post5 conclusion

At the beginning of this course, you were asked to assess your present strengths and weaknesses in technology. Has your assessment changed? If so, how?

Technology has always been part of my life and I really rely on it as much to make it easier for me. I have learned more this semester of many databases from other courses that may help me in the future.  Now at work I have had the chance to go to trainings from a technology grant that my district received.  So now I am able to present anything that I need to whether for students or teachers and not just rely on powerpoint all the time.  I was so grateful to find the google docs!  I had no idea it even existed and it is so helpful to use it and not worry about moving around your laptop to present or even carry around a flash drive.  I have learned at the trainings on how to use imovie, garageband, and iphoto to do presentations, show a clip that I may edit for the students to see, making booktalks, make better future web  pages for the library site, and so on.  These trainings have also showed me to go to websites to find free music to place on the presentations and edit any movie clips I may need.  I believe the more tools and resources I have for myself, the more I can help students with their assignments and encourage students to become better readers.  Technology is impacting education and it is better to be as much knowledgeable as possible.  I need to move forward along with the present to advance to the future and not stay in the past.   

blog #4

The Web 2.0 are available to anyone that has access to the internet is quite helpful for everyone.  The purpose to have that kind of accessibility is helpful that anyone who needs to search for a type of book that they may need.  These tools will be improving by hearing more feedback for improvements to occur.  It also brings more useful tools on the table to manipulate for organizing and cataloging.   I agree from all the websites and book that improving a catalog should not be depended by just professionals. 
Using your own tags and not relying on the subject headings is much better because the person in charge of the account will have a sense of ownership and that will encourage the user more to be able to use those sites more effectively.  Each person is different and tagging doesn't not discriminate the variety of users out there in the internet world.

"Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/Using Us."

I believe that machines are not able to function at this point without a human to manipulate it. There is a whole lot of dependency from each other. At this moment people can make online websites, control search engines, and so on. I consider it as us due to the fact that many everyday things we do is somehow linked to technology. Communicating through high tech cell phones, texting, implementing technology in the education, etc. is a way to use the machine. There are so many ways to communicate with people all over the world that there is a point in time where there are wider options. It is no longer that a person is only limited to only one. There are many search engines to provide the service a person needs, different ways to display important photos online, etc. The machine according to the video is changing and expanding. But without the humans being around, then all of this would not happen. The machine is to help people improve their lives and have plenty of accessibility to all individuals. The more everyone is different, the more variety there is for the machine. Of course we also know that the machine was invented by humans and thus we know how to manage it to our advantage. But now the majority of the people seem to act as though they can't live an everyday life without a machine. As long as the machine is used at a positive way, both the machine and humans can go as far as they want.

As a librarian I would purchase four portable media players so any teacher may want to check them out. It would be a good teaching tool when needed if there are no T.V.s in the class. It would also be a good idea to purchase two sets of twenty ebook readers as a class set. It would be accessible for any teacher that would be interested in using them if they would read a certain book besides grabbing a book. It would be great to expose the students with that extra tool. Having PDAs for all teachers would be helpful for them if the district would like to do some assessments for students and know their reading level. I would search for a program that would not only have a testing software but also have the option of accessing each students' reading level and having access to the library books online for them to use. When I was pursing my Bachelor's, I was able to use a tablet PC and it was great when I implemented math into them. I would like to have three class sets (twenty each)because some classes do not have their own computers and rely on the computer lab. Another great opportunity to use tablet PCs is to have the access of video conferencing using webcams. Some computers already have built in webcams and that would be a great way to communicate with other schools in the area or even out of state or out of country. It would be a great tool to discuss certain books each have read or even recommend to read. The more technology opportunities given to students as well as faculty and staff, the more it will be used in the learning environment. Of course as a facilitator I would need to be flexible with my time to teach anyone who is interested.

Individual Technology Assessment

My present strengths in technology as an educator is trying to learn more about technology and being up to date with it as well.  Besides using it in my working environment, I also try to use it as a leisure and using it for personal reasons.  Since I have done this, using technology has been so easy to manipulate and "play around" with it without being afraid of anything.  It has also helped me maintain a stress free working environment for myself and my students.  I enjoy teaching students and my colleagues in using technology as much as I can.  It is exciting for me to see them use the technology and having to be part of that learning and engagement.  Most people in my school know that I am more technology aware than most people that work there, people have relied on me to help them out in any way possible.  My colleagues and students also feel more at ease when a person that they know is teaching them how to use technology.  My weakness in technology as an educator I would say is not having those tools to implement as much technology as possible in my classroom.  For example, I do not have enough computers to work as for a center or even have my own projector in my classroom as well as a smartboard.  Even though I still try to check out ceratin items from my library, it can still become a challenge for me.  As for addressing my weaknesses, I still take the opportunity to check all the necessary equipment that I need in order to use it in the classroom.  There are many students that are visual learners and need to be actively enagaged in order to help them understand the skill that needs to be taught throughout the year.  I have come to realize that technology is not just to make things easier for me but to use it to help students become better learners.