Reading Reflection Week 4

                I thought of social bookmarking to be a lot like Pinterest.  However, I found social bookmarking to be more useful.  It is very user friendly and very easy to use.  I also felt it organized everything better and full websites could be bookmarked, as oppose to a single page, picture, etc.  It also was nice to be able to save websites under more than one topic.

                I think social bookmarking holds great value for teachers and students alike.  As far as teachers go, we can tag websites with articles, lesson plans, activities, etc. and these websites can be shared with fellow teachers.  Teachers could also share articles with parents and administrators.  Sometimes parents will ask questions about why we do the things we do or they will wonder how they can help their child (maybe with homework).  A teacher can use social bookmarking to share these articles and ideas with parents.  The same goes for administrators.  Sometimes an administrator will ask us why we do a certain lesson or why we chose to teach a certain lesson the way we did.  By using social bookmarking, teachers can tag articles related to their teaching and administrators will be able to read those articles.

                As a Kindergarten teacher, those are the uses for social bookmarking that I see in my classroom.  However, I could definitely see social bookmarking as being beneficial to teachers in upper elementary and higher.  One could have students use social bookmarking when doing research.  By tagging websites when doing research, they can share those with fellow students.  This would be especially helpful when doing a group project.  Social bookmarking would also be great for online courses, such as this class.  Students can tag websites that have to do with each topic and can share them with their classmates.  This is especially helpful in an online course when students very rarely get to speak or see each other face-to-face.

                In the Trends and Issues reading, I felt the definition that I most related to or agreed with was the 2008 AECT definition. I have always felt that educational technology is a form of teaching that uses different resources (technology) to enhance lessons and to help assist teachers.  The idea of the 2008 AECT definition that really stuck out to me (that I had never really thought about before) was “ethical practice”.  I have never thought about the idea of educational technology being an ethical practice.  After reading this chapter, however, it really makes sense.  With all of the technology that is out there, it is easy to plagiarize an idea.  Also, with the internet being in classrooms now, it is more important than ever to maintain high ethical conduct.  I felt the definition the book gave was quite complex.  I like definitions to be short, sweet, and to the point.  I felt that the book definition was encompassing all of the ideas from all of the definitions in the chapter.  It seemed to only confuse me more.

                After reading this chapter, I am definitely looking forward to learning more about the field of educational technology.