Week 8- Google Maps

Google Maps
Google maps is a really awesome application. After thinking for a while about how I could have students use Google maps, I came up with an idea of using Google maps in 8th grade U.S. History to map out the battles of the civil war. Students would be assigned certain battles of the civil war from various states and would pin point on the map where there battles took place. They then would list various facts about that battle: like who the generals were for each side, dates of the battle, casualties, and who won the battle. Students could also attach photos of the area and make links to websites about the battle. By doing this activity, the students could create a historical timeline and map of the civil war. This would make the activity more interactive for the students and they then have an interactive guide for the war that they can access from anywhere. Here is the link to an example of what the students would create: Google Civil War Map

Below is also the map embedded on my blog.

View Civil War Battlefields in a larger map

Week 7- Pocasting and Chp. 14

1.) After reading chapter 14 and pondering the question that was posed to us this week, I can see that some of the ideas, concepts and principles from HPI could be applied in education. I know that as the public and government is calling for school reform, we should maybe use the concepts from HPI to help create quality learning for our students. Many teachers administered the MEAP over the past two weeks and wonder how our students have performed on these state tests. We also have had many things such as NCLB act and a resent movie release “Waiting for Superman,” that suggest our schools need to change so that our students perform better. As I looked this week at the two figures in the book on HPT models, it got me thinking that maybe we need to go through these processes as we look at fixing the education system. These processes have been developed over time and have worked in the business sector and may just work in the education field. As a school district or even as a building we need to identify our weaknesses and strengths and from there work on analyzing the cause for those weaknesses. Once we analyze the causes for our weaknesses, we need to work at implementing interventions or strategies to improve. I know we currently work on this in my district through committees called SIP (School Improvement Plan). The state mandates that each school in Michigan has a SIP. These are goals and things that you are going to work on to help you meet or maintain your AYP(annual yearly progress). These plans may include the use of technology, but don’t have to. We do use a technology in my school district called “READ 180” by Scholastic as an intervention to help students who are reading below grade level. This is one of those implementations that we use in our SIP. I really could identify with figure 14.2 on page 141, on how it is a continuous cycle. My lesson plans are the same way and so is our SIP. Our goals change, our students needs change, and the way our students learn change and therefore so do our lessons and school improvement plans. As a teacher, I have to adapt to our clients (students). Maybe, someone in this class can develop an HPI model for education and make millions.

2.) I listened to several podcasts, but I also created my own. One of the ones I listened to was about how technology was linking parents to schools. They talked about parents been able to link to their students grades, blogs and class websites. This was in a school in South Carolina. Here is the link for that podcast: Technology links parents

I also created my own podcast about what we are currently working on in the computer lit class that I teach. Here’s the link for that pod cast: >My first podcast

3.) I think that podcasts could add a lot of value to education. You can follow trends that are happening in education and receive information on various topics. You can have students create pod casts about what they learned and check for understanding. You can also share events with students that are to far away to have a whole class travel to in the allotted time of the school days. One example is cultural traditions from around the world, that could be experienced by students in a world geography or world history class through a podcast(audio) or a vodcast (video). This for many students is more authentic experience than just reading about the subject matter in a book. The more involved and authentic the experience is, the better students grasp the knowledge we want the to learn. You can also use podcast to inform parents about what their child is learning in school. This allows parents to interact more with their children in regards to what they are learning in school. That way parents won’t just get the typical one word responses about what’s going on at school. I am going to try and start doing podcasts for my classes. Thanks for encouraging to use and explore podcasts.

Podcasting

I decided to give the creating my own podcast a try. Here is the link below to my podcast. I had trouble embedding the podcast player from Podbean into my blog, so here's the link to the podcast below.

My first podcast

I also looked at several podcasts. I like the NPR and CNN podcasts. I even have a podcast widget on this blog at the bottom.

Week 6 - Discussion

Greg Mileski
Week 6 Discussion
Oct. 13, 2010
Dr. Horitz

After reading the chapter this week and reflecting on the application question at the end of the chapter, I feel that the Internet and World Wide Web will have impacts on education. To what degree, I am still uncertain. I am however going to give my thoughts in this discussion on each of the three categories of K-12 education, Higher education, and Adult education.

The impact that the Internet and Web will have on K-12 education, I feel will vary depending on grade level. I think that at the younger grade levels of K-5 that it will have the least impact because learners need to learn the basics before they can really utilize their functions. Learners at this age need to know how to spell and read before they can perform searches effectively. However, any type of video or audio media that is available from these technologies could impact their education. The majority of their educational time in school though is used to teach the basics of writing, reading, spelling, and arithmetic. I do know that there are things available on the Internet and Web to help with these areas, but most are for remediation and are used by a smaller population of students. I do believe that the Internet and Web will have a major impact the grade level 6 -12 especially at the upper parts of these levels. At this level students will be able to access all sorts of information and even use it to communicate and collaborate with students. The technology also allows for educators to develop more authentic assignments and make what the students are leaning connected to the real world. Thus, answering that famous question that us teachers get from our students, “Why do we have to do this?” The reason I said that it will impact the upper level even more is because it makes it possible for students to take classes online that may not be able to be taught within their school building. This also will allow students to create their own curriculum track as long as it meets state and federal mandates for education.


