Assignment 8: Issues in Integrating Technology

The Group assignment was very interesting because it seemed very challenging in the beginning. The thought of collaborating to accomplish a group assignment through the use of technology was a scary thought for me. I am accustomed to doing group assignments face to face. Communicating through e-mail to plan, organize, and execute a group assignment taught me the benefits and luxuries that technology presents to educators when creating a collaborative effort. Once we began communicating and forming a plan for the assignment, the presentation came together effortlessly. It helped to have a group leader to act as a focal point for ideas and then make a final decision as to how we would ultimately execute our plan for the assignment. We used Google Sites to create our project which provided an easy means of creating a presentation that could be accessed by students from home if necessary. Google Sites allowed the group members to equally contribute to the site since it was very user friendly and required no experience in web design. The assignment came together very well with no problems although we were several hundred miles away from each other. There are almost no limits as to how a teacher can present information to their students.

Assignment 7 (Virtual Field Trip)

When I first began creating the virtual field trip, I automatically felt defeated. I knew it had to be done so once I started creating the virtual field trip ideas just kept coming and before I knew it I was trying to figure out how to keep it simple. This is a great way to give students a chance to explore several aspects of a topic and keeping them engaged by allowing them the opportunity to interact with the exercises, questions, and videos presented to them. The Virtual Field Trip was also an interactive assignment for myself because I learned new material as I put the questions and assignments together. I decided to do a Virtual Field Trip on the Civil Rights Movement. There was a total of 6 "Stops" created for students to learn about significant events that greatly influenced/impacted the Civil Rights Movement. Each "Stop" give's the student a summary of each key event and a short video giving further details. After the student has viewed the short video, there are 3 questions for the student to answer. Some of the questions are factual but other questions allows the students to use their critical thinking skills. I would definitely use a Virtual Field Trip as a learning tool for my future students.