Mining PEW - How Teens Do Research in the Digital World

Buchanan, J., Chen, C., Friedrick, L., Heaps, A., Jacklin, A., Purcell, K., Rainie, L., & Zickuhr, K. (2012, November 1). How Teens Do Research in the Digital World. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Student-Research 

In the articles, I have learned that students are "self-sufficient researchers" when in comes to surfing the internet. I also found interesting that a large percentages of teachers felt their student could access the information that they need quickly. The study also found that a majority of teacher felt the internet and technology, in general, made it hard for students to find credible resources and that a class should be offered that focuses on digital literacy. 

One statement made an impression on me, it say 87% of technology is created for users with a short attention span.  It is so true! I think of all of the social media website and Google. My student want the information now and they do not want to wait. I have also noticed they want everything to be given to them without putting any afford into the work. They rather copy off of another student than looking for the information themselves. When I have done research projects, I also tell my students to find website that cannot be edited my a random person, like Wikipedia.  

I thought it was interesting that the research was on teachers who teacher AP and NWP.  I wish they would have compared that number to students who are taking regular education classes. At my campus, we have about 25% of the taking advanced classes and it would have been interested to see if the numbers would compare. 

115 pages out of 150

Mining PEW - Cell Internet Use

Duggan, M. & Smith, A. (2013, September 16). Cell Internet Use 2013. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Cell-Internet.aspx

In the article, I have learned that a large percentage, 63%, of cell phone owners are using their phones to access the internet.  I also learned that education and income play a factor in the cell phone internet usage.  Individuals with a high school diploma and that make less than 35, 00, tend to use their phones more to access the internet.  I wondered why that was the case.  I find myself using my phone to Google something. Then I thought, maybe this population cannot afford a computer or a internet provider.

I feel like the study was incorrect in say that individuals with higher education do not access the internet on their phone as much then individuals with a high school diploma. I feel the number is much higher because they study states that 91% of American own a cell phone. I do not feel the numbers match.


15 pages out of 150

Mining PEW - Teens, Smartphones and Texting

Lenhart, Amanda. (2012, March 19). Teens, Smartphones & Texting. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.  http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Teens-and-smartphones.aspx

In the article, I have learned that teens are using their smartphones to communicate with others, through text messages, more than making phone calls. Males and African - Americans are leading the way. There is a correlation between teens that send text messages and those who talk on the phone. In the survey, about one fourth of teens who have smartphones also have parents who hold a higher education degree. 

It was interesting to see that one of out twenty teens are "checking in" through social media outlets like Twitter. I thought the number would be higher especially at a younger age than 17 years old. I feel teens are unable to have real conversations because they are used to texting.  I have noticed a lot of my students are "text writing" and are unable to spell simple words like are.  



34 pages out of 150

Final Reflection

In my final reflection, I can truly say that I have enjoyed this class and learned so much. I have learned that technology can be a teacher's best friend!

Some of my favorite assignments were Word Clouds, Mind Mapping, and Playing with Words. I enjoyed these websites because it was a creative outlet yet I felt like I learned something. Also, I could see myself incorporating the websites into my lesson. I found Screencast a difficult and frustrating assignment because Screenr did not want to download onto my laptop and computer.

As a science teacher, I try to integrate concept maps into my lessons because I feel it helps the students organize their thoughts and make connections. I felt the Mind Mapping websites were beneficial to my students because they can make their own connections to the concepts and it helps them communicate their thoughts. I also liked Playing with Words websites because it allows the students to summarized their thoughts and displays them creativity. I thought about having the students print out their work and displaying them.

Thank you Dr. Perry for your guidance and allowing me to be creative!

Instagram and Vine

Instagram and Vine are great photo and video apps that be a classroom resource.  Last year, I had my students do a science project at home and I had them use Instagram to show me their experimental set up, materials, and results. I told them to take "selfies" of their project.

In 8 ways you can use vine, Betsie Jonas has some great ideas like teaching phonics to children because the Vine video loop. She also mentions reenacting a favorite book scene. I would use Vine as an EOC review. I would give my students a vocabulary word and they would have to act it out and tape a Vine video (similar to charades). Then the other students would need to guess the term.


Vine 
These vines are of my crazy pups!

Instagram  Follow me!!
This photo is of my husband and brother kayaking
 This is my sweet nephew and he loves ranch!
I'm enjoying a cup of coffee!

Information Curation

Happy Easter!

This week's assignment was to look into information curation, which is a site where new articles are a collected and sorted. I did not know about what information curations, but it is very interesting. One can look through topics and save articles to a your personal curation.

When searching through the sites, I liked Flipboard the most. The layout is very similar to reading an actual magazine because it feel like you're flipping the pages.  I also liked that saving an article is easy because the buttons are located at the bottom of the page. Google Currents is easy to use as well. You can look for magazines and save them to your lifestyle section. When looking through Paper.li, I felt it fell short in comparison to the curation Apps. Once you have created a paper, you cannot add another topic to it or follow on twitter. I found that I wanted to have all the articles on one page instead of creating different newspapers for each topic. I do not think I could see myself using this website.

Screencast

Hello.

Using screen shots are very useful when someone is presenting a tutorial or a how to. ScreenCast-o-matic was a very simple program.  I did not have to download any new software.  It was basically point, record, and finish! I really liked the different options to download the file, embed or share the link.  I would use this website repeatedly, because it is so easy!




I could not use Screenr for the life of me.  I downloaded Java fifty time on the computer, my laptop and even my husband's work laptop.  It did not work! So, I gave up and downloaded Jing.  Jing is very similar to ScreenCast except it is an program.  I did not like the save or send to ScreenCast options.  I had to redo my tutorial several times because I save the recording and I could not open it.  When I uploaded the recording to ScreenCast, it took a long time.  This is my link to my video and a photo of the Tagxedo I've made.  http://screencast.com/t/MTWwuTVe 

My favorite would obviously be ScreenCast-o-matic hands down!  It was easy, free, and user friendly.