C4T #4

For my last C4T I was assigned to read recent posts for Dorothy Burt's Blog "Manaiakalani". She is a teacher in Auckland, New Zealand.  In the first post Dorothy Burt talked about how students enjoyed the fact of using a Netbook to take an exam, more so over the use of pen/pencil and paper. It was stated that the students scored higher when using a Netbook, because they were able to type faster. My response "My name is Derkesha Dale and I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. I can honestly admit that from my own experience, I am not good with taking notes, especially if I have to write them down. I think I was blessed with a mental ability to listen and remember what was said in a lecture, in general. I think that doing tests using technology is better than the old paper and pencil technique, because technology is being used widely throughout the world now, and more people are becoming familiar with it. It will save a lot of trees also."


In the second post, Dorothy Burt talked about the students reflections after their first year of using of Netbooks. There were both positive and negatives reflections of using the Netbooks. The Positives were that the students were able to type and comment faster, even if they typed slow, they were able to edit their work, without it looking all messy, the use of Netbooks focused more on self-directed learning, where the students were able to access the class blog site, YouTube, Google, and specific sites like Maths Wizz, by the students having their own Netbook, it enabled them to write on their blogs more frequently, and they were shared with others, whereas writing in a book, no one could read them, and also games were fourth on the list, they were not mentioned much. The negatives of having a Netbook were, the speed of the internet frustrated the students, the battery life was poor, and the paint app on the Netbook was a dissatisfaction. My response to this blog was ''Hello once again, my name is Derkesha Dale and I would like to say that this post was very informative. I have not had any experience with the use of a Netbook, but I see that it has its ups and downs. I think that the students being able to see their mistakes and letting others see them is a good idea. When I was in grade school, I can remember writing papers and no one, but the teacher would read them. I think it is very important as a future educator to incorporate technology in my classroom. I t is expanding worldwide and I want to keep up with it. Thanks for the informative post again."