Students and Social Networking

What is Social Networking?

• When students walk out of the classroom doors, class usually does not end right then and there. The collaboration, interaction and socialization continues. Students interact with each other and with their teachers via online tools known as “social networking tools”. A social networking site is typically one where users set up an account with a web page and/or blog and can post photos, text and other content. They can create profiles and links to other community members through common interests. They post blogs and respond to each other. They are out there using social book marking, folksonomy, class wikis, creating podcasts and vodcasts and putting them online, using social imaging and many other tools used to encourage motivation and excitement in their ultimate quest for learning.

Why Social Networking?

• Social networking sites have taken us, educators, outside of our comfort zone. Like all other new technologies, we need to explore how we can continue to educate students on how to use these sites wisely. Blocking them from our school networks and encouraging our students not to use them has certainly brought a shift to our thinking. With social networking, students have their own online areas to work with, including digital portfolios, as well as community areas.

Pros and Cons

• According to Graham Attwell on using Personal Learning Environments, he believes the danger is that the education system will become irrelevant to many peoples learning needs. It will be seen as an imposition. Young people will turn to social spaces for communication and developing ideas. Access to quality learning provision for adults will be dependent on companies and private training providers.
  

The most compelling argument in favor of the social networking sites is that these websites allow students to shape their own learning spaces, to form and join communities and to create, consume, remix, and share material. Plus, students love them!


http://123elearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/social-networking-in-classroom.html

The Virtual Classroom

The Virtual Classroom: Virtual Reality in Training and Education

Are group choice this article that Jennifer posted.

http://www.scienceclarified.com/scitech/Virtual-Reality/The-Virtual-Classroom-Virtual-Reality-in-Training-and-Education.html


Here are our individual summaries and are general opinions.


Cassie's
In the United States and other developed countries, virtual reality is entering young people's classrooms as well. A 1997 report to the National Science Foundation stated that "VR improves learning . . . by providing the learners with new, direct experiences of phenomena they could not have experienced before, either in direct interaction with the real world or using other technologies." Virtual reality is one of many forms of computer technology that schools have begun to use often in the last decade. The U.S. Department of Education reported in late 2003 that about 90 percent of people aged five to seventeen use computers, mostly at school but also in libraries or at home. Students gather information from the World Wide Web for reports or use e-mail and chat rooms to work on projects with other students in distant parts of the country or the world. Sometimes they post the finished projects on Web sites of their own. Some students take complete classes online from "virtual schools."

Examples of school virtual reality programs are:
1.Touch the Sky-Touch the Universe. It uses an interactive 3-D model of the solar system to help students learn about astronomy.
2.Sunrise VR, teaches architecture "in its [natural] element-earth, sea, and sky."
3.Virtual Reality Education for Assisted Learning - helps students with severe hearing impairment learn life skills such as how to cross a street safely

Students can also create their own virtual reality projects with the Virtual Reality Development Lab, a kit of hardware, software, and instructions sold by Digital Technology Frontier in Phoenix, Arizona.

Judith's
As with so many ideas in education technology, Virtual Classrooms have benefits and drawbacks. The article, "The Virtual Classroom: Virtual Reality in Training and Education," sums it up the same way as so many other articles that discuss the pros and cons of alternate teaching techniques. It suggests that methods used in traditional classrooms with a live teacher not be replaced by virtual technology, but rather used in a balanced combination for total benefit to the student. I agree.

The "Do-It-Yourself VR" paragraph sounds similar to our VFT project in that it includes text, photos, audio, and video elements. And it can be posted to the Web, just like we are doing for our project.


Jennifer's
Virtual reality is taking the country to an entirely new level of learning in many different areas. It is being used in education, training and even our military.

Virtual reality in education is offering students the opportunity to experience different times and places that they could not have done before. It is being used to help students with learning impairments such as teaching social skills to students with autism.

Doctors are now able to experience the entire human body from all angles and even "fly through" organs.

