Week 4 - Bookmarks/Definition

Utilizing social bookmarking in education will be of great value to students, teachers, and administration. To begin with, teachers will be able to provide bookmarks for website that they want their students to use for purposes such as a research project. In this same regard, students could bookmark websites that they found useful, so as to share them with other students. Administrators and teachers could also mark websites that they recommend for professional utilization.
I am already impressed with the idea of social bookmarking. I found sites that I would have love to have known about earlier this school year. It was exciting for me to find a couple of these because they will help me present some information in a new and different way. They have also given me ideas for varied lessons so I can reach more students. I have already spoken with a teacher who teaches some of the same classes that I do about some of the websites I have tagged.. Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Macbeth are all literature that we have been teaching so far this year. This curriculum is very difficult for some of our students and some of the websites I have found will add to our repertoire of tools. She thought this would be useful because we can just add to the website instead of emailing every time we find a site that is useful.
The definitions for instructional technology in chapter 1 of Trends and Issues seem to become broader with each definition. When I first thought of a definition for instructional technology, I figured it would be somewhat along the line of the 1977 definition, which included the process but also people, procedures, devices, ideas, and organization. The definition I am more familiar with because of the educational aspect is the most recent one involving "facilitating learning and improving performance." In today’s education system, we hear definitions along this line frequently that include facilitating learning and improving performance through creative means.
Personally, I like the 1977 definition better because it actually gives more descriptive detail. The more recent one is broad and may involve technology being implemented through appropriate curriculum design. I believe both definitions have the same goal – the integration of technology into the education curriculum our students receive. The definitions have probably changed over time to match the consistently changing field of education. It seems as though every year or two there is a new definition for an old teaching strategy, lesson plan design, or application process to better the learning of our students. If it works or not, we don’t change it completely–we just modify it to make it sound better.
The definition that the book is using appears to cover the whole range of instructional design and technology, almost a complete definition. The one thing that I find lacking in all of these definitions is that none of them mention "students" or "learners." How can we talk about defining learning in any concept unless we consider who we are teaching? The whole basis for the development of instructional design and technology or any other type of curriculum should always mention and consider the learner in its definition.