#12- Hasselbring, T., Lott, A., & Zydney, J. 2006. Technology-Supported Math Instruction for Students with Disabilities: Two Decades of Research and D

This article discusses ways in which technology can help students with math difficulties. According to the NCTI, there are six purposes of technology use to help students learn mathematics, which include:
1. building computational fluency
2. converting symbols, notations, and text
3. building conceptual understanding
4. making calculations and creating mathematical representations
5. organizing ideas
6. building problem solving and reasoning

The article goes into depth about each one of the six purposes of technology throughout the paper and gives examples of technology that satisfy that particular purpose. After describing each purpose the authors end with a summary discussion the positives of these technology software, such as low cost, a non-traditional approach to teaching mathematics, and much research has been done to identify theses as some of the best practices.

Tomorrow, I am actually going to evaluate some mathematic software, so this article was a good preview for me. Also, in my high school practicum, I watched students use software to develop algebraic skills. Each student has a different learning style and I think having technology available for students to practice and learn concepts from computer programs is necessary in the classroom. I remember loving Fraction Muncher when I was young and I am very good with fractions now, so it could be beneficial. The downfall is when an instructor focuses only on the computer software or the software is not flexible with student responses because students can come up with the correct solution in many different ways. If teachers take the time to evaluate what students need and match their needs to the appropriate computer software, then I think computer software can be very effective in the classroom.

#11- Nagle, D. 2007. Women Lose Ground in IT, Computer Science

This short article discusses the lack of women in technology-related studies in the United States. The beginning of the article described how girls in K-12 seem to have an advantage over boys in science, math, and engineering areas, but only 1 percent of females taking the SATs in 2006 sought out computer and information sciences as majors. Likewise, female were only 15% of those who took the AP computer science tests in 2006. This article ends with some possible reasons why females are not pursuing computer related degrees and careers, which include misconceptions about females ability to do mathematics and computer science or the misconception that computer related degrees will not allow a person to work with other people.

This article reminds me of a sociology class I took that discussed gender and education. I have my bachelors of science in mathematics, so I was always the target person. “Janelle, why did you choice math?” “Where you encouraged by teachers and/or your parents to pursue math?” It was kind of funny for me because I would just answer, “I like math.” I never really thought about being one of the only girls in my math courses until that sociology class. I do believe that to get females to participate and pursue more computer oriented fields, we need to encourage females and we needed to counterattack the misconceptions that they might have.

#10- Lankutis, T. 2004. Special Needs Technologies: An Administrator’s Guide

This article explains the necessary steps a school needs to take for students with disabilities to have a “free and appropriate education” by including all of a student’s IEP in making the decision about what technology assistance is need for the student. First, the team needs to decide on the appropriate technology assistance needed. Then, the team needs to gather information about what the student needs in each classroom. This could be by observation, interviewing the classroom teacher, and asking the student how the assistive technology is working. After that, the team needs to set specific goals. Then, have a trial period of the technology chosen and if it is helping continue with it, if not, try something else. Those were the steps that this article suggested and at the end of the article, the author provided a list of sources for assistive technology.

The author really made it clear that this process needs to be done by the whole IEP team, which I think is very important. I mean, having several educated and caring adults makes more sense than having one person run a child’s education. Also, the list of sources at the end of this article was great and helpful to reference. I think this article gave a great description about the best way to go about deciding what technology assistive to use for students with disabilities

#9- Kruger, B. 2003. Talking to Students About Cyber-Ethics

This article discusses what teachers needed to teacher their students about cyber-ethics. The author goes over the basic descriptions of software, copyright, and computer viruses. Then, the author discusses the main rule to teach students, DON’T COPY. The last few sections of this article give resources teachers can use, ways to discuss cyber-ethics with students and some statistics about software piracy and children and computer usage.

This article reminded me of my last Instructional Technology class where we discussed copyright. I now understand that I have the copyright to listen to CDs I purchase, but not to copy them. I think if we inform our students about copyright and the importance of cyber-ethics, then we won’t have as many viruses and computer problems. At the Boys & Girls Club I worked at, we did not allow children to download anything on the computers and I think that should be school policy as well

Unit 8-Choy, S., Ng, S., & Tsang, Y. 2005. Software Agents to Assist in Distance Learning Environments

This article address the issue of having a software agent instead of a human teaching assistant for the Open University of Hong Kong, a distance education university. Instructors at this university have to interact much with the Web server, so what usually happens is that the university hires teaching assistants, but this article is suggestion the use of software agents. The authors of this article are mainly looking at how software agents can create more effective communication between the instructors of the courses and their students. Therefore, the software agents did routine jobs for the course coordinator like send out reminder emails to students or duplicated emails to instructor for recording purposes. The authors of this article used the software in their courses and got positive feedback from their students. They are now trying to implement it throughout the university.

