Copyright and Plagiarism (Week Seven)

Reflections

Strategies teachers can use to address each of the following potential pitfalls related to Internet use: access to inappropriate materials, threats to safety and privacy, viruses and hacking, copyright and plagiarism problems.

Access to inappropriate materials. I think the best of avoiding accessing to inappropriate materials is to teach students use appropriately. For example, if they accidently navigate to inappropriate content, teachers need to teach students close window, close laptop, and tell teacher. It is necessary to explain to them that it is unfortunate that this type of content exists and move on. Another strategy is to bring parents into the conversation to ensure students won’t access inappropriate materials after school. Communicate with parents at events such as digital safety night and through school newsletters.

Threats to safety and privacy. Teaching is still the best way to prevent students from Internet safety and privacy. Explain to students why they should learn to protect their privacy and how to protect information safety and privacy. For example, don’t fill in any forms that require your home address, name, phone number, and email address information. Remember to clean your browser when you log off. Teachers can show students how to clean browser for example.

Viruses and hacking. It would be helpful if teachers can provide a list of actions related to risk of computer virus and hacking. For example, clicking unknown email attachment is very possible to be hacked. Another strategy is to use firewall, which is widely used in school.

Copyright and plagiarism problems. Copyright and plagiarism is the most common problem in school. To avoid being punished by copyright and plagiarism, teachers should first teach students what they are, why it is wrong, what is permitted, and what is not. Everything you cited should be clearly referenced. Teachers can introduce some plagiarism check tools to students to help them prevent plagiarism. Turnitin is a good tool that is widely used in current school. Student can submit their writing in this software and check the duplication before they submit the writing as final version to teachers.

Instructional Tools (Week Three)

Reflections

Definition of instructional software according to its categories and their usages in classroom

Instructional software, differed from the general definition of software or applications, are designed specifically to support instruction and learning. In other words, instructional software has educational purposes or roles. It reflects certain learning theories. Thousands of instructional software is available in Apple store. You can easily find examples of instructional software if you go education category. For example, GeoGebra is a good app that brings together geometry, algebra, spreadsheets, graphing, statistics, and calculus in one easy-to use package.

Features and capabilities of word processing, spreadsheet, and database software tool program, your suggestions for how to use them in classroom.

Word processing can be used to store documents for later use. It is the most popular text-processing tool. Student can insert text, image, graphics, tables, and URL into one document. Today, word processing is a necessary basic skill in school and life in general. Spreadsheet is very convenient for us to organize data and other information. For example, information can be lined up in rows and columns. It is easy to draw tables with spreadsheet. Database software tool is used to deal with data, such as store, sort, update, and even merge with word-processing document.

Word processing, spreadsheet, and database software tool are all very important for teaching and learning. For example, database software tools can be utilized in students’ information management. Spreadsheet can be used to create course schedule. Word processing can be used to write teaching materials, do assignment, and show examples. Word processing is especially important because almost everything needs to be created and modified by this tool. Besides these tools, other tools such as organizing tool and graphic tool are also important and will greatly convenient teaching and design. As the digital world teachers, the capability of learning new tools to convenient teaching should be developed.

Teaching and learning tasks for both teachers and students that planning and organizing tools can support, list some examples you can think of in classroom teaching

With fast growing of digital technology, more and more educational technology choices are available for both teachers and students. As a student, I’d like to share my experience of using technology to convenient my learning. Evernote, which is an app from Apple store, is, I have to say, great tool to convenient my learning. Evernote is a note tool that is available for Mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, and web. This means you can access your notes everywhere and every device. This app is quite different from traditional note tools. You can save meetings and class notes for research; save interesting webpages for later access, even offline; capture ideas and design inspiration; search through photos of whiteboards and wine labels; be part of your GTD system to help you stay organized.

As a teacher, I think the tools we learn in this class are all very useful. For example, Google group can be used to send message and discussion to all students in class. Web tools such as rubistar, test maker, and trackstar are all good tools for learning. Don’t afraid of learning new tools. Feel free to try. Once you start to use it, you’ll feel the convenient the technology brought to you!

The resources and skills required for multimedia/hypermedia design, development, and integration (Week Five)

Reflections

Resources and skills required for multimedia/hypermedia design, development, and integration. Then talk about how to use multimedia/hypermedia in classroom.

Resources for multimedia/hypermedia include audio, video, photographs, graphic images, and text.

Audio can be used as background music for presentations, directions to students, and sound effects. Video is often used to demonstrate certain procedure or software such as Movie Maker and iMovie. Photograph is used to show events, documents, and objects. Graphic images are created to show charts and animations. Finally, text, which is the most used resource, is mainly used to explain certain procedure or phenomenon.

Teachers should not only possess technology skills but also understand how to utilize it to help course design, development, and integration. For example, how to use multimedia appropriately to promote student engagement rather than distract learning should be considered carefully. Therefore, skills required for teachers include technology using skills and technology integrating skills.

Multimedia should be included to help class communication rather than just for show. All links work and are appropriate to purpose and content. Multimedia/hypermedia used for navigation should be clear and easy to find.

Educational Technology and Related Theories

Reflections

Since I don’t have textbook right now, I’d like to share some of my understanding and experiences of education technology.  I have worked in this area for eight years. My understanding of educational technology has changed a lot. Educational technology was electrified education to me when I finished the first educational technology book. This definition changed from electrified education to multimedia education in my third year of college when I took some web design and computer science courses. When I went to graduate school, educational technology means educational software design and distance learning. Now, I come to USM and educational technology has a lot of means here, such as online learning, web-based learning, game-based learning, and technology-based classroom learning. Briefly speaking, whenever and wherever we are, educators are always trying to improve students’ learning with help of technology. In other words, educators are trying to use technology in their teaching, whether in classroom or online, and helping students feel comfortable and easy to gain knowledge. However, problem comes out. We have a lot of technology choices. But how to choose and use the right one is an issue in this field. In the past century when we have few choices of technology, research in this field focus on which one is the best. Now we don’t have to worry about the choices, research focus on how to use technology effectively in learning.

Welcome!

Reflections

tree1The purpose of this blog is to help students better understand the content of IT 465. I will provide examples, including discussion examples and assignments examples to help students finish their learning easier. All posts are categorized and you can find them very easily by clicking the categories in the right sidebar.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding IT 465. I am available every morning in Mac lab located in JB building 204. If you want to face-to-face help, you can stop by and I am very glad to help you.

Contact Information:

Lin Zhong
Graduate Assistant
Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education
Program of Instructional Technology
The University of Southern Mississippi
Tel: (601)-434-6309