Review of Course

In the beginning I was enthused that this would be a hybrid course and Prof. Luongo was teaching. Thank you Prof. for taking on this course as per Joan S. advised-because the other computer courses were closed. Thus, being said we your students and some of us including myself are now DONE with the certification courses. In two days I will feel more elated having accomplished this graduate cert. and I need to celebrate this achievements.
The one most important aspect to me was learning how to evaluate a website! Several years ago I didn't fully comprehend the definition of a website and now was taught to evaluate, for example Scholastic.com. Once again I rave over the fact of this lesson/presentation. And our textbook Teaching and Learning with Technology will be a treasure to consult with in the near future regarding educational technology. I will ALWAYS remember my professor Luongo and my 2 courses with her as the instructor. Thank you professor and with all your understanding and concern for ALL your students! Love ya and admire you...
Norine Switzer

Educational Technology Literacy

Teachers need to be able to read and write, so too do they need to be technologically literate. Teachers must also be able to apply the technologies they know to enrich their teaching and to enhance their student's learning.
As educators, it has become necessary to understand and accept this expectation and to plan how, during preservice and in-service years, to meet this escalating professional requirement.

Students' Web Privacy

When sharing the students' work or including their images or names on a web site, a teacher must be sure to carefully guard a child's privacy. To include any student's information or work, it is best to first have the parent's or guardian's permission. No specific details about the child should be divulged, including his or her name.
Those who might harm children might use a class web site as a way to target them. It is up to each teacher to be sure his or her site is consistent with district and school guidelines.

Global Learning Community

Student-to-student communication within a classroom, grade level, or school is just the beginning of what the Internet has to offer to students. One of the most imaginative ways of utilizing you classroom web site as a communication tool is to connect your classroom to others across the globe, thereby building a global learning community for your students.
Keypals, e-pals, and cyberpals are some of the terms used to refer to the other people with whom the students may correspond.
Keypals assignments can help students practice communication skills while enhancing cultural awareness. Whole sites are dedicated to establish this type of learning community.

Weblogs

I have experienced blogging for two graduate courses and I appreciate the value of it.
Weblogs, or blogs, are virtual online spaces that support the posting of personal commentary on the Web. Blogs provide primarily one-way communication, but with the inclusion of comments and links, blogs become powerful interactive writing tools.
Bloggers post their ideas, and others respond to these ideas, either in comments to the posting or in other blogs with a link back to the original posting.

Online Publications

Many educational journals now have an online version available via the Internet. Most of of these online publications include current and archived articles of interest to educators. Most also have local sitebased search engines that allow you to type in key words to look for on the site.
Electronic publications also typically offer a page of related links that may prove useful in your quest for information. Once found, electronic articles can be saved or printed for your use.

Educational Resources on the Web

Just as the Internet and the WWW have had a dramatic impact on society , so too have they had an impact on education. Schools no longer have to be isolated without access to information and resources.
The world's knowledge base can be placed at the tips of the fingers of every learner. Communications, once limited to paper, pen, and post are now instantaneous and international, opening new horizons for the development of learning communities.

Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (VR) provides a three-dimensional graphic environment that can be accessed on the Web.When you visit a VR world museum, for example it seems on your screen as if you can move up and down hallways, turn corners, and go upstairs to see the museum's displays.
You can even manipulate objects of interest by coming close to them, picking them up with your mouse button, and turning them around to get a view of all sides.

The World Wide Web

Accordingly people are confused by the difference between the Internet and the WWW. Actually the Web is the most popular of the many services available on the Internet. It is not a seperate network, nor is the Web synonymous with the Internet.
In the early days, the Internet was not easy to use. Tim Berners-Lee, wrote a program that fundamentally changed how users and the Net interacted. Hyperlinks made Internet navigation as easy as pointing and clicking. The vast collection of hyperlink documents available on the Internet is known as the World Wide Web, W3, or the Web.

Learning Disabilities and Assistive Technologies

There are a number of reasons why assistive technology(AT) devices may enhance the lives of persons with learning problems. Research has shown the effectiveness of AT as an empowering tool for individuals who have learning problems. Word processors, "reading machines," "talking computers," speech recognition systems, and electronic spell checkers can be used by individuals with learning problems to compensate for reading, writing, and spelling difficulties.
AT provides a means for students with learning difficulties to accomplish tasks independently. For the most part, the device will be there when and where it is needed, and should reduce the potential psychological stress and possible negative social ramifications of having to rely on parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and co-workers across a variety of settings including work.

Starfall.com

I enjoyed the educational resource of Starfall.com. It has overall visual appeal and will be very engaging for primary grade students. It builds on the student's prior knowledge and effectively prepares the learner by foreshadowing what the lesson is about. The navigation is seamless and clear to the learner. The process for every step is clearly stated. Most students will know exactly where they are at each step and know what step to complete next. It will inroduce learning concepts and reinforce the concepts.

Educational Software

Professor Luongo's efficacy report was impressive. I appreciated this instructional web based writing program because students will be able to receive feedback during the writing process from the system and IntelliMetric. Also their teacher will offer and instruct their writing progress.
Most particularly bilingual students will be able to have their writing skills critiqued in their NATIVE LANGUAGE.

Integrating Technology in the Classroom

An article for the TechEdge-Social Versus Local Computer Website Bookmarking
The English Wikipedia defines "social bookmarking" as a way for internet users to classify, share, and search Internet bookmarks. When most people use the web, one of the first things they generally learn to do is save a website marked "bookmark" or "favorite." These words are used interchangably: "favorite" by the Internet Explorer and Flock web browsers, "bookmark" is used by Safari web browsers. The website-http://www.wtvi.com/teks/07_08_articles/socialbookmarking 101 .html

Internet Safety

The Internet Safety videos was first of all unnerving to learn of predators who could spend so much time trying and violating someone's privacy. Greg Solomon, Zen Archer, and the Child Computer & Internet Safety videos enlightened us to the dangers computers pose for young adults and children. These videos should be viewed by all parents to heighten their awareness of these possible outcomes.
The videos were informative to reinforce the steps to protecting one's self as follows: block the name, remove the name, report the name, ignore the communications, be cautious with someone directing foul or obscene comments toward you, and if you are in primary or secondary school report it to the school counselor.
I have heard via the news and with the contents of these safety videos to be protective in monitoring the time spent on computers and it was stressed that less time socializing would be better. Also mentioned, parents can use a webcam and key logger.

NJCCCS

The NJCCCS article stated many scenarios I am familiar with. But, I did learn:
1) for societal advancement we need to learn and be knowledgeable about maintaining and troubleshooting equipment
2)SCANS in 1992
3)information literacy proficiencies
The article articulated for me or reinforced my own personal belief that if you have NO formal technological experiences you possess a negative attitude about learning something new as computer technology, because at first it seems so daunting and complex. I have LEARNED to develop the attitude JUST DO IT!
and after several attempts-you simply get "the hang of it."
I thought if your computer ceases to function you ask someone more computer savvy to fix the computer problem, but now I am aware of due to this article to learn to pursue troubleshooting your own equipment.
I just learned when SCANS was introduced and my 4 children from this younger generation have so BENEFITTED from the inception of this K-12 computer curriculum, obviously they are very computer savvy.
I thought it was one thing to learn how to operate your PC, but now I more understand this new vocabulary for me--information literacy proficiencies--which defines gathering research info via the internet. I am grateful for this article.

Welcome back to blogging

Dear Professor Luongo,
I am looking forward to this course, I so enjoyed the Foundations of the Reading Curriculum course in May/June. After this semester, I will be student teaching-in Janaury -Hooray!