Week 5 - Photo Sharing

The photo sharing site we had to create was hard for me to get into. At first, I felt like my pictures were very personal, but then I decided that it was a fantastic way for me to share my pictures with family and friends. I have pictures from my family Christmas of my parents and all of their grandchildren. I’m supposed to get everyone a copy of the picture–to say the least, I haven’t done it yet. This is the perfect way for me to take care of that task–so easy. Thank you.
It took me a while to figure how I would incorporate photo sharing into a lesson plan or activity. I believe it would be great to share photos of historic places for a history or social studies class. Also, if I ever get the opportunity to travel and visit places that famous authors lived, I would definitely find a way to include this in a unit plan. Having great visuals can really help students to understand concepts more readily.
Having students utilize the photo sharing service makes me a bit more uneasy. Where I teach, we have a difficult time controlling a lot of behaviors with students. If they had this tool as part of the class, I have no doubt that it would eventually be misused to distribute inappropriate materials. There would have to be severe consequences for such actions, of course. I do think in many educational settings, photo sharing would be a great asset. Especially if a class is working on group projects–photo class, drama, yearbook,–all would be great classes to use this tool. This is another tool where students could benefit from another student’s material and knowledge. They would be able to help each other through the sharing of ideas and pictures.
Chapter 2 - What is instructional design? I felt very comfortable with this chapter. The ideas presented in this chapter have been prevalent in educational settings in recent years. Analyze, Design, Implement, and Develop all circle around Evaluate. Along with the revisions that are constantly taking place between and within these areas. All paths lead to evaluation and assessment. I easily agree with many of the topics in this chapter. An instructional design should be learner centered; the students/learners are the main focus of why we are teaching. I can appreciate the team effort of this design. Many tasks in education become much easier when tackled with a collective group of individuals working together to achieve a goal. This brings us to the goal-oriented focus; if we don’t have goals to direct our instruction then a few instructors may be leading in many different directions.
As far as developing my own lesson and unit plans, I have found that I use a very similar procedure as the authors. I determine unit objectives/goals based on curriculum and student needs, develop assessments to be administered, determine the best activities and lessons to teach these concepts, design and select materials, teach/assist students in learning unit concepts, and evaluate students for mastery. During this whole process, revision is an element that is ongoing and constant, even during actual instruction time. I have discovered that even during one class period, I adjust my teaching strategy several different times depending on which student I am working with at that time.
I found this chapter to be reassuring because it purports that same ideas that I use when creating units for my classes. The steps or procedure may be slightly different but the main concepts remain the same.