Digital Photography in Education

My idea to use digital photography in teaching would mainly be to make collages specific to new subjects to help learn vocabulary. I think visual queues can help when learning new words. If students make their own collages it can help them spend time with the subject material. But after working with the digital materials I kind of noticed that I prefer making my collages the old fashioned way. I like enhancing pictures and using digital tools to make the pictures look like I want them, but then I prefer printing them out, cutting them up and rearranging them to my own specifications. I like the ease of it.

Impressions of my first Tech in ED class

I actually enjoyed my first tech in ED class. (I am not surprised, even if it reads like that) We talked about lots of web 2.0 applications that I am familiar with and have used before. I think it will be interesting to see the different applications for them. I always use them in the same way, so it will be fun to see them from another perspective like how to use them when I teach.
I am a bit of a techno and gadget freak, so it will be interesting to see if I learn about things in this class that I haven't been introduced to before. I love to feel connected and use the internet all the time. My boyfriend actually makes fun of me for how much time I spend on web 2.0 applications, but at least I haven't made a facebook page for my dog. It sounds funny, but some people are that involved in the internet. I hope we will also talk about the downside of things. Not just to be a stick in the mud, but also because exposing oneself on the internet can be a very dangerous thing! Sadly lot's of people aren't aware of the dangers, or see nothing but the dangers. I think the internet is a wonderful thing and makes my life much easier, but I also am aware of what I need to do to protect myself.
All in all I guess I am rambling a little bit, but I wanted to post this while the class was still fresh in my mind. I am hoping to learn how to use what I know for education and hopefully also learn some more things in the process.

Uses for web 2.0 tools in my classroom

I am planning on teaching German on a high school level and will be exploring the use of web 2.0 tools in my future classroom.
For my first tool I would like to consider video sharing. I believe that when learning a language the most important thing is learning to understand other people and being able to communicate with them. Therefore I think video clips from sites like youtube can be very valuable in helping people practice understanding the language. If teachers can use video materials that are also interesting to the students they will be more likely to make an effort to understand what is being said. It also works the other way around. Most people love doing interactive projects. Projects like that can make boring things fun. For instance if there is a book that has to be read but isn't all too appealing to the students, a project could be picking a scene from that book and in groups making little videos of it that can be shared on sites like youtube. Having a class where everyone gets to sit together and watch everyone else's video can be very fun! In that case technology is being practiced as well as the use of the language since the kids will have to form the dialogue.


Secondly I would like to look at the uses of RSS feeds. When learning languages it is very important to practice! I believe that RSS feeds could be very useful in this! Every student could choose a subject that interests them (in German) and subscribe to it and then during the last class of the week everyone could present on their topics. doing that would have made them practice their reading and comprehension in that language, writing down their notes will practice their spelling and presenting to the class will practice their pronunciation.

Thirdly I think Blogging could be a useful tool as well. I remember that when I was living in Germany and we only spoke English at home my English teacher always made fun of me because my English spelling was "absolutely atrocious" as he put it so kindly. He said i could talk on and on forever without any problems, but that I really needed to work on my spelling. So to practice this I started writing my diary in English. Now if I go back and look at them I can see how drastically my spelling improved, just by writing, without anyone ever going through it and correcting things. Many people also learn better by writing things down. I think it could be a fun idea to have my students start blogs in German on things that interest them. A question would still be how to control this or integrate it into class, but since I am still a few years away from teaching I will find that out then! I also think that by the time I start teaching we will have many more things available to us on the internet, and who knows, we might have web 3.0 by then.... :)