President George W. Bush
"The federal role in education is not to serve the system. It is to serve the children."
MGE/SEC444
President
George W. Bush
"The federal role in education is not to serve the system. It is to serve
the children."
The modern, fast paced world in which we live is an ever-changing kaleidoscope of technology and the role it plays in our lives. Two hundred years ago, who would have thought of the horse-less carriage? Even as much as twenty years ago, who would have thought cellular phones would have become as common as they have? And now look at where technology is headed, straight for the classroom. Inevitable? Yes. Improvement? Yes. Changing the role of education in the lives of all of our children for a brighter tomorrow? Absolutely.
The textbook
gives us a good insight to our future in learning and in teaching all across the
content area with chapter 10 of Brozo, W.G., & Simpson, M.L. (1999).
Readers,
teachers, learners: Expanding literacy across the content areas
(3rd Edition). New Jersey: Merrill Prentice Hall.
The
quote by George W. Bush above is one of great importance. It shows the support
of our government in bringing this new development of education to reality. I
have included the link to U.S. Dept. of Education’s web site and the proposal
for better technology in the classroom. This is part B of the grants for
educational technology.
http://www.ed.gov/inits/nclb/partx.html
- Educational Technology
Proposal
U.S. Secretary of Education
Richard Riley realized the need in 1996 and released the nation's first
educational technology plan titled, Getting America's Students Ready for the
21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge. These goals combined
with the federal, state, and private investments into technology for education,
the country has made leaps and bounds. In the following link the goals are
presented that Secretary Riley put forth, but in 2001 these goals are more vital
now than ever before.
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/elearning/index.html
http://www.hoxie.org/hhs/illumlit/title.htm
I have included this site as a
prime example of how technology is working for us in the classroom. This brings
reading to life over the internet by using visuals, sounds, and comments by
other students. This site is built by students for students. Working together
they create a learning environment where human need is met by technology.
Ø Interactive Learning Environment
Ø Web Design and Development
Ø Unlimited Student Interaction over the World Wide Web
Developed by the American Social History Project/ Center
for Media and Learning; The City Univ. of New York
http://www.cuny.edu/~ashp/index_new.html
This site is a
faculty-based site used to assist high school teachers and collegiate professors
in their work to integrate technology into the classroom. The site gives
suggestions and many “how to’s” to working with new and modern technology.
This adds to the curriculum of any teacher willing to break away from the
traditional classroom setting to leap into the future of education. This answers
teacher’s questions of how can I integrate technology into my course and where
does technology fit best in my course?
Ø
Integrating
Technology into the classroom
Ø
Breaks
Away from the Traditional Classroom Setting
Ø
Brings
about New Active Learning in Students and Teachers
Ø
Expands
the Textbook and Lectures of any Teacher
http://info.ox.ac.uk/jtap/reports/teaching/
Report commissioned by the JISC
Technology Applications Programme, © 1999
Stuart D. Lee, Susan Armitage,
Paul Groves, and Chris Stephens
This site is an assistant to teachers who have never
used the World Wide Web in their classroom before. It gives positive ideas to
building web sites, Discusses Computer-Aided Assessment, MUDs and MOOs which are
virtual reality worlds accessed through the internet, and several other tools
available to help bring technology to life in a classroom.
Ø
Develops
new ideas for creative learning
Ø
Helps the
teacher to Reinvent teaching in their methods
Ø
Brings
the Virtual Reality World to the Classroom
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper4.html
The vision of modern schools with all of the latest technologies at work
for our children is nearly at hand, but how close are we? This site looks at the
good and the bad of a totally technological classroom, and what teachers should
know in bringing about content integration. This site also offers its Challenge
2000 Multimedia Project, which with its seven basic principles allows teachers
to balance core content with advancing technological skills.
Ø
Extensive
teacher professional development support
Ø
Offers
balance between core content and technology
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/
An interactive web site that focuses on grammar and its uses. This site
is very easy to use and very valuable to those students who don’t quite
understand grammar to the full extent. A teacher could easily introduce a
student to such a site for the student’s own personal use on term papers,
creative writing, etc. Also teachers could use this site as a balance. For a
student who is falling behind in grammar, this site could give the student the
attention he/she needs without disrupting the classroom setting.
English
in City Honors School (Buffalo NY)
http://cityhonors.buffalo.k12.ny.us./city/rsrcs/eng/english.html
This site is a part of the larger site of City Honors School in Buffalo,
NY. The English department is set up in a web site to promote their students’
talent in English, to give instruction in Literature and Grammar, and to take
their students to the world. I included this site simply because it is a good
example of what teachers can give to their students.
1.
A chance
for the world to see just what they can do,
2.
Give
other students around the world a helping hand in the area of English,
3.
A chance
for other teachers to get lesson ideas from the projects posted here.
Manzo,
Anthony. (July 2000). Content Area Literacy:Interactive teaching for
interactive learning. Wiley, John & Sons Inc.
National
Center for Education Statistics. (2000, March). Internet access in U.S.
public schools and classrooms: 1994-99.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education.
Cavanaugh,
C.S. (1999, October). The effectiveness of interactive distance education
technologies in K-12 learning: A meta-analysis
(ERIC
Document Reproduction Service No. ED 430 547).
Baker,
E.A. (2000, July). Instructional approaches used to integrate literacy and
technology. Reading Online, 4(1).
www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index.asp?HREF=/articles/baker/index.html
Bruce,
B. C. (1997). Current issues and future directions. In J. Flood, S. B.
Heath, D. Lapp (Ed.), Handbook of Research on teaching literacy through the
communicative and visual arts.
(pp.
875-884). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.