Our military is using virtual reality to stimulate actual battle zones teaching soldiers how to think and act quickly under extreme pressure.

There are some experts that disagree with the use of virtual reality. They argue that appropriate behavior in different settings can not be taught when you are using the computer and that virtual reality can never take the place of face to face classroom instruction.


Kimberly's
Virtual reality began as a training tool for pilots, and flight simulators are still among the most popular virtual reality training programs.

Virtual reality is the best way to teach workers how to do jobs that are complex, dangerous, or both.

Virtual reality training programs are not yet widespread because they are very expensive to develop them. But they can save companies money in the long run by cutting down on the amount of costs in buying real equipment.

An interesting fact that I learned about VR is that some psychiatrists are using virtual reality to learn more about the bizarre worlds inside their patients' minds.


Paige's
Video games are not the only military training tools that use virtual reality. The U.S. armed forces spends about $4 billion a year on training equipment and programs involving simulations, and many of these feature some degree of VR. Simulations let commanders plan battles and try out different combat tactics, maneuvering platoons of virtual soldiers, vehicles, and weapons over thousands of square miles of terrain.

Virtual reality began as a training tool for pilots, and flight simulators are still among the most popular virtual reality training programs. Whether designed for military or commercial pilots, flight simulators greatly reduce the amount of time a pilot must spend in the air during training. Like the military and the air industry, large businesses are starting to see VR as the best way to teach workers how to do jobs that are complex, dangerous, or both. VR training programs are not yet widespread because they are expensive to develop, but they can save companies money in the long run by cutting down on the amount of costly real equipment, such as heavy machinery, that must be used in training. Simulation programs also reduce risk to machines, the environment, and even human lives.

Doctors, ranging from future physicians still in medical school to experienced surgeons, also do part of their learning in virtual reality. Rather than studying anatomy by cutting up corpses of animals or of people who have donated their bodies to science, students at some medical schools now use virtual reality programs based on pictures from CT (computerized tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and other medical imaging technology.

Virtual reality is very commonly used in schools as well. The U.S. Department of Education reported in late 2003 that about 90 percent of people aged five to seventeen use computers, mostly at school but also in libraries or at home. Students gather information from the World Wide Web for reports or use e-mail and chat rooms to work on projects with other students in distant parts of the country or the world. Sometimes they post the finished projects on Web sites of their own. Some students even take complete classes online from "virtual schools."


Myrianette's
Virtual Reality is so interesting. At first it was made for aircraft carriers to help them train.

Some parents believe that video games destroy their children's brains as my parents did, which is why we were raised without playing video games. But what if they were told that video games could actually help. The military academy, West Point takes video games and modifies them to train them for those that are going into combat. Video games are actually a good thing. The actual military takes video games and modifies them to give them extra training. They are able to recognize the enemy and get rid of them.

It is the same with education. Many medical schools are using virtual reality to get more advanced while in medical school. Students are able to perform surgery or just look at a heart or within the body. It's pretty cool!

Well, why can't elementary schools or highschools use them? Kids are able to see what happened and be able to learn from the teacher and the video game. I think its a way to better education:"Schools can seldom afford fully immersive virtual reality, but they often use programs that at least provide three-dimensional graphics and interactivity. These programs run on standard computers. Some require free download able programs or inexpensive gear such as shutter glasses, but many need no additional software or equipment."

What is really cool too. Is that students just like us can create our own virtual reality game or world. Some VR programs also help students with special needs. I know my brothers could have used this in high school. They would have excel just like the rest of us in school. They both have learning disability. It takes them three times longer to learn something that takes us five minutes to comprehend. They would have definitely benefited from this.

VR programs can be download able and can be bought. The military spends over four billion dollars a year for VR programs to train. And schools can afford fully packaged VR programs, although not as good as the militar's, but it is definitely better than sitting down and listening to something a student could be interested in by actually experiencing it.