I think having any type of software that saves times and creates better communication between students and teachers is worth looking into. Having software that writes feedback emails seems like such a time saver. The more time you can save an instructor, the higher quality the course should be. I think that this software is a great idea, but I am slightly skeptical because the authors of the article are the people who designed the software and are the only ones who used it, so they might be bias of their software.

Unit 6- Smart, K. & Meyer, K. 2005. Changing Course Management Systems: Lessons Learned

This article discussed the issue of changing a multiple course management systems to one CMS. The authors asked several faculty members at North Dakota University to switch from Blackboard to Desire2Learn. The research focused on three main questions that covered how much content from Blackboard would transfer to Desire2Learn, the impact of the content that did not transfer, and if faculty would be will to switch systems. What Smart and Meyer found was that the gradebook, tests & surveys, communication, and library access did not transfer, which is a huge part of course management. Because these very important parts did not transfer, not all the faculty wanted to switch systems. This shows, that switching management systems could lead to much work for faculty and administration.
After reading this article, I think that switch management systems would be really bad during a school year. If administration wanted to switch management systems for cost purposes, they should definitely do that before the school year, so teachers have enough time to learn the new system and setup gradebooks, communication, and library access on the new system. I thought it was great that these researchers went to the faculty first to see how the new system would work before installing the new system. I hope that the district I work in cares about their faculty as much.

Unit 7- Hamlin, L. & Ryan, W. 2003. Probing for Plagiarism in the Virtual Classroom

This article by Lindsey Hamlin and William Ryan discusses the issue of plagiarism in colleges and universities. Many people believe that online classes have more opportunity for students to plagiarize and that plagiarism occurs more frequently in online classes. From different research sources, the authors found this not to be true and found that the tradition classes have as much or even more plagiarism occurring. The authors gave several examples that demonstrate the advantages online course have for preventing plagiarism, like time restraints on tests. Also, the authors provided many ant-plagiarism sites and software available to combat plagiarism.
After reading this article, I became more familiar with ways students will plagiarize and different websites and software I can use to combat plagiarism. Because I am going to be teaching math, I will not have to worry about essays and papers being plagiarized, but more proofs and projects being plagiarized by my students. I would like to give some of the website links, so others who are reading this blog can use them.
o Plagiarism.com
o Plagiarism.org
o Plagiarized.com
o www.canexus.com (Essay Verification Engine)

Unit 5 – Speaker, R. Technologies for Teaching Science and Mathematics in the K-12 Schools: Reviews, Observations and Directions for Practice in the S

This article by Richard B. Speaker discusses the different levels of technology for schools in the Southern United States. Speaker had four main questions he wanted to address in this article, which included:
o What aspects of multimedia and communications technologies are appropriate for teaching science and mathematics concepts and practices at different developmental levels?
o What technologies are teachers using to teach science and mathematics at different developmental levels in the United States?
o What inequities or divides still exist in technological access for science and mathematics teachers and their students at different developmental levels, especially in schools dealing with diverse students and children of poverty?
o In the current standards and achievement test driven educational situation, how are individual schools and teachers of science and mathematics integrating technology into their practices?
After gathering data, Speaker created a table to describe where different technology should be implemented in each grade. Also, Speaker ended by stating how the gap between the wealthy, well equipped communities and the poor, less equipped communities needs to shrink by having the federal government provide more funding for the poor, less equipped communities.
The table that Speaker created from his research is very helpful and should be viewed by districts around the United States. If students were introduced to different aspects of technology at the appropriate age, then students would be ready for jobs and advance technology skills in their futures. The article itself was not easy to read, but the information given, especially the table is very beneficial for incorporating technology in the classroom.

