Emerging Technology that Supports eLearning (Blog Post 10)

I have read Egbert’s (2009) views on eLearning and I have read many of the posts from the blogs of my classmates. I tend to agree with Egbert’s (2009) statement that “eLearning ... often requires students and teachers to have different skills and understandings than face-to-face classroom learning does" (p. 207). As a high school teacher I know that some of our students are utilizing eLearning as a way to make up lost credit and some of our advanced students are even taking online college courses for advanced credit toward their Bachelor’s degree. I feel that at this level they are gaining the understanding and the skills needed to handle this type of education. I know that other classmates have mentioned that most students in lower grades would not have the organizational skills, dedication, or maturity to be able to handle this type of education. I tend to agree with them but I feel that there is a place for it at lower levels. I think that students who are struggling to keep up with their peers in a hospital homebound situation would benefit from eLearning with a far greater rate of success than what they are currently experiencing. Currently a hospital homebound teacher will drop of a stack of work along with selected readings from textbooks and work with that student for about an hour. Then the student is expected to teach themselves the rest of the content covered in class and complete their work on their own. Wouldn’t the hospital homebound teacher be more effective if they helped the student organize a week’s worth of online lessons? If the student was then offered online instructional vodcasts, discussions, digital stories, tutors, and practice I believe that students of any age could rise to the level of skills and understanding needed for eLearning.


Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc

The MovieMaker Project (Blog #9)

Distance collaboration and the MovieMaker project was an interesting concept. Throughout the project I was desperate for some face to face contact with my group members. I would get impatient waiting for responses to questions. Not at anyone was at fault for this but when I had time to work was not necessarily the time that others had to work. All in all I had some great team members and we worked very well together. As the leader I didn’t have the time to develop my own digital story but was very pleased with the examples of my group members. I feel that we came up with examples of different applications of the software that would work well in a staff development. I was very pleased with the final outcome and feel that I could walk into my school tomorrow and teach others about the MovieMaker software and its educational uses.

7464 Movie Maker Presentation Show Mtl

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Emerging Technology that Supports Creativity and Production (Blog Post 8)

I enjoyed this chapter on creativity since I feel that as a man I was born without this gene. I feel that I work hard at being creative and compared to my other male counterparts I do OK, but fall short when compared to our faculty as a whole. Because of this I think that I have been reluctant to teach creativity since I feel somewhat deficient in that area. In order to improve my teaching I focused on Egbert’s (2009) five suggested characteristics for creative tasks interesting. I feel better equipped to assign more creative tasks by following these guidelines:
Keep the task focused on content by making sure the students have some prior knowledge
Encourage divergent thinking by support of new
Integrate creative strategies through acceptance of various solutions to problems and projects.
It is essential that tasks are engaging
Be sure to support diversity though informational feedback.
I know that the incorporation of creative tasks will start with baby steps but I fell that I know have a starting point.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

The Teacher Becomes the Student (Blog #7)

A few years back my county received a number of Promethean Activboards and designated them to Special Education classrooms. The rest were give to teachers who could write a proposal on how they would use the boards and how they would be able to track their usefulness. I was currently piloting single gender education classes and had a system set up that would compare end of year results to the mixed gender counterparts. I was awarded one of the Activboards and it was installed within the first nine weeks of school. Our county set up a series of online training classes as well as face to face training offered through the University of Georgia. I enjoyed the training and learned quite a bit about their uses. When I first had the Activboard installed I treated it like my new baby and didn’t want anyone else to touch it. I did however understand that to get the most out of the new technology I had to place it in the hands of my students. For a few weeks we spent time just clicking on what we could find and learning what the technology had to offer. With this and the online training my students and I were gaining a lot more confidence in what we could do. While I was developing interactive presentations and lessons I was challenging students to come up with ideas and ways we could use the board within classroom activities. I was amazed and impressed with their creativity. I quickly learned that this was their turf. They were not as intimidated of the technology as I was. In many cases they became the trainers and I was the student. This has shaped the way that I currently integrate any new technology into my classes. I like to see what my students can do with new technology and I learn from them.

Emerging Technology that Supports Critical Thinking and Problem Solving (Blog Post 6)

In mathematics, problem solving is at the core to achieving success with the application of mathematical concepts. The technology-supported problem solving guidelines identified in Egbert (2009), Chapter 4 were helpful and very useful for employing valuable problem solving lessons in a math class. The guidelines discussed by Egbert were to integrate reading and writing, avoid plagiarism, do not do what students can do, and make mistakes acceptable. There would be no use for math if there weren’t real world situations that called for the skill. These real world situations are presented to our students through reading and writing. Students need to be able to comprehend what they read in order to solve the problems within. Math students should be made aware of the importance of reading and writing through the incorporation of these skills in a math class. Avoiding plagiarism is a no brainer. Students will not learn math problem solving skills unless they are practiced. All too often our students feel that just copying someone else’s work will suffice to earn a grade but nothing is learned. Having the right answer and finding the right answer are two different things. As a man I all too often I feel the need to fix what my students are doing wrong instead of forcing them to do the things they already know how to do. I have to keep a constant self check on myself when student ask me for help. This third guideline really hit home for me. The last guideline is often repeated in my class because I feel that our students need to accept their mistakes and learn from them. This is the heart of problem solving for me. When our students feel safe in making mistakes then the problem solving process can move forward.

Fortunately for our students I feel that when it comes to technology they are less reluctant to follow these guidelines. I know that when my son gets a new video game he will read some of the instruction in order to get a basic understanding of how it works. I also notice that students are more willing to produce and show off their individuality when it comes to technology. My students rarely want help with their technology projects unless they truly cannot figure something out. Finally when involved with technology I find that students are more willing to make mistakes and learn from them. For these reasons I find that emerging technology helps our students with the problem solving processes.