The past 8 weeks have been very interesting indeed! It seems that even though I have been teaching with technology my entire 23 year career, I was not aware of the power of the "Read-Write Web" and the amount of information that can be communicated fairly easily in many formats. A brief history of my technological literacy follows:
1989: First year teaching high school mathematics - used the brand new TI-81 graphing calculator and an overhead projector.
1989-2001: Technology use in my high school classroom was basically newer models of the Texas Instruments calculators (TI-81, 81, 83, 83+, 84, 84+, 89, 92), an overhead projector, and software for the computer lab (Geometer's sketchpad, Green globs and graphing, Fraction Munchers, etc.). A computer was added to each classroom - with Internet access, but mainly used for grades.
2001-2004: Went to Oregon State University to work on PhD in Mathematics Education. My major professor's research area was technology in mathematics education. I learned about spreadsheets, real-time data collection devices, Internet applets and lesson plan resources, and numerous websites with collections of activities, lesson plans, etc.
2004 - 2007: Taught community college and learned about course management systems - Blackboard and designing online courses, MyMathLab, and free downloads for spreadsheets, graphing, statistics. Taught online professional development and learned Moodle and Sakai course management systems.
2008-2009: Taught at the university level and learned about new software and technology for K-12; TI-nspire, Fathom, Tinkerplots, WebCT course management system.
2010- present: WOW! How did I miss all of the communication available??? Now there are Blogs, Wikis, YouTube, screencasts, podcasts, slide share in addition to all of the other items above. All of the technology has been really easy to learn, very user friendly and has unlimited possibilities.
Some ways to use the technology from this class are: use of a wiki to share information with colleagues or have students share their work, blogs for posting information and comments, podcasts, screencasts, and video to enhance online coursework and communicate more directly with students. We have read about and seen many different examples of how the technology can be used. I am still thinking of ways to utilize the technology in online courses to make them more inviting, more opportunities for students to be engaged and communicate with each other, more opportunity to communicate with students through visual and audio modalities, and the ease of communication when students have specific questions. A combination of the course management systems, homework and test management systems such as course compass, and Web 2.0 function can be utilized to make a quality online course (or supplement the in-class course).
There are a few technologies I still want to learn and use: creating a web page for students to access course information, learning the new course management system from Pearson we will be using next year for all of our courses, Skype for communicating with students via video real time, and some real-time chat functions where I can discuss problems and write solutions while working with students. I still only have a phone that I use to talk to people - no apps, no texting, no Internet, and am not sure I want to venture there just yet.......
I think as soon as I am caught up - it will all have changed.
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