The Scenario

There are times when the tools being used in the classroom are not of a high quality. If a projector or computer is being used, the picture is not clear, the words on the computer screen are not clear. Is this the quality of the machine or the quality of the video being shown on the projector; is the computer the problem or the site that is being visited? As a teacher of science in my country, I want to use a projector to present information to my students. But the quality of the material my students are seeing is very poor. When I want to present the video to my students, the sound is not clear because the product and tools being used are not clear.
I teach a science class and I want to show my students a wonderful video that I was able to use in my own educational process (college). I obtained this video and attempted to show it to my students. But this video was hard to hear / understand, and even the picture was difficult to decipher on the screen. What am I as a teacher to do? I want to show the video I remember seeing earlier as a teaching tool for my classroom. But it was impossible – what can I do now? The administration purchased technology tools for our classrooms. But the problem with this technology is that they didn’t look into the quality of products. At this point this is now affecting my classroom because when the assistant put the technology in the classroom, and I went to my classroom, and started to teach my students I tried to put the pictures in the lap top / computer to present to my students through the projector, but I found three problems. 1) The pictures are not clear for the last student seated in the classroom. 2) The sound and the projector, there was a whistling sound that made the words difficult to understand. 3) Another problem was that the wires of the projector were spread all over the classroom. If one of my students were to touch the wires, they could have been hurt. A problem of quality in the computer lab. The computer is cheap, they didn’t look into hardware, ram/memory and the computers are slow. One day the students opened the computer, I found that it took me a long time to get the computers up and running for the class. The more time I spend working on the computer in order to get it “useable” the less time I have available to teach my class.
Another problem the TV screen is not clear, we are not using the very clear plasma TV screen, in my school we have old televisions, the screen is not clear, as it is an older television. The qualities of tools are affecting my teaching abilities of the teacher in the classroom, and the curriculum. I remembered before three years ago I saved PowerPoint presentation on CD’s but I am finding it difficult to use my CD’s. I don’t know why, but when I ask, my assistant, he tells me the quality of your CD’s are poor. I don’t understand why my CD’s are not working in the classroom. Some of my students come to me and say, “OK, teacher, the CD’s are not working, how are we suppose to learn? As teacher I tell my class that we will use the chalk board today and I will write the information to the board.
Your assignment write about how can this quality be improved? And how can choose the best quality? how are suppose to learn my students?

Professional development

Professional development
My reflection on the development of technology in general. Technological advances over the years have made things “easier” in many ways. In manufacturing the technology has moved from individual/ hand made products, to mass produced machine created products, thus taking jobs away from people. In the beginning the technology made our jobs easier, thus allowing for more free time, and the fact that people didn’t have to work as hard, or for as many hours. But seemingly with increased technology, it means that people have lost jobs because of the “new” technology, Therefore we must create more jobs with the new technology. Is it a good thing or bad? Can we all learn the new technology, and if we all learn the new technology, will there be anyone out there that can do some of the projects/jobs that we have forgotten how to do?

Hypermedia

Hypermedia, is a term that has come into use with the internet, where “media” previously meant, video, words, film strips, movies, etc., where in todays world we add the workd “Hyper” to the word media, meaning “everything” out there in the universe/internet. Hyper means “bigger and better”, more and more. Everything is more, and bigger, and “hyper” . With the technology of the internet everything is becoming larger, grander “hyper” to say the least. A child who is excitable is “hyper” Is this the same thing that we’re finding on the internet? We’re getting excited about the “Hypermedia” Maybe Hyper everything is not necessarily good, children who are “hyper” are often given medications to calm them down, maybe all the Hypermedia of today is not all that good, all the time. Perhaps we need to slow down our pace just a bit instead of being so hyper. The internet with all the “hyper media” that is available on it will be helpful to teachers, allowing them to teach their students with all the “information” on the internet, on the “super highway” the world could be at their student’s feet. The only problem that is there with the internet is that information might not always be correct. There needs to be a way for internet users to filter the information to find true and factual information for use in the classroom. Information on the internet needs to be High Quality, factual, etc. but the problem is “how does one police” the internet, allowing only “high quality” information to be placed on the internet?

Copyright

Copyright is a safety feature for the author of a “work” be it the written word, music, etc. Copyright protects the author from having another individual take their work and claim that it is theirs. Without copyright laws, anything/everything (written words, thoughts, ideas) would be out there for anyone to claim “It’s my idea, I thought of it first.” Without copyright laws, no one would know who has “ownership” of the words/idea. With the copyright laws in place, people who have written a piece of fiction, scientific writing, musical lyrics, poetry, etc. know that only their name can be attached to the piece of work they have done. No one else can take the same words and place their name to the document and call it their own.A disadvantage of copyright laws is that people may use another’s words, but the original author must be cited as the author. Sometimes it’s a “hassle” to document the information one finds. Also it may be difficult to find the source of the “information.” Many times we read information, absorb the information in our minds, but don’t always pay attention who originally wrote the words. Then at some time in the future we can repeat or pharaphrase the “information someone else has written”, but we don’t remember “where we originally heard the information”. Copyright can affect schools in an adverse way by making certain materials inaccessible for the use of the teachers/students. It is important to teach students from an early age to give proper credit to the person/group who has written papers (books, journals, articles, etc.).