Blog #7

Association for Educational Communications and Technology

http://www.aect.org

The online organization that I visited was the aect.org which stands for Association for educational communications and technology. I read that this is an organization of educators plus others whom are striving to make instruction better through technology. There are members all over the country and around the world. I found this website to be very interesting because it shows just how there are educators out there that truly care about the education that children receive and that want to make a difference. I like the fact that this organization has events through Second Life. I also like what they stand for very much, for example, I like what they state in their Mission statement and I like the goals that they have set for themselves.
AECT Mission Statement:
The mission of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology is to provide international leadership by promoting scholarship and best practices in the creation, use, and management of technologies for effective teaching and learning in a wide range of settings
Goals:
• Define the disciplines and professional activities that comprise the field of educational communications and technology.
• Serve and represent professionals in the field and support professional growth.
• Advance scholarship and practice that contribute to and enlarge the knowledge base of the field.
• Promote policies that ensure the humane and ethical use of educational communications and technology at all levels, from the personal through the international.

Blog #6

Giving Visibility to Students with Emotional-Behavior Challenges

By Maurice Elias

10/14/09
http://www.edutopia.org/students-behavior-emotional-challenges-visibility

This article was about letting children be a part of the school society. Some children feel left out and they feel lost when they are in school. Some children feel as if the school doesn't care about them, that the school only cares about the grades that the children score on standardized tests. This goes especially with the students that have emotional-behavior disorder, but also for the students that don't have this disorder. Mentioned are some tips that teachers can do to eliminate this sense of feeling for the students. For example, the school can organize a problem solving team, when something goes wrong in the school, the students can discuss what the problem was and then find ways to fix the problem. the school can create a survey asking the students what the reasons are that they have good behavior and bad behavior. This will help improve the discipline in the school. The students can be tour guides to new visitors to the school, for example, a new student and his/her parents. The school can create idea/suggestion boxes so that the students can share their concerns and ideas about the school. And, allow the students to share their comments on the way their teacher teaches. And last, but not least, if the students were given a survey, like the one we at UTPA fill out at the end of the semester, the children would probably feel important and part of the school.
I think that allowing these tips into the school environment, the children, not only the ones that suffer emotionally, but all of the students would feel like they are a part of the school, not just any student and the school environment would probably improve. I wonder if this or part of this is done in any school here locally?

Blog #5

How to Address Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom: Tips and resources for putting MI theory into practice.

by Sara Bernard

http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-immersion-enota-how-to

The article that I read is about meeting the different intelligent needs of children in a classroom. Having a classroom that serves the needs, interests, and strengths of each child in that classroom is highly effective. Some of the tips that are offered in the article are reading a book. The article mentions that learning more about multiple intelligences is a good thing to do because it will tell you the different kinds of intelligences there are and what you as a teacher can do. Teachers can also use online resources to learn more about multiple intelligences. It will also help the teacher with ideas on what kinds of projects to do and so forth. The teacher can also assess students intelligences by serving up a set of multiple assignments and paying close attention to the way each child does the assignment. The teacher can also visit another school that is doing the same thing. this will bring more ideas to the table. The teacher can come up with learning contracts for the students. These contracts are done for the students' assignments. the article mentions that the students sometimes have a choice of which assignment they want to do, and sometimes the students have to do all of the assignments. And finally, the article mentions that having a team of teachers doing the same things would be very helpful because as it is, coming up with a curriculum with regular lessons is hard, now having a curriculum with multiple intelligences would be harder. And as always when starting something new, take baby steps. There are some things that might work and there are some things that will just not work.
Having a curriculum with many intelligences sounds like a very advanced GT class. I would like to know if any form of technology is used for a classroom with multiple intelligences.