Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Technology/Classroom Technology
In today’s society, there is a growing need for technology in the classroom. Some teachers are at the cutting edge of incorporating new technology into their daily lesson plans. Also, since there is so much technology out there, what should teachers be using in the classroom? Let’s take a look at some of the more recent technology that is being used in today’s modern classroom.
Before a teacher can use recent technology effectively however, he needs to be able to use basic computer programs to enhance his teaching. One basic program with a number of applications is power point. According to Jamye Swinford in an Education World article on technology, power point can be used for many more things than just presentations. For example, one could make a Jeopardy style game to do a review. Excel is another program that can have huge benefits in the classroom. You can use it to collect data for science experiments. You can then make graphs and charts out of the data which you can teach students to interpret. Perhaps the most basic computer program is a word processing program which can be used in a nearly infinite number of ways, from simply typing up handouts for the class to anything you can think of. You could use it to have students create a newspaper from a time period they are studying. Or, more traditionally to write papers. You can have your students create fliers about a cause they are arguing to learn to use other media to persuade. Depending on the age and ability level of your students basic computer applications can be used to do almost anything to enhance the learning experience.
LiveText is a new emerging technology that allows students to create electronic portfolios online. The students will then share their projects with their teachers via LiveText. By sharing the documents with the teachers, it gives the opportunity for the teachers to assess the project without turning in a paper copy. By turning in projects online, this allows students to build an electronic portfolio which will give them the opportunity to look back and reflect upon their previous assignments. Live text provides three things for students: (1) demonstrate learning competencies, (2) display competencies, (3) a maintenance tool to document ongoing development (Banister et. al, 2006). Another important tool that LiveText comes with is unlimited storage space. Students can then upload as many documents as they need to the electronic database where they will be stored for as long as they are needed. For teachers, there is a template already built into LiveText for lesson plans. This will cut down the time that is needed to setup a lesson plan, which will allow more time to spend on other projects and grading assignments. There is, however, a downside to LiveText. Students must purchase a one time only subscription code that will give them unlimited access to the online software.
LiveText was originally designed to provide a secure, structured storage in cyberspace for use by elementary school students' work products. The idea was to show that students could understand and use technology. Founded in 1997, by undergraduate students at Illinois State University Department of Computer Science, LiveText was developed in the early days of the world wide web. The founders worked with professors under a grant from the Sloan Foundation to develop and deliver the first generation of web based classes.(Illinois State University)
LiveText is priced at eighty-nine dollars for a student addition that is valid until one year after you graduate your program. This seems a fair price considering the price of textbooks. Also, you can renew your subscription on a yearly basis after that. You also have the capability of allowing a visitor to view your files by giving them a password. With the password, your guest simply logs into LiveText using the password and can then review your files. This could be a very valuable tool for submitting your portfolio to prospective employers upon 