Week 3 observation

I can see many uses for social bookmarking in schools today. I keep coming back to research materials. Imagine bookmarking sites for use in your classes, and rather than having a set per assignment, you can just tag them for use with many assignments. Since many units link back to previous ones, you can simply tag them for any place they would be of value in your class. I also know that I have kids in my 5th grade class that simply love looking at sites like Discovery.com and others like it. What better way to get kids to branch out to sites other than the ones that they see on TV than to have a whole set of pages bookmarked for “fun science” or whatever your class is. If I were a high school teacher I would be even more excited about the research aspect of this.

Outside of student use, I know that other science/math teachers in my grade are always e-mailing new and exciting sites to each other, now we won’t have to, we can just look at their page. Principals trying to get out the news of new PD opportunities, just bookmark and tag them for staff perusal. Has your school been in the news recently? Bookmark the site and tag it as public relations. Extra funding or scholarships? Let the parents and students know about it.
Before reading Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology, I have to admit that when I’ve thought about this field in the past it was more along the lines of what was said near the end of the first chapter, “Most individuals outside of our profession, as well as many inside of it, when asked to define the term instructional technology, will mention computer, videos, CD-ROMs, overhead and slide projectors, and the other types of hardware and software typically associated with the term instructional media.” I see now that it really deals with how we use these things (hardware, software) to create useful teaching tools and programs. It’s not so much what you have, but how you use what you have. How can these tools help you create more meaningful lessons and programs to help create enduring understanding for your students, lessons that are both educational and entertaining. Lessons that link the material that they are learning to real-world activities.

The discussion in chapter 2 seemed really close to the learning cycle model that we use in our district. We’re always supposed to be assessing and reevaluating what we’re doing in order to ensure that we’re meeting the students’ needs. If the students already know material, give a brief review and move on. Did the majority of your students get the lesson? If not, spend more time tomorrow. The two models talked about in this chapter, ADDIE and the ID model shown in figure 2.2 show how there also needs to be continuous analysis of the process to ensure that it is working towards the desired outcome and if not the need for necessary revision.