Journal post #2

Chapter 2. "Transforming Learning with Unique, Powerful Technology."

Focus Question: How does technology create student engagement and collaboration?

Tech tool: Web resources for engagement and collaboration.

          I just want to start out with saying that I had a hard time focusing on just one question. To me some of them actually work together, or happen because of one another.

        To begin with creating student engagement and collaboration I just want to break this apart and look at it small pieces at a time. Technology enables us to create almost anything we put our thoughts into, I came across the tech tool, web resources for engagement and collaboration and there's an abundance of them! There's a web site for everything, with that being said, that means a lot of people put time and effort into something that someone else is going to see, thus the collaborating part.

        Under the segment "Group work and collaboration in the classroom" it made me think of how after all the work was done for each specific group, I would look around the room and realize that I know a whole new chapter because we came together as a class, worked on sections, and basically taught it to each other.
Along with this segment is the use of incorporating new uses of technology, while reading is always going to be a necessity, if we gave each kid some sort of kindle with access to a library full of books, they wouldn't be wasting time walking back and forth from the library.

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        When kids get together and collaborate their ideas for a project, not one of them is going to have the same exact idea, or may not even be able to decide. By the use of technology engaging them, first of all because they're automatically excited to use something that they are already familiar with, and second, I think by using technology it gives the kids a sense of something "Important." When combining these together I feel as though they're going to come up with something great, and what's even better about technology is as we are not all "Picasso's" by typing into a search engine what you're trying to design, create or express, it's going to come up with something they would have never imagined.

        To wrap this chapter up I feel as though technology creates student engagement by enabling them to express their creativity in unimaginable ways, due to the use of unlimited web based resources and being brought together by a common factor; technology.

Resources:
Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2011). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN:10 0-13-159611-X, ISBN:13 978-0-13-159611-5    
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