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__**Journal 1: 7/1/2010**__ Thanks for visiting my wiki page. My name is Rob Korsvik and this wiki is created for my educational technology class at Ohio University. I am currently a graduate student at Ohio University working towards my degree in AYA integrated science education. I also received my bachelors degree from Ohio University in geology. My future goal is to be teaching earth science to high school students or to be pursuing a career in the geology field. The purpose of this wiki is to provide a home for my weekly journal entries for my EDCT 501 class.



Wikis are a way for people all over the world with different backgrounds and skill sets to share ideas and knowledge on specific topics and to be able to continuously edit and refine their postings to provide accurate and up to date information. They are a great way to collaborate information without having to be in the same room as a coworker and can provide instant feedback to ideas that are posted. The most widely known wiki is Wikipedia where people with knowledge on specific subjects can openly share their information and allow others with similar knowledge to either edit or add on. I believe that we will only see an expansion of wiki use in the future. They provide a great way for large groups of people to stay connected and to share their ideas in a forum specifically created to do so.

I can use a wiki in my content area by providing a page to my fellow students and allow them to post questions they have about matters in class. The class would then be able to collaborate on the answers or provide information to help out our fellow classmates. This would be much more useful than emailing the professor because instead of just one individual receiving feedback, the entire class can share the response. I feel that this would clear a lot of confusion when problems arise in assignments.

I think that I can use a wiki in my future classroom by allowing students in the class to upload questions and have them answered by either myself or another student in the class. This could be very useful and allow for peer editing and for me as the instructor to monitor who is adding or editing information and to ensure that it is correct and appropriate for the class. I can see the use of wikis in this fashion becoming very common place in the near future. When used properly they can be a very helpful tool.

__**Journal 2**__

7/10/2010

In preparation for my presentation this week I learned a lot about what types of networking sites are free and available for use. When I think of social networking I think if sites like facebook, myspace, or twitter. I never really understood how we can network and socialize with wikis and blogs amongst other software. Its amazing how collaborative blogs and wikis can be and how they can really keep us connected to friends or special interest groups. The amount of wiki sites offering differentr forms of media and information is amazing. I find it interesting how people can share and edit a database full of information. I believe that in the future we will be considering sites like Wikipedia as a scholarly source and Wikibooks to read our text books and perform research for classes.

I did find a lot of the different software that was introduced in the book to be repetitive. They all offer similar features with only small differences here or there. The problem becomes being a member of all these different professional development sites can be overwhelming and it can be easy to get lost in the jumble of options. If we are only members of one than it limits our resources but if we join too many we become oversaturated and lost in the massive amounts of information.

Journal 3: 7/10/2010

Having seen the presentations today I find I'm becoming more comfortable with using many of these technologies and feel that I can incorporate them into my future classroom in a productive manor. I find the concept mapping to be the most useful applications that we have been introduced to. There are so many ways that they can be used in a classroom from outlining papers to providing basic information on a subject. They also are very easy to read and user friendly which enable students to use them in the classroom after some basic instruction. They provide a unique way for students to make their own connections to information in their own way. It could be interesting to see how students lay out their ideas differently on the same topic.

I found the models to be confusing and unnecessary if you employ concept maps in your classroom. They seem very jumbled and busy which could make them hard to read. Its hard to follow the lines from node to node and this could be a problem when using this in special education where they need to be easy to read and follow for their students.

Journal 4: 7/16/2010

Having completed both the video and PowerPoint assignments I feel that I could easily incorporate both technologies into my future classroom either as instructional aids or for class projects where the students use these programs to present findings. I originally thought that the assignments would be much more difficult than they actually were. The movie was the project that worried me more that the PowerPoint. Over the years I have had a lot of exposure to PowerPoint as a presentational aid and felt very comfortable using the program and completing my reading quiz. The movie editing software is something I have not used since high school and I thought that creating the video would be much more challenging than it actually was. After reading the tutorial and exploring the program it actually took me more time to put my ideas together and organize them than to make the actual video. I feel very comfortable using and teaching others to use this software having been exposed to it now. I feel very good about both of my projects and these programs really allowed me to be creative while getting my ideas across.

Journal 5: 7/16/2010

I think I worry about these assignments too much and force myself to become overly stressed out when in actuality they are very easily navigated and user friendly. I not only worried about both assignments but I was really worried about what challenges the test might present. Having just completed the test I found it to be much more manageable than I had originally anticipated. I needed a few minutes to read over the requirements a few times and to think about what idea I was going to present but after that I was on a roll. I found I had more than enough time and my idea satisfied the prompt for the test and allowed me to elaborate on it throughout the exam. I feel that the idea I came up with could be easily incorporated into a future classroom of mine and only needs to be refined a little bit to make it work and fit to educational standards.

I think I need to stop stressing so much.

Journal 6: 7/23/10

I have completed and turned in this weeks assignments and I really thought that both the rubric and the webquest assignments were vary useful and I feel like I can easily incorporate them into my future classroom. I like how the rubric sets everything up easily and provides very clear and organized expectations. I would like it if the were more than 4 assessment areas for each category. It would be nice if they would allow up to 10 so that teachers can provide better feedback.

I thought the webquest was really cool and it would be interesting to implement in a class as homework outside of class or for additional information on topics covered in class. I would like to see if I could combine the webquest and my powerpoint game into 1 site. I think that would be great for a classroom.

I didn't find the Wordle very useful. It was fun to see the product of all the text that I put in but I don't see much use in the classroom for this application. Other than being a cool way to represent key ideas during a presentation I don't see much use for it.

Journal 7: 7/23/10

As the first session begins to close and our class starts to wrap up I'm becoming worried about finishing all of the work that is still assigned by next week. I feel like there is a lot to get done and not enough time to do it it. My work schedule will really make it difficult for me to find time to do the last projects and I'm worried that I would be able to put in the same amount of time into the projects and their quality will suffer as will by grade.

I am still lost as to what we are doing with the final livetext portfolio. There doesn't seem to be much direction on blackboard as to what must be included in this project other than a few screen shots saying how to post items. It would be benificial to me if there was a list of everything that needs to be included in the portfolio.

Its coming down to the wire and I'm getting a little worried and stressed out about finishing everything on time while maintaining quality.

Journal 8: 7/27/10

I found the livetext portfolio to be a nice way to wrap up all of the assignments that we completed in class and show how they all link towards promoting the use of technology in education. It was interesting to go back and look at the old assignments and see how each would apply to the different standards. It also mad you look at the assignments in a new light. We had to view the assignments as instructors rather than as students. I think that this really helped showcase the educational benefits of each project and how they could be incorporated into my future classes.

Journal 9: 7/27/10

Having completed the course I found that I really enjoyed working on many of these projects. I've never had any experience before with most of these softwares and i think that this was a really eye opening experience as to what is available on the internet. I have already began to think about how I might be able to use what I have learned in this course into my future classes. With so much free technology there is no longer an excuse to teachers not being able to promote digital technology and using it as a learning tool. I have really enjoyed learning about all of these technologies and am excited to use them in the future.