2nd Reflection Journal Entry

The Subject:
-The blog I will discuss in this journal entry is Emerging EdTech. New information is posted every 2 to 3 days. The postings are in a form of articles linking the reader to respond and providing further research on the subject matter. Topics are typically given in parts to prevent overwhelming the reader with information.
-Discussions and articles are mostly about web technology products used in education. One of many interesting topics discussed was “Lecture Capture Technology.” The author of the website reviews the technology and suggests applications in the classroom; the suggestions vary from college to K-12 applications. Lecture Capture Technology is an umbrella for any technology that allows recording whatever happens in the classroom and makes it available digitally. This technology works especially well where students benefit from repeated viewing of content, when complex information is discussed or formulas with detailed steps are written. The article discusses various products that are available in order to perform lecture recordings. The great thing about this blog is that after every article links of other research are provided to encourage further study of the topic. In addition topics have a weekly follow through that detail the technologies of interest for example in this case the follow up were the features that each of the programs provided.
My Participation:
This blog is more of an article forum with comments made at the end. It does make it hard to follow in terms of conversation as participants comment as soon as the post is made and if one misses the posting by a day the likelihood of a response is close to none. I did make a comment to one of the postings. The blog owner asked teachers to submit a story featuring a great use of educational technology. One of the members posted a story about working with dual-language students of an elementary school located near the US/Mexico border. He created a K-5 Summer Technology Camp. The blogger/teacher was asked by the school’s principal to teach the schools’ students cutting edge technology even though the majority of the students came from poor households with no computers. I was inspired by the story and answer by posing some detail questions about the K-5 Summer Technology Camp. I was interested in knowing how the students were selected, if the camp was an elective since it was taking place over the summer and what was the participation rate. Sadly I did not receive a response.
My Learning
I enjoy this blog because it shines a light on some technologies that I might have not encountered otherwise. In this particular case I have always been a little intimidated of using recording technologies in the classroom. However, I think the blog has done a very good job explaining different sides of lecture capture technology and various methods in using it. What I have come out learning in this blog is that these technologies can offer very important benefits to the students such as: an alternative for students when students miss class, and an opportunity for students to review information. This is a great method to allow students to review the material in their own time, students have different methods of learning and giving them an opportunity to look over the material and make sure that they did not miss anything might just be the link to getting it. In addition as a teacher recording ones lectures allows for improvement in future presentations of the topic.