Week 3 Reflection

My first impressions of using a blog, Socrative/Poll Everywhere, and setting up a Wiki in the last week is really interesting to three major factors. Creating a blog was an enjoyable experience because I was familiar with famous bloggers; however, I did not think before this assignment creating a blog in order I thought it is a complex issue. But I found it as a useful tool to publish anything you want whether diary, articles, or own experiences. Second, Socrative website surprised me because it is a new for me and I like the advanced technology that saves the time of teacher and creating a new method to take quizzes by connecting learning to technology. Although, I had some problems during setting up a quiz, but it was easy to use it later. Third, setting up a Wiki in the last week was a great experience because I learned something new and I am excited to apply it in future.

According to the two readings for this week, actually, both of them gave me clear perspectives on how we can integrate teaching with using technology and let me think about the strengths of online tools that help a teacher in the education field.

After reading Dale’s “Cone of Experience”, I conclude that Blogs and wiki could be placed at “Contrived Experiences” stage of the cone for two causes. First, I believe those technologies will learn students how to use the technology and the concept or idea of a lesson. As the author mention, “the Cone may help (us) to choose the instructional materials that are most appropriate for the particular topic (we wish to teach)”. I support that totally because I learned the little differences in the education can change major things in the learning process. To be more clearly, I mean that blog can use into several categories depending on how I used it. For instance, if a video is posted to a blog, it can represent the dramatized experience, visual demonstrations, educational TV, and motion pictures. If pictures are attached, it can represent still pictures and visual symbols. As a result, moving from stage to another in Cone of Experience creates changing in tools, methods, and result.

Moreover, when students use those websites and interact with them that might be placed in the phase of “Direct Purposeful Experience” resources, in order to the students make an interaction with other students and their teacher. Also, that will create a connection through other media with other students to widen their educational environment.

Further, the second reading “Falling Asleep at Your Keyboard: The Case for Computer Imagination” by Siegel who describes a concept he coined called “computer imagination”. The author attracts my attention to advantages of using technology in the education. Also, I conclude the students can play an essential role in their learning by control their own learning through interaction with each other or with the program, device, or app.

Likewise, there are several ways that I could use these technologies within the classroom that is related with Siegel’s ideas of computer imagination. For instance, in the assignment for this week, I learned about using Socrative which I will apply it in the future by creating short quizzes for students to take them online which give me instant results. Of course, it is a great tool for using as formative assessments and I am able to immediately which illustrates the progress of students. Also, Socrative supports me by a report about grades of students in charts. I like it because it saves time and effort of the teacher. Also, students will motivate for their quizzes and homework in order development the way of working to a contemporary lifestyle.