Reflections.-Tuesday late night.

When I was a little kid, there was a TV comedy series called "The double life of Henry Phyfe"(ABC,1966). In this series, the protagonist, a regular person, has this resemblance to a Russian master spy, U-31, who is run over by a car because he had not been trained on how to cross the street. The show always started on how Mr. Phyfe was convinced of impersonate U-31 "one more time" for his country, then he was trained on some activity for the mission, like skying, golfing, martial arts, dancing, etc, for which he was completely incompetent. At the end, by pure luck, he completed the mission. This show lasted only one season, it did not survive competing with "Get Smart" or "Mission Impossible", and the tapes of the show seem to be lost.

As a teacher, sometimes I feel like Mr. Phyfe: too many tools, too little time. Jing may be one of my favorite tools, if I can teach the students how to properly use it. The I-touch looks very promising, if we can find the right applications and pod-cast for them. Youtube is a personal favorite, but currently I don't let my students use it.

As an activity for my students, I'll like to have literacy circles in which several students read a book, make a summary and comment on it, and read the comments of the others, probably through wiki. Perhaps we can even use the wikis for the scientific process: each student will make a Hypothesis to predict the outcome of an experiment.

Tool#11-Tuesday night

Learning how to drive includes a lot of rules and laws, from how to park to how to be courteous on the road. Use of technology in a shared environment requires a similar set of rules.

If we are going to teach the students how to be be part of this digital society, we have to let them know and understand the following:

1) We need to be respectful of others. If I can not say something nice, it is better not to say it, specially with someone you don't know.

2) We need to be careful. Instant access to information doesn't mean access to the truth. Also, personal information shared over the Internet becomes public, anyone can see it.

3) Technology is a tool, not a goal. Having the technology doesn't make us better or smarter, but its proper use does. Communication, entertainment, learning, work, information, are things in which technology can aid. but in the end, it is people who does it all(or most of it).

Tool #10-Tuesday afternoon

The mobile (hand-held) entertainment seems to be all around us. Phones, electronic players and hand-held game consoles are a symbol of status. If we can find educational games and content, why not use them in the classroom.

From the applications I reviewed, I liked Ken-Ken and Sudoku(math related). The USA Factbook seems promising to study the states for 3rd grade. The NASA Lunar Electric Rover Simulator looks like a great real-life game of planetary exploration. HearPlanet may be good for the students to get information about places they have not seen.

The planets application may be good to research the planets as it is in the TEKS for 3rd grade. They can choose their favorite planet(s) and write down information in their science journal, along with a colored drawing.

Tool #9-Tuesday noon

The ability to manipulate the images we see in the computer, and saving them seems crucial to the communication. Jing seems like a quit way for the students to see a picture and add their comments and point out the interesting things, without the complications of a bigger program like Power Point. Given a list of words, the students may search the Internet and find "pictures" to illustrate them.
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Skype may be a little trickier to implement. I personally prefer face to face communication in the classroom, and "making a phone call" through the computer seems a bit redundant. A video conference with an author may work better, but I would have to practice before hand.