Photo Sharing – bubbleshare.com
When I saw this week’s activity assignment, I was delighted to see that it was something I am familiar with and, also, something that I enjoy doing. I have used several different photo sharing websites in the past, including ophoto.com and flickr.com, so I decided to go ahead and try something new. Bubbleshare.com was chosen randomly from the list and I dived right in. The website is fairly simple to use and uploads photos fairly quickly. The backgrounds you can choose are adorable, although limited. I also love the add-ons that are available, like dialogue bubbles, that allow you to play with your pictures a little more than I am used to. I didn’t like that I couldn’t search through different files before uploading all the pictures at once (or at least, I didn’t play with it long enough to figure out how to do it) and when adding several pictures from one file, the process definitely slowed down more than I remember other photo sharing sites doing. In short, bubbleshare.com was easy to use and entertaining.
In terms of using photo sharing in the classroom, my first reaction was that this type of technology would just be a distraction for the students. However, after some thought, I really think it could be useful in a well-structured environment where the students had specific outcomes and goals presented to them. Then, within the expectations put forth to them, students could really have a good time with it. For example:
- It would be interesting to set up a pen pal system with another well known school or group in which students could not only share letters with each other, but photos as well, making things much more personal and interesting. As always, this would take some monitoring from the teacher to ensure the students’ safety and productiveness.
- For science, I might have my students do some sort of project or experiment that requires them to take and collect pictures as part of their data collection. Then each group could create and share their picture data with each other through links on a teacher or student created blog or social bookmarking page, as well as share comments and ideas that might help them go further in their activity.
The list seems to go on and on of ways in which, if well structured and monitored, photo sharing could be a fun and interesting new way to get our technology savvy students excited about schoolwork.
Trends and Issues – Chapter 2
While reading through chapter two of the Trends and Issues assignment, I was transported back to my first few years as a student in the College of Education, and the nonstop reiteration of ways in which to effectively write lesson plans. As much as I celebrated the day in which I didn’t have to write lesson plans step-by-step (in what seemed like a very rigid format) for yet another professor, I now see how important it was for me to internalize the elements of an effective lesson plan. As stated by Gustafson and Branch, I agree that learning this process for developing educational lesson plans “can make instruction more effective, efficient, and relevant than less rigorous approaches to planning instruction” (p. 11).
The steps of “analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation (ADDIE)” (p. 11) are definitely important to any lesson design and I like to think that I always have these elements of effective planning in all the plans I put into action in my classroom, whether I do it consciously or inadvertently. As presented by the authors, it has proven true, at least in my own classroom experience, that these elements cannot be useful if used “in a linear step-by-step manner” and that the “iterative and self-correcting nature of the instructional design process emerges as one of its greatest strengths” (p. 12). As a teacher, I do not think I could create a successful classroom, one in which my students grow as learners, without all of the elements of instructional design presented here. My planning today might not be one in which I create step-by-step lesson plans (as in the past), but experience and practice has taught me that all of these elements are necessary for success.
When presenting the characteristics of instructional design, the authors recognize that within the ADDIE activities, there are several key components to which any planner of educational experiences must recognize and employ, including a “learner centered” and “goal orientated” experience that “focuses on meaningful performance” in which “the outcomes can be measured in a reliable and valid way” (pg. 13), all of which I try to incorporate into daily activities and assignments. However, they also mentioned that the act of instructional design is “typically … a team effort” (p. 13). As much as I would love for this to be true, I often find that, as a teacher, there are many times when I am planning and designing classroom instructional activities alone. However, as much as I find myself “designing” alone, I can only strive to make my planning better by continually trying to make my instruction and instructional planning a “team effort.” As seen in the business world, and presented as an example within the text (p. 14), it takes many experts to effectively support the design of any project, educational or otherwise, and teachers need to keep this in mind as we, all too often, sit in our classrooms trying to do it all on our own.
2 comments:
I like the idea how photo sharing could be incorporated into a science project. By reading others reflections, I see how photo sharing can be intergrated into almost any setting. As for you review on Chapter 2. I must agree that most teachers work alone when planning lesson. However, I have worked in a school where there were atleast 3 classes for each grade and the teachers would gather each Friday to work on lesson plans in and effort to make sure we where teaching the same lessons each week. I really enjoyed working as a team and it helped because it was my first year teaching. Enjoyed reading your reflection.
I think your ideas for photo sharing are great. In another discussion I commented about you teaching my daughter, well she will be in middle school in about 12 years. In my shop classroom environment, there are so many ways that the photo sharing tool can be used and with proper monitoring, it will be fine. In response to your chapter 2 analysis, I felt the same way, glad to be done with writing out each step of the lesson plan, but now see how I subconsiously use the ADDIE theory in my daily plans, although less structured.
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