Journal 8

Virtual Schooling
By Niki Davis and Dale S. Niederhauser

This article discusses the rapid enrollment and interest in virtual schooling. Virtual schooling offers K-12 classes completely online. This program is for some allowing students better access to technology and for others simple making AP courses more readily available when not offered at their school. In Florida it was used to help displaced Katrina victims continue their schooling. The virtual school system is set up with a teacher communicating with their students through videoconferencing, email and a learning management system. It requires students to be more self motivated to get work done on their own, but teaches valuable technological skills to go with their course matter. The role of the teacher is much the same as it is in a standard classroom; they must have good organization and communication skills. The teacher's participation includes, "teacher-student communication without developing over dependence, assessing student work and providing timely feedback, and peer collaboration." The administrators play the role of allocating funds, maintaining the virtual schooling and the coordination of it. The article says that the most important person is the VS site facilitator. The facilitator guides the students when making choices about which class to take, they proctor exams, gives feedback to the teachers, and is a liaison between the virtual teacher and the student's school site. The article is there to introduce us to virtual school and explain ways it can help students learn.

Question?
What are some reasons for choosing virtual schooling?

Answer:
Some reasons for choosing virtual schooling are gaining access to classes no longer available at your school, when displaced and unable to physically attend school and to gain better access to technology.

Question?
What step has Michigan made to incorporate virtual learning?
In April 2006, they made it mandatory for all students to participate in online learning to graduate. They did this so they could introduce the students to virtual learning and so it would help them use it more freely in the future.

Journal 7

Technology Integration: What Happens Now?
By Linda Merillat, Jennifer Holvoet, and Doug Adams

This article gives some samples of resources still available to educators to help with the integration of technology. The first one is http://www.4Teachers.org. This site has many free resources guide you to making websites, rubrics and quizzes. Another site I found interesting was http://wested.org/tdl/. This site is to use technology to help differentiate teaching methods. It is, "a teaching theory based on the idea that instructional approaches should give students multiple options for taking in information, making sense of ideas, expressing what they learn, and accommodating differences while teaching to students' strengths and knowledge." One more I enjoyed looking at was http://www.schoolsmovingup.net. This site is about schools that are finding ways to integrate technology, and what the secrets to their success have been. Overall the article reminds us of the many options as educators we have to gain information to help us properly integrate technology into our classrooms.

Journal 6

Social Justice: Choice or Necessity?
By Colleen Swain and David Edyburn

Social Justice affects children in many areas and threaten to negatively affect many of their futures, just one of these is technology. Technology is getting to be an important staple in education, with many Universities requiring incoming students to have a familiarity with it. Also a majority of the jobs are now requiring workers to be technologically fluent. The article reviews the proper framework classrooms should have in place for students to help them become proficient. Social Justice comes in to play when we start thinking about whether the technology materials and instruction are equitably distributed. It goes on to discuss ways teachers can get involved in obtaining technology for their classrooms by using the Digital Equity Portal and Toolkit. It also discusses the need for using it effectively and how you can evaluate these resources for their quality. Once you have gained access to the technology for your students it is important to monitor the successes and failures and be able to make the necessary adjustments. The message being portrayed is that we, as educators, need to take the necessary steps to get technology into our classrooms.

Question?
How can schools with financial difficulties aquire the technology?

Answer:
By using Digital Equity Portal and Toolkit, you can gain access to websites with solutions such as discounted hardware and free educational software.

Question?
What are some factors that define social justice in technology?

Answer:
That the technology is readily available, can be used regularly, that it is used to enhance the education of students and applies to real life situations and that it can be monitored for effectiveness.