1. Creating Community using Technology
Emily Medders

2. Uses for Technology in the Secondary School Classroom
Distance Education
Assisting students with disabilities
Building Community in the four walls of the classroom
-Won’t really discuss the second bullet

3. Distance Education Takes many forms
MyCampus/Blackboard
Second Life/Web 2.0
Access to nearly unlimited resources online

4. Distance Education Difficult to create a classroom “culture”
Usually much more focused on the teacher’s culture
Issues -
When knowledge is embedded in the dominant culture, learners who are foreign to that culture lose their motivation to understand it.
- Increases the need to build relationships with your students

5. Building Community Everyday uses Students sharing technology
Presenting information
Calculators
Students sharing technology
Forces interaction
Allows for learning from peers

6. Building Community Project based learning
Allows for students to make choices for themselves
Allows for creativity
Gives students a chance to learn how to use different technologies while studying a topic of their choice
Choices = responsibility for learning

7. Online Resources www.ning.com www.wordpress.com www.youtube.com
Second Life
And many more!

8. Bibliography
Alvermann, D. E., Phelps, S. F., & Ridgeway, V. G. (2007). Content reading and literacy: Succeeding in today's diverse classrooms (A. Martinez, Ed., 5th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education. (Original work published 1994)
National Foundation for the Improvement of Education. (2000). Connecting the bits: A reference for using technology in teaching and learning in K-12 schools. Retrieved from
Steelman, J. D., Grable, L. L., & Vasu, E. S. ( , Fall/Winter). Expanding global awareness: The use of student-developed multimedia created in a cooperative learning environment. International Journal of Social Education, 19(2), Retrieved from
Uzuner, S. (2009, June). Questions of culture in distance learning: A research review. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3). Retrieved from