Web+Tech

Put your class understanding of the Web Tech Cycle here:


 * Taken-As-Shared Idea: **
 * We believe one of the primary uses for web technology is to collaborate: students with their peers, professionals with each other, and student to instructor. By having "live" access to the same information, ideas will flow more freely and productivity will be improved. Also, ideas can be modified with new information more quickly allowing for the achievement of a shared truth to be realized more efficiently. In addition, we see great potential and value in interactive educational experiences including virtual field trips, live virtual classroom experiences, videos, and interactive websites that offer web based manipulatives with instantaneous feedback, author studies, as well as interactive games for drill and practice in all subject areas. Controlled internet exploration will enlighten students with live access to common information and interactivity with concepts and objects that may not be tangible. For example, those of us who experienced "treasure hunting" online, felt as though we not only broadened our literacies, but also our toolbox of resources to share with others. Blogs, online discussions, school and classroom websites and parent portals enhance communication and strengthen the relationship between students, teachers, and parents as partners in the educational process. Collaboration between students, teachers, professionals, and experts in a variety of fields of study will also enrich the student's learning experiences by connecting with others who have common interests and valuable first hand experience and knowledge, building our global community through reciprocity, cooperation, and technological venues. We are not immune to the risks that the Web present when offering its use in the classroom. With the potential of websites being under construction, school filters, power outages, and the like, we have to draw on our skills to continue to offer a collaborative learning environment even when our resources may not be readily available. In addition, we must take into account the school climate, community shared understanding, and administrative impression when considering the constrains associated with new and emerging technologies. Teachers need to be very clear, regarding intent, goals, and objectives when utilizing the web. Educators also need to develop a large resource pool for managing a population of minors and monitoring their activities for safety, appropriateness of searches/websites, validity or purpose of exploration and the resulting site they will encounter. We would never take a class and drop them off into The Big City, leaving them to explore freely and relying on authorities and well intended adults to keep them out of harm. In the same token, we cannot rely on filters and good intentions to keep our students safe and on task. It is our job to educate our students about using the web and acting as a digital citizen. **


 * Evaluations must coincide with the clearly defined goals and objectives we set when employing web based technologies. For example, having students plot their internet course by identify their resources by including links, and detailing their progressive search from beginning to end, will enable the mentor to more thoroughly gauge progress and establish a structural understanding of student's individual growth from beginning to educated conclusion. **


 * Some assessment should be a group effort. For instance, we all have different ways for using the web in our classrooms, by using a wiki page, as assessment, like we are doing now in class, we are blending our ideas and interpretations of how we use the web in our lessons. This definitely follows the constructivist viewpoint. We are not necessarily correcting each other, but bouncing ideas off one another to come to one response. The end result could be a variety of answers that all address the question. "Teachers seek the student's point of view in order to understand student learning for use in subsequent conceptions." Brooks&Brooks (1993) **