erick,
I find is very helpful as faculty to find reputable outside material that is current and relates to the courses subject matter. Lends itself to great classroom discussion.
Antoine Lewis
We use our company made website that the student can access on their own time. It goes hand in hand with the curriculum being taught in the classroom. It has videos that further explain the days lesson.
Scott,
This is a good tool for students to take advantage of when not in class or when needing more information than the general course material provided from a course. Many student do not take advantage of resources like this or an online library or even reputable videos from YouTube. We has faculty should more often have graded task that require outside resources to be used.
Antoine Lewis
I agree with you, the students seem to always find the time to check everything on the internet except what they should be looking at.However if you get the students focused, there is some very good information, and excellent u tube videos the students can view to explain how things operate,which will help the instructor get his or her point across to the students.
dennis,
Students do easily get distracted when it comes to the internet. This is a constant battle for instructors in the classroom. Ice breakers and getting the classroom engaged without technology being used can set the tone for an attentive class.
Antoine Lewis
I totally agree with the course facilitator here! It is very important in my classroom management technique by first encouraging discussion, debate and conversation about the topics at hand before I even think about referring my students to internet sources. I do find that if you challenge students enough they will search out and find other sources of information on their own and add meaningful information to the flow and direction of the discussion. I am tickled pink when I put out a challenge question and I see students get absolutely thirsty in trying to find the answer or come up with a theory backed solution. I love it!
Denise,
Questions and case studies related to the subject matter and applying in to something that recently happened in the world or could potentially happen can led to some good discussions
Antoine Lewis
I use the internet for many things in the classroom setting. Service Manuals, Service Bulletins, VSI's, Updates, Warranties.....ect.
Rick,
I hope these technologies you have incorporated into your classroom are beneficial. Do you use any videos or simulations?
Antoine Lewis
I use an onloine forum for my students to respond to discussion topics during the week when we are not in class. This gives us a great starting point for the class each week and keeps students engaged in the material even outside the classroom.
Laurna,
Using the online forum feature is a great tool even for courses that meet onsite. I keeps the students engage and participating during the week. You can also set a rubric so they know how involved they most be.
Antoine Lewis
I teach anatomy and physiology and medical terminology and one of the ways that I use the internet as a teaching tool is to access some of the wonderful videos on youtube. One I recently used was 8 minutes of a pathologist handling a fresh human brain, clearly showing the texture as well as all the structures. I also just used a 4 minute film on the cell, filled with great graphics and set to music before beginning my lecture on the cell.
Susan,
With medical courses seeing and simulating what you will do after completing the program is very important. YouTube is great for sharing actual images, pictures, and videos to organize information and communicate with students.
Antoine Lewis
When I taught biology we would have occasional research days in the computer lab. I would develop a WebQuest (script) to guide students through material I wanted to emphasize. One class I saw two students laughing about what they had just done on Wikipedia. They had entered some erroneous information for an invasive aquatic plant species that was silly. They had entered a comment to say that the plant was known for ensnaring children and pulling them underwater.
Although the comment was later removed by Wikipedia editors, I used their comment as a teachable moment for the rest of the class. It was a good way to emphasize that everyone should be suspect of the information they obtain from not only Wikipedia, but the entire Internet and that they should carefully evaluate Internet sources for reliability.
Rob
Robert,
WebQuest is great for internet teaching and allowing learners to interact with resources on the internet. It is important that we as faculty must remind students that anyone one can post and alter Wikipedia information.
Antoine Lewis
I just wanted to say, Thank you for this information. I have heard of dropbox but never really fully grasped the concept of what I could do with it in terms of my classes. I am so happy that I signed up for this class in particular.
in our class we breath technology we Use technology as a topic for a writing assignment, Create a class webpage,Use an online grading system,Do an email exchange,Give multimedia presentations or have my students give them and we are Creating a class blog now.
Carrie,
Here is a good website provided information they feel are pros and cons regarding the dropbox feature: http://online-storage-service-review.toptenreviews.com/dropbox-review.html
Antoine Lewis
I really like how DropBox shifts the responsibility of turning in work on the student. That way when they say "I'm sure I turned that in" when they didn't, it's easy to show them.
I've made Google Sites pages that use a teacher's template. I've set it up so the things available in the class (on the school's server) are available on the site. Calendar, daily posts, a place for documents, links to interesting sites, academic calendar countdowns, slideshows, and repeats of important text from the weekly documents.
The big advantage is for the students to see what's up with the class, even if they didn't attend.
The only thing it doesn't have is a place for students to upload, so I've been using DropBox for that instead.
