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= = = = =Welcome to the OhioETC.org Wikispace= toc This wiki is designed to be a repository of various things people have done with various types of technology as well as an "encyclopedia" of how to articles.

=Introduction to Wiki= The purpose of this wiki is to provide easily-accessible information about educational technology. Anyone is welcome to add to this wiki. We are always looking for tips, hints, and how-tos of every type of educational technology.

Our hope is that this wiki will help you to... Do something spectacular in fifteen minutes (or at least less than an hour) that you have never done before. Try out new things, whether that is using Notebook, Blender, installing a Linux OS. Save time by learning only what you need (and you get to define that need).

=Navigating the Wiki= The list at the left is of the pages of this wiki--each page has a main topic and a number of sub or related topics. To find something very specific, use the search box at the top of the left hand list.

=Why Technology?=

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According to Wikipedia, technology is:

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Pencils
In actuality, teachers have been using technology for thousands of years. Pencils, pens, chalk, whiteboard markers, and so forth are tools used for writing along with papyrus and various kinds of paper. In fact, it is helpful to consider writing tools and their history in order to understand computer technology and its place in the world of education.

Wikipedia ("Pencil") states that a large deposit of graphite was found in England in the early 1500s and quickly people learned that this material was capable of making marks. While the graphite was used for a number of purposes, it was also used for pencils. In those days, people wrapped string around the graphite because the wooden outside had not yet been invented. The Italians invented the wooden outer part of the pencil and it was New England transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau who first used clay in the graphite to hold graphite powder together (it's kind of hard to imagine the writer of Walden having such a practical side).

As a form of technology, pencils have several advantages. One is that they are very cheap. Another is that they are generally effective in making legible writing, although if the graphite breaks or becomes dull they need to be sharpened with a knife or pencil sharpener. Pencil marks can be erased, which is an advantage when one makes a mistake but a real problem in creating or signing legal documents. Pencils mark really well on paper, however, it is difficult to make multiple copies. Also, if the paper gets lost or misplaced, the writing is gone. There are many different kinds of pencils for different kinds of tasks. Charcoal pencils and colored pencils are useful for people making art. Number 2 pencils create a machine-readable dot on a computer-scanned test. Hard pencils make very precise marks. Pencils are a low-maintenance form of technology but they are useless when the lead has broken or is dull and there is nothing to sharpen them with. They also get lost very easily because they are small.

Computers
The first computers, of course, are people. People use specific processes for specific types of computation, such as "add all the scores together and divide by the number of scores" to get the average of a test. These processes are called algorithms--that's a fancy name for a process used to derive a certain type of answer.

People are, of course, fallible, so mechanical calculators were invented so that results would be more accurate. One of the most complex of these calculators was the "Difference Engine" invented by Charles Babbage in the 1820s (see Wikipedia on Charles Babbage for more details) and developed in terms of theory by Lady Lovelace, the daughter of poet Lord Byron. Babbage never got his invention actually built for a number of different reasons, however difference engines have been completed in the late twentieth century from Babbage and Lovelace's plans and writing and they work as Babbage intended. A simple calculator can do a simple operation such as adding two numbers. Babbage's Engine could do multi-step processes (more like the one of finding an average) and it could be programmed--given different algorithms/processes--so that it could perform more than one type of calculation (e.g., average but also median and mode).

World War II spurred the development of electrical computers in many ways, from the development of machines that could code and decode messages among the allies to machines that could calculate ballistics such that larger guns could be fired accurately. The early electrical computers had limited functions and they took up a huge amount of space because they required vacuum tubes as part of their circuits.

The invention of the transistor began the shrinking of computers and eventually the development of electronic circuits on silicon chips made them even small, to the point that a smart phone that fits in one's hand has a huge amount of processing power.

The point of all this is that computers are simply calculating machines at the base of it all. Generations of very clever people have created the kinds of overlays that allow someone to write text on a wiki page, but at the root of it, a computer is simply a machine that can be programmed to do many different algorithms or processes.

Computers aren't magic--they are simply huge (in terms of what they can do) calculating machines and they are simply one more technology with advantages and disadvantages--just like the pencil.

=Why Technology?=

We use tools in the classroom for many reasons:
 * They help us to teach by providing something beyond just the spoken words of a teacher to get a point across.
 * They help students to represent what they know and are able to do.
 * They record important ideas.
 * They extend our ability to express ourselves.
 * They make the process of learning more engaging.

Socrates suggested that a school is a log with a teacher on one end and a student on the other. The one technology that might be used in this school would be the Socratic dialog in which the teacher asks questions that guide a student towards a conclusion based on a path determined by the student's thinking. The medium of this "classroom" is primarily verbal language if we take the log literally. Either teacher or student might say something profound, but that is not recorded to be reviewed in the future. If either person has a hearing loss, there is nothing to support the message.

By the early to mid twentieth century, there were lots of different tools that could be used to support learning, including the chalkboard, slates, construction paper, paste, scissors, pens of various sorts and colors, boxes of flash cards, controlled vocabulary readers, math books, paper and pencils, shoeboxes (dioramas!), and so forth. Mid twentieth century saw an electric revolution that introduced film projectors, film strip projectors, overhead projectors, mimeograph machines, tape recorders, phonographs, film cameras, and even television into the classroom. All of these tools had uses in relation to the reasons bulleted above. Watching an educational film added moving images as well as the voices of experts to the teacher's efforts to help students understand various critical ideas. The mimeograph made it possible to create multiple copies of something that could be distributed to all students in a classroom and that could be reviewed over and over again (provided the student didn't lose it).

The revolution in the early 21st century lies in the fact that students and teachers have so many more tools for expression, representation, and recording. Students and their teachers can now express themselves the ways professionals of the last century did--making multitrack recordings, making videos, making animation, etc. and teachers have many different ways of making learning engaging such as the use of simulations, the use of new media (e.g., various forms of multi-media), the use of new software, and so forth.

The world of our students is so different from the world in which most of us grew up and the lives of our students are going to be different in terms of what is available to them in terms of a job or a hobby.

The whole point of technology is and has always been to support learning. The reason to use technology is to capture the hearts and minds of students so that they are motivated to learn.