon is that it has opened doors for more flexibility, more space, more collaboration, and ultimately, more creative uses of Internet resources for educators to incorporate in their classrooms (Johnson, Adams, and Haywood, 2011, p.12). Therefore, I believe cloud computing has a potential to replace many other web-based technological tools in the classroom in the near future. There is even a possibility that sophisticated personal cloud will be used as operating systems in the future, too.

Tag is just a process of naming information/data through some related short words. As for tag clouds, they are very useful things to figure out what the cloud is about.  In the article named Tag Clouds Gallery: Examples and Good Practices, Friedman says “… they can provide visitors with an instant illustration of the main topics, giving a very specific and precise orientation of the site’s content” (Friedman, 2007, para.1). Except that, it can be used as a navigation system, too. They are really efficient way to reach the information in clouds while teaching/learning. 

Social bookmarking is . In the video which is about diigo in vimeo.com , from the link http://vimeo.com/12687333 , one of the  Educational Social Networking is explained, that named Diigo. In this video, we can see some  efficient ways to use it in education. Educators/students can collect and highlight sources and information, then remember them easily thanks to this Educational Social Networking. It provides to collect your all sources from bookmarks, docs, notes, sticky notes, and images altogether. Then, you can bring them together in “your library” in Diigo server. You can use digital highlight and interactive sticky notes with it. You can do that just by clicking your Diigo tools in your tool bar in your browser with your desktop computer, iPad,  laptop, and android. You can get a snapshot and move this to your library in Diigo. These kinds of social bookmarking are really useful to not be lost in your resources you collect. It provides all students and teachers to collect and organize their things in a systematic way. It is easily accessible and sharable anywhere, too. Wow!

 

References

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K. (2011). The NMC horizon report: 2011 K12 edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from

http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/49357920/2011-Horizon-Report-K12.pdf 

Friedman, V., (2007). Tag clouds gallery: examples and good practices. Retrieved from 

            http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/07/tag-clouds-gallery-examples-and-good-practices/