Games in Education

For the final week of class, we talked about gaming in education. Using games as a part of a lesson is just another way to engage the students and appeal to different types of learners. We all talked about the types of games that we grew up with, and most of us mentioned things like Oregon Trail and Lemonade Stand. The types of games that children are playing these days are different, but we all still got the same benefits from having a little bit of fun while learning. In class we talked about Second Life. I had never heard of it before, but it seems to be an increasingly popular way for students to engage in learning activities. One of the videos that we watched about Second Life said that the avatars can travel to foreign places and even step inside of famous paintings. These types of uses of Second Life are really neat and can be very beneficial in a classroom.

Teachers are always trying to appeal to students and make learning fun. The good thing about younger children is most of them find learning fun, no matter what they are doing. Computer games are a good way for children to keep learning on their own. It can be reinforcement and practice of the lesson that they had previously learned. It is also something that can be done at home and not just in a classroom.

The image I have below is of my favorite game that I played in school.

This video is a news segment that discusses the benefits that one boy found by playing games that incorporated academics in it.

Distance Education

In week 13, we discussed distance education, which is becoming increasingly popular in the educational field. Distance education is the teaching of students who are not physically in the classroom. Virtual schooling, which is a type of distance education, is also becoming increasingly popular. There are many advantages to distance education, including the ability to work at your own pace, convenience of location, and increased opportunities for growth.

As a future teacher, distance education is something that I should become used to seeing more often. It could, very well, be something that I or one of my peers turns into a career. Even though there are not always physical classrooms involved in distance education, there are teachers to create lessons and educate the students in some way.

Below is a link to a video that is a news segment that discusses virtual schooling. It discusses the difference between virtual school and home schooling, and the benefits compared to traditional public schools.

http://www.foxnews.com/search-results/m/26363147/virtual-schooling.htm

Open Source Software

We discussed open source software during week 11. I was not aware that there were programs online that were the equivalent to many of the software programs that I have bought for my computer. I think that open source software is a very useful. One of the topics that surround open source software is the issue of stealing and it being legal for public use. The open source software programs are free and created publicly and collaboratively. The ideas for the software may have come from licensed programs, but I do not feel that it is stealing.

Open source software is beneficial to many people. Because it is free, people who do not have the funds to purchase expensive programs can still have the benefits of those programs by using the open source alternative. A teacher may need to use a program like Photoshop once, and Gimp, the online open source alternative, offers many of the same tools for free.

This image has the Open Source logo and the logos of some of the most popular open source software programs.

Tech Tools for Critical Thinking

In class we each took a learning styles quiz to determine the kind of learner that we are. It is important to know and understand the different learning styles, especially as a future teacher. Everyone learns best under certain circumstances and it is important to create lessons that incorporate different styles. Technology helps in creating lesson plans that suit more people. In class, we created a word cloud using the tool Wordle, and I thought it was a neat tool that could be used in many creative ways. As a part of our online homework, we were responsible for creating a concept map about folksonomies. A folksonomy is a social tool, and can be anything from social networking, like Facebook, to social bookmarking, like Delicious. All kinds of social tools are becoming increasingly popular, and can be very helpful in the educational field. Bookmarking sites can be useful among colleagues, tagging is useful to everyone when looking for information, and tools like Skype can connect people across the world.

Below is a word cloud about an rss fed site, or a blog, which is a folksonomy. This cloud was created by June Kaminski using the Wordle tool.