As far as the impact of the Internet and Web on Higher education (community colleges, colleges, and universities), I believe it will have a major impact because it will allow students to take classes from anywhere on earth. It also allows students to do the majority of their research without having to go to the library. A go example of this is our current class. You can get a whole degree online without ever stepping on a college campus. I have a colleague that just graduated with a masters from the University of Phoenix and the only time he was on campus was when he went out their for graduation. I did a search on the Internet for how many people are enrolled in online college classes and here’s the results I found: In the U.S., 3.5 million students were enrolled in one or more online college courses during the 2006-2007 academic year. That number equals one fifth of the population of college students. http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2008/January/20080108101202attocnich0.4027674.html
I would say that this is quite a major impact.


I also see the Internet and Web having a major impact in adult education (in businesses, government, and/or the military. People in the business sector use the Internet to reach clients and to research business opportunities. Companies also use it to provide training for there workers. It is cheaper to do online training than it is to bring in a professional that needs to be paid. Also you don’t need to pull someone off of the job they are doing to train someone else and productivity stays up higher. As far as the government, most their paper work and documents are stored on a server on the web. This speeds up their productivity. The military uses the Internet extensively for communication and satellite feeds. These I am for sure will continue to be used more and more.


I do think that you can’t totally eliminate the human experience from education. You still need to have interaction between people. There is that social need inside us where we need to see and experience a persons nonverbal communication skills. I’m interested to read others thoughts on this topic.

Week 6- Embedding

Here's a cool video about technology that is being developed.



Static Picture
This picture is from Art Prize 2010, take on Sunday Oct. 3 by me.


Here's my Google Map
This is the middle school where I teach.

View Larger Map

Week 5 - Photo Sharing and Istructional Design

Greg Mileski
Week 5 - Flickr and Chapter 2
Dr. Horvitz
Oct. 6, 2010

I can see photo sharing being incorporated in many educational activities. I see photo sharing being used in the following areas:
Social Studies- units on world cultures, different lands or even just exploring places you couldn't travel to due to time and money. (Virtual tours)
Language Arts- Using pictures for written prompts or to create stories.
Science-when talking about different land structures and tree identification.
Math- To talk about shapes, scale and measurements.
Technology- How to tag things and post things.

As for concerns about using photo sharing, I have concerns about students posting things that are inappropriate or giving out too much information. Here with students, it is important to talk about Internet safety and to teach them about the option to mark things for public view or private view. We don’t need students posting their names and tagging friends in pictures that can be viewed by the public. Unfortunately, we have some sick people in this world that prey on children because of information they post. Photo sharing if taught in school does provide an opportunity for educators to teach those Internet safety skills.

Benefits of Photo sharing sites are that they let you organize your picture, label them, and create albums that you can easily share with others. Some sites even provide you with options to create prints for reasonable prices. A few other benefits are that your pictures are stored out on a server so if you have a fire in your house you don’t lose your photos and you also can access your photos anywhere you have Internet access.

As I read chapter 2, I really liked how they outlined the elements/phases of instructional design called ADDIE. I also liked how they listed six characteristics of instructional design. Since I am a teacher, I could see some similarities between the process the authors described and processes I’ve used to develop lesson plans. The processes that are similar are that I try to identify the goals, make it learner centered, make authentic assessments (usually project based), and I also collect data as we go through lessons to check for understanding. Like they say in the reading it usually takes a team to make instructional design effective and efficient, this is probably why some lessons don’t measure up so well. When this happens, this allows for that revision process. This is also another reason it is good to collaborate with other teachers and colleagues. In my district we have professional development days in our schedule about every two months which gives us time to collaborate with other teachers. Since I teach technology, I meet with the other two tech teachers form the other two middle schools. This is a valuable time to discuss and revise lesson plans. I’m glad to see similarities between creating lesson plans and the instructional design process.

Differences I see are that instructional design usually takes a team of people with a wide range of skills and usually takes a longer time than me making a lesson plan. Lesson plans for me may take only a week or less to design, but they are modified constantly for the learners. The other difference is the time constraints of the education process. We don’t always have time to dwell on a topic for long periods of time because of the amount of material that needs to be covered. Unfortunately, we as teachers use practices that get the majority of students to learn the material and move on because of this. Those who don’t master it either fall behind or get remediation. Maybe we need to fix this! Where to start?

Week 5 -Flickr post

Well, here's my link to my Flickr photos. I went to downtown Grand Rapids on Sunday with my oldest daughter and we walked around Art Prize 2010. These are some of the photos from our trip.

Here's the link:
My Flickr Photos

Enjoy!!!