Blog #4

I believe Monica and I managed to use technology in meaningful and engaging ways in our lesson plan and unit.  We did not just want to use technology for the sake of using it.  The use of the ELMO to display “Mr. Bones,” the e-sheet, and the online skeleton game enhanced the understanding of lesson’s content.  Using the online stopwatch was a great way for us to easily keep track of time while students worked on the e-sheet.
  

One challenge I foresee in the future is teaching the lesson, using technology, and monitoring the students simultaneously.  Since Monica and I were both teaching the lesson, we did not have issues with multitasking that may occur if there was only one person teaching.  Before our presentation, we made sure that the video and other links we intended to use during the lesson were working properly.  I think it is important for teachers to test technology before using it in class so the teacher is more comfortable and there is no class time wasted when something does not function properly.   

Blog #3

In Generation M2: Media in the lives of 8- to 18-year-olds, the findings that children spend about 7.5 hours each day with media are shocking to me.  Whatever happened to playing outside?  I knew the number would be high, but I did not think it would be quite as bad.  I was also surprised by the large discrepancy between the media usage of Hispanic and Black children and that of Caucasian children.  All the multitasking that children are doing today causes them to miss out on living in the present.  It seems similar to a zombie-like existence to me.   

I believe that conducting a study on the media usage of 3^rd graders to freshmen in college is a very broad age range.  At the end of the Key Findings section, I was pleased to see a chart of media usage that splits the ages into smaller, more appropriate ranges. 

About 93% of heavy media users say they have a lot of friends, compared to 91% for medium and light users.  I cannot help but wonder about their definition of friendship.  Are these children referring to actual friends or Facebook friends?

It was a relief to read that the time young people spend reading books has slightly increased over the past ten years.  This was not surprising to me because of the popularity of such books as Harry Potter and Twilight.  However, newspaper and magazine reading has declined over the years, which I believe may be the result of people reading that content on the Internet.

Based on these findings, it seems teachers must have classrooms full of many inactive and easily distracted children.  I believe teachers need to work even harder to keep the attention of their students.  In addition, teachers and parents need to encourage children (especially heavy media users) to focus more on academics outside of the classroom instead of spending hours in front of the TV and computer.