Christina was lucky enough to have a positive experience with technology. Her positive experience allowed her to plan a vacation completely online. Back in the day, vacations were planned via travel agent or making phone calls. Whereas, now she was able to use the Internet to book her flight and make a reservation at a hotel. She was able to search the web for the most affordable resorts and all-inclusive packages. Another important aspect was that she was able to to research each resort by viewing their websites which included; picture, virtual tours and ratings.
Andrea shared her negative experience with technology that actually occur ed this past semester here at Towson. She was working on a group project to collaboratively teach a lesson to the class. the lesson consisted of going on a virtual field trip. Her and her group mates found a video that lead a tour through the Baltimore Zoo. When it was time to present this lesson the technology was not cooperating. She explained how difficult it was to be in front of the entire class and not have cooperating technology. This entire lesson was based about this source of technology which ended up to be completely unreliable. She was frustrated to be in a classroom atmosphere where her resources were limited. As a result, Andrea was very disappointed with her lesson outcome and would have wished for better circumstances, but she had to make do with what she had.
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ReplyDeleteFor the negative situation, having a back-up plan, such as someone else's laptop, handy in case the machines in class decided to stop working would have been a good idea and would have saved Andrea a lot of anguish.
ReplyDeleteThis is something that I, too, learned the hard way as I had to give a presentation in college, but the projector and computer decided to die on me. Not having a laptop around, my presentation gauged on how well I could explain what my Powerpoint would have said in a much better way.
This is a situation that ALL of us as teachers should be worried about, and be well prepared for in case it happens. Always having hard copies of a lesson can save us all embarrassment and a lost day of lesson in front of our students.
One of the most important things for teachers is to have a back-up plan. Basically, it should be assumed that the technology will not cooperate, that way you are always prepared. Maybe she could have included a back-up plan that did not involve technology at all, that way if the technology failed, she would still be able to talk about the topic at hand. Then additionally, she could have had students look up the virtual tour at home on their personal computers so that they still could experience what she really wanted to show them.
ReplyDeleteI can definately relate to Christina's positive technological experience. It amazes me how people can set up vacations without physically seeing the place. It's almost like a "blind" vacation. You can book a hotel, purchase airfare, get a rental car, and even find the coolest attractions near your hotel. Technology has made it easy to plan a vacation and its all at the tip of your fingers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is very nice when technology work, I can understand where Andrea is coming from with her negative experience. That is why as a student and a teacher it is important to have a back-up plan in case the technology doesn't cooperate. In Andrea's case, it would have been beneficial for her to create a map of the Baltimore Zoo incase the virtual tour didn't work.
I think a lot of people can relate to Andrea's situation. The most important thing to remember as a teacher is to always have a back up plan. Whenever you deal with any sort of technology, or even when you don't, teaching is a profession where you must always be prepared. By always having a back up plan you eliminate the chance of not having anything for the children to do that is beneficial to their learning.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was substitute teaching, the teacher left me slides to present on the over head. That day, the overhead would not work and the teacher left me no back up plan. So i had to improvise and present the whole lesson the white board. This took much longer then the lesson should have and cut into another lesson I was suppose to cover this day. That is why as a teaching it is crucial that you always have a backup plan.
I think its incredible how many of the negative experiences have come from college and the poor electronic material. I miss the days of old when we got up and gave a presentation that had poster boards and handouts. I personally can't stand it when people get up for a presentation and turn on power point. Then they continue to read from it. I think we all have experienced this
ReplyDeleteDepending on technology is difficult. You put a lot of trust in something. You put even more trust in the material that your not familiar with. We all know how our computer will run, but we never know how the computer in the classroom will operate.
I think its important as a teacher to be mindful of these things. Many of have Macs at home, but how many of us will have Macs in the classroom? These are the things we need to think about. Will a presentation or activity with technology be able to operate on the school computer? We need to perform test runs and be sure it is compatible.
I'd like to think I can teach without powerpoint and videos. However, if they are going to teach my students better then I'm all for it.
For the negative experience, always have a back-up plan. I would definately recommend saving videos to your own computer/flashdrive, downloading it first. Don't rely on something to stream online without having the video backed-up. You can save a video as your own to your own files. Bring that file with you, just in case. Unfortunately videos are pulled and malfunction quite often, so they're often not reliable. As a teachers, back-up plans are an absolute MUST, even id they don't get used. I can definitely relate to having technology malfunction and having to compensate.
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