Wednesday, February 24, 2010

E portfolio

The article began by stating what a portfolio is. It states that a portfolio is basically a collection of work. For example a model has a portfolio of pictures that shows how well they photograph and the kind of work that they have done. Portfolios where then used in education starting in the 1990's. A description of a portfolio in education is hard to give because there are many way that a portfolio is used. For example there is a student centered portfolio that is created based one who the students plans to present the portfolio to. It states that the portfolio is created based upon the style that the instructor/ tutor chooses but the student is given plenty of room to construct the portfolio in their own way. The instructor/ tutor just give guidance in this process. The article then proceeds to give other characteristics of a portfolio such as competence-oriented, action and reflection, and multimedia-oriented. This article even touch on portfolios in different area such as teacher education. It states the purpose of a portfolios in teacher education is to use it as an evaluation tool. It tells where that teacher is as far as the competency standards and if he/she has mastered that standard or not. After looking at all the different kinds of portfolios the article ended by discussing e-portfolios it stated that they started experimenting with them in the year of 2003 because they were planning for the future.




After reading the article and watching this video it further more explain an eportfolio to me. Because honestly all of this time I was wondering what is the purpose of it. But based on the video we use them to organize things such as our wikis, blog, and ect.Then we use the portfolio to basically show what we can do. It shows a range of digitial evidence of what has been learned. I show whom ever what you know through things such as pictures, google docs, videos, and pod casts. All of these things can be included in your eportfolio.To me an eportfolio tells a story of our actual learning.

Thought Provoking Question
Why would you use and eportfolio instead of a regular hard copy portfolio?

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Ethics and Technology

The article that I read was about teaching and using ethics in a school. The article began with a teacher going to a conference on copyright. She stated that in her classroom she had been modeling the wrong thing by reproducing and distributing things because she thought that it was covered under the fair use policy. Therefore after the conference it made her research property law and then begin to teach them to her students so that they can use it in a project. The the article transitioned to another teacher that questioned if students really understood copyright laws. She then wet forth to discuss that they may understand it but do not really know the consequences involve in violating the copyright and limits of fair use. She figures that they may even look at the consequences as just being a slap on the wrist until it hits home and someone is arrest for not adhering to these rules. Lastly was a teacher that questioned if students really retained the information that was taught on copyright. She later had the chance to see that students did retain that information and used it. So later in the article it is stated that people that do not take the time to learn the copyright laws and so forth may just be modeling the wrong thing.And considering that modeling was the first form of learning then it makes you wonder from what models are our children learning.




After reading the article and watching the video on copyright laws and fair use it has really opened my eyes to how important it is. The video really demonstrates how to properly use someone else material. Not following the proper copyright laws is like stealing. The video is basically saying get permission to use the material before you use it or suffer the consequences. I know most people don't follow copyright laws because they don't know how serious it is and they are just following the models that they have seen in their lives. For example, their teacher may have made copies out of a work book because of the lack of resources. Also people are not often taught how to get permission to use certain material. So that just goes to show that "People do perish because of lack of knowledge".

Thought provoking question:
Are you demonstrating the proper way to get permission to use someone else material, and do you think that copyright laws are necessary?

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Assistive technology

The article that I chose to read was Enabling and Accessing web 2.0. It was first describes what web 2.0 is. The web has evolved over time it was once web 1.0 which is when people only used it as a resource to get more details on a topic. But now that it has evolve people use it for way more than just a resource. The web is now more interactive than it has ever been. According to this article the web has opened up so many opportunities to people with disabilities in which they use it for employment as well as entertainment. Which is far better than what the web used to be
because web 1.0 was not as accessible as 2.0. The government has pushed companies to make if accessible to people with disabilities and that is what they did and are still doing. The same way web 1.0 need work to become accessible web 2.0 isn't perfect either.There is still work to be done on web 2.0 to make it more accessible.




What kind of assistive technonlgy can be use for a student that is blind and the system nor the family can really afford the highest quality technology?