1. Discuss Three of the Websites of My colleagues (Alejandro and Jessica)

Alejandro Baez's Page I bet he can have a part time job as a web designer. During three weeks, I could see he was trying to de his best. He must have spent for a long time with his computer to organize his website. I am posting the picture that I am impressed. Next time, I want to ask that how he could make the moving words in the bar?( and moving word,"welcome"). Also, I think he uses the table effectively in his tech page. His website is designed by the exciting animation and well organized the each webpages. Using the table is enough to attract to people. It is one of the most important roles for the website. Also, his explanation could be the guideline for the students who are interested in the creating website.....

Welcome to Yan Zhu's (Jessica's) Homepage I have observed Jessica's website for four weeks. She is such a genius person. Every time I logged in her website, she easily posted the assignment right after the class. The most impressing thing is her Tech Assignment Page. Posting the picture matching with the subject is a great idea. Also, I like her movie. I almost forget how beautiful New York is. Because of living in New York or being busy life, it is easy to ignore the valuable thing around me in NY. I thinks her movie could be advertisement for NY visitors. I like her animation in the Tech Assignments Page rather than in her animation assignment page, the Statue of Liberty. It is just my personal opinion.

1. Discuss Three of the Websites of My Colleagues (Nicole's)

Nicole's New and Impressed Website!- It is true that Nicole's website is reborn and so impressive. She is definitely good at the technological skill. I posted the picture that I was impressed above by her technology skill. Even I couldn't thinks about that it could be explained in detail like above picture. I knew that she was good at not only music, but also this kinds of technological skill when she sat next to me in the class. Besides, her final concrete music is awesome~ What a great idea to mixed your movie and concrete music. I almost though it is one of the scene in the X-file. Personally, I really liked the television show the X-File. It was long time ago to enjoy the X-File,  so I was glad to hear that music again. It makes me to remind in Korea. (I like the background color too. Is it the bright pastel green?)

Here is the responsibility as an educator

I reply to Abaez about the comment for me to keep discussing about social network (cell-phone)

Classmates:

Abaez,

Thanks for the posting great comment. You are right. it is true that there are some disadvantage in wild developing technology in Korea and the maintaining balance is difficult to people. However, you might know that everything has advantages and disadvantage, merits and demerits, or strength and weakness.

 When I prepared a group presentation for the class last week, our group members thought that the Internet is the great tool for social network of education, but there must be disadvantages. Yes, we knew what disadvantages are as we said in the presentation. So, we should be the educator who try to keep the balance for children's or student's education in schools. If we were technologists, it would be easy that we try to spread out the only advantages for developing technology. However, we are not the technologists, but the educators.

I bet that American deeply think of other related issues for not using like Korea. First time when I came in NY, I could not understand not to be able to use the cell-phone in the subway. Every Korean who just arrived in the United States might feel uncomfortable about that. As I have lived in NY for a few years, I realize that there is more important things, such as security, air noise, or other issues, than that just using the cell-phone in the subway.

I know the United States is the advanced country in extensive fields, ranging from business and technology to education. So, many foreign students came in NY to learn those things. I think that both Korea and American have different values to develop each field. However, there is one thing that we can do in education field whether we are Korean or American. The thing is that we should try to find advantage of technology to use education field with the least damage. I believe that this is one of our significant responsibility as educators.

Another Function of the cell-phone performing

Just fun.

Incredible skill.

Social networks (Cell-phone)

I think that some high-technically equipped cell-phones are also a form of social network medium and it affects the quality of education like the computer. An article from the New York Times, issued on May 26, 2009, reported that because of the the existence of the high-speed network system and the technology companies like Samsung and LG, South Korean is the test case of the cell-phone future. In my opinion, the South Korea to be walking on the milestone now and they have the potential of delivering education to our children and many other students via a new medium. 

