E-Journal Week #3

February 25, 2008

 

E-Journal Entry #3:

EDT598

Dear Journal,

     This has been a good week. It is always nice to have a vacation to help you get caught up in class a little! I finally finished my personal philosophy assignment concerning the use of technology in the classroom. This assignment was hard for me because I thought I knew exactly how I felt about using technology in the classroom. The more I thought about it, I began to realize I needed to clarify and expand my definition of technology itself! This, of course, changed the way I felt about using technology in the classroom. I started to feel like a dog chasing it’s own tail!

     Over vacation I decided to visit the “harryfox.com” web site, once again, to research royalty fees and obtain mechanical licenses for a CD recorded for the Kennebec Valley Music Festival. I mentioned in “E-Journal Entry #1″ about my first visit to this web site causing me frustration when I was not able to successfully navigate and locate what I needed. This time, after several attempts at working my way through the sequenced pages for license applications, I finally finished the project and obtained the propper mechanical licenses. I was proud of myself for figuring it out on my own!

    I thought the “Appendix A: Web Timeline” was fascinating, although I had to go through it a few times to absorb it all! I left teaching in 1991, thinking I would never have to learn much about computers to get through life. Interesting that the “seeds” for the  world wide web and all that it has become were sewn that very same summer! In 1997, I returned to teaching, purchased my first computer (Windows 95), and received a book in the mail from my friend Jeff in New York City, via “Amazon.com”. It was around 2000 when I set up my personal email account and first became more aware of what on-line actually meant. Around that time, the headlines about Napster and the sharing of MP3 files was a huge issue and caught my attention, especially concerning royalties and copyright laws. 

     I thought web 2.0, chapter 3 was a big chapter. It took me a while to read and digest it! The web as the platform for administrators, teachers, students, and parents to control their own data and have the on-line tools to build the kind of education system needed today and in the future. This chapter explains the open source movement and how this philosophy has provided the collaborative evolution that supports the web 2.0 tools necessary for its success. The list of basic web 2.0 tools and how to use them are very helpful in understanding our class discussions and assignments. I am really quite amazed that some of this is actually sinking in and making sense to me!

Shawn.