Nicholas Toth Education and Technology

In case study 4.2 was ran by Madeline Brooks and looked at the learning2 conference. This conference focuses on leveraging technology to support global learning.

This conferences started out small and grew into one of the leading technology conferences in Asia.

I believe that one of the lessons to take away from this conference is that you have to take risks in life. If you want to encourage others to change their ways, then you have to be willing to do something that others are not.

Case study 4.4 was ran by Peggy George and looks at the K12 conference. This conference looks incorporating using presentations such as video within lesson plans.

After reading this case study, I decided to add videos to my future lesson plans. I think that in environmental science, this will be beneficial to my students as they will be able to put visuals to what they learn about in the lecture.

Below is a video that I know I will incorporate into one of my future lesson plans. This video will help to show the importance of keystone species and the effect they have on the environment.

Virtual reality is define by the dictionary as: the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.

In the picture above, students are using virtual reality to look at a human skeleton and the muscular system. When I was in school and had to learn about the human body, I didn’t have many options. I could have either looked at a textbook or the skeleton in the corner of the room. A big issue that I had to face was that I couldn’t touch the skeleton as the school was afraid that students would break it. Virtual reality fixes this issue as students can look at the 3D skeleton without fear of breaking it.

This video below shows that students and teachers are using virtual reality to look at and observe 3D models. The video shows two things of equal significance. The first is that virtual reality helps to make a positive and fun environment as the video shows that the students are enjoying using the technology to learn. The second is that the teachers talk about how virtual reality makes learning easier for students and allows for the students to be able to learn more.

Below is a website that goes further into detail about virtual reality and how it can be used in different grade levels.

For this weeks assignment I chose to use the program Animoto to create a story board about part of my Eagle Project.

https://animoto.com/play/tsqWUgAs33wYDshtXG0m1w

I feel that this is a very useful tool as it clearly displays whatever a person wants to. As for my own experience, I had little to no issues with this program as I found it easy to navigate and incorporate what I wanted to do.  I would definitely use this program in the future as well as recommend it to others.

Here is the link considering that I was having a hard time adding the video to this blog page. https://animoto.com/play/tsqWUgAs33wYDshtXG0m1w

This website is used to display the journey of Paul Salopek. Paul is a journalist for National Geographic. Paul is in the midst of a decade long journey to record all walks of life. His journey will start in Africa, where human life is thought to have originated. It will then and continue through the Middle East to Asia, Asia to North America, and North America to South America, hugging the Pacific coastline all the way.

There were a couple of things that stood out to me on Paul’s journey. The first being when he was in Cyprus. The people there have different standards of wearing clothing. Here people are always clothed, but due to the extreme heat, many people opt only to wear shorts. I also Cyprus is the oldest inhabited place in the world. The hunter and gathers who first lived there built some of the first homes and villages. They also hunted most of the island’s animal population to extinction.

The glacial valleys of Karakoram are located in Pakistan. In these valleys live nomadic people who prospect for gold. They find the gold nestled in the riverbanks. The prospectors live off the gold that they find even going to say that they are good at finding it. But knowing where to look is only the first step as it takes manual labor to dig up boulders that the gold is located under. These nomadic people do not make an enormous sum of money, but it is enough for them and their families to survive.

Paul is using technology to record life from all over the world. Paul can record and tell the stories of people that otherwise would not be said. This journal that Paul is creating on his journey is a perfect example of being global citizenship as it teaches about other cultures.

I will incorporate Paul’s journey into my classroom when I am older. As an Environmental Scientist, it is crucial to look at the whole picture. When looking at environmental issues at a global scale, you have to comprehend or have some understanding of all walks of life to be able to come with strategies and plans to help everyone. If my students learn what Paul learned on his journey, then they will be better prepared for the future.

Chapter 10 of The Global Educator talks about the Norms of Global Collaboration.  The first Norm discussed by the book is Be Prepared while the second Norm discussed is Have a Purpose.  These two Norms are important for if they impact the whole global collaboration. 

