When we talk about technology. That is a new thing for me. Usng technology in the English classroom is worderful thing. It can help teacher for teach English subject. It teacher use technology very much, it become attentive for student in the classroom. Teacher should be for some  only activity. It is most tenefit for student in the English classroom.

Creating Digital Portfolios with Students

Students can create an ePortfolio using specialized software, or by creating a web site or slide show using digital files. The process of collecting and sorting the files integrates technology into a lesson, whether the assignment is to create something with a computer or to take digital photographs of a project throughout its creation. While sorting through the files, students also need to reflect about their work and how it shows their progress or success.

Collecting and Sorting Assignments With Technology
Creating a digital portfolio requires students to use technology. This can be accomplished by saving work created with computer software. It can also mean working with digital photographs, scanning artwork, or saving audio recording or a video made with a camcorder. The collection process needs to be made a routine so students and teachers remember to collect the work.

Sorting digital assignments would not be a daily occurrence, but should be included as a review or summary activity. Students need to be given direction and guidance while sorting. For example, will they be looking for files that show proficient or advanced scores for school wide learning rubrics, or finding examples of how their skills with sketching objects have improved throughout the semester.


Unlike a traditional portfolio that might become damaged with time, an electronic portfolio can be long lasting and follow the child throughout school. Copies can easily be made, as can backups in case of hard drive failure. When changing schools, whether moving from middle to high school or moving to a new state, the digital portfolio can be electronically sent to the new school and be awaiting the student.

Using ePortfolios to Aid Reflection in the Classroom

The RMC Research Corporation emphasizes the need for students to reflect. Reflection provides students with a process that leads to a better understanding of what they learned and how to apply it while improving their problem solving skills. It also helps students to determine and set personal goals for improvement.

The process of sorting through electronic files and determining which ones to keep in the portfolio aids reflection. When students are provided a direction for their reflection, such as a rubric or set of standards to help determine which items to keep, they are better able to connect the reflection process to their school work. Teachers should be involved in the reflection process by providing feedback concerning student choices and guidance when students need help making decisions.

Collecting, sorting and reflecting are all important activities when students create electronic portfolios. They should each be included as a part of lessons, whether daily, weekly or when reviewing concepts. Collecting and sorting are directly related to integrating technology into lessons, whereas reflection provides a reason and direction for the processes of collecting and sorting and can help students make connections to what they have learned

Teaching Moves Beyond the Classroom

Somewhat surprisingly, and despite huge advances in technology and communications, very little has changed in the way we teach - either in formal educational settings or in the world of work.


Whereas the ways we learn and access knowledge in our day-to-day lives are almost entirely informal, the vast majority of teaching is still done in classrooms and lecture halls. We learn through examples, trial and error and discussing ideas - with everyone acquiring knowledge at their own pace and in formats that suit them. We teach through one-size-fits-all curriculum and 60 minute classes where sharing is akin to cheating.


The good news is that this is starting to change - albeit slowly - as educators and trainers are increasingly experimenting with new technologies.


Making Use of Social Media Tools

Social media would appear to lend itself neatly to education - social learning if you will. From YouTube videos (see below) to classroom wikis, educators are starting to see the value in cooperation via social networking tools. The tool of the day, Twitter, has found some particularly interesting uses. Dallas history professor, Monica Rankin, has been experimenting with using Twitter in the classroom - using a weekly hashtag to track comments, questions and feedback posted by students during class. As she noted in her blog:


•"Most educators would agree that large classes set in the auditorium-style classrooms limit teaching options to lecture, lecture, and more lecture. And most educators would also agree that this is not the most effective way to teach. I wanted to find a way to incorporate more student-centered learning techniques and involve the students more fully into the material."


(Further reading: Twitter in the Classroom).




The idea of openly sharing course content via video first gained notoriety with MIT's 'open courseware' model. The idea is simple, and it's spreading. Academic Earth provides access to video lectures from some of the world's top professors at Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. The Open Educational Resources Hub brings together free to use teaching resources suitable for primary, secondary and post-secondary educators - all freely submitted by other educators. Even Britain's grandly named Royal Society provides free webcasts of their events and lectures.


Nintendo's series of 'brain training' games are the consumer-incarnation of the growing serious games industry. Companies and organisations like the Serious Games Institute are championing the use of virtual reality simulations, RPGs and even simple PlayStation and Wii style games to help deliver everything from literacy and numeracy training to health and safety modules.


PSPs (Playstation Portables) in particular have been growing in popularity with some educators due to their portability and multiple functionality - which allows for both display and capture of multimedia content. A once failing school in England recently saw huge improvements across the board after introducing games like Thrillville (which challenges players to run a themepark) into the business studies curriculum and encouraging history students to use the PSP to record classes for later study and view historical documents in detail.


In a similar vein, as mobile phones become more like tiny laptops (and more powerful than many), their use in education and training is ever more prevalent. A quick stroll through the iPhone app store reveals simple educational tools like FlashMath which helps teach arithmetic to elementary school level. At a recent elearning conference, British Army Major, Roy Evans discussed how iPods were being trialled in action in Afganistan as an alternative to printed language flash cards. The only negative feedback was that soldiers didn't need the Army issued iPods, they had their own.


Of course there have always been pioneers making innovative use of technology in education but as the Net Generation come of age, they are bringing with them a new way of working, and learning. The beginnings of a groundswell of change in how we teach perhaps?

Students Create a Collage Using the Computer

 

Technology and Art Lesson Tips for Using Free or Available Software
Computes Aid in Creation of Collage - Billy Alexander/SXCStudents can create a collage using digital photos and images without the need of expensive software.

Collage is an art form that takes a variety of images and arranges them to create a new picture. There are expensive software packages, such as Photoshop, that can make this easy to do with a computer, but many schools cannot afford to purchase these. There are, however, ways to use programs already available on the computer, like Paint, and free online tools so that students can create a collage from digital images.

Tips for Preparing to Create a Digital Collage
Before introducing students to how to create a digital collage, make sure they know about collages in general. It might also be helpful if students have created a physical collage in the past so they have an idea about how to proceed.


Students should be provided with a topic and time to find or create digital images. They also should be made aware of digital copyright laws and how educational fair use applies to the creation of their collage.


To use Paint to create a collage students should be capable of using the computer for copy-paste activities between programs. They also will need to be able to manage multiple windows being open at the same time.

Start the collage by opening one new Paint window in which to hold the work in progress. Open each original image in its own window by right-clicking the image icon in the Explorer window and choosing Open (this will open a new copy of paint). Then, use the select tool to choose the part of the image that is wanted, copy it, paste into the window holding the work in progress and move it into position. These steps are repeated until all desired images have been included.

Tips for Using Online Collage Creators


Another way to create a digital collage is through online collage software. Many online digital collage software options are free and easy to use. These software offerings are designed to provide a simple interface where students need to upload the images, then drag them into place. They may have specific requirements, such as images must be in JPEG format, and may require that it is downloaded and installed on the computer.


Always check with the school technology department or an administrator before installing software to make sure it does not violate the school computer use policy. Try the software in advance and make sure that it is not too advanced for students' computing skills and will provide the desired results for the lesson.


Using technology to create a collage adds computing skills practice to an art project. It can be accomplished with inexpensive or free tools that are already available on the computers or can be easily accessed through the Internet.