Technology+Toolbox

Chad Portwood July 5, 2011 EDUC 538 Dr. Pyatt

//Technology Toolbox//

//Summary//

In an ever growing technological age educators need to be informed and dynamic when picking tools to incorporate into the classroom. When choosing a tool I believe that the following need to be looked at specifically; safety and security, cost, intuitiveness, and academic value. By exploring a tool with these criteria in mind the teacher will be better positioned to choose wisely and be able to improve the learning in their classroom. With safety and security the teacher must be able to control the tool if necessary in order to protect students from harm or certain information that must stay private. As with most things these days the bottom line is always in question and while some of these tools will be available for free, they might include ads or a low monthly fee for their services. I would guess that for each category of tools you would be able to find a free one that works to fit your needs. For a tool to be a good fit it must have an intuitiveness about it so that the user feels comfortable with it and can become very proficient when using it. The last criteria that I am using is academic value because the main purpose of adding these tools to the classroom should be improve the learning process and while some of these might be fun and the students love them, do they really add academic value? Like with most technologies I feel that over a period of time using a tool it will let you know if it is worth it and if not you will pursue other available tools until you find one that works for what you want to do.

//Criteria//

Easily Manipulated Very Safe || Can the tool be used for bad purposes? Are their safety measures in place to protect the user? Are these included in the preferences? || Expensive Free || Is there a start-up fee? Is it completely free of ads? Monthly fees? || Makes No Sense Obvious || Does the editing flow nicely and make sense? Are there any dead-ends with the tool that can't be figured out quickly? || None Valuable || How valuable would this tool be for use in the classroom? From a student, teacher, or parent position? What educational areas would this tool add value? ||
 * Safety/Security || 1 2 3 4 5
 * Cost || 1 2 3 4 5
 * Intuitiveness || 1 2 3 4 5
 * Academic Value || 1 2 3 4 5

Browser – //Google Chrome//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Seems to be very safe and secure, but Google does have control/access to personal information if using gmail, facebook, etc. Has good personal setting that are easy to control. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free to install and use. ||
 * Intuitiveness || **5** || Took a little while to get used to features, but now I like the simplicity and 'hot keys' when browsing the web. ||
 * Academic Value || **4** || Valuable in a way to access information on the web and can be useful when integrating other technologies; googledocs, gmail, etc. ||

Aggregators – //Google Reader//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **3** || Probably better than I think, but first time using it the second article was a picture of a birthing baby; halfway in halfway out. I didn't want to see that. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **3** || Would take time to get used to and search for what you want to find I think. Don't know why all the articles are coming from deadspin. ||
 * Academic Value || **2** || Could be good if regulated, but with students I think they would do what I just did; search around for useless information for half and hour then want my time back. ||

Social Bookmarking – //del.icio.us//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Similar to most tools, needs to be monitored or else students can reach unwanted areas. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **4** || Easy searching and related results. Also has good collection of information in one spot. ||
 * Academic Value || **4** || Good for topics with a quick search, would be useful with teaching. One search for trigonometry and had a handful of cool sites that were very relative. ||

Internet Search Tools – //Mamma//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Settings seem to work well with filtering. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **5** || Similar to other search sites. I did like the 'tabs' from last few searches that appear on the top of the screen. ||
 * Academic Value || **2** || First few results are from 'sponsored' site and not necessarily what I was looking for. I will still use google ||

Webstart – //protopage//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Can make tabs/widgets login secure. I think pages can be edited by others if allowed which might confuse some beginners. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free, as far as I can no ads either. ||
 * Intuitiveness || **5** || Very easy to manipulate and change widgets, both adding and deleting. Each has an edit/delete button and main buttons on top are easy to use as well. ||
 * Academic Value || **3** || Could be useful for gathering information from the internet into one place, but no uploading of files to site. Would be more useful I feel as personal website/homepage. ||

Weblogs – //blogspot//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Has login connected to google account as well as requiring commentators to be logged in to write a comment. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **4** || Took a few weeks to get used to page layout editing, but now is easy. If using just text then it is really easy to add a new post. ||
 * Academic Value || **4** || I see this useful for a teacher's homepage where students can get updates for the class as well as using links to googledocs for files because it doesn't allow files to be upload directly. ||

Wikispaces – //wikispaces//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Has permissions and locking abilities for tabs and pages. But otherwise can be edited by anyone ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **4** || Easy to use. Majority is straight forward; adding pages, adding tabs, editing pages, uploading files, etc. Not much different from other online usages. ||
 * Academic Value || **5** || Can be used as a class webpage (just like blogs) but added to this is the ability to upload files. Plus multiple students can edit one page, just need to moderate it. ||

Web-based word processing, spreadsheets & databases – //googledocs//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **5** || Has very good permission settings and security in place. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free, just need a google account. ||
 * Intuitiveness || **5** || Set up very similar to most word processing applications. Google has very good sense of user friendliness. ||
 * Academic Value || **4** || Great for collaboration between students who might not be able to meet in person that much. Can use as file storage for links to blogs for students. ||

Creative Writing – //fanfiction//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **3** || Seems that students could be exposed to inappropriate material/content easily. ||
 * Cost || **1** || Free, but have to wait two days in order to create a story!?! Not going to use this tool. ||
 * Intuitiveness || **1** || Search function wasn't very good. Found a lot of short stories that have no value to me. Don't know how to add/edit stories because I am not going to wait two days. ||
 * Academic Value || **2** || Feel that too much exposure could occur compared to other tools. Why not just use googledocs if you want to share stories within a class? ||

Assessment Tools – //Hot Potatoes//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || If used as quiz/test need to protect against cheating...one quick search of the source file and one can find the answers. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **3** || Initially a little confusing from the main creation page. But, very useful once XML pages have been created. ||
 * Academic Value || **5** || Can create a variety of different assessment tools, both summative and formative. Easy to have multiple versions of a quiz in order to retest students without much extra work. ||

Podcasting – //audacity//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Program on your computer, safety will depend on individual uploading/downloading content. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **4** || Similar to buttons to other programs that simplify the usage. Just need more time using it to get more familiar with the program. ||
 * Academic Value || **4** || Good from a teacher prospective to create audio files for students to use, but not sure how helpful it will be for the students use and projects. ||

Screencasting – //CamStudio//


 * **Criteria** || **Rating** || **Comments** ||
 * Safety/Security || **4** || Independent from internet so once again just depends on the content that the individual uses. ||
 * Cost || **5** || Free ||
 * Intuitiveness || **5** || Very easy and simple, just a record pause and stop button along with the choice of what type of file you'd like to save it as. ||
 * Academic Value || **5** || Very useful for teachers especially math because you can record an example of a problem (even using starboard) then post video online so students will be able to review it when they need to. Could cut down on how many times you go through an example with a student. ||