Help with Fractions

                                     Mr. Nagy

4/5/17

Rm. 106

Hey Class,

    
     This is your teacher Mr. Nagy. Feel free to post any problem you may have about any assignment and watch the wisdom spill in! If I can’t respond feel free to help each other with any problems. You all can achieve a neural network by sharing knowledge.



Blog 2-How Teachers Use Blogs in Their Classrooms

                                                                                 Asher Nagy

 3/12/17

ETEC-106

Pr. Smith

     There many ways teachers can use blogs to either help kids who fall behind or help kids get ahead. At the very least it can keep kids stay engaged who are not interested in class or school. Most young people understand how technology or blogs works and have been using them for a long time as it is. Therefore it is not unreasonable to assume they are literate in them. Blogs are a great medium for an electronic written work to be scrutinized or accounted for. This can help children stay accountable and use technology to complete assigned work by a teacher and perhaps one day a boss. Teachers have a number of ways to integrate technology into the education of a child. Blogging is one of them.

     A blog is short for web log. Writing was the main source for information to be dispersed discussed or reviewed in the past and blogging is just its current form. Blogging is used to write discuss and educate its subscribers about literally anything. A teacher can use blogging to assign an essay or discussion. These written works can then be submitted and reviewed online for critiquing or simply accountability. Normally an essay is submitted and a teacher must grade it by hand which can be time consuming. Even if a rough draft is submitted usually the next time it is given back is the next class 24-48 hours. The more technology can enable students and educators to solve problems and maximize time, the better. The more students write or exchange data, the more teachers can correct errors. Technology is used all the time to facilitate more routine tasks. Why not use it to enable teachers to spend more time on students' needs or deficits?

     As it was mentioned before technology can be used to save time. When a student who is engaged needs help with a simple question a teacher is there to respond quickly maximizing the time spent on helping the student with minimal effort. This critical time difference could mean that a student understands a topic much sooner and master a skill before a quiz or deadline.

     Another way blogs are used in classrooms is to publish basic information about the class, updates and corrections about an assignment. When a teacher uses blogs in their classroom it is not always the teacher that answers a classroom question. Blogs are used everyday by students to help other students. Sometimes it makes them more candid to share a problem they feel makes them look bad. Peer assistance can help a student understand that they are not dumb they are just encountering a problem that every student encountered and had trouble with. That is, until they talked to each other. This networking is one of the goals of education: participation. Blogs accomplish another one of the four goals of education which is; frequent interaction and feedback.

References

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen

https://elearningindustry.com/how-to-use-blogs-in-the-classroom

https://ed.stanford.edu/news/technology-can-close-achievement-gaps-and-improve-learning-outcomes

    

    

Top10Analysis

Ayelmao.                                                                                                                          Asher Nagy

                                                                                                                                                3/8/17
                                                                                                                                                Pr. Smith
                                                                                                                                                ETEC 106

     Hey guys it's me, Asher from class. To review this YT video I have to start off by saying that it was a little annoying right out the gate. I'm a naysayer and technology is a great tool but as it gets more and more advanced the harder it will be to perform a longitudinal study on consistent usage and its users in order to study the effects it has. There are plenty of valid concerns behind not wanting to integrate technology into education because it seems to dominate and control the direction of teaching and learning.

     The overall video was good I just don't like or agree with the videos premise which was smugly put. The first point is to keep technology in school because "kids love it". I also remember loving it when teacher's would wheel in the TV so we could watch a movie while a teacher graded our work or took a break. Kid's "love it" is not an argument. The point of school should be to teach kid's basic skills to prepare them for life and to build on those skills. The point of technology should be to help children learn what they need to know and to NOT use it for task they find too difficult. There will inevitably come a time when mental math and writing will need to done without technology (which is all the time) and I have concerns that kid's will not know how to function without it. Look up any Mark Dice video in which he goes around and ask people about history, civics, geography etc. You will realize that the millennial generation which integrated technology in school has some of the dumbest members in it.

     The question then becomes "Is it lack of technology in aid of learning?" or could it be the fact that spending has been increased and the and test scores have been totally linear. They haven't changed. At the end of the day a student will need to know how to perform rudimentary arithmetic or know what event started World War 1. And the no amount of money spent on technology can motivate him to learn. With the passing of NCLBA by President Bush it allowed children to pass a grade that they haven't earned. how does pretending they can pass a grade help them? At some point standards need to be enforced will inevitably mean that some kids will be held back. If you wanted fair you picked the wrong species. The market is not going to care about their deficit and hire them anyway. Not everyone can go on and be a lab tech, chemist doctor or engineer. The point of school is to teach kids basic skills to interact with the world successfully, not to pat them on the back for failure. I'll provide links to evidence of test scores being unchanged with increased spending.

     The assumption that technology doesn't help and the integration of it in education was a failure in one generation is not valid because it can obviously improve over time and there are plenty of unknowns and great potential in the future.

     The point that it saves money is concerning for this reason. When they say "it saves money" what exactly are they comparing it to? The assumption made in the video is that some kids are unable to keep up and will need extra time and resources to learn. Are they comparing projected technology costs and their training needs to the dysfunctional and money-hemorrhaging education system in the US?

     In summation the video is good but my point is that there are some skills that will just have to be taught without technology. It's true that it has permeated plenty of areas of life including the professional world. What I 'am saying is that it should be treated as an ancillary to learning and teaching. Not the fulcrum. You can't cling to anything that tightly otherwise it ends up hurting you. Never bet against the human spirit.

References

1.)  http://www.heritage.org/education/report/does-spending-more-education-improve-academic-achievement

2.) http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Test-scores-highlight-ineffective-school-funding-4618923.php