#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)