Websites for Instructional Technology Resources

Best Practices of Technology Integration
http://www.remc11.k12.mi.us/bstpract/
Access K-12 lessons that use technology. Written by practicing teachers and "kid-tested", the lessons encompass Fine Arts, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Special Education, and Technology.

The Instructional Use of Learning Objects:

http://www.reusability.org/read/

This is the online version of The Instructional Use of Learning Objects, a new book that tries to go beyond the technological hype and connect learning objects to instruction and learning. You can read the full text of the book at this web site for free. In addition to reading the book, at this website you can participate in discussions of the book's chapters with the authors and others, and discuss other issues related to learning objects, instruction, and learning.

Technology Integration: Unit Planning
http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/tech/proj_plan.html
What does the research say about using technology effectively? This site reviews how to design an effective technology lesson, construct the assessment, identify instructional resources, and plan for classroom management.

Edutopia Online: The Big List on Technology Integration
http://www.edutopia.org/techintegration
The George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF) offers courseware modules, articles, interviews, professional organizations, and resources to show teachers how to weave computers into the curriculum.

Select Right Technology for Right Class

I really enjoyed what I learned from this course. It’s good to know there are so many useful software and web resources for classroom use, like the Microsoft Office series; the Brochure Publisher, Inspiration, Blog and Webquest. Before this class, I only used very few of these new technologies. Hopefully, after learning how to use these new technologies for the classroom teaching, I will be able to make more use of these technologies in my class.

Now that there are so many new technologies you can choose for your classroom use, one question I have been thinking is how to select the best media and technology for a specific class. Obviously, you will not want to use all the available technologies in your class because that is going to confuse your students if this is a technology class or a class about the subjects you are going to teach. You also don’t want to use no technology in your classroom since you know the use of new media and technologies can help increase the efficiency of teaching and learning. So you will need to think what technologies are appropriate to be used in your class.

In my opinion, the answer to the question goes back to what you are going to teach. That is to say, you will always select the type of media and technologies that suit best for your teaching subject and student’s learning style. For instance, if you are teaching a history or social study class, you may want to teach your students how to use webquest to find online resources. For another instance, if your class involves a lot of in-class and after-class group work and discussions, you may want to set up a blog for your class so you and your students have a very good communication platform.

Copyright Law

In the Chapter 10 of our textbook, the most important issue is the copyright law. Personally, I think teachers must be very careful and clear about this issue in our teaching career to avoid copyright violation.

In nowadays, it is very easy for a person like a teacher to get a lot of teaching and learning resources from the internet. On the one hand, this makes resource sharing easier. That is to say, we can simply "copy and paste" and then get what we need from the internet. On the other hand, it's very easy to break the copyright law by doing this because you may be taking resources away without the permission from the author of the website. Therefore, it's very important for a teacher to understand and be familiar with the copyright law and know how to avoid copyright violation.

In order to do this, before we plan to use any resource from other people’s websites such as blog, wikipage or webquest, think about the following questions first:
1. Can you directly use the resources you find on those websites in your teaching? Do you need to notify the author of the website you are using his materials in your teaching?
2. How can you use this resource in your teaching?
3. Can you find a good way to transform those resources into something you understand so that you can teach to your students?
4. Have you referenced or given the credit to the author or website from which you get the teaching and learning resources?

Similarly, for the original work done by yourself as a teacher, you may also establish copyright for it. According to the textbook, it's very simple to implement. We just need to provide a notice of copyright with a notation as in the following form: © 2004 John Doe. For example, for me, I can use the copyright notation: © 2007 Fang Zhang.

Useful online resources for blogging

I strongly agree that "Blogs are unique in the ways they offer teachers incredible possibilities to build on the pedagogy"(From Edublog Insight). Also, there are other good resources on the pedagogy of blogs: The Pedagogy Behind Blog and Blogging and Pedagogy.

