Over the course of the five weeks of term in which I learnt and in some cases, reviewed, these technological tools of education, I made several large discoveries as to the stability, implementation, reliability, understanding and how best to utilize the vehicles we have at our disposal in the classroom. From these experiences, I have drawn forth seven instances which I shall now explain.
1. Wikitools - Whilst this was an interesting and highly useful way to collaborate on information, there was a large issue in that only one person could edit at any given time. If more than one tried, any saved work would eliminate the work that another collaborator was adding to the mix. Or the opposite, given the particular circumstances of whoever did what and what mitigating reasoning came into play. From this, unless the collaborators had a given period of time to do their addition of information to the pool of knowledge, it is unsure of how much would be retained after pressing the SAVE button, ironically.
2. Blogs - Whilst they have formatting options and embedding and the like, it is difficult to enable one to a lot of in-depth tinkering of the wording and paragraphs and the like. In point of fact, one might be better off finding a different avenue with which to display their information if they desperately need the capacity to stagger what it is they are trying to say into a more presentable layout of dramatic wording for added effect.
3. Youtube - A lot of the videos are subject to the whims of the Youtube gods, or in reality the partners and admins of the servers. At any given time, for instance, a partner such as Vevo could call out a song used in a video and have the entire video muted in violation of copyright (fair use policy not withstanding) or even have it shut down and the account deleted depending on the violation or maliciousness of the admin/partner. This has happened to quite a few videos and accounts, even top notch Youtube partners by their ... peers.
4. PowerPoint - The limitations of such a device, upon actually googling them are also defined as the posivites of such a device.. yes, it is easy to use.. yes, it is cheap and inexpensive.. yes, it has a manual and the capacity to use images and sound and video. No, it doesn't work on all operating systems. No, it doesn't have a good reliability rate as far as most Microsoft products go. No, it will not make you a sandwich.
5. Google products in general - A lot of these are linked and a lot of them require you to sign in first to use them, which isn't so much of a problem until you take into account that Google is in fact tracking everything you're doing and whilst that may seem like an overly active level of paranoia, it does make one wonder if Google knows what you're up to at any given moment, who you're visiting on Google maps, what you're searching, who you're emailing, etc etc etc.... actually, what I meant to say was mentioning that Wikis reminded me of Wikipedia, in that under no circumstances should you ever, EVER use it. As I know for a fact that users (such as myself) randomly change facts and figures to screw with people's assessments because they haven't learnt yet that it is unreliable. "Researching is figuring out what is accurate, inaccurate, useable and Wikipedia." - Kieran Evans, 2008.
The common core themes of these technological tools is to enrich the quality of the education that learners can partake in, to expand how they can go about dedicating their minds and intelligence to delivering a more illustrious and benficial presentation to their target audience, which in most cases is other students and/or the teacher. It is to take an idea, a concept and build upon that which is already there, to stretch the capacity and capabilities of the students. Technology is moving in leaps and bounds and as educators we must design a pedagogy in which to help students to fulfill their education to the best of their abilites, coupled with the technology at hand to display an understanding of the progress that education has taken over the decades. To broaden the bridges and help our students to increase the reach of their education beyond the doors to our classrooms. To leave the classroom behind with its restricting desks and chairs and textbooks, and being unleashed into the world of the Internet where researching has no limit between two covers, where referencing is no longer a tedious task, where with the simple click of a button a student can upload an assessment within the meager time frames they are given rather than running pell-mell for the dropbox and possibly failing due to a second's hesitation to open a door or knock over a hapless old lady.
With technology, we save old ladies... and the minds of our students are not left to only partake of their education within the confines of our classrooms.
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