The First Norm is Be Prepared.  A phrase that I am familiar with due to my time in Boy Scouts.  Be Prepared is actually the scout moto.  For this reason, I always ask the questions of: who or what I am trying to accomplish, and how do I get people involved?  

For me if I have always found that communication is key.  When I communicate with others, I know what other people are thinking.  This allows me to bounce ideas off other people.  By using apps Groupme hatsapp I am able to communicate with others.  By being able to collaborate with others, we will be able to discuss and create flyers to promote our global collaboration.  These flyers are a great way to introduce people to our event and are easy to create through programs like Photoshop and Canva.

The second Norm that the book talks about is Having a Purpose.  This is also something that I am familiar with from my time as a Boy Scout.  It is important to know exactly what you are trying to accomplish and how you plan on accomplishing your goal.  

Since I want to be a science
teacher I would focus on the exploration of specific topics and the co-creation
of material.  It is important that students
learn to work with others as scientist build off work that others do all the
time.  I would have students use programs
like google sheets and google docs to record data and draw conclusions based off
what they and others have gathered.  Another
program I would have students use are NowComment.  NowComment allows for students to review and
comment on what each other’s work.  This
will help students grow as they learn from each other.  

For this week’s Blog, I was given the opportunity to reflect on something that has stood out to me thus far in the class. I decided to write about Google Maps and Hyperdocs which we introduced to us this past week.

At first, I was when I read that I was going to be using Google Maps I was confused. I wondered how could google maps possibly related to teaching in the classroom. I soon found out that there were many applications.

The first application that I noticed was the ability to show students areas that you were talking about. I could design my map exactly the way that I wanted and include the landforms of my choosing.  As an environmental teacher, this is very appealing to me as many of the maps found online don’t have all the features that I am looking for.

Another application I found was that I could show my students street views of the locations that I am talking about allowing view the ecosystem like they were there in person.  The final application I found with this program is that I can create a map with videos so and share it with my students.  By being able to share my work with my students I could make viewing the map a homework assignment.  This would give the students the ability to look over what will be discussed in future classes ahead of time and allow me to have more time to help my students in areas that they are struggling in.

Over the course of this class I feel that I have learned a lot of interesting information that I will try to use when I am a teacher.  There are a couple of things that really stood out to me.  The first being social media being a useful tool, the second being the importance of global collaboration, and finally being able to use technology to teach lessons outside of the classroom.

The first thing that stood out to me was using social media, specifically Twitter, as a tool. In this class, I learned that many professionals use twitter to spread information and communicate with others they would usually not be able to. I feel that many people in my generation don’t use social media in productive ways. Before this class, I didn’t use twitter and my only experience with it was when people were being ridiculed for their comments there. This class helped show me that this does not have to be the case and that twitter can be a useful tool.

The second thing that stood out to me was the importance of global collaboration. As the world continues to evolve with new technology being invented it becomes more important for teachers to communicate with one another. Through communication, we can see what works for others and incorporate what they learn into our lesson plans. We can build off one another like never before. Not only that but we able to learn in new ways due to being able to create projects with students from all over the world. This stood out to me because it brings a new way of teaching that couldn’t exist without technology. These new experiences can help benefit students in ways never before seen in school.

The last thing that stood out to me was teaching outside of the classroom. Before technology, this was only possible by having students read textbooks. In many cases this might not have happened, meaning teachers would have to resort to going over the readings in the classroom which would lessen the time teachers would have to work one on one with students. Now lessons can be done at home online sources such as edpuzzle which we use in this class. The teacher can assign lessons as homework and can see which students have and have not done the homework. This creates more time for learning in the classroom whether it be new things or going over complicated topics. 

These topics stood out to me more so than the others for a couple of reasons. The first being that they are simplistic and that they are logical steps to take as we move into the future. The second reason is that they will be easy to implement into my lesson plans in the future.

               For this
blog post I was supposed to watch a show or movie in another language and wound
up watching the movie the Piano Tuner or in its original name L’accordeur.
This movie is about a French Piano player who was a prodigy.  But after a failed public performance he
gives up on pursuing his dreams and turns to tuning pianos for money.  To my surprise I enjoyed watching this film
and even though it was short I feel liked a learned a decent amount about
French Culture. 