You can think the cell-phone is new devices. It is true that cell-phone is the revolution as a communication tool. They originated in the 1920's. Radios were used since 1921. Features were put into these radios in the 1940's and they were used by police. The concept of the cellular phone was developed in 1947 which originated from the mobile car phone. The first actual cell phone was invented in 1973 by Martin Cooper. He worked at Motorola at that time and  other assisting inventors who used the idea of the car phone helped him.  The first time people used cell-phone in the public place was in 1984. It was really large and expensive. In 1986, the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) decided to increase the frequencies to allow research for better connections and they they made it. This allowed calls to pass from tower to tower.

So,  how people have developed and used the cell-phone these days and how the cell-phone affect in people's lives and education...... 

They are using the cell-phone in various way. It is not only for the communication. Of course, the most biggest part is to communicate with others. Besides, they can checks weather forecast, play games, updates the Internet blog, watch TV and online shop (Starbucks, Dunkin, Pizza, even Underwear). Also, they can checks whether a book has arrived at the library. In addition to the Internet connection, it has function of the digital camera, a music player (MP3), Alarm and texting massage. People compressed hundreds of function into the cell phone.  Especially in Korea, they mark students attendance by the cell-phone instead the teachers call the students' name in the class for attendance. They are checked by their cell-phone. This is the function of ID. They don't need show or sweep their ID. More interestingly, they pay fare of bus, subways and even taxi. It is like credicard card. It is the novel of compressing multifunction.

However, there is not only advantage, but also disadvantage. If you leave your wallet at home, you can not notice for the whole day, but if you lost your cell-phone, your life will start crumbling

Korean Social Network(CYWORLD)

The President Obama said that the second important deal is the education, next to the health care. Concurrently, the Korean President Lee, Myung Bak also announced his desire to have to the Korean government focused more on developing and changing its education system. He obviously believe the power that education can exert in people's lives.

As a global era, my group members thought "Why don't we look up not only USA social networks, but also Korean social networks for teaching tools."

Now days, the most popular personal website in Korea is Cyworld. The prevalence of student subscribling to cyworld is over 90% in a given classroom. The way it is set up lets students use all of the functions that cyworld offers with ease. Surprisingly, Cyworld is very similar with FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE and TWITTWE. Ultimately, this novel means of connecting students with educators, even out of the classroom makes the delivering and sharing knowledge more dynamic and exciting. Here is some examples how they are using it.

EX1)One of my friends has Cyworld website. He is a teacher in a middle school. He created a few iconic folders and categorized them into a group and a year. He posted the video recording  of students performing. Another advantage of cyworld is that the subscriber has the control of disclosing his or her contents to only a certain group of visitors making privacy possible. The other friend who has Cyworld website posted the video recording of her students vocal ensemble competition.

EX2)There is a website board. Posting comment on the teacher's board is common for Korean students. Also, the teacher replies the comments. THe students can posted the message through the cll-phones. I think that some high-technically equipped cell-phones. which are also a form of social network medium, affect the quality of education.

EX3) There is published board. Some kindergarten teacher published the article about her life.

Let me translate little bit.

Some people are asking to her when they meet first time,

"What do you do?"

She answers, "I am a kindergarten teacher."

They say, "Wow, that would be great.  You would be fun with children. You need to just play with them."

And then, she just smiles.......

She published the article about what the educators are thinking and what they should be doing.

There is another page the same like that. It is about how we should start to teach children to play the piano. I think that it is really useful information for especially people who prepare to become one of the educators.

In brief, when I was young, i made the paperboard for a presentation and then hung it in front of the class. Now, using the computers and the Internet in the class are becoming more and more common in schools. It clearly shows that the advanced technology os such a convenient tool to educate students. Additionally, online social network website such as FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE, TWITTER and CYWORlD is one of the most effective ways to connect between the educators and the students.   

 

The Team Project

Social Networks: Tools for Teaching

Connecting to students outside the classroom to make learning a more dynamic and exciting experience

We explored how social networking sites like facebook, twitter, youtube, etc could be applied to education as a tool for extending education outside of the classroom and into students' online lives.

The social networks we focused on are: 

Twitter

CyWorld (Korea)

      -CyWorld (US)

Facebook

      -Sarah's Mock Class Page

YouTube