iTunes University

In order for me to find out about iTunes U, I decided to look at examples of colleges who have used or are currently using this program as an aid to their students. One of the examples that I found was the University of Wisconsin-Madison. UW launched their iTunes page in order to allow students and other iTunes users to access content produces by the faculty, administration and other members of the UW community. The article went on to say "The page is a part of iTunes U, which allows colleges across the United States to post content for the greater public. UW’s page includes lectures, video content, addresses made by Chancellor Biddy Martin and much more." The article can be found at: http://badgerherald.com/news/2009/04/17/uw_launches_programs.php

iPods in Education

According to the article I read recently, apparantly Duke University gave their students iPods in order for the students to download educational lectures. By downloading these lectures, a student was able to listen to the lecture as many times as needed and learn and take notes at his/her own pace. The article also went on to state that the students who listened to these lectures actually performed better on the tests/quizzes on the lectures. The article can be found at: http://www.online-artikel.de/article/learning-podcast-for-students-at-the-university-16483-1.html

I believe that a student's ability to download lectures and listen to them at their own pace will be extremely helpful in improving grades. However, I feel that any teacher that uses this method should still make attendance required as some students may feel they can skip class since the lectures are available for download.

Dr. Alice Christie's site

The portion of Dr. Christie's website that I chose to learn about was her constructive learning resources. Dr. Christie explaines that constructivism is a learning theory that supports the following principles:
-Learning is an active process facilitated by an environment that encourages: risk-taking, creative thinking, and critical thinking.
-Teachers create such environments to: facilitate learning and provide opportunities for self-reflection and self-evaluation
-Learning is social and is fostered by collaboration.
-Learners learn by doing within a specific context.
-Learning is reflective and incorporates feedback from teachers (co-learners) and peers.
-Students and teachers learn through their mistakes
-Technology is a tool to facilitate learning and is NOT the focus of learning.

After reading about consturctivism, I strongly agree with this idea. These principles depict what a teacher should do in order to allow their students learn the maximum amount of material without overwhelming the student. I believe all of these principles are correct and each educator should follow them in the classroom.