               One scene
of the film shows a café where two people meet to discuss what the career choices
of the protagonist.  But that is not important
to learning about French culture.  What
is important is how the people communicate with one another.  In a sense it is not that different than how
Americans speak.  They curse like we do however
they are slightly more formal in the way that they speak.  On top of that they eat differently then us.  The food they were eating was light and in much
smaller portions then in American restaurants. 
On top of that the main character was eating desert during this scene which
was pointed out as unusual and unhealthy by the other character.  The story took place in the city, so it was
hard to see if it really was all that different from the cities in
America.  What I can say is from the few
shots that we saw it seemed that cleaner and not nearly as crowded.  Another thing that stood out to me was that
all the people were in nicer clothing.  I
think that the people in the show all were well off.  The main character implied that he was struggling
with money at the moment.  So for that
reason I feel that people in France tend to dress nicer than people in America.

               I enjoyed putting myself in an unfamiliar environment, trying to understand what was happening without knowing the language.  I found myself having to rely on picking up facial expressions and vocal tones to try and comprehend what was happening.  This turned out to be very useful as I could hear the difference in speech between those who were angry and those who were happy, or the difference between those who were worried and those who were calm.  I very much enjoyed this experience I think that I will do it again. 

I had never used Twitter before I took this class at Stockton. I never was interested in getting one due to the fact I felt that most people just got into arguments about what they believed. When I got twitter for this class, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After using Twitter for a little over a month I can say while I don’t like it, I do see its usefulness. For me being that I am only following education accounts I haven’t dealt with a ton of drama or anything of that nature. Instead, I have seen that Twitter can be a useful way to pass along information and communicate with others that you might not get the chance to otherwise. While the conversations on Twitter have been interesting, I don’t know if they have changed my way of thinking of education. Most of the things that I have seen I have come to similar opinions about topics or have heard others voice those opinions before. For that reason, I don’t know if I have learned anything significant that I hadn’t already learned in one of the many educational classes that I have taken at Stockton. But, that doesn’t mean that my time and conversations weren’t meaningful as I find it beneficial to talk about similar experiences that I have had with other people and discuss different methods of teaching.

This week in class we were required to take a course on Microsoft Education called Teaching Sustainable Development Goals. We then were told to write about a topic that interested us. Being that I am an environmental major and that I was given the chance to discuss an environmental issue I gladly jumped at the chance to do so. 

I researched the topic of clean water and sanitation because of how important water is. Without water, life would not exist. Without clean drinking water, we will find ourselves more susceptible to diseases. 

Instead of talking about the water issues in third world countries I decided to talk about the water issues the plague the United States and the rest of the world. When people of issues in America water quality is probably not the first thing to come to most minds of most people. But what if I told you that it should be? What if I told you the water that you drink is not as clean as you thought it was? 

Dupont was a chemical company that is known for creating the Teflon which has many different applications including a nonstick coating on pans. Teflon is created with a chemical that has been dumped into the Ohio River for years. One of the many names of this chemical is C-8. The issue with this chemical is that it causes six different diseases two of which are cancers. To make matters worse the chemical has a long half-life before it becomes harmless. It would be horrible if this only affected the areas directly next to the Dupont plant. But alas a study came out showing that C-8 is found all over the world.

Is there any hope? Yes, there is. Dupont lost the class lawsuit that was filed against them allowing anyone in six different water districts to sue them. Dupont is not the only major chemical company that has had legal action taken against them. The fact that this happens is not allowed and the way to stop it is to educate ourselves and fight for our rights like the ability to drink water without fear of unknown side effects. We can make a change that will impact the world all we have to do is act.

I chose to write about water contamination because issues like these need to be addressed. To make matters worse this happened in a first world country. A place that thinks that they are safe from this kind of terror. I only wrote a little bit about this issue but there is plenty more research out there including a documentary called The Devil We Know.  I highly recommend everyone to watch it and look into the actions of companies like Dupont.