Unit 4- Sahin, T. 2003. Student teachers’ perceptions of instructional technology: developing materials based on constructivist approach

This article discusses a study with preservice elementary school teachers in Turkey that investigated the viewpoint of the preservice teachers pertaining to Instructional Technology and Material Development. These courses were taught in a constructivist approach, so the preservice teachers could learn about constructivism. If you are unclear about the meaning of constructivism, it simple is an approach to teaching where students are given the opportunity to take ownership of the learning by letting them discovery the material being taught. The results from this article showed that the preservice teachers enjoyed the constructivist approach to their learning and thought that they were active learners. This article concludes that constructivism is one approach that works for Instructional Technology and Material Development courses and encourages other educators to take a look at it.
Constructivism is an approach that many math teachers are going towards. It’s great when students can discover the objective and goals of the lesson on their own. Letting students take ownership of their work really creates relevancy to a student and the learning. I have a hard time think that pure constructivism is the way to go in a math class, but I learn so much more on the computer we I discover shortcuts, then when an instructor teachers them to me. I pretty much don’t remember about 80% of what the instructor shows me, so I agree that constructivism is the best approach for learning in an Instructional Technology course.

Unit 3 –Wang, L. & Beasley, W. 2005. Type II Technology Applications in Teacher Education: Using Instant Messenger to Implement Structured Online Clas

This article by Lih-Ching Chen Wang and William Beasley discussed several different aspects of using Instant Messenger (IM) for the forum of a discussion class. The authors described a study complete with graduate students, where e the whole class was on IM, except for two class periods. The type of technology applications used when a discussion is on IM is called type II, which is student-centered. There are five different characteristics for type II activities, which IM includes, such as stimulate relatively active intellectual involvement or place the learner rather than the teacher in charge of the learning environment. Through observing the study of graduate students and different research, Wang and Beasley saw both positive and negative aspects of using IM. One example of something positive that came from discussing over IM was that students were able to use other computer programs at the same time and share their data or finds (word projects or excel). One example of something negative that came from discussing over IM was that students could have private conversations or be doing something else during the discussion. Overall, if someone is really organized and does not think that discussions need human to human contact, IM discussion will work.
After reading this article, I definitely would not implement IM discussion into my classroom. There is too much opportunity for students to be off task and nothing would get done. Also, students could be having inappropriate side conversations and I would have a very difficult time monitoring it. Using IM seems like it would work best in a college setting, but definitely not in a high school mathematics classroom setting.

Unit 2- Handler, M. Integrating Technology into the Instructional Process: Good Practice Guides the Way

This article by Marianne Handler describes the importance and different ways to integrate technology into the classroom. The most important aspect for teachers to take from this article is that technology or learning about computers should be incorporated into lessons and not viewed as its own content area. Handler goes on to give examples for four different uses of computers in the classroom, which consist of teaching students, being a tool with which students can learn from, being a tool to assist in the learning process, and a way to develop open-need exploratory experiences for the students. When using computers in the classroom, Handler recommends that great planning goes into the process, as well as using the computers within the teacher’s comfort level. Teachers should become familiar with different softwares and computer aides to include in their lesson plans. Overall, the article really encouraged teachers to get familiar with software and computers, so students have more opportunity and a wider range of learning available.
After reading this article, I fully agree with Marianne Handler about incorporating technology as a part of the class and not its own class. I will be teaching mathematics and there are several cool and interesting software available that lets students practice operational skills and advance their problem-solving skills. I know as a child, my favorite computer game to play was Fraction Munchers. Giving students the opportunity to grow in computer skills, increase mathematical understanding, and have fun at the same time seems to me like a win-win-win situation.

Unit 1.Oblinger, D. and Hawkins, B. 2006 The Myth about Online Course Development.

This article by Diana G. Oblinger and Brian L. Hawkins gave some ground rules and questions to think about for online courses. Pedagogy and technology expertise are very important in developing and delivering quality online courses and the authors expressed how this has not occurred very frequently. Reasoning behind their claim was that many faculty members do not have savvy technology skills, so the courses are not presented with the ability for students and teachers to interact. The article stresses that to have successful and quality online courses, their needs to be a team effort between faculty, students, and technical staff. A few questions the authors suggested we think about are:
What is the best use of the faculty member, an expensive institutional resource?
Do we have a process for strategically investing in course development?
Do we confuse providing content with creating a learning environment or delivering a course?
What is the return we hope to see from our investment in course development?
After reading the article, I thought of my experience with my online class. It was pretty much a joke, where I would read the material and then write a summary about what I read and summit it to the instructor each week. I took the online course one summer, so I could get through my entire general university requirement courses fast. The article said something about using online courses for this very purpose, to graduate students on time. There was never any interaction between my peers or my instructor and myself. I would just turn papers in and receive a grade for the work I did. The online course didn’t teach me anything, so I understand what the authors are discussing when they bring up the point that online classes could be great if it was a team effort and not just done at an individual level.