Investigating With Technologies

    Personal digital assistants is a handheld device that has many of the same capabilities of a computer.  These have operations that will help organize and plan a day out. They typically have word processors to where you can type documents up on them. What makes these so useful compared to a  normal computer is that they are much more portable and allow them to be taken anywhere. These are very useful in the classroom for a teacher because if they are up and moving around it is much easier to carry and with other technology the Personal digital assistants  or PDA can be incorporated into the main system of computers to allow it to function like a desktop.
    Online surveys are also very useful to use. Surveys are main goal is to collect information in a unbiased way.  The information that is retrieved from these surveys can be used to understand the thought, feelings, and understanding of certain subjects.  One good rule to follow when writing a survey is to keep the questions from being slanted that would cause a different answer. This causes false results in the survey making it inaccurate. Another good rule is to have a variety of survey takers. If there is only one kind of survey taker then the results will also be slanted. Such as if the survey is conducted only during work hours then many people who work will be left out of the survey, once again causing the survey to be inaccurate. Surveys can be use in the classroom by helping the teacher see how much the students already know about a subject or just a overall understanding of the students knowledge.
    Both Personal Digital Assistants and Online Surveys are very helpful in the classrooms but in two different ways. One, the PDA, allows the students to learn. The other, Online Surveys allow the teacher to learn about the students. Both very useful to allow optimal learning.

Yuen, S., & Yuen, P. K. (2003). PDAs as Educational Power Tools. (cover story). Tech     Directions,   62(9), 14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Webspiration Classroom

    The webspiration classroom would be a good program to have in the classroom.  I really like the organizing portion of the program, I believe that it would make objectives clear and concise so that students will be able to see what needs to be done and when for their project.  The fact that webspiration is online makes it nice to access from anywhere. Also if it is a group project any member can work on the project sharing things from anywhere while getting input from the teacher.  But as with anything on the internet if the internet or something dealing with the system is down, you cant work on the project. It seems like a very good program but you can accomplish the same tasks except the organizing portion on google docs that is free.
    Really any sort of writing activity can be helped with the use of technology. From research papers to long essays. Both with the organization of the essays and with helping to find research for them. As a teacher I would have the students use a online document editor or a blog to post suggestions on other students works for peer review.  This will make it more fun for the students since it is something that they haven’t gotten to do in the past. Peer editing is a good way to help the students learn because if they help teach they will learn the lesson better.  I had taught a lesson about running in speech class and through all of the research I had to do I learned more about running.
    Technology can help in many ways for teaching. With all the new technology out now all you need is a good imagination of how it can help in the class room. Keeping students connected on assignments or letting them peer edit there are so many ways to use technology.

                    Citation
Inspiration Software, Inc. (2011) retrieved from http://www.inspiration.com/