Reflection of Ed Tech Standards

How might you explain the big picture of what these standards are trying to accomplish.
The tech standards that have been instituted are trying to teach children to use technology to learn, live and work. Which I think is pretty much what education in general is trying to accomplish. To make sure that children know their way around the world. A world that is getting more and more technologically oriented. If children are not taught how to be technologically literate, they are not being taught how to learn, work and live in the world as it is emerging. From the US census data we learn that: Sixty-two million U.S. households,  or 55 percent of American homes, had a Web-connected computer in 2003. That’s up from 50 percent in 2001, and more than triple 1997′s 18 percent figure. In just 6 years, the number of internet connected houses tripled. I couldn't find how much it has grown since then, but I imagine it's a lot more by now. 
We simply cannot afford to not teach children how to be technologically literate. 


Describe some strategies you could implement at your grade levels in order to accomplish this huge task
Here's the standards for teaching technological literacy:

• Creativity and Innovation
• Communication and Collaboration
• Research and Information Fluency
• Critical Thinking, Prob. Solving and Decision Making
• Digital Citizenship
• Technology Operations and Concepts

In some ways, I don't think it will be too huge a task to implement all this. As the US becomes more technological, more options and devices will find their way into the classroom. For children who are growing up now, the internet, smart phones and all other high tech developments are as normal as pen, paper and calculators were for us. They are tools. It will be perfectly normal to use these to do schoolwork and homework.
Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't be extremely careful in how we teach these new skills. The generation that is growing up now is taking technology for granted and will probably use it for things that we haven't imagined yet. It is important that we teach children to use their tools appropriately and well. 

The great benefit of already working in a school.

So. Today I finally got around to calling the Salem Keizer school district benefit office to ask whether there's any program they have that might help me out while I'm a student teacher. Things like financial aid, but also maybe some flexibility in work hours so I can observe at another school (there's a elementary school right in my school's backyard).
I get told 2 things:

1. There are no such programs available for me in any way because I've only worked there for about 1 year and I am not yet a permanent employee (which takes about 3 years). A shame, but fair enough. However:
2. In order to do my student teaching, I would need to take time off. The district is not going to grant me a leave of absence for the same reason as mentioned above. 

Effectively this means that next year, when my student teaching comes around, I am going to have to quit my job. 

I am trying to talk to other people to see whether this is actually true, because it seems a bit strange to me. More on this later.

Who owns a Google doc?

In class the other day it was asserted that Google owns everything that gets uploaded to it. I wanted to get more information on that, so I looked around the internet a bit. On Gigaom.com I found this article.
What it comes down to is:

• You retain copyright of anything you upload to Google, but:
• “you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its Privacy Policy.”
• Although Google and Adobe claim licenses, the full terms make it clear that these license are limited to actually providing you the service you’re using.

Seems to me that ownership of anything I upload to or create with Google stays with me. Which is nice. 

My Favorite Web2.0 tools.

Web 2.0 is:

• All the online applications that can be accessed from any computer that has an internet connection.
• The beginning of moving from having a PC (personal computer) to being able to turn any computer into your personal computer. 
• A great way to increase productivity

Dropbox is:

• A web 2.0 tool that allows the user to have a folder on their computer (the dropbox) that can be accessed from any other computer through the internet.
• If 2 computers both have dropbox installed by the same user, whatever is dropped into one box is automatically synchronized to the other box.
• The downside for me is that my desktop has a very small harddrive. I wish I would just be able to access the file on my laptop instead of it putting it on the desktop's drive as well

Tokbox is:

• The web 2.0 way of doing Skype.
• Pros:
• Able to acces it on any computer that has internet access, no need to install software.
• It allows the use of video conferencing for more than 2 users (Skype only allows video for 2 people).
• Easy to use, you just have to log in.
• I've tried it once or twice and it seems to have less trouble with bad connections and bad video or audio reception. 
• Cons:
• Skype can run in the background, Tokbox needs an open web browser. I like my web browser less cluttered.
• Far less Tokbox users than Skype users. 

I like it! Great tools, with much potential for increased productivity. I'm just a bit concerned that there's so many tools out there that I will start to forget which ones I'm using and why. But I'm sure there's a tool for that too ;)

Google Reader

My team and I worked on Google Reader:

• A very nice application that tells the user when websites that they are interested in are updated. 
• No more checking every single website to see whether or not they updated. 
• Just one screen that tells the user which sites have updated. Very nice for checking student blogs to see if they've done their homework yet. 
• A great way to save time. 

The learning curve for me wasn't too steep. I'm fairly comfortable around computers and was very interested in Google Reader when I heard about it in class. I didn't feel forced to try it so that I could blog about it. Since two weeks ago I've been using it a lot. 

For our group assignment, I started the doc we worked in and shared in with my team. After that, we all contributed equally to the document. I used my Google Reader during our presentation to show what the many uses of it are.
Here's a link to our document: LINK