In general, the blog is a good place for people to feel free to post their ideas and comments to the public. People can say agree or disagree to a point, but people need to be careful about what they say in their post. It’s a good way to keep any legal issue away. Be polite and mature is a rule for a posting writer. Here are some legal guides for bloggers:

Blogger Legal Liability Issues

The Overview of Legal Liability Issues FAQ briefly addresses some common legal issues that affect you as a publisher, especially situations where you may face legal claims or threats based on the information you published on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Intellectual Property addresses issues that arise when you publish material created by others on your blog.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Online Defamation Law provides an overview of defamation (libel) law, including a discussion of the constitutional and statutory privileges that may protect you.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Section 230 Protections discusses a powerful federal law that gives you, as a web host, protection against legal claims arising from hosting information written by third parties.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Privacy addresses the legal issues surrounding the privacy rights of people you blog about.

Bloggers As Journalists

The Bloggers' FAQ on the Reporter's Privilege is useful to bloggers who report news gathered from confidential sources.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Media Access can help bloggers who need to get access to public records and government meetings, as well as secure press passes to help with newsgathering.

The Bloggers' FAQ on the Freedom of Information Act can help bloggers use open government laws to get information from the government.
Other Legal Issues for Bloggers

The Student Bloggers' Legal FAQ addresses legal issues arising from student blogging. It focuses on blogging by high school (and middle school) students, but also contains information for college students.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Election Law addresses the legal issues you may face blogging about political campaigns.

The Bloggers' FAQ on Labor Law addresses legal issues with workplace blogging, including union organizing, protections for political blogging away from the workplace, and whistle blowing.The Bloggers' FAQ on Adult Material addresses the legal issues arising from publishing risque adult-oriented content, including obscenity law, community standards on the Internet, and the new 2257 regulations.
How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else) is a guide to safe blogging practices, including how to blog anonymously. It also briefly addresses some of the legal issues surrounding blogging about your workplace.

Best Practices for Online Service Providers provides information and suggestions that can be useful if you operate your own server, in order to help you make sound, ethical decisions about how to safeguard your users' private data and preserve the freedom of expression online.

Using blog to teach efficiently

Personally, I think blog is like a blackboard! Teachers can post things such as class syllabus or class plan on the blog just like they write things on the blackboard. The only difference is that information on blackboard has to be erased after a class, but the information on blog can exist for as long as the blog exists. In this case, it makes teaching more efficient.

Firstly, the student can frequently review teacher's post about class on the blog which saves teacher's time in explaining many things. Using the blog, student may get very clear about questions like what the assignment is for this week, when it is due and what they need to read before the next class. Such infromation will always be available on the blog. In this case, nobody can say they don't know what the assignment is.

Secondly, teachers can offer links to many learning resources for students on their blog. It's convenient for students to check those website links to get useful infromation.

In addtion, not only teacher can post things on blog, but also students can feel free to post their comments and ideas about the study topics. Many students like this kind of interactive learning and would like to read and share good comments and ideas from their peers. Also teacher can get student's feedback from the student's posts. It's a better way to know student's learning progress by reading these posts than reading the assignments only.

Blog is a communication tool!

Blog is a good communicaiton tool in Education. It is a bridge to connect different people involoved in the teaching and learning process. Between the student and teacher, student can get learning resources from the teacher's blog, such as class syllabus, class readings and/or class assignments. For the teachers, they can get student's feedback from the class blog where student post their thoughts. Between student and student, students can learn new things by reading through different posts in the blog that are posted by their fellow students. Also, students can form groups in the blog to disscuss different study topics just like what they do in the classroom. Between the teacher and parents, blog is also a good communicaiton tool, because parents can get various information related to their children's study from the blog, such as the class plan and their children's feedback on certain topics. When parents have any concerns about the class, they can also directly post their questions on the blog and get the response from the teaher. In addition, parents can also join the discussion on the blog to further understand their children's thoughts. Finally, blog also helps teacher and students to connect with other persons who may help in their teaching and learning. For example, teacher can put the links to other person's blog where useful learning resources may be found on the class blog, so students wil be able to access to those persons' blogs and get to know more.

I have my Blog!

I'm so excited to have my Blog! It's very interesting